Christmas Paper Gifts

Hello again! Christmas is only 2 more sleeps! I AM SO EXCITED! I am also feeling a bit stretched out :( My family has family coming in from out of town and that excites me, they will be here tomorrow (or should be) and I can see some aunts and uncles from out of town. Then tomorrow night we are heading to Chris's folks house to spend the night and then Christmas day spending it with his family. The big suck in all of this is that Chris has to work late Christmas eve and early (four am early) Boxing day. I despise retail for that! SO when you are out getting your sales and enjoying your gift cards- please be courteous to the ones out there that are sacrificing time with their families so the stores can be opened crazy early. Me? Ima stay home :D HAHA I DON'T do well in crowds- I love small spaces, but being in crowds makes me claustraphobic. I forget what it's really called. But all in all I think we'll squeeze enough Christmas spirit in the small time alloted and remember- it may be cliche- but Jesus IS the reason for the season :)

In all that being said- here are some eye candy treats for you all- the only kind of candy I wound up making this year :S Usually I make homemade truffles and chocolates- but baby taking all momma's energy had DIFFERENT plans. Sleepy plans!

Here's what I whipped up for teacher's gifts this year. I posted one earlier on in Novemeber, using the box that a Martha Stewart border punch came in- I tore it apart and adapted it a bit. I used velcro to close them and they were so much fun and easy to make once I got the template down pat! Embelishing was simple and quick using border punches, Stampin' Around Jumbo wheels (have I mentioned lately that I LOVE them??? lol!) and STICKLES! Okay- Ranger industries??? You guys are officially GENIUSES in my book for inventing such versatile, colourful and PRETTY embellishments! I used acetate for the 'windows', but vellum would work too! I cheated- as I typed above I usually make candy- and have some GREAT recipes for caramel, hazelnut cream, peanut butter cups and nougat- but this year I just didn't have the energy- so I cheated and bought mini peanut butter cups and hershey's kisses! I have a great plan using this little template in a bit- and EP (energy permitting) I should be whipping up one today for a gift and posting it later :)

Another teacher's gift I whipped up was for a friend of mine- who, coincedentally enough is a teacher as well- my daughter's pre-school teacher- but she wanted me to make some for her son's teacher. She loved the stationary desk set I whipped up using an adaptation of my Milk Crate and adding pockets. Using a christmas theme for each of them I came up with these little cuties:

These 'crates' have two pockets in the front for 2x2 items- whether it's notecards or tags as seen here. Nothing is as cute as little homemade tags taped to the top of your Christmas package! then I made two mini boxes to seperate the 3x3 notecards- great for large gifts or gift bags and the back is storage for A2 greeting cards. I was able to fit 5 of the smaller cards and I made 4 greeting cards- tho you could add more. All sentiment stamps are from Inkadinkado, border stamps are All Night Media (acorn stamp on the pink) and Stampin' Around wheels. Then for embelishments I turned to simple border punches from EK Success, ribbons and stickles. I think next year I'm going to give myself more time because I'd definatly love to give these little treasures away- and keep some for myself!

So there are some Christmas ideas for all of you- if I don't post before then I hope you all have:

A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS AND ALL THE BEST IN THE NEW YEAR !!!!!!!!!

Much love and God's blessings,

~Brandie~

AUGH!!!

Not the original title of my post- but GRRRR the computer button is RIGHT beside my computer chair and VOILA! You have an 'off' computer in the middle of a post and everything is gone! This autosaves- but I have no idea how to get to it! SO! Blah blah blah- saying I was pregant with only 7 weeks left- but it leaves me considerably drained of energy! Blah blah blah- don't have the energy to make my usual Christmas cards and gifts blah blah blah excited for baby bean to get here.

There- now you're all caught up ;) lol Ahhhh- it was just a vent point for me to carry on about how tired I've been lately and how excited I am for Christmas next year when I'll have a 10 mth old on some what of a schedule and wont be pregnant so I'll be back to my Brandie self- and so long as there is a Christmas to celebrate, I will be making and baking and candy creating like I have been in past years.

