4 Generations/ welcome home

Love these photos- 4 generations- again I made the circle embellishments and Cricut cut the title and some polka dot ribbon on this simple layout

 Some pics of Bears new nursery- which I helped my daughter decorate during the spring..and once Bear arrived I went home and made the BEAR (his nickname) Banner to hang above his crib...it turned out wonderful. And of course he has received a few teddy bears since he has arrived- how adorable this is in his room along with the handmade crocheted blanket in neutral colors that I also made. I have dbeen very busy!!!

I have been blessed with....

                                                 I have been blessed with Four of the Best...

      I love this project that I put up in my living room the other day. I already had the four frames of collages done- (which I did about 10 years ago-way before I started to scrapbook) I went thru all the pictures of each of my 4 children and cut them up and did individual  frames( 11 x 14) for  Linda- Cheryl-Brian & Eric. All the pictures were from the time they were born until they were in 8th grade, so about 13 years worth- wish I had some of these to scrapbook now tho- but this will be a special keepsake for each of them in the years to come, when I decide to give it to them...which  might not be for awhile now-  lol. I had taken these frames down about 2 years ago when I was going thru my divorce and thought we were selling the house...but we didn't and I know own the home and thought lets put a few things back up on the walls and found these in the storage room.

I haven't used my Cricut Expression to much to cut vinyl- so this was a fun project to work on. I'm not sure which lettering cartridge I used, but I think it was Lyrical letters- I tend to use this cartridge the most. I also cut out a few hearts in the black vinyl and now I love to go into my living room and just look at all the great memories - and how grown up there are (now 22- 28 yrs. old) The hardest part was hanging all the frames even. Sorry for the glare on the one frame, and I didn't use transfer paper either, so this was a little tricky-but I think I put the letters up pretty straight.

Banner for Bear -made with Love

                    Made with Love for my little BEAR- Barrett James born June 23rd, 2013

 Finished and hung in his new nursery this weekend - how adorable is this- and he just turned 1 week old when we put it up- now I did that quick!
First I decided in the papers for the Letters-which took me the longest time- why ? because I have so much paper I wanted to make sure I found the right colors and patterns for this project I had visioned in my head

Then I decided on the size of banners I wanted and cut the chipboard out

I was originally gonna put burlap on the chipboard and then the letters- but I didn't like how it was looking- it was all blending together and didn't care for it- so plans changed and I decided on the plain pearlized cardstock as the background- so I glued that onto the chipboard.

As you can see in the above pic- the letters didn't stand out against the burlap. I used pop dots and inked all the edges in several different colors of ink browns and greens and then doodled or drew faux stitching on all the letters and then found the cutest embossed Bear paper- did some fussy cutting and placed several bears around the letters- oh so cute- I amaze myself with some of my ideas...lol I then added a hand drawn border in brown ink/marker around the edges of the banner found some brown with green polka dot ribbon to tie on - and hung this adorable name banner in BEAR's nursery.....handmade with much love for my first grandchild!

Brag Books for the grandmas

A week before the baby shower I had for my daughter on June 22nd, I decided to make all the great grandma's (4) brag books...not just plain brag books. I went to Big lots and found these photo books for $2.00 and thought -these would be great as the base of my project and save me a little time from making the binder for these 4 books. Then I went to Joann Fabrics which was having the best sale 60-70% off. I found this great paper stack of 48 papers for reg-19.99 for $7.00(what a deal).  Went home and this is what I did with only spending $15.00 for all 4 of them.

I made all of them the same-I work on them like an assembly line-which saved a lot of time- which I didn't have a lot of -since I waited till the last minute to do these- but I finshed them all in 12 hours or two nights of working on them. Lots of inking and cutting of mats.

Each book had 12 pages-so that's 24 sides all together to put all kinds of pictures in . On the inside cover I have an area where they could write down all the grandkids and great grand kids names and birthdates- which in the pic above its the middle top page.

 Here is a view of the different pages which I also wrote in pencil the size of the mat cuts for them to add all there pictures

I was really happy how these turned out and I'm sure the great grandma's will truly appreciate them- in fact I'm jealous- I wish I had made one for ME...figures now I don't have a brag book and this is my first grandchild...Hmmm I think I know what my next project should be!

