In the Meadow..

Edit: The plaid paper that I used for my projects are from The Merry Days of Christmas line from My Mind's Eye. I've had it in my paper stash for some time now so I'm not sure of the availability.

Edit: Just wanted to clarify that the clear box I used is linked up in my post. It's the box from the PTI store that is for A2 cards. The boxes that you get with your stamp sets are too wide for this die.

One of my favorite Papertrey stamp sets being released on the 15th this month is In the Meadow. It has beautifully illustrated, traditional images and dies galore. I wanted to evoke a rustic feel to my projects, as if you were taking a sleigh ride through the snowy woods while snuggled warmly with an old, plaid quilt.

One of my favorite things to do around the holidays is to give out gifts early in December...or even late November. Sometimes it's just easier to get together with an old friend or have a family gathering before all the hustle and bustle of the season starts. Today I'd like to share a few tips for creating a coordinating set of cards with matching gift tote, a perfect pre-season holiday gift.
First up is a set of 4 coordinating cards which use the In the Meadow stamp + it's coordinating dies. When creating a coordinating gift set, I like to keep some details similar on each card so they look like a matching set.

Here's what each card in the set of 4 has in common:

*I used this card sketch as a starting point for each of my cards

*each card has a heat embossed + die cut focal image

*each card has a stamped + die cut snowflake tied with brown/white baker's twine + a Vintage Button

*each card has some of the plaid patterned paper on it (from My Mind's Eye)

*each card has machine stitching with brown thread

*each card has a torn strip of woodgrain Washi tape on it

*each card has been splattered with spray mist

Using all of these elements made my stamping session go pretty smoothly. I made up four of the snowflake embellishments, cut my strips of patterned paper and die cut & embossed my 4 main images I wanted to use. From there it was all about adding specific details to each card. On this first card I used the tree die and the sleigh ride image. An additional piece of Kraft cardstock was added that was first die cut with a scalloped border die. I also used both of the dies from the In the Meadow die collection to create the drifting snow.
Here I used two deer images from the set, both heat embossed with brown powder and die cut with the coordinating dies. I also die cut another snow drift. Here I used the woodgrain Washi tape (from the American Crafts Amy Tangerine line) all along the bottom of the card....vs little torn pieces I used on the other cards. I know that I'll get a lot of use out of these deer images + dies with all the hunters in my family.
For this card I wanted to make big snow drifts so I spaced my snow drift dies far apart and added glitter to resemble glistening snow. I also added glitter to the snowflake accent to tie it in with the stamped sentiment. Love the hat and scarf whishing through the wind as the little kid sleds down the hill.
And for my last card I embossed the snowman over and over again by applying more white embossing powder right after I heat set a layer. I also used the Mat Stack 3 and the new Layerz Mat Stack 3 die being released on the 15th of this month. Small pearl accents were added around the snowman to resemble snowballs.
And here's what you've probably been waiting for, right? This is gift tote that will hold the four cards + four envelopes easily. I die cut 2 pieces of Kraft cardstock from Nichole's new Front & Center #1 die. This is genius, I tell you! I love it soooo much.
This year I am using Kraft wrapping and boxes for all my gifts + a second wrapping of either sheet music, old book paper or newspaper. All gifts and sacks will then be topped with an embellished tag with baubles and jingle bells and tied up with twine. Here I used another matching snowflake, some sheet music, a leftover strip of the plaid patterned paper and some thick, cotton twine. Tip: save the ovals that are die cut from the larger pieces. I stamped a sentiment on one and added it to the front of the gift tote with pop dots. A little snippet of the woodgrain Washi tape and some tied buttons finish off the gift tote.
The two large dies were adhered to a Clearly Creative Card Box. I used a sharp Xacto knife to trim the top off of a flat card box, then assembled the box. Using Scor-Tape I added strips to the clear box and then adhered my two die cut pieces. Presto, an instant gift box. I can't wait for Nichole to show you even more ideas for using this wonderful new die. Stay tuned because tomorrow I'll be using it again. :)
I'm pretty certain I'll be making lots more of these fun gift totes with coordinating cards. Makes you want to start crafting right now, doesn't it? Please join me as I hop on over to the other Papertrey blogs to see what they have in store for In the Meadow.