But in running my on-line store I've had a few orders to keep me busy and I have some stuff to share :) And I did get some teacher's gifts and class favours done- so that's pretty cool. I am finishing up some baking today and IF (big if) I feel motivated enough, I may even make some paper craft boxes to store the baking in. I feel guilty not doing what I usually do, but I've overdone it for the past week trying to meet personal deadlines that I need to cut myself some slack and think of me and baby and our health. Only 4 days til Christmas and it'll be full of family times and fun and (YUMMO!) food. So little boxes and cards don't seem that important :) I love doing it- but really- I have tons of excuses to craft, Christmas doesn't need to exsist just for me to craft :)

SO! all that being said, let me show you what I've been busy with:

So I lifted this little idea from SCS- and I am sorry, I can't remember from who or even what it was called. If you search "acetate" I'm sure you'll find the ingenioused woman who came up with this! What I did was cut a peice of cardstock to 5.5x4.75 and score lengthwise at .5 so I have a half an inch tab. That tab was used to attach a peice of acetate measured at 5.5x4.25 that I embossed using my snowflake cuttlebug folder. I used pop dots to add a piece of DSP to the top and bottom of the acetate and stamped with a Christmas inkadinkado clear stamp set. I also cut some snowflakes out of vellum using my snowflake die from Cuttlebug and attached them to the front. I made a matching box and then sent ten of these, along with some cookies, to a friend of mine for her birthday (well- she bought the cards- the cookies were a gift :) )

NOW! I have no clue why I haven't used my Stampin' Around Wheels more often- but ladies GET THEM OUT! HAHA! Not only do they make a wonderful background for giftboxes (which is why I bought them) they are super cute for borders! WHY OH WHY didn't I do this before? I saw some cute ones from Hero Arts at Michaels and pointed them out to hubby for Christmas gift ideas and he said "don't you have border stamps? isn't that why the HUGE stampin' up order in spring was for?" so I was like *sigh* okay and I whipped them out and started using them for borders. *insert maniacal laughter here* so much fun! So here are a couple of the creations I came up with:

Here's a Christmas card using Soft Holly Standard wheel with Bravo Burgendy ink. To make the pointsettas (in which I am very proud!) Using vellum, I cut 2 large flowers from my Olivia alpha set for the cuttlebug- you can use any pointed flower punch- and then I layered two of the flowers together with Zots and then 'painted' them with Stickles. The stickles not only added glitter- but they warped the paper to give it a 3D look. Then you can add either a gold brad or gold stickles to the center. The punch is Holly from EK success- wonderful punch BUT it's not a traditional border punch. It wont 'punch' a border, but a seperate peice that you can add on (if that makes sense).

So steering away from Christmas, here are some basic cards using the Stampin' Around standard wheels:

So for this thank you card I used Forever Flowers and Mellow Moss- then using Itty Bitty buds I added the flowers to the edge. NOW you can't tell, but the card is standard A2 size in total, but the outside sentiment peice is 4.25x4.25 and the extra edge is over extended in the back.

For the birthday cards here I used some scraps of DSP from the Spring catalogue and for the pink it was Bella Rose, with Always in Bloom Stampin' Around Wheel and the blue was .... I forget the name of the paper- but Baroque Border was the wheel I used. So as you can see, using these wonderful wheels can open up a wide world of cardmaking that I wasn't even aware of! lol I just love making packaging and all I wanted was to create my own background paper for the boxes. So hopefully you've got some ideas here and with two more working days til Christmas maybe I wasn't TOO late in inspiring you ;) More tomorrow- I want to share my teacher's gifts before the big day. So have a wonderful day and thanks for stopping by!

~Brandie~

A Pile of Christmas Cards

Okay- I have a bunch of Christmas cards to post as there have been quite a few friend requests for cards for the holidays.

