Baby Onesies!

I love making baby things. They are so much fun with the variety of colours, stamps, images etc. at our disposal. I also love taking the art of stamping 'out of the box' and doing different things with them. I fell in love with the idea of stamping on baby onesies. I've done 12 (3 different sets boxed up with 4 onesies in each) for gifts, and now these 13 here for sale. I tried selling on line to no avail, but my town has a local Farmer's Market, both in my little 'village' and in the city 10 minutes away- so I'll take them there and see how that goes!
The great thing about stamping on fabric is that you're only as limited as your imagination allows. Much like stamping on paper, you can really go for broke. You can add ribbon and buttons and other embellishments, some people don't as they are afraid of them digging into baby, but I haven't had any complaints yet, so I think smaller ones would be alright, as they would have snaps or zippers on store bought onesies. You can also add glitter. You can't add Stickles, I guess they wash off (found that out through another blog, no trial and error there for me), but you can buy dimmensional glitter glue for fabric. I found mine in the fabric aisle at Michaels, and they come in a variety of colours. I don't do the 3D thing like it says you can do, but I do 'paint' it on, with either an eyeshadow brush or toothpick or lollipop stick. Whatever.The stamps here are a collection of clear stamps from Inkadinkado, with some Stampin' Up stamps thrown in the mix. I have little cat eye pads of Martha Stewart ink and Colorbox ink- pigment ink apparantly works the best, but you DO have to heat set it! I practised on a shirt of mine, and Stampin' Up classic ink does work, but the image fades.
Now, to make it more appealing, I also enjoyed boxing them up in these cute little coordinating boxes. It's tough to try and make the acetate fit into the box base sometimes, but once you get that out of the way, embellishing them are alot of fun! I also enjoyed cutting out sayings and images from my cricut and the New Arrival cartridge and layering them instead of doing a traditional stamp. Hope you get inspiraton from all these and enjoy making your own- I will warn you tho, they ARE very addictive.
Take care!
~Brandie~

Canvas Art

So this week on Splitcoast Stampers in their tutorial of the week is stamped canvas. It's quite cute and I realized that I had about 20 (seriously) of these 4x6 mini canvases hanging around my craft space. I was going to do letter art with them- but I got bored of them- and to be truthful, they weren't as cute as this! All the images are from Pink Cat Studio with their amazingly cute Lily and Billy collections. The images here are from Enchanted Lily and Lily Valentine Fairy. The images are crisp and easy to color. I used Stazon ink and tho it didn't come out QUITE as crisp as I'm used to, it still worked well as art. I used my Stampin' Up watercolor pencils and blender pens to color in the images and then used Stickles to highlight different areas with glitter glue. I also spread the color over the edges (like an inked edge) and used a spounge paint brush and blender pens to blend the color and then highlighted with Stickles

I finished them off with some inexpensive thin ribbon from Michaels and flowers from Prima. I punched holes using my Crop-A-Dial big bite and weaved ribbon thru them to use them as wall hangings- I think these would be cute to hang in a child's room. I am going to try some more using different images- I have Pink Cat Studios "Billy" plate and I am excited to use that for more 'boy-ish' ones. I also have some Inkadinkado clear stamps- the monkey ones (whatever they are called- I forget!)

To do the 6x6 one, I didn't have a canvas, so I used watercolor paper, cut to 6x6 and used Mod Podge to adhere it to a 6x6 peice of chipboard. I used the same idea, but used 2 images from Enchanted Lily, and had space to put my daughter's name. The letters are 1 inch and cut from Cricut's Storybook Cartridge and topped off with glitter.

Hope you liked these :) Take care!

~Brandie~

Cardbox Template

We've heard of cards. We've heard of boxes. Heck, we've heard of boxed sets of cards. Here is my spin on it! I got the idea from Clearly I Stamp, they used a clear box they had on hand. I decided to make my own boxes. I suppose you could use acetate, but I tried that it was hard :S Acetate is NOT the easiest thing to cut straight for box building most of the time!