• Nichole Heady
• Heather Nichols
• Dawn McVey
• Lisa Johnson
• Betsy Veldman
• Melissa Phillips
• Maile Belles
• Jessica Witty
• Erin Lincoln
• Danielle Flanders

Swimming for Katie....

Hello friends. Today I'd like to share the link to a fundraiser for Katie Renz. Katie was diagnosed with an inoperable cancer in December 2010. Since then Katie has shared her journey with cancer through many posts. I have spent the last hour wiping away tears as I've read Katie's story on her blog. I hurt for Katie and her family.

Cancer is such an ugly disease. I hate it. I hate that my mom had cancer reoccur three times when I was a teenager. I hate that her face is scarred from it. I hate that some of my precious family members and friends have died from cancer. I hate that my mother-in-law was diagnosed with breast cancer just this year. I hate that a great teacher at our high school just died from cancer before school started.

But I LOVE that friends and family come together for a cause. I love that my mother-in-law has just completed her radiation and her outlook is 100% hopeful. I love that my mom still lives next door to me. I love that there are people willing to share of themselves to help others.

Please take some of your time today to visit the i {heart} papers blog to learn the details of how you can help. Links are provided for stamps and digital images that are for sale to help support Katie. 100% of the profits go to Katie and her family. You can purchase stamps or you can do like I did and make a donation just by clicking the *donate* payment button at the link above. There are also links to a 3 day blog hop, with many designers participating. Please help in any way that you can.

Katie, my prayers go out to you and your family.

Project Life Update....

Project Life...Week of July 31-August 6

Lots going on this week.....summer canning, school shopping, Jordan got her iPad2, and prepping for our summer vacation.

Here's the two page spread. This week I used lots of papers from the My Mind's Eye 6 x 6 paper pads. I can see that 6 x 6 pads are going to become a staple for my Project Life. Perfectly scaled patterns, takes up less storage space, very easy to mix and match with my other supplies. I also used Studio Calico sticky notes, Elle's Studio tags, Ali Edwards Technique Tuesday stamps and Papertrey's Road Trip stamp set.
Here's the left layout. I usually pick 1 or 2 photos in the weekly lineup which will decide the color/theme of my chosen supplies. The pretty jars of peach jam was my highlight inspiration photo this week. All of my papers have a warm feel to them + I also used some aqua blues to match my small suitcase, Jordan's shirt and the blue sky from some other photos. Suitcase sticker is from the American Crafts Amy Tangerine line. All journaling this week was done with my vintage typewriter.
Here's the right layout. A common theme this week was to use a strip of patterned paper on the left side of a journaling card.
Here's my dated insert. I used patterned paper, stickers, a punched circle for the dates and an Elle's Studio large circle accent. See the end of my post for a fun tip..
Here I used the *road trip* phrase from Papertrey's Road Trip stamp set. It's stamped on a Studio Calico sticky note. Love those little things.
More SC sticky notes + a little snippet from Elle's Studio for the date. Cloud chipboard piece is from Studio Calico. Used my Tiny Tim stapler to keep it secured.
Here I used my Bic Mark-its to create the *she loves it* title. Vintage Buttons tied with Rustic Cream twine add a little bit of interest to the white space on the right journaling card.
Here I used a Smash Book journaling sheet to type my journaling + I added a punched circle that has been stamped with Ali's Technique Tuesday stamps. On the right is one of my favorite journaling cards....I used a Fabrip piece from Studio Calico plus a piece of My Mind's Eye patterned paper to create two vertical, notched banners. Sticky note is from Studio Calico.
And now for a tip: I used one of the foldable journaling insert cards from the Project Life kit to create my main dated insert. I left it unfolded, stitched on some patterned paper, used a 1-3/4" circle punch to fill in the raised circle area + added some sticker letters to an Elle's Studio large circle tag. Very easy to transform cards that may not match otherwise.
Okay, so how are we doing on our Project Life pages? Are you caught up? Me...no. But I'm getting there and am enjoying the process. I also love to see what others are doing with their Project Life pages.....so please post links in the comment section. :) And who else is excited about the new Project Life kits coming soon? Meeeeee.