So I've been a little bit glitter crazy obviously! Glitter is absolutly essential for any Christmas card- don't you agree? lol. I just loved being challenged in this way with many people wanting something different. Before now, I've been making my own Christmas cards so it was a batch of all the same, my own style. Now there is trying to make other people's style and tastes fit into my cardmaking skills. It sure stretches me as an artist, but I have found it VERY fun!
So the first card was a photo insert card that I made to fit a wallet size photo in it. It was challenging to think how I was going to work it- but she just wanted something simple, one page, no open up- so it was basic stamping and layering. The second one was fun too- and I lifted the card idea off of a Stampin' Up idea page. I got a LOT of use from my Martha Stewart snowflake punches for these! I got the two that were available last year. The third one I had NO clue how to start. My friend wanted something more spiritual as we both, being christian, wanted to focus on the reason for the season. I used some Prima pointsettas to finish it off. The last card I tried something different. The glitter snowflakes are my FAVE! What I did was punch the snowflake out- added my mix of embossing powder and fine glitter and inked the entire front of the snowflake and poured the mix on and heat embossed it. Then I punched a brad in the center and dangled them from some sheer ribbon. I used the same glitter technique on the "Season's Greetings" sentiment- making it POP! I love it- and I think it looks store-bought- but for much less! It just took my Cricut and Jasmine cartridge, mix, ink and time.
All cards are basic A2 sizes. Stamps are clear stamps from Inkadinkado, flowers from Prima, ink from Colorbox, glitter and snowflake punches from Martha Stewart, embossing powder from Stampendous, leaves and snowflake border punches from EK Success.
SO! I have a couple more cards to share but I'll save that for later- thanks for stopping by!
~Brandie~

A Bit Busy

With babysitting, creating gifts and cards for people on my FB store and just life in general- I have, yet again, become a VERY bad blogger :( Sorry guys. I do want to do better after Matty gets here. BUT that being said- I have a LOT to share, so I'll just take a few posts to share everything with :)

The first thing I want to share is a baby gift I made for a friend for HER friend. The baby onesies seem to be a big hit and it's fun to stamp on them. I am thinking of doing something Christmas-y for the heck of it and then again something for my new little bean. TWENTY NINE WEEKS DOWN WOO HOO! Even tho I've done this three times before, I am PETRIFIED of going thru the labour again. Aigh. I know it's worth it but still....

OKAY- back to the subject on hand- CRAFTING :) SO here's my little set:

She wanted a keepsake box to hold the cards that her friend would be getting for her new baby. I thought it was a cute idea and whipped up the box. It's personalized with the baby's info on the front, and has a "T" for his initial. Then I got one of my acetate 2 4 6 8 boxes with a lid all decked out to hold the onesie in. I used Inkadinkado's baby boy stamp set for everything stamped and my corner punch for the borders.

So the box all opened up shows two little 'shelves' that you can store the cards in- standard A2 cards- which I am hoping fit. I made it a little bigger so it would have space for a bit larger cards. What I loved was adding glitter to the ribbon I wrapped around the onesie box. Then on the onesie itself I added fabric glitter to the stamped image and buttons for the 'wheels' on the cars- I don't know if you can see it too well in the first photo.

I find that adding glitter, flock, embossing powder and stickles to different images lets you take a plain peice of CS and make it wonderful. I save a LOT off of patterned paper doing this. To be honest- I don't find alot of DSP that I like, and it's usually pretty expensive. I really like a lot of the SU! DSP- but for me to set some money aside to make an order takes a bit of self control- and I don't have much. I'd rather buy at a store and have it NOW! BUT I need to learn to be patient. With my new business, I really want to set some money aside cuz there are FAR too many cute Cuttlebug folders I don't have- as well as I found Pink Cat Studio and have decided to take the plunge and start stamping with images instead of just sentiments. But that will come in time- I've only been doing this card making thing for a few years now- and the first couple had a bunch of SUCK! lol- I am grateful to the crafting blogs of the world in which I glean a LOT of inspiration from!

So- being as it's been a while, I'll also show one of the (many) cards that have been keeping me busy. Another friend was going to a Hallowe'en wedding (I know- we're thinking of Christmas and I want to back track to Hallowe'en!) and I didn't know how to do a 'spooky' wedding card so I opted for something elegantly gothic.

I LOVE MY STORYBOOK CARTRIDGE!

