Snow Confetti Gift Sacks...

Hi there, I'm back today with more inspiration from the Lemon Lime Kits I offered in the shop recently. By request I've made up lots more of the kits and they are in the shop now right here. I've also added some assorted glassine and clear bags that you can use for confetti projects like the ones I've been doing lately. You can see the Snow Confetti Tag & Bookmark post I did for more ideas using the kit.

Here we go for today's projects. It's all about confetti gift sacks. It's like a gift for your gift. A package on top of your package. Double the fun! I used a regular paper sack for the base that can be filled with an actual gift.
Then I filled a glassine sack with these color Sixlet treats as a little bonus gift. Cute!
I stitched glassine sack shut with my sewing machine then added a strip of fun snow confetti tape that I made across both sacks. So shimmery and shiny.
Tags, button and baker's twine from the kit for embellishments....just couldn't be cuter. I might just use something like this for Jordan's graduation gifts to her friends. We will be on a mission to find something that fits inside. :)
Here I used a polka dot sack (the kits have a striped sack) to make another confetti embellished sack. A hand cut banner + more of my handmade border strips adorn the front of the sack.
I filled a little sack that comes with the kit with about a teaspoon of snow confetti, also included in the kit. I wrapped around some baker's twine, added a button and topped off the sack with a stamped embellishment from the kit. SO cute and perfect for holding cards or small gifts.
Kits are limited in quantity and I also have most of the kit items available on their own in the shop too. Lots of new tags, bookmarks, sacks....+ a few stamped cards....Bookmark Kits, Confetti Gift Sack Kits and Wrinkle Ribbon. Thanks for stopping by. Wrapping gifts has never been so much fun!! Enjoy...

Hello There Notebook Gift

Hi everyone, just wanted to start off with a big thank you for your thoughts, prayers and notes during my dad's surgery. It went very well and Dad is home now resting. He's doing great!

While in the hospital waiting for Dad I took lots of magazines for my mom and sister and me to look at. I also took my sister a set of cards for her birthday, the last ones posted in this post. I had so much fun with the confetti bags that I tried a window version using a chevron sack from my shop.
I die cut an oval using my Papertrey oval dies and then just tucked in a plastic baggie that I had filled with confetti. To embellish the Kraft sack packaging I used a metal tag stamped with "hello there" from Framed Out #2. The ribbon is Kraft Satin.
Inside the sack is a cute notebook that I gave to my mom at the hospital. I thought she might need to take a few notes or jot down questions that she may have for the doctor. I used my Take Note stamp set for the "notes" sentiment on the front of the notepad.
To embellish the notebook I used Kraft cardstock, Dearest Jane patterned paper and one of the border strips I created a while back. So fun to just reach for a strip and see how it can be used. I tied on a Vintage Button with baker's twine for a finishing touch.
Such a fun little gift. I think cards & notepads make some of the most thoughtful....and useful gifts. They're some of my favorite to make....and receive I've been told. :)

This & That:

If you'd like to try your hand at the confetti sacks I've been showing I have some Confetti Gift Sack Kits available in the shop. There are a variety of the smaller sacks to play around with + I've included a clear sack with a little of the "snow" in it that can be mixed with punched confetti of your own. I've also added some of my more recent cards up for sale in the shop. And under the PAGES section at the upper left side of my blog, I've added lots of stamps and dies for sale. Each listing has a separate page and PayPal button, just click on the links.

Coming Soon:

I've been doing a little organizing and have taken some photos of my progress. I'll be sharing some ideas with you soon. Also I just finished Week 9 of my Project Life so look for that spread too.

Project Life Week 8, 2012

Today I'm sharing Week 8 of my 2012 Project Life. A pretty ordinary week for us...wishing for spring, sweet Charlie, grocery shopping, meal planning, a BB team dinner, big shop update. Something new...lots of new baby calves over at the farm.