So here is what we are making today: They are 2 3x3 boxes attached in the center with a 'card'.

So first thing is first, materials needed are:

1 sheet of 8.5x10 sheet of cardstock, cut in half at 5 so you have 2 peices of 8.5x5 peices

background stamps (I used Stampin' Up Jumbo Wheels: It's Beautiful and Scattered Sunshine)

Ink (Stampin' Up Pretty In Pink, Chocolate Chip, Pink Passion)

Paper (Stampin' Up Bella Rose (yes, I still have some!))

Embellishments (I used Stickles, EK Success, Stampin' Up and Martha Stewart Corner Punches and Marvy Uchida Daisy punch in regular and jumbo)

Adhesive

Cardstock to make mini note cards. I used scraps and made my cards 2.75x2.75

Stamps (Stampin' Up: Itty Bitty Buds, Lovely Lables and Say it with Scallops)

Step 1:

Score each peice of 8.5x5 at 1 inch and 4 inches.

Turn it length ways and score at 3, 4, 7, and 8 inches. Cut the tabs as shown, and then cut slits to make the tabs easier to fold in. Cut the top tabs a bit smaller so they tuck in when closing your box, and using a corner punch, punch the corners of the top tab as shown.

Step 2.

Stamp desired background, or using DSP cut and adhere panels of the paper over the front and the sides. Do this to both peices of 5x8.5 sheets of cardstock. On one of the peices, if desired, cut a circle out of the center front panel.

Step 3.

Using acetate cut at 2.75x2.75, adhere to the inside to make a 'window'. I also embossed the acetate using my cuttlebug and a floral Cuttlebug embossing folder.

Step 4.

Adhere boxes with adhesive in the spots shown in the photo.

Here are your two boxes all built together. Decorate the front (window) box as desired.

Step 5.

Then, using a peice of 2.75x5.75 cardstock, score at 3 and 3.25 and in the middle of the 2 scores. Decorate the inside as this will be the card that adheres both boxes together. DO NOT decorate the outside of the card, you wont see it. Just do the inside. Using double stick tape, adhere the card to one of the boxes, letting the crease go just beyond the side of the box (so when you open the boxcard up, the boxes with sit side by side and have some give). Adhere the other side to the back box. Make sure the top of the boxes open in opposite directions.

Step 6.

If you choose to fill it with note cards, using scraps of 2.75x5.5 peices of cardstock, make some note cards. I made 4 of each, totaling 16 cards. Envies wont fit- so you don't have to do that many. You can instead add: Sticky Note packs, chocolates or other gifts :)

An alternative of this, is to make 1 box, forget the cutout circle and attach a card to the front, as shown. Same idea, only using 1 box.

Here are some other ideas using that idea:

box for my parents anniversary:
Valentine's Day cards for the kids:

You can alter the sizes all you want- I've made a 4x4x1.5 box (seen above) and it fit a bunch of chcolates in it for my parent's anniversary. These are so much fun and versatile- think baby gifts, candy, small shirts etc. The possibilites are endless. I hope you enjoyed the tutorial and will blog again soon!

~Brandie~

Girly Birthday Set...AND news!

April is a big month for birthdays in the Nellis house. My daughter turned five this month, my neice turned two, two days later. On top of that is my aunts, and my husband's mother and brother. I'm sure there are more family members out there that I'm forgetting- but those are the closest that I can think of. Being as Bella's and Tori's birthday are so close I'm usually a busy beaver making party favours and cupcake treats. I made three batches of cupcakes in three days! To top that all off, I found a cute cupcake wrapper template and decided to jump on that bandwagon! It was fun! I have no idea how people punch the edges out- I tried (and failed) so I improvised! Then, of course, you need the cupcake toppers- cuz no cupcake would be complete without them! So here is the ensemble for Bella's birthday party- I used cupcake wrappers and toppers for Tori's birthday (didn't have time to make the wrappers for Bella's) and the invites and favours were for Bella's birthday with different cupcake toppers.