If I haven't made that abundantly clear- I would like to do so now :) I made a tri-fold card and cut a 'window' out of each panel. Then I used my Storybook cartridge to cut the rectangle of leaves out. I sponged them with silver and then added some glittery black flowers from Prima. I stamped the four corners of the 'frame' (I forget the stamp maker :S Sorry) and embossed with silver. Then by finding a poem from one of the card sentiment sites printed on some vellum with a ribbon added the perfect finishing touch. She loved it and that's all that matters.

SO there's a couple of things to chew on. I have quite a few Christmas cards on the go for various friends- so I can show you them soon (and by soon- I mean quicker than a months time!)

Thanks for stopping by!

~Brandie~

Martha Stewart Inspiration

I love packaging. Sometimes, my favourite thing to do is go around gourment coffee shops or holiday gift shops, card shops, that sort of thing is check out the packaging so I can lift it into the paper crafting world. I bought myself some Martha Stewart border punches and the box they come in is so cute and I thought: why not manipulate it into becoming a gift box? With a few tweeks and twists I came up with this, using a broken down border punch box as a template:

Now I realized after the fact that it looks a lot like one of Lauren Meader's timeless templates. I did NOT get the template from Papertrey Ink- tho I do support their products. They are an amazing company and I think Lauren is completly talented- but what can I say- great minds think alike? lol- maybe I'm becoming a bit more like my mentor! YAY!

So I just wanted to share this little tid-bit. Try it yourself- find a cute box, tear it apart, measure the dimenssions and make your own cute packaging. With Christmas coming sooner than we would like to admit, finding creative inspiration whereever you can makes it easier. I don't know about you all- but I find it easier to make cute packages and fill them with homemade goodies over trying to shop for every single person on my list. It's more personal and usually cheaper too!

So thanks for stopping by.

~Brandie~

Oh Baby!

Babies babies everywhere! No kidding! I am having a baby- if I didn't let my blogger friends privey to the information- we are having another son, due early February (either the 7th or the 10th- depends on which ultrasound you go by- so I just say early Feb.) and we've decided on the name Mathias. We haven't agreed on a middle name yet, but I'm hoping for Mathias David Allan. My brother's name is David, and it's so soft and my dad's name is Allan and they worked well together. Other middle names floating around between DH and myself were Sebastian, Sebastian-Allan (I thought it was too much) and Alexander. So that's my baby news- comeing into my 3rd trimester soon. I thought Bella would have been my last- but lo-and-behold God saw fit to bless me again- tho this pregnancy has been easier than the others (I am NOT a fun pregnant lady!) I still can't wait for it to be done. I am not all that into the anticipation of things- I enjoy the actual event :P

Other baby news is simple, a friend of mine from church is also expecting and that's exciting and another friend just adopted a beautiful baby girl. I got to see her today for the first time and she is just BEYOND precious! The bonus? Mommy wanted ME to make her 50 Thank You cards. I have decided to QUIT procrastinating when she decided she wanted half of them by the 18th of this month and I waited a week before starting. So yea, I got all 50 done in three days- but I have a mountain of laundry and dishes waiting for me.

Now my camera's batteries are a bit (okay- a LOT) dead and they don't recharge worth poo- so I didn't take any pics of the cards I made- but she liked the baby Thank You cards that I made for another friend of mine that had some animals on it cut from my New Arrival cartridge. I altered the colours to purple to fit her taste and added more girly ribbon and glitter. She was happy and that's all that matters :)

Lastly- and for your viewing pleasure- lol- I have a baby set :)

I didn't do a boy's set because I was tired of waiting on myself to get around to it- so I put together this girly set and decided to start selling them for baby showers.

I got to use some more of my Bella Rose DSP (I am using it sparingly- I still have some left! and that's all from one package!) I tried the baby onesie card that I found on Lauren Meader's blog and she graciously gave me permission to use it. I did alter it abit by cutting off the 'diaper' part and then cutting another piece for 'panties'. I also tried my hand at the shoe template found on SCS. The large card is a 5x7 and I basically copied an idea that I used for my sister's baby shower a year and a half ago. The thank you card is a little 3x3 card to match- I figured the set works cohesivly and maybe people would want to get it as a set- I'm all about the matchy!