Mish Mash Monday.....signs of Fall

We are well into October and our Kansas temperatures are still nearing the 80's. I'm loving that the temps are staying up there, but there are definitely signs of Fall all around us.

Nothing quite says Fall like a Homecoming parade. This is Josey's Freshman class float.

And some of her besties throwing out candy. I can remember all those years ago when Eric and I road on floats down this same small town street. Next year Jordy will be on her class float. Good times.
I've been taking a few photos of our beautiful maple tree in the back yard. Rosie's keeping it company these days.
It's turned from green to bright orange to a deep red color. So beautiful to watch the trees change. In our area we don't have a lot of maples or oaks out in the country. We usually get a full display of yellows and that's about it. So to have this blazing maple is a real treat. She's suffered through many a deer antler but she's standing tall and proud.
We had a nice rain last night so this morning it was nice and cool outside. I took my flower snips and gathered up quite a few flowers that are still hanging on. From deep reds, yellows and oranges....to soft yellow, pink and purple. All this pretty little bouquet needed was an old time canning jar.
Just look at the rainbow of colors. So vibrant!
Lots of little pumpkins and gourds from the vining garden this year.
And a few beautiful leaves from the maple.
What Fall images have you captured on your camera this year? My sister went to her home in Colorado to shoot photos of the yellow Aspens....but this is what she got instead. Snow already!!

Whatever your weather, I hope you're getting outside to enjoy the seasons.

Holiday Journal Kit Sneak Peek

THE KITS ARE NOW SOLD OUT FOR THIS YEAR. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR ORDERS.

Etsy shop update: Holiday Journals will be going up in the shop shortly in very limited quantities. Kits will ship late October.....once the kits are gone, that's it for this year's Holiday Journal. :) Please check out the new bags and coordinating tags in my first post today. Lots of goodies to help you with your packaging needs.

Hi there. I'm adding on to my original post about my Holiday Journal Kits. I have two more sneak peeks for you today. This photo features some of the little tags, stamped pieces, Washi tape, a skein of embroidery floss, a cute chevron bag + more of the Crate Paper pages, etc. I'm still creating and adding new items to the kit daily. You'll receive a nice selection of goodies to embellish your pages with. Album size will be 6 x 6 with two binder rings. Album will not come with hard covers so that's something you might want to think about, and I'll try to remember to show you my simple solution in an upcoming blog post.
And here you can see a sampling of the wonderful Elle's Studio products that you'll be receiving. You'll get a full sheet of numbers (1-31) so you can easily do a December Daily countdown for each page. Plus you'll receive 2 Christmas Lil' Snippets sheets + more round journaling tags + Christmas strips. Lots of Elle's goodies in this kit!
Blog posts to come: I've gone back and forth on how much to assemble on the journal pieces. I've decided to keep all the pieces and parts separated so that you can have as much creative freedom as you need when putting your albums together. We all have our different design styles and sizes and qty of photos we like to use so I wanted you to be able to assemble your journal as you wish. I'll be updating my Holiday Journal weekly and will be doing blog posts showing you tips on how to use different pages/elements from the kit. Please join me for a month of fun, starting in December. I'll have a blog post before then showing you my ideas for basic assembly, photo ideas and more. :)

My previous post:

Tis the season for thinking ahead to the holidays. With my recent love of creating mini albums, I've a got a Holiday Journal in the works that will be perfect for documenting your holiday season this year. The journal will be just the ticket if you follow along with Ali Edwards' December Daily event.