Pink pink and MORE pink- no greater colour was ever introduced for a little girl! (or boy- no being sexist here!) I remember the old Crayola 8 colours box of crayons. You had your primary and tritary colours- plus black and brown. Pretty basic. Then you could go up to 16 colors- with various shades of the basic 8. And white- that was cool- and pink. Sometimes 2 shades of pink! I joke on those internet quizzes that ask "if you were a crayon, what colour would you be?" and I always answer- as girly of a pink as you can get! I love doing girly projects, I find boy projects so much harder, but girls are way easy with the flowers and the glitter and the ribbon! I am lucky I have 2 girls that I can do that with- but I need to expand my 'boy' repitoir for my 2 sons!

So as you can see- I couldn't figure out the swirl star decorators tip for the cupcakes- I REALLY want to take the Wilton cake decorating class. I can do the star pattern for liscensed cakes- just not that darned "swirl" for cupcakes :( someday tho! I printed out the cupcake wrapper template, stamped it with my jumbo "It's Beautiful" stampin' around wheel and then I cut some mini and small daisies from my Marvy Uchida punch and sporatically 'zotted' them around the top to give a raised look. I finished with some sheer ribbon at Michaels- easy peasy and so cute! I used the colour scheme to make the cupcake topper too- in fact, I carried the scheme to the whole set. I love sets :)

I tried my hardest to make the cupcake wrapper into a mini flower pot by cutting strips on the bottom and adding a circle inside and out for stability- well- they looked so stupid. So I went for the traditonal 'box'. I stamped it with the jumbo wheel, added scalloped edges peices with some 3D pop adhesives and added a ribbon and some more daisies. I filled them with Smarties and Ju-jubes (I always thought they were jubejubes. Meh). Then I went gung ho and made some caramel lollipops covered in chocolate. *drool!* they were so good! I ate all the leftovers!- there were only a few- and I DID share with the kids! The lollipops, for all you candy makers out there, was simple. I have an AWESOME caramel recipe that I used, smooshed into a Wilton lollipop mold (with the smiley faces) and added the sticks. I froze them so they'd be easy to dip then I dipped them into chocolate and let set. I REALLY wanted to make some lollipop covers- I'd seen a really cute pattern- but alas, time ran out! Besides, little 4/5 yr old girls wouldn't appreciate the craft as much as the candy underneath. So I'll save that project for another time!

Now, the invites were REALLY fun and I was looking for something new, so I decided to try the Free standing pop up card tutorial found on Splitcoast stampers!

The second pic didn't turn out too well as the batteries in my camera DIED! BUT I really enjoyed doing these and thing they turned out great! I printed the party info on my cardstock (I love using my printer and all my fonts- makes it easy and then I don't have to buy a multitude of saying and phrase stamps). I used the same Stampin' Around wheel, sheer ribbon and daisy punches. I also used a Flourish stamp set that I have and some silver ink and embossing powder. The moms all thought they were neat- and I love how they stand up on the tabletop- so simple too!

So that's it for birthday party stuff! I made 'Banana Split' cupcakes using white cake mix and it turned out fabulous and then Bella had cherry chip for her party while I made Tori some Spice cupcakes. Fun fun fun- I want to learn how to decorate them SOOOO BAAAAAAAAD- especially with how cute they look with all their paper get up.

Now- I said I had news didn't I? Well, DH is a computer tech and one of the customers came in and they started talking. Somehow the subject of 'me' came up- she was saying she owns her own store and Chris mentioned that I did too- only it was on Facebook. She proceeded to ask what I did and he said that I am a cardmaker and make some amazing things out of paper (his words- not mine- thanks for the ego boost hon!) and she said that she would be interested in seeing my stuff and if she likes it, she'll set up a space in her store for it. EEEEEEEEEEK!!! I KNOW! I love how supportive my husband is! He keeps getting on me to call her and then we went down (they were closed for inventory- so no go this week!) and even let me buy some materials to make stuff to show her (and getting him to fork over for crafting stuff is- well, not very hard cuz he's good about that- but having him mention it is down right miracleous!) I am so blessed to have such a support and encouraging husband :) So I need to go and review some Angel policies and start making tags for them- but other than that- wish me luck! A whole new door is about to open :D

~Brandie~

Just (Hat) Dance

Oh the envy of it all. My good friend is going to Toronto to see LADY GAGA! aigh- so excited for her- so sad that it's not me. But then again- I'm not much of a concert goer- so I'll stick to cranking up her music on my computer while I clean the house. So trying to get this done quickly as SOMEBODY (ahem-Matt-ahem) is having his grumpy time tonite, but really wanting to keep up with blogging more often.