Bowling in Reno for Nationals

Well its that time of year again!!! When I go to Nationals for the USBC Women's Bowling Tournament and its in Reno, Nevada- again this year. So, for the past 10 years its a tradition for me to make these small cards for all my bowling ladies that go, which is usually about 80 of us...but this year its only 40- so it didn't take me as long to make this year which is good...I have been so busy with other projects.

The card is about 4 1/2 by 2 3/4 inches and on the inside I have hand written some info that the girls can fill out as they bowl there nine games and then the bottom inside half is where we can put out wallet size team picture- to keep from year to year. The girls just love it and kinda expect me to keep making them, so that's what I did on Mother's Day this year- last minute. Because we leave today to go to Reno and bowl. I can't wait we have such a good time every year.
 I don't remember which cartridge I used for the lettering, but I like it and of course I used 50 states for the Nevada cut, just stamped the bowling pins and then did some doodling and added the year.

Woodland Creatures-Playroom

How adorable is this- my future grandbaby is gonna love to play in his or hers new playroom. The designs were inspired by Create a Critter  Cricut cartridge. My daughter and I worked on this project for 2 days a few weeks ago and I couldn't be happier on how it turned out. LOTS and LOTS of painting.  (heavy on pics)

My daughter drew with chalk everything out before I arrived- she is also very talented in drawing- so that I thought was the hard part so let the fun begin - I love to Paint!

The cute owl

The Purple raccoon

The "mothering" Nest

which is were my daughter decided to sign her name

The red fox
which is were I decided to put my "grandma signature .. on the stump sideways

The papa bear. love daddy is signed here

 and my favorite part of the whole room is the happy sun and clouds they turned out so cute. We added three shelves into the room one right underneath the clouds and 2 brown shelves in the tree limbs (see first pic) and the last pic is on the other short wall with a whimsical tree and a few animals also. So creative- and we had so much fun together doing this wonderful project. Now I can't wait till July when this grandbaby is due!!!

 

My new recycled- Mail Center

Ok- our probably thinking what is this made from???  Well I'm known not to throw anything away- you never know what it could be used or recycled for someday. Well, that's exactly what I did with this project. The wire rack in the background is from an old china cabinet (window inserts) that I took out and just put away for a rainy day- which it has been doing a lot here in the Midwest. I also just happened to have these two wire baskets in my craft storage area and thought this would be great to make some type of organizer for mail or something...so with that thought- I played around with these wire items and came up with this mail center for my laundry-kitchen hallway area

 Then after I finished hanging this up I needed something to decorate it up a bit...so again in my storage I found this metal plaque which I purchased a few years ago at a scrapbook expo for  a dollar or so and painted it up in my favorite colors (greens) and attached a butterfly and some rhinestone medallion and hung it at the top of my mail center.

Then it still needed something in the middle??? So went on another search in my home and found these old picture frames made in Italy that I had received from my grandmother years and years ago- didn't like the ugly flower picture in them-yet couldn't open the backs up to take them out- So I just  covered them up with the paper and my wording  with some punched butterflies attached and hung them on the wire rack with s hooks.

Now when I get the mail and come in through the garage/laundry room instead of just putting it on the table - I can organize my mail into this mail center ..I love it and love to be organized also.

Decorated canvases- wall art

Now- this is a project that took me some time-over a few days of planning and doing...but really like the outcome and have it proudly displayed in my dining room. I purchased 10 art canvases for $15.00 -but only used 7 of them in this wall art. I first sketched out my idea and then painted(acrylics) the background in a dark purple blue, then with rubber stamps and paint did the scattered leaf stamps in green. I hand drewn the words in white and used a ruler for the white stripes. Then with a few other colors splattered paint on all the canvases. So now all the painting was done- had to let that dry. The next step was to attach all these canvases together in the pattern I came up with. So on the backside I attached them with strips of wood and small finishing nails to hold them all together.

Now for some more fun stuff- all the embellishments!

I made a purple two toned banner which was also embossed with my cuttlebug..and used sticky alpha for Family and Friends on banner. I made my own flowers and punched  butterflies & added brads & rhinestones. With my Cricut (songbird or Serenade) I cut the fence w/bird , birdcage and doves and laid them out according to my sketch. Of course the last finishing touches were the green inked leaves (see top pic) and some Stickles were ever needed. Another wonderful handmade project for my Home!

R is for Richards....