I wanted to create a Holiday Journal that would be holiday-like in style...but I didn't want it to scream Christmas red & green. So I searched until I came up Crate Paper's Peppermint Collection of patterned papers and accents. The colors and patterns were just what I was looking for. They definitely say holiday but the mixy matchy colors and paper patterns are generic enough in nature to work with every day events that happen in December also. To get a better view of the wonderful papers I'll be using, click on this link.

(image from Crate Paper)

So here's some sneak peeks of the kit contents so far. These photos show only a snippet of the kit contents. I'm working on lots more embellishments, all with a homespun flair. There will also be lots of tags and such from my Etsy shop + those new bags I had in my shop recently + lots of my ledger paper love + stamped goodies using Papertrey + Ali Edwards stamps.

Sneak peeks of Holiday Journal:

Ledger paper + airmail envelope + skein of embroidery floss for hand stitching + paper doily + assorted Crate Paper stickers.
More 6 x 6 patterned papers + stamped embellishments + vintage playing card + sampling of Washi tape.
Crate Paper journaling card + tags + trims.
Homespun garland embellishment + more tags + stickers.
Stitched notepaper bag pocket + stamped index card.
Sheet music + index dividers with tags + hand stamped embellishment + clips.
Cute, red chevron bag + small tags.
Misted envelope + stamped tickets + metal rimmed tag.
Coin envelopes + stamped embellishment + stamped index card with dates.
More Crate patterned paper + misted envelope using Studio Calico mask + snippet of Studio Calico fabRips.
An entire sheet of Elle's Studio Layered Number Cut Outs + more of Elle's Christmas Tags.

(image from Elle's Studio)

There's lots more to come as I will continue to work on the Holiday Journals within the next few weeks. :)

Pre-order details:

-6 x 6 album kit includes pre-punched pages + metal binder rings + embellishments

-also includes number sheet (1-31) to identify each countdown day in December

-full kit photos to be revealed on my blog at a later day

-Holiday Journal kit + any other items ordered as a pre-order will NOT ship until late October; please order shop items separately if you want something sooner.

-Holiday Journal kits will ship at the end of October; specific date will be announced on my blog at a later date

-to order a kit, purchase as a regular Etsy item from my shop.

-price of pre-order kit includes price of kit plus shipping at check out; I will keep track of your orders as soon as they come in

-please ask questions in the comments section or send me a note via an Etsy conversation

Bags + Tags...

Hi there friends. Lots going on today so I will have two posts today....this one featuring bags + tags, plus another one to come shortly after about the Holiday Journal pre-orders.

First up, I've got my final project to show you featuring items from the sold out Happy Halloween kit. If you purchased a kit, this little project will be perfect for adding in a little note tag plus a few Halloween treats.
It features one of the popular Chevron Sacks from my Etsy shop + an Orange Medium Manila Tag. It's topped with a Fall leaf, Elle's Studio snippet, tied buttons and a black paperclip with ribbon. I just love seeing that black and orange together. Add in a yellow tag and you've got yourself a candy corn looking treat sack.
Here's a little journaling pocket using a Black Chevron Sack for Project Life. I love how the journaling cards fit inside all my new sacks. Great discovery. Check out Lisa Truesdell's Project Life post here, where she used a Notebook Paper Sack to hold a journaling card. I must try the photo on top look. Love it Lisa and thank you for the shout out yesterday.
I wanted to share this photo of some tags + bags sitting side by side. All sizes of my tags from the shop, including Small, Medium and Large Parcel Tags fit inside the Chevron, Notebook Paper and Grid Paper Sacks. The medium size tags come in colors + the plain manila. The small tags come in manila + white + red + dark green + gray. The large tags are only in manila at this time but I may add colors to the large size in the future.