This week I just went with the flow on my pages. I picked out embellishments simply because they were laying out on my desk, or maybe they were new items added to my stash.
I'm finding that my time to work on my PL pages is getting choppy. I don't have time to devote the 2-3 hours it takes to complete my pages all at one sitting. So I dabble. I work on a few inserts at a time here and there. Which is perfect because I treated each one as it's own little scrapbook layout....not really worry about if it matched the rest of the inserts or not.
Here's my main dated insert...which I just realize that I forgot to add dates to many of my inserts but I will remedy that soon. This one features the rain & the sunshine. Lots of missing letters from my alphabet stash so I'm mixing and matching now. You'll notice lots of little embellishments from recent kits in my shop. I'll try to point those out so that those of you who purchased my kits can see some samples in action. The details circle with stitching is one of those accents with stickers on top. The floral paper is from a discontinued Sassafras line. Some of my favorite papers ever from this collection.
A few photos of Charlie who is 5 months in these photos. Label with stamped name is from a recent shop kit. Grid labels are my own creation.
A bazillion kinds of toothpaste. Really? Do we need so much of everything? Just an observation from a recent Walmart trip. Base 4 x 6 card is a shop kit item made with Jenni Bowlin's days of the week stamp. Journaling is on shop kit item which is a PL card with Studio Calico "real life" stamp. A few paper scraps, a portion of a doily and stitching finish off this insert.
Basketball team dinner for the high school girls featuring Washi tape, Amy Tangerine people sticker, portion of a doily, scalloped paper cut with Papertrey medium scallop die, Elle's Studio insert card + machine stitching.
Grid paper base insert with scraps of patterned paper, a Studio Calico sticky note + small stamped tag from a recent shop kit. The "AM" round stamp is from Studio Calico.
Photos from a recent shop update + the mess that always follows in the rest of the house. An Elle's Studio base card was so easy to use. Just a little Washi tape + a Studio Calico chipboard butterfly was added.
A few shots of my parents right after delivering a newborn calf. I always love when I can snap a few shots of our parents. Stamp is from Studio Calico, journaling tag from Elle's Studio + a little Washi tape.
And here are my 3 x 4 journaling inserts. On the left I used an Elle's Studio piece layered onto some patterned paper + some Washi tape & machine stitching. On the right I created a Week in Review card using a Studio Calico stamp + shop item created with a small manila tag. I've really been experiment with cutting the tags down and using them in different ways. I love to use my Bic Markits to create bolder words/letters. Very quick and easy.
Here I used a small orange chevron sack (currently sold out) to hold some journaling about what Charlie's doing at 5 months old.
I love the little sacks and that all the small sizes in my shop fit into the 3 x 4 slots. No trimming necessary. And a tip: if you want to use the sack on the left side of the regular page protectors, simply cut the top of the slot open with an xacto knife. That way you can access the slot opening from the left side. On the outside of my sack I used a chipboard piece embellished with shop kit, chipboard letter and small sticker letters.
2 more journaling cards. On the left I used a new Banana Fish Studio printed tag (awesome) + some stamped Studio Calico words. On the right I used a Project Life journaling card embellished with some hand cut flags, Washi tape and the cute brad with ponytail girl.
Here I made a fun confetti sack insert (see below for more details) + an insert made with a Cobalt Project Life journaling card.

A few fun techniques this month. First I created a confetti sack inspired by Lisa Truesdell. She's the queen of confetti and just makes you wanna try it out. My confetti is square though, not circles. It was so easy to just take some strips of scrap patterned paper and snip some squares. If you zoom in close you can see a few more tidbits in the glassine sack too. I stamped a few small white tags with "bags" and "tags" to correspond with items I sold during my last shop update. I also tucked in half a paper doily + some snippets of yarns that I sold too. A little time capsule of my shop goodies. I ended up stitching 2 orange horizontal rows across my sack, filling each section then stitching off. Fun, fun! On top of the sack is small manila tag with chipboard letters and the date stamp.
Here I used a doily which I include in lots of shop kits on a few inserts this week. Instead of using a full circle I snipped little wedges of out the doily in pie shape fashion. Wherever I wanted a little *something* I just stitched on a portion of the doily.
And here was a fun way to connect my journaling card with it's corresponding insert card with photos. I numbered my photos 1 & 2 with little circles around them. On my journaling card I have the same 1 & 2 numbers with circles. The numbers are from Hero Arts tiny wood alphabet stamps. To make the circles that are very, very thin lined I used a new tool that I'm keeping in my stash. It's a regular lead pencil with the eraser taken out. The metal rim that is left makes a perfect little circle stamp. Just press it in ink and stamp.
And now....the aftermath of a week of Project Life. A happy little mess. I clean this up each time before I start a new week of PL or crafty project. I guess I better get on it because I have lots of assignments to work on.
Shop update:

I'm expecting a big parcel today full of fun new goodies for the shop. Look for an update possibly tomorrow or Friday, depending on how fast I can get the items photographed and up in the shop. I'll be tweeting and posting an update here on the blog.