How adorable is this...which is now on display in my daughter's bedroom above her bed with lots of picture frames to be filled with photos. Another project I worked on with her last weekend...we had so much fun doing all kinds of crafts-especially this one!She purchased this paper mach'e letter R for $5.00 which is very large about 2 feet high- then we took our time selecting papers and colors and lots of fussy cutting. We decided to just paint the edges in a dark mustard yellow- first. then after all the cutting we laid out everything in its spots and one by one decoupaged everything in place. Then added 2 more coats of mod podge and whoolah it was finished in about 3 hours. Now I want one of these for my bedroom - well a letter D- add it to my list of things or projects to do.....

Welcome Spring!!!

Finally, Spring has arrived. was getting so tired of the rainy cold spring we were having. So I went downstairs the other night and whipped up this cute door wreath- not your traditional wreath though. I used chipboard and cut out 3- W"s and glued together then found some papers that were very colorful and spring like to cover the W. (size is 12 x 8)

 I then went into my stash and pulled out a few items like the bird and cut out butterflies and silk purple flowers and rhinestones attached them . I made a cute banner with colorful scrap papers and used sticky alphas for the lettering of Welcome  to my nest.

These photos don't pull out the wonderful colors that well against my spa blue door...but the background color of the papers are a  lime green ( my favorite color)

I also made a nest out of chipboard pieces that I just cut and inked and layered them on to resemble a nest. Did some doodling on the banner and then found some raffia and blue silk ribbon and hung it on my front door. Welcome Spring!!!!

Bowling Banquet table settings

Since I am also so busy with bowling at this time of year. I was on a committee for our Hall of Fame Banquet which was held in the beginning of April. I thought some cute handmade table cards for each individual (80 guests)would be so nice and personal. I aslo made table number markers for 8- which I did not put the year on - so that way we could use them again next year and there after.

Again I used a lot of white and grey cardstock and made my own pattern for the bowling pin and colored in the red stripes..adding a large circle punch for the bowling ball - again these are also 2 sided. The individual cards to assign tables were made in groups- with the hall of famers name and pin and I wrote there accomplishments on the back.

During the banquet several guests made comments on these items and really appreciated the time and effort that went into making these- that made my day!

Where does the time go?

I have been so busy with projects, bowling, getting ready for my daughters baby shower I'm hosting and just everyday stuff- a whole month has flown by since I last posted here...but I have visited many times to check in to see what's happening in the scrapping world.
     So I thought I would post a few of the projects I have been working on in the past month this coming up week. Some of them are not paper projects- but thought I would share anyways. Here is one that is not a paper project- but was fun doing- A painting project on two burlap panels for my family room.

 I purchased about 4 yds and cut to size I wanted then just grabbed some white acrylic paint and started to paint some branches- then realized it needed something else to found 3 greens that I liked and added little leaves all over. Sewed a small hem at top to insert a dowel rod to hang them by.

Which now I have on display on each side of my fireplace. I have a theme in my house of trees-leaves -etc. So this burlap has a very nice texture to it and earthy feeling. It took me about 4 hours to complete this project once I decided what I was going to paint on it.

Happy Valentine's Day

I did this project with my daughter the other day and we had so much fun and great memories as we did this project. She wanted to save all her wedding cards but didn't want them just in a shoebox- but yet she didnt want me to scrap them all either  lol. So we came up with the idea to use a OLD photo book and make a new cover for it and then we just hold punched all the cards and put them inside this 3" binder  and it worked out great and we didnt spend very much money at all on this either- that was the best part.

 This is the front cover(above) with a paper from DCWV black and white paper stack and we used the Gypsy and Cricut to cut out all the word and some embellies. inked the edges and added a few wedding theme stickers we found at Walmart for $1.00.

 Happily Ever After is of course the back of the album

And to finish it off we added a black gross grain ribbon to tie it all up - since it was so thick filled with all her wedding cards- which she can cherish in many years to come- instead of putting them in a box and storing them in a closet, where they will never be looked at again...In fact this just gave me another idea for ME..I save all my cards especailly the handmade ones and they are just in a shoebox---maybe Ill make me a book to keep all my special cards in--I like this idea!
                                     Wishing all of you a Happy Valentines Day!!!

Happy Halloween...