So anyways, my friend-going to Gaga- messages me on facebook asking if I could create a small hat headpeice. Well- I really didn't think I could considering my material of choice is paper. I declined. But then I kept thinking about what she had said (she called me Wise and Crafty One- that kinda goes to a person's head! lol) and THEN I had a dream about the damned hat. Seriously. So then my mind was REALLY reeling on ideas. So I sketched some ideas, looked up how to make lolita style hats on YouTube and blog sites. Went to Michaels and bought a mini top hat (meant for teddy bears) and came up with THIS:

I personally love how it turned out- and thankfully so does she :) It was so simple- basically all I was doing was embellishing an existing item- and what crafter (especially paper crafter) can't do that? I used some black and hot pink silk roses that I found in the wedding ailse, some feathers in the doll ailse and lace, tulle and sequins found at Fabric land. That and some hot glue (soooo much hot glue hurting my poor fingers) and some alligator hair clips and VOILA the look came together- very Gaga if I DO say so myself! And it only took me 2 hours to whip it all together. Now, being a paper crafter I just KNEW this project was not finished! It needed to be displayed properlly when not fixed onto my friends hair-do. So being as the hat is 4 inches round I had to work on a box that would work, and be large enough- which as we know- working with 8.5x11 paper- getting things big enough can be a challege. So after 2 botched attempts- I came up with this adorable box to display the hair peice in:

I basically just made a 4.5x4.5 base out of hot pink cardstock, just a basic box upside down, then attached some black cardstock cut at 8.5x9.5 and scored at 2.5 on both sides, and attached some acetate cut and scored the same length on the front. Then I made a lid, used my Martha Stewart punch for flare, created a tag and finished off with some extra hot pink ribbon and left over black and hot pink rosettes.

So that was my project for today! My daughter turns five in two days and her party is in four- so I'll be busy with some kid friendly party favours and cupcake treats. I found templates for cupcake wrappers and am SO thrilled to get them going for her b-day. But the hat is the it for now- so now that the baby is calm I am taking advantage of it and going to go and relax- have a great night everyone!

~Brandie~

Easter Wishes

Hello folks! Yes it's been a long time since I've posted on here- I hope you all forgive me- blogging, crafting and generally having time to myself is ellusive with the arrival of a newborn! Welcome to the world Mathias Alexander Nellis!

So there's mae boy! The reason for non-blogging and no-crafting. I have been able to squeeze in a bit as of late though. It's been tough, my other 'baby' will be five in April and adjusting to the whole new lack of sleep/changing diapers phase hasn't been easy- especially with out needy this new little one is. BUT having had three kids already, I know that it's just a phase and it'll be over far too quickly.

Now- on to some crafting :D

Easter is only a few days away, and I have decided to become a bit ambitious- I made a few sets of Easter boxes to sell online. I need to remember to make a Stampin' Up tag to go with them all as the materials (stamps, inks and wheels) are all from Stampin' Up. Speaking of which, if I do sell these boxes off and get a decent income tax return- I can have another big box of goodies show up at my door- hehehehehe- they are so addictive! I rationed out the paper I bought last year because I can't buy all the time, but it is a nice treat!