Thanks for hanging out here a bit today! Have a great rest of the day.

Project Life Week 6....fun with inserts

Hi there, hope your weekend is going great! I'm back today with my Project Life Week 6 layouts. It took me a while to finish up this week because I had several inserts. I'll try to keep the chit chat short since this post is so photo heavy. For products, I used papers and stamps from My Mind's Eye, Awesome & Epic Studio Calico stamps, various cardstock stickers from October Afternoon, Project Life journaling cards and folded journaling cards and a few items from my shop. Please leave comments with any product ?'s and I'll be happy to help.

First up are my basic PL layouts without the inserts. I really loved the buttery yellow tone of the MME paper + I knew that I wanted to use the teal color here and there to tie in with my insert pages.
Just everyday photos from this week including a little country ride, Jordan's messy room, photos with Charlie......
Several photos from a walk in the country and a night at the basketball game....
Here are my 3 x 4 journaling card inserts. I started off with a calendar card from Marcy Penner's shop. I cut paper from the MME collection + used a Studio Calico stamp that I punched out and I added some Hero Arts letters for the "week of" words. I found that a pencil with a missing eraser worked perfectly for stamping tiny circles around the calendar dates that marked this week. On the right is a text from Josey with a supporting story on the inside of the embellished PL folded journaling card. I used a sticker label with a stamped "pull" & staples to make a pull out tab. I also used Studio Calico stamps and Washi tape.
Here I've got a name badge sticker from a school event Jordan attended this week + another folded journaling card with stamps, stickers and a pull out label tab.
Here you can see the two folded journaling cards. Perfect for adding additional stories without having to create a full page layout.
Here I had lots of inserts that were used for photos of a walk that Charlie and I took down the country road. At first I wanted to create a separate insert but since I already knew I would have 2 extra pages this week, I opted to just fill several slots with photos. I tied all the inserts together by using coordinating papers from the MME collection + I cut out a honeycomb grouping of the hexagons then cut it into 4 pieces to spread out on the journaling cards. I love that look and how it ties 4 inserts together.
And here are some of the 4 x 6 inserts that I've embellished. On this insert I used Washi tape + a stamped circle + a small white tag from my shop that I typed on with my vintage typewriter.
More Washi tape here + a vellum circle that was from a recent kit in my shop. I typed on it with my vintage typewriter and adhered it with my tiny stapler.
On these two inserts that feature photos from the basketball games I used a long Scrappy Words stamp that Stamping Bella sent to me. The stamp is really long so I spread it across two photos.
Here are my pages with the inserts shown. For all of my inserts, I like to keep them smaller than a 12 x 12 size. This way you can see the main pages and know that the smaller pages are supporting inserts that tell more stories. This week I used an 8.5" x 11" insert + a smaller insert with a chevron sack.
Here's the back side of the 8.5 x 11 insert page.
For this insert page I used a ton of small Instagram photos that I took on Josey's big Winter Ball day. It was a Day in the Life of sorts, inspired by Ali Edwards. These photos show our happenings before the dance itself....getting her nails done, picking up the corsage, eating lunch, getting her hair done, etc. The small Instagrams are such a fun way to incorporate lots of photos. You'll also notice the chevron sack on the left. I recently updated my shop with lots of color and styles of sacks. The small sacks fit just right in the 3 x 4 page protector slots and the larger sacks are great for small inserts. You can see a sample of a smaller sack in a 3 x 4 journaling slot here.
For this sack, I fit it into a Project Life 6 x 12 page protector that was cut down to size and stitched with my sewing machine. I'll use this sack to hold extra photos that I took of Josey in her formal dress. I embellished the front of the sack with a PL journaling card that has stitched on patterned paper + stickers + a grid label from my shop.
On the back side of that sack, I added a piece of printed journaling + some stamped pieces from Studio Calico + a doily.
Here's the second page of the insert, a few of my favorite photos just before the kids left for the dance. I'm so happy that I captured Josey's first high school dance. Such fun memories.
I printed the 4 photos off on one sheet of photo paper and trimmed off the excess. I used stickers from my stash + a fun plastic flower from Jenni Bowlin with a brad.

Whew, what a week. I've got about the same scenario for the next coming week because Jordan had a formal junior high dance too that I took lots of photos of. Stay tuned and thanks for stopping by.