Here's the first onesie I made- I had fun and it was my original idea for my friend's thank you cards- she loved them, but she liked the animals more :) You can see the panty detail too :P I love the sentiment, instead of stamping, I used my New Arrival cartridge (my new fave!) to make the Thank You- very easy, they had the option that let you cut out 'thank you' in a circle and then I just used pop dots to prop it up on a scalloped circle. I think I am going to start using my dad's idea and using a white sheet on a chair for a mini 'studio' to take pics of my crafts on. They turn out WAY better- as you can tell. You can see the details more clearly.

Anways- that's it for me- need to get back at that mountain of laundry! Thanks for reading.

~Brandie~

A Peice of Cake!

cakecakecakecakecake! :D

I love cake :) We had my son's birthday party today- I get scared about inviting too many people, so I only let the kids invite 8-10 friends and then only a couple of them show up- it doesn't matter. Gabe had fun anyways. The little bugger wanted a Lightening McQueen cake. Now, I don't have a pic as my camera is dead- but it turned out... okay? I like cake decorating and find it fun, but I definatly need more practice! But it was for some 4/5/6 yr olds so I don't think they'd be near as picky as I am! My arm is KILLING me- first from playing hard on drums on Rock Band last night with some friends of ours, then from SQUEEEEEZING out black icing. I didn't that the other icing colours were easier to use because they were thinner. I needed to add black icing colour to brown (chocolate) icing for a nice black colour- but because the icing was homemade, the black was thicker than the rest and harder than anything to try to squeeze out. I'll need to remember to thin it with some corn syrup next time.

So that's cake part 1.

Cake part 2 is me trying for the first time, paper cakes :) OMGosh are they ever fun and easy! On a side note- I wanted to make a cake and some cake 'peices' for samples for my on-line Facebook store- so I found the tutorial/template on Splitcoast and made a 1 tier cake with some samples. About my store- I only had it up for 1 day and I already have over 50 'fans'- so that's pretty awesome! Lots of work and lots of revanue (hopefully!) I just need to be better at time managment and procrastinate less.

Anyways- back to cake- here's my take on the infamous paper cake (SO MUCH FUN!) very easy- but somewhat time consuming:

I used some cream coloured cardstock, flourished stamp set and some gold ink and embossing powder. The stamping was pretty tedious, and I have no idea how I'd close up the backs of the boxes while making them pretty- I don't want people to have to wreak the box to open it- any suggestions out there? The flowers are all from Prima and there are gold and crystal stickles and some Michaels ribbon. So this is the only full cake I made, I then made some sample 'slices' so I wouldn't have to make a bunch of full cakes- but I'd still show people a variety.

These were super easy and so much fun to make- so here are some photos of the different peices. The materials are pretty much the same: Stampin' Around Wheels, Clear stamps by Inkadinkado, ribbons from Michaels, flowers from Prima and Stickles. I also used my cricut on the monkey one. SO! (I needed to squeeze a 'so' in there!) that's it for now- thanks for stopping by- ~Brandie~

Birthday Express

Hey crafters :)