SO the first is my Carrot Patch box:

It was fun to design this cute little box- I could even make a box to put it in so it's a bit easier to give as a gift, but I'd need a 12x12 sheet to do that, and I'm not THAT ambitious right now! I cut 3 1.5 inch circles side by side on the the top to house 3 12 inch decorators bags from Wilton, and filled those bags with small candies (here I used peanut M & M's, plain M & M's and Hershey chocolate candy eggs) I trimmed about 2 inches off the top of the bags so they wouldn't be HUGE! A person could even stamp on the bags with Stazon ink- I don't have any of that so I didn't do that- but I think it would be really cute! I used my Martha Stewart fence punch and made a fence around the base. THEN I stamped a garden on white cardstock with my Itty Bitty Buds set (I use it a LOT can't ya tell?) and adhered it about 1/2 way up the base- hiding the seem with Martha Stewart punch around the page Flower Shower border punch and some teal silk ribbon from Michaels. It was pretty simple to assemble, the box was scored at 3 inches all the way around- leaving a 2.5 inch x 5 inch base- you'll have to trim the sides a bit to make the sides fit, but it wasn't too bad. To add some interest, I used my It's Beautiful stampin' around jumbo wheel (I can't remember the name of the one I used on the backside of the white garden- I took the sticker off!)

Next I have my milk cartons- these were hard to figure out- but fun once I got them going!

I called these milk carton duets.

So as you can see- the milk cartons are done with acetate, not easy to figure out how to do, but once I did, it was cake making them. I love the easter colours! So classic, yellow, lavender, teal and pink! In order to make these, I had to pick apart the milk carton tutorial found on Splitcoast stampers.

Step 1 is to create the base. I used a 3.5 inch square and scored it at 0.5 inch all the way around. To add dimmension I used a standard Stampin' around wheel. Using ink a similar colour of the cardstock was able to give it a watercolour look. Then I assembled the bottom, easy peasy.

Step 2 I took a peice of acetate measuring 10.5x2.5 inches and scored at 2.5, 5, 7.5 and 10, adhereing the 0.5 tab to the edge. I added sticky tape along the bottom of the acetate and squeezed it into my base. The carton top was a bit harder to figure out.

Step 3 Cut a peice of cardstock 3x10.5 inches. I again used my Stampin' Around wheel to add a punch of colour ( I can't remember the names of them- so bear with me!) I scored .5 inch on both the top and the bottom, then I scored it at 2.5, 5, 7.5 and 10- then follow the score pattern for the top of the milk carton:

www.splitcoaststampers.com/resources/tutorials/milk_carton_box They have the score lines drawn out- just follow that pattern :) The bottom .5 inch is not to be scored, that's just the peice that adheres to the top of the acetate. NOW! DO NOT ASSEMBLE THE TOP! Repeat, do NO assemble the top yet. I tried assembling the top and then adhereing it to the acetate- didn't work very well. Very messy. SO to save you some time, follow these directions: add peices of sticky strip along the bottom .5 inch (the peices that would adhere to the acetate) then adhere it side by side to the acetate, that way you can make sure that your sides are all aligned. Then, once all 4 sides are attached to the acetate, attach the tab to the inside and adhere the top of the milk carton as per instructions on splitcoast. I hope that's easy enough to understand! Like I said, I'm not a great teacher and I don't have a recorder to video myself to show you what I mean. BUT I loved the overall effect. To hide the box seems I used my SU border punch and attached that top and bottm, finished with an embellishment and ribbon and filled with candy! The box that they came in was easy to put together, I took a 7.75 x 5 peice of cardstock, scored at 1.75 inches all around, trimmed the edges with my border punch and added a handle. Embellish then VOILA you're done!

Well, that should be about it for me- at least for now until the baby wakes up- my house has become a den of "I'll get to it laters" and I should get to it now.... after I make a homemade iced cap! - oh okay, 1 more 'tutorial' for ya then:

Homemade Iced Caps

1 cup of ice/crushed

1/2 cup of milk

3 tbsp international coffee of your choice (I use French Vanilla)

AND if you want a punch of sweet yumminess-

1 cup of vanilla ice cream

Blend, enjoy YUM-O! lol have a great day everyone!