Shop news:

Thank you so much for all of your orders from my little shop. Once I get the current orders packaged and mailed off, I'll be taking inventory and re-stocking a few more items such as the sacks, tags and grid labels by late Monday or Tuesday. I'll also be stocking lots more fun tags soon.

Holiday Planners & More...

'Tis the season for my much anticipated Holiday Planners. When the holiday season rolls around, all of my friends and family look forward to their Holiday Planner so that they can begin jotting down gift ideas, recipes, long to do lists and more. I like to hand out the Holiday Planners at least by November 1st and this year I'm adding in a few other items to make a perfect "re-gift". Here's a little shot of the merry little mess I created down in the Craft Department.

Every year I love to use a simple red and white color scheme for the holidays. Sometimes I leave it at that....and other times like this year, I'm adding in some aquas and greens to the mix. I'm also going with a candy cane stripe as you can see in the patterned papers and twine in my photo below.

Here's the whole gift ensemble. My idea is that in addition to my usual Holiday Planner, I'm also going to include 2 cards with envelopes and 2 gift tags with enclosure sacks. Many times the recipient will say "It's too cute to use"...or...."I want to keep all of it for myself". Well this year they can keep all of it. Or they can keep the Holiday Planner and give the rest away. Or they can keep the Holiday Planner + 1 card + 1 tag and give the rest away. You get the idea? I think I'm going to type up a little note enclosure that says this is the perfect *re-gift* and how this is the gift that keeps on giving. :)

The time is critical here for handing these out. I plan to give mine out by November 1st. This way the recipient can start using their Holiday Planner & other items. It's also a nice way to give a little gift to someone you don't buy something big or expensive for. And it's great to get together with the recipient early in the season before all the hustle and bustle starts.

Okay, here's what I did for my ensemble of goodies. Each piece has some similar items:

*Kraft cardstock base with white splatters (I used Studio Calico white Mister Huey)

*1 vertical, wide strip of aqua colored candy cane patterned paper from Candy Cane Prints

*1 vertical, narrow strip of red colored candy cane patterned paper (see above link)

*1 horizontal strip of Rustic White cardstock with sentiment (except tags)

*1 tiny pint jar embellishment with snowflake embellishment

For the Holiday Planner I used 2 White Notepads so that the notebook will be thicker and last a little longer through the holiday season.
All jar embellishments use the smaller friendship jar from the Friendship Jar Summer Fillers stamp set. The Pint Jar die is sold separately and makes mass producing these projects a breeze. I created 5 total jar embellishments and then started the projects from there. I colored each jar with a Copic marker, just around the edges. The pinked paper is from Crate Paper's Peppermint line. The snowflake die is from the Peace Be Still Collection. Snowflake stamp is from In the Meadow. Pure Poppy Vintage Buttons and Red Baker's Twine are from the PTI store.

For the sentiments, I used Take Note. It's still a favorite set of mine that Nichole designed from my concept sketches. Paper is from Crate Paper's Peppermint Collection. Vintage ribbon is from my stash.
Here's what the inside of the Holiday Planners look like. I use Scor-Tape to adhere the notebooks to the cardstock cover. Note: I do not have measurements for the cutting and scoring for the notebooks. I mark where I want to cut & score with my fingernail. The measurements are so small that they never turn out right when I go by a set number. I just make sure to add a little extra to the cardstock cover so that it fully covers the notebooks. For the notebook enclosure, I used a brown paper sack from my shop that I trimmed down and stitched around.
Here are the pair of cards. Same concept for the jar embellishment and patterned papers. For the sentiment strip, I used my Scor-Pal to create 2 raised lines on the top and bottom of the strip. That just adds a little dimension without the addition of more papers, inks, etc. These cards could easily be used as Christmas cards, thank you cards or well into the winter months of next January, February, etc. The *just a note * and hand are from Take Note. The *Winter wishes* is from Friendship Jar Holiday Fillers.
Here are a duo of tags that are made with the new Tag Sale #5 die. It's a new favorite of mine too. The sentiment is from Friendship Jar Holiday Fillers. Red chevron sacks are from my shop.
And there ya have it, a fun little ensemble that will surely put the recipient in the holiday spirit. The perfect re-gift! Hope you enjoy!

Note: You can click on the *Notebooks* label at the end of this post to see all my previous blog posts featuring my notebook creations.