I realized not too long ago (like, minutes) that I enjoy appearing busy- but when faced with the mountain of work I've made for myself I clam up. I was just realizing that as I read last night's Facebook Status update. Maybe I should worry less about appearing busy- thus, appearing important, and focus on the projects at hand. Can I finish them? Do I have the materials or finances to get the materials? Will it stress me to the max? My health is more important that how I appear to others. So yea- a bit of insight :P
Tomorrow is my son's birthday party. He turned six last week and being as his b-day weekend lands on the Canadian Thanksgiving, I usually wait a week. The kids are fine waiting on their parties (my 8 yr olds birthday is on the 30th of December- RIGHT SMACK in the middle of Christmas vacation- so we usually party at the end of January to give kids enough time to recoup after Christmas and parents to not have to worry about buying yet ANOTHER gift right away). So the kids are okay waiting- mom and dad do a good job of making the actual day special for family- so they basically get two parties :)
For Gabe's party it's going to be a mixture of things. He really wants a Lightening McQueen cake (I've dabbled in cake decorating- REALLY want to take that Wilton course!) and I have already made train themed party things. I am pretty excited about this :)
Last Christmas I really wanted to make a choo choo train out of paper as a centerpiece for candies and such- well, procrastinator I am Christmas came and went with no train. I was bound and determined and made one for my son- each 'train car' will be a goody bag. Goody bags are going to be pretty basic- just some candy (really- that's all kids care about) because it's a mixed gender party. Figuring out toys and such for boys and girls is just not gunna work.
So for this set I created the train in two parts. I made a simple box at 2 inches wide 2 inches deep and 2.5 inches tall. I made another box at 2x2x4 and then adhered them together with sticky tape. I then made a 2.5x2.5 inch pizza box for the top. The nose of the train is just a square (2 inchs? I think) scored in half and folded, then scored on each side at .5 inch to adhere to the front of the train. I took another peice of paper 2x5? and folded it over the front peice of the train to curve the top. I smooshed the paper with alcohol ink to give it a pattern and then stuck some 1 inch circles with silver brads for wheels. Embellish and VOILA done. The train cars (that will have baggies of candy) can fit some other stuff too- they are 2 inches high, 2 inches deep and 3 inches wide. Simple box without a top. I placed the wheels higher than I originally had them- because I wanted them to look 'wheel' like before- I had them lower- but the weight of the candies bent the wheels so I had to glue them higher. I also peirced some ribbon and stuck a small brad in there and adhered to the front and the back for those hooks that hook the train cars together. Does anybody know what those hooks are called? lol- after watching Thomas the Train for so many years- one would think I'd know!
The invites were fun and simple- I kept the same color combo- and you can't see it here- but it's actually layered. I used my cuttlebug and the train engine and caboose, taping them into place, and then had this die cut window to put "You're Invited" behind it. The cards are 4x4 and were pretty simple other than that. Just some silver brads, alcohol ink and scalloped edges. Then I made one cupcake topper so I could set this up as a set and sell them on line. I think I may have been a bit more excited than my son about the train. All my kids thought it was a toy so I had to keep taking it away and then sticking the scallops back on. I am in the process of making a hallowe'en one too- very simple and fun- using 'coffins' for 'train cars'.
Well- I hope I inspired you all this wonderful Saturday morning! Thanks for reading.
~Brandie~

Busy Busy Busy

Getting into the final stretch of pregnancy- entering the sixth month where I am slooooooowly getting bigger and seem to be having more trouble moving around and less energy to move. BUT crafting away- getting orders in and I haven't even started my store yet- so that's great news!

We got some snow already up here in Northern Alberta and today it's warmer and the snow that was here for a week seems to be leaving. We usually have snow on Hallowe'en- except last year- and I am hoping for that again this year because it's SO NICE not to have to wear snowpants under a costume.

SO I do have some Hallowe'en stuff underway. But right now I've been busy with babies and birthdays. Today I am going to share some pics of my newest creation- Boxed Book Set- with a real simple tutorial to follow as soon as I have some time away from crafting for profit. It's really easy and quite fun :)

So- I got the idea from my daughters books. She is really into Geronimo Stilton books and I bought her some for last Christmas- they were all boxed up and it gave me an idea for a card set. You know when you order from scholastics? And you order a set of books in a box? WELL VOILA!So it's a box that carries four 'books' that holds four cards. A great idea and a break from the traditonal boxed sets of all occassion cards. The finished size is 4.5x5.5x2 inches, so it did require either 2 sheets of 8.5x11 cardstock or a 12x12 sheet. This is for standard cards- so if you wanted to shrink it to make smaller cards and a smaller box- it would work. The 'books' are 1/2 and inch wide and have a pocket in it to place the cards. This was the first thing I started making with my Stampin' Up goodies I bought back in May- so it has the Bella rose and Urban Garden DSP used- I miss them :(

So here are some photos of the books- I was trying different techniques, and here is a photo of a 'book' all opened up. Pretty simple really. I was starting this WAY back for Mother's day- needless to say, I can be pretty distracted at times!