HAPPY HALLOWEEN from my house to YOURS... I was busy a few weeks ago decorating my front yard with pumpkins -scarecrows and mums and decided on painting some pumpkins instead of carving them and this is what I did to a few .

 These are out in front by the driveway with my house number painted on them- so cute.

 And why not do a chevron pattern on a white pumpkin and my initials with a polka dot pumpkin by my front door entrance with some beautiful magenta colored mums in full bloom.

 Then I spray painted these in silver, black and white and added tulip paint dots sprinkled with glitter-to use as a centerpiece on kitchen table . I just love the bling on these.

And one last pumpkin on my kitchen counter, which will look great for after Halloween into the month of November is my "Thanks" pumpkin with some raffia tied on the top and a few silk flowers. So thanks for taking a  look at some projects that have been keeping me busy with my crafts. Enjoy the holiday and Trick or Treat with the kiddies.

For little Harper

I had to make something handmade for the arrival of my 2nd cousin and this is what I came up with . I used plenty of Chipboard on this project, which I will be entering at Frosted Designs chipboard challenge this week.

 I cut out 6 honeycomb shapes from the chipboard and then covered them with papers that I found in green & pink tones. I also cut out white honeycomb shapes to attached the Cricut cut letters to spell out HARPER. Once, I did all that I added embellies flowers-etc on each letter, some of the embellishments are chipboard which I painted to the colors I needed and then wrote some stats on them such as birth weight time date etc. I then attached each honeycomb shape on the back and then added some ribbon to top and bottom. So now the new proud parents can hang it in the baby's room or even on the door.

Here is a close-up of half of the hanging name banner and of course I handmade a card to go along with this little gift using all the scraps leftover from the project -so it all matched real well

another vinyl cut for kitchen..

Here is another vinyl cut project I did for my kitchen the other day..it turned out- ok. It was kinda hard to line up the words correctly- plus, I didnt use transfer paper, because I had all the owrds scattered on the vinyl to save space. Maybe this was not the best idea..but its up and will have to do. I like the saying tho:  The fondest memories are made around the kitchen table."

I used several cartridges for the saying Jasmine for most of them , From My kitchen,  andWild Card

My Family... My Inspiration....

I just did this project this past weekend to decorate my foyer area..and I used my Cricut and did vinyl cuts using the Calligraphy cartridge and Accent Essentials. I really like how this turned out and it was pretty simple to do...once I figured out my layout of everything on the wall space.

These photos were all taken at the wedding in Jamaica and I printed 5 x 7 of all my favorite ones of the family. And this is my newly painted foyer wall color of Grey Violet- love it  love it!

6 layouts in 1 project

    This project was  thought up at the last minute when I wanted to hang the doors off a curio cabinet on my walls, instead of using the typical picture frames for my family pictures. I took the 2 doors off an old curio cabinet, which I repainted and they're in my craft room (without the doors) and knew I could use the doors somehow and this is what I came up with.I hung them horizontally and left the door handles on                                      (heavy on the pics=7)

 I did 6 individual layouts-using all the same papers and embellies and gave each one a different look with subtitles. K&Company papers, butterfly punch by Martha Stewart, Cricut cuts for bird cage, titles, leaf, sprigs, misc embellies of flowers, tags, journal spots, and stickles. I did not permantely attached the photos- that way I can change them in the future- so, I just put a 5 x 7 white matted area for the picture to fit. I just purchased this paper Stack by K&Company and just love all the designs and colors-perfect for my decor in my home.

 Of course, I had to find a pic of Izzy she is family too!

 I wanted pictures of just my kids in these layouts - so I searched thru my computer and found a few special ones - this was taken in Jamaica when my 4 kids all arrived from all over the states for their sisters wedding this past April. They all grow up so fast!

 And of course their is Jenna- who we all love also....

 This was taken back in 2007 when we all went to Michigan for the fourth of July and we stopped at Daves Falls in Wisc.- something I used to do with them as kids and we haven't been able to get together in years so this was special.

 I don't like my picture taken I'm usually behind the camera- but I thought I should have one pic of me since I'm the head of the family so this was taken a few years back when I went to Las Vegas( i love to visit this place) so this was just perfect for this frame of  pictures.

And the last one is of the 4 again -Christmas 2007 the last time they were all together for that holiday. They just have so much fun when all together--" Birds of a feather stick Together" is the sub title for this page.