I've set a tag beside each bag so you can see the color matches. Not perfect but they definitely coordinate well together. And white, gray or manila goes with any color sack.
Right now, I'm particularly fond of the candy corn look of the orange, yellow and black.....the gray and white look good too. And coming up for the Christmas season, the red and green combos will be just dandy.
I will be adding a limited quantity of the small chevron, grid and notebook paper sacks to the shop shortly. ALL size of sacks will be re-stocked in about a week so look for them in the shop soon. I've had requests for sample ideas using the sacks...I'll be working on that soon too. You guys are such great customers, you keep me hoppin'! Thank you so much to everyone who patronizes my shop + leaves me nice comments here on the blog. I truly appreciate you!

Stay tuned for my second post that will tell you all about pre-ordering the remaining Holiday Journals. I'll snap a few more photos of the kit contents and will let you know how I'll go about doing some blog posts about my thoughts on how to assemble your journal. :)

Happy Halloween Kit....brown paper sack

Please note: Big announcement at the bottom of this post regarding Holiday Journals.

Hi there, back today with another Halloween goody sack made from my Happy Halloween Kit. (The kit is now sold out but I wanted to show you some fun projects for those of you who purchased the kit...plus many of the items used in my project today are still available separately in my Etsy shop.) Yesterday I showed you a fun Halloween card and today I have an embellished sack that would be perfect for packaging up a few Fall/Halloween cards. Give the gift a little early so that the recipient can send out their cards in time for Halloween. Or you could easily fill the sack with treats, a decorated notepad, fun fabric swatches, crafting goodies, a book, etc.

I used a brown paper sack for the base, then layered on strips of patterned paper from My Mind's Eye Mischievous collection. On top of that I have an embellished Medium Gray Parcel Tag embellished with an Elle's Studio cut out tag, a fun bat embellishment, tied buttons and a stamped Small White Tag. The tag was clipped to baker's twine with a Mini Clothespin.

Please note: All kit items come unassembled. The samples I'm showing this week are ideas as to how you can create a finished product. Some items shown on my projects are not included in the kit....please see photo and description of kit contents under the listing in my Etsy shop. (The kit is now sold out).\

Holiday Journals....the remaining pre-order kits for the Holiday Journals will be going up in my Etsy shop tomorrow(October 6th) between 8am-10am Central Time. Kits will be limited in quantity. When the kits are gone from the shop, there will not be more this year. Any items ordered with the Holiday Journal Kits will not ship out until the kits ship in late October. You will be charged at checkout time for the kit + any other items you order + a shipping charge. Sorry, I am not able to hold kits in advance. More information on kit contents & blog posts featuring the Holiday Journal in tomorrow's blog post. :)

Happy Halloween Kit...card

Hi there. I'm back today with a another project made from the Happy Halloween Kit contents. The kits are now sold out, thank you for your orders! They will be shipping out tomorrow. :)

It's a sweet Halloween card for today's project. I started with a Rustic White Cardstock base from Papertrey layered with My Mind's Eye Mischievous patterned paper.
All of my embellishments were layered onto an Elle's Studio Lil' Snippets: Labeled-Halloween piece which was included in the kit. I love that there are flat design elements to layer upon. Cool stuff indeed. I splashed the piece with Mister Huey spray mist then layered on some pieces from the kit + a punched patterned paper circle + a punched circle stamped with a pumpkin from Papertrey's 2009 Halloween Tags. I stitched right down the journaling card piece using orange thread....right over the circle with punched bat...and giving the Vintage Buttons a place to line up.
Buttons and card were tied with Halloween twine which was included in the Happy Halloween Kit. The little *Halloween* pop up sentiment is also from the 2009 Halloween Tags set.
Stay tuned tomorrow as I show you a cute paper sack idea to package up some Halloween/Fall cards....using more items from the kit.

Project Life: Working on an update today. I'll have some fun ideas to share with you about journaling cards.

Holiday Journal Kits: I hear Ali Edwards is getting ready for her Daily December posts. I'll be putting the remaining of my kits in the shop later this week. Plus I'll be putting the finishing details on the kit this month. Kits will ship late October. Just in time to get your album ready for the holidays. :)

Etsy shop items: I'll be ordering more sacks and will be gathering up NOEL Notions soon...so look for new items to come. Back in stock: Mini and Small Clothespins