Here are some cards I made to go with it- but if you don't make them too bulky you should be able to fit four per book. I had a lot of fun making this and figuring out the template (NOT fun trying to describe on my blog- hence me waiting until I have photos to help explain what I'm doing. I am SO not an explainer :P)

For right now, I have 50 Thank You cards to make and more pictures to post in the next couple of days of things I have finished- one of them something I have wanted to try since LAST Christmas.

Hope you guys enjoyed it and thanks for reading.

~Brandie~

Thank You

I am a fairly new blogger, and not-so-new-crafter :) And to see people actually coming and reading and following my blog makes me a happy Brandie. I'd LOVE to be one of those 'bloggers' that you can't wait to read every day and gets those 'Good Blogger' awards. I have a ways to go yet- I realize- but you guys make me want to keep bloggin' my heart out. To know I have friends in the blogging community that come on here means a lot to me. So thank you :) thank you for your comments (which I definatly read and appreciate!) and following me :) Find me on Splitcoast stampers as lexgabella- I post different pics on there than I do here sometimes.
BUT I just came on to check out how my blog is doing and saw some comments and that made my day- so I just wanted to thank all of you for reading :)
Much love and God bless!
~Brandie~

Slow Goings

I am so excited :) After six weeks I FINALLY finished some baby gifts I was working on- woo hoo! lol- I am not the most motivated person- tho I love crafting. I need to get my act in gear because I finished some onesie sets as gifts, posted the photos on some local Facebook groups so I can start earning money crafting. I was trying to take kids in for a daycare type thing- but that isn't me. I like kids- I have kids- but to be one of those organized, structured dayhomes is not for me. I am more laid back and let the kids do what they'd like (so long as it's safe!) I don't like structured time unless it's eating and bedtimes. Other than that- if you want to play- PLAY! So yea, I don't think I'm cut out for that- so I am working on crafting for a living- why not eh? Do what you love- earn money to buy more goodies and who knows where to go from there?

SO I finally finished those onesies, as I was saying, and they were fun! Who knew that stamping didn't have to be limited to paper (insert maniacal laughter here).

So here's one gift set, I call it Safari- and boy did my Zooballoo cartridge get a workout!

All stamps are from Inkadinkadoo's acrylic stamp sets- I am unsure of the names, but one is the Baby Boy set and the other is the Baby girl set. I saw some BEAUTIFUL swirled onesies that I can't wait to try doing from SCS. So I mixed and matched the stamps, using the giraffe from the baby girl set and the elephant from the baby boy set. These onesies are from WalMart- they come in packs of four for $15 CND. The glitter is added by Scribbles dimmensional fabric paint. They are 3D paint, but I glooped it on carefully and 'painted' it where I wanted it with toothpicks. Then you can embelish with buttons, string, ribbon- whatever :) NOW my sister made a point- the buttons are tiny and someone stated that they were worried about their child rolling on their tummy and the embellishments pushing in on their skin- I think that the buttons are small enough that it shouldn't bother them- I think of zippers. The zippers push in, but don't seem to bother babies. ANYWAYS that's my thought- I could be wrong. We shall see. If you don't feel comfortable doing that, then stamp away to create faux embellishments :)

For the safari set I used my Zooballoo cartridge which not only has a full alpha set, but animals for each letter and some cute 'backgrounds' for the animals. I used the grass and the vines, highlighting them with green ink. To find out how to make the boxes- check out my Milk Crate tutorial in October, 2008. The boxes were just simple acetate boxes, you can find the tutorial for that on Splitcoast stampers- which is where I found it :) Super easy and really cute for a baby shower gift! (I'd suggest NOT doing newborn ones- as we know how fast they can outgrow them!)

So here are some other ones I made:

For both sets I used the SU! Beautiful Little Baby single stamp and It's Beautiful Stampin' Around Wheel for the girl one and an old Flourishes stamp set that I forget the maker for for the boy set and Martha Stewart punches for both.

Here are some tips: I did use pigment ink (I practiced on some of my old tank tops) NOW they DO work but here's some tips: 1. Stamp hard! BUT stamp careful- we don't want smudged! 2. Iron both sides of garments. I put a piece of chipboard between the front and back of my onesie, then placed parchment paper and a dish towel over the image and ironed both sides like that for at least two minutes. 3. If using fabric glitter or paint, you DO need to let it set for 24hrs- so no sewing or stamping til that's dry! Hope that all helped :) You do need to wash it inside out in cold water and hang to dry- I washed in cold water and dried it normaly (my tank top) and didn't turn it inside out- the image DID stay- but was pretty faded.

SO! That's how Brandie does onesies- I hope you try it yourself and package them up all pretty! I hope if you do try making these sets that you enjoy making them as much as the recipient will enjoy getting them!

Thanks for reading!

~Brandie~

Cards Galore

Well- tis the season for weddings. Well, sort of. With warm summer weather drawing to a close, weddings and wedding cards will make way for all the holidays of the fall and winter months.

But not quite yet. A friend of mine was heading to a couple of weddings and wanted me to make her a couple of cards. She also wanted some grad cards, but the grads are gone, my summer was busy and alas- I didn't get to them in time. But because she already paid for them I owed her another two cards- SO thank you cards they became :)

Here are the wedding cards:

This is definatly my favourite layout. I found it on Splitcoast and can't remember who did it- but I loved it! This is my second time doing this layout- I used golden tones instead of the pink. The edge was one from Martha Stewart- I forget it's name and bought it at Michaels- but I can't seem to find it on her website- it must be an older one. It's a 4x5.5 card. I cut a 8.5x11 sheet in half at 5.5 and then scored each edge at 1.5 and 3.5 folding the 1.5 edge out and the 3.5 edge in. After punching the edges I embossed using the Swirls embossing folder from cuttlebug, highlighted it with gold ink and spread gold stickles over it. The Patterned paper I made myself and was FUN! I used an old flourish stamp set and stamped randomly on a peice of vellum. Then I took a medium sized and small sized flower and stamped them randomly on the flourishes. I did that with gold ink, sprinkled gold embossing powder all over it and embossed it. Of course, you need to be careful when heat embossing on vellum, going quickly over the entire sheet and not too close (I've blistered a lot of vellum before). BUT the result was worth it! I don't know if you can see it too well, but I plan on doing it again as it was absolutly GORGEOUS! Then topped it all of with some frosted fairy tale flowers from Prima.

For this next card I used the Baja Breeze (my last sheet :( ) with the matching DSP (which I also forgot the name of- geez- I think I gotta start labeling my stash!) It's 5.5x4.25 and I overlapped the folds on this card. This one was fun too! I got to use my Storybook Cartridge and cut two background leave images at 4.5 inches. I sprayed them with some tattered angel spray and let them dry. The one side I mounted on vellum and then cut out a rectangle on the cardstock to create a window. On the other fold I mounted the die cut on the DSP. I added some more Prima flowers and printed my sentiment on the computer using the Word Art feature and mounted it with a Making Memories rim.

Here's the inside. I found some BEAUTIFUL wedding poems and (OF COURSE) forget where I found them. sigh. My friend loved these. It was fun (and actually, pretty easy) to make.

For one of the thank you cards I tried my hand at that Trifold technique recently featured on splitcoast- so here's my take on it:

I used neutral cardstock from the Paper Company for the base. I used DSP from Stampin' Up and added some simple embellishments. I wasn't too sure- I've seen some AMAZING other cards like this. Mine, to me, seems kinds "wa-wa". I used my new Lyrical Letters cartridge to create the argyle strips and highlighted them with some tan ink. I added some brads from MM and also a rim for my sentiment, stamped with the elegant thank you from SU!. The swirl came from one of my various acrylic stamp sets (which I organized my style, not manufacturer- so I don't know who made this) and a ribbon. I wanted it simple and sort of masculine- or at least not as feminine as I'm used to. I'd love to try it again- but totally pimp it out girlie style :D

Anyways- that's it for now- I've got more cards coming and some new templates to showcase. Thanks for stopping by!

~Brandie~