~Brandie~

Scrapbook Book Box Set

Isn't life sometimes surprising? I FINALLY finished doing another Book Box Set, this time using mini scrapbooks instead of folders for cards. I finished it yesterday and gave it to my friend for her daughter. She wanted pink and lime green- very retro cool! My daughter saw one and wanted her own set now- I would probably make hand made embellishments and package them up as Lexie loves scrapbooking on her own. In fact, all she wanted from her father and I for Christmas was a complete scrapbook kit in a size 8x8. It took a while to find a girly one that wasn't wedding engagment or baby girl and they don't have refill kits of anything but. Oh well- I can make her her own kits! It's neat that she's into something that I'm into and we can share that.

So anyways, I finished the box set for my friend and wanted to blog a tutorial and I went on Splitcoast Stampers and checked out some wonderful projects for ideas and lo-and-behold someone used my idea! WOW! That just struck me as amazing that someone would want to take a spin on something I made. Here's the link to her spin on my Book Box Set, along with her own tutorial of it:

frugalideasfromtheparsonage.blogspot.com/2009/12/box-of-books-stationary-set.html

I hope the link works- I couldn't copy and paste it and I had to type it by hand :S Sophia's idea was to use it as a stationary set with envies, notecards and paper- VERY pretty :) I think it is neat to see different uses for different tutorials. I love how different minds can come up with very unique projects. My original idea was for cards, then a friend of mine wanted to know if the 'books' can be scrapbooks. I whipped something up and I was able to come up with this:

The complete box measures 5x7x2- so it does require a 12x12 sheet of cardstock to complete it. Cut the cardstock to 12x11 and then I scored the cardstock at 5 inches on both sides across, then at 2 inches on the top and bottom. Cut the scorelines in the middle (it will be a 2 inch x2 inch tab) on the top and bottom and then fold the sides over and adhere together. Very easy peasy. NOTE: if you want to embellish your box- do it before you assemble it :D I used So Swirly Jumbo wheel by Stampin' Up to embelish my box. The books were 5x7x0.5 inches. I just cut some cardstock to 10.5x7 (I don't know the exact measurements- but I shrunk the sides and the top by 1 tick on my cutter- I THINK it's 1/16th or 1/8th of an inch? Something like that? To give yourself more wiggle room so your books aren't sticking out of the box). Now- for my cards, the box was smaller as it just held standard A2 cards so that box was 4.5x5.5x2 and I just made a pocket to hold the cards in each book. This time, for a scrapbook, I made it so you can put standard 4x6 photos in it using homemade photo mats and an EK Success corner punch.To make the pages of the book, I cut white cardstock to 10x7 (minus a couple of ticks so we don't have paper sticking out!) and folded them in half. I did that with 5 peices of paper and adhered them with double stick tape back to back so I'd have sturdy pages. Then I adhered the last page to the back of the book. I inked the edges of my photo mats and then embossed them with my glitter/embossing powder mix. I highlighted the edges of my journaling pages with my SU! standard wheels and used my Bitty Buds SU! stamp set for embellishing the pages. I don't have a photo- but the back page of each book had either 2 mini envelopes for memorabilia or a pocket with an insert for more journaling or notes. To add interest with embelishments, I added rhinestones and ribbon from Michaels and stickles. To make my own flowers, I used my tiny 6 petal flower punch from EK Success, using 2 different coloured cardstock, I covered the flowers with stickles, waited until they dried and then layered then- 1 flower on the other and used a rhinestone for the center. When you make your books- you'll have a bit of space in the inside as there are enough pages to give you wiggle room to add a bit of bulkier (not too bulky) embelishements.

Because the box was 2 inches wide and each book was .05 inches wide I was able to fit four books in. remember to cut a half circle, or other shape, into the sides of the books as a bit of a 'peeka boo' and so you can slide your books out with ease. Here are some photos of the layouts in the other books:

I stamped the outter edges of the books to leave some interest. Now they can hold your 4x6 photos and be placed on your bookshelf without taking up as much room as a large 12x12 album.

Now- the instructions for the Book Box Set for cards is exactly the same idea- but you use an 11x9.5 sheet of cardstock instead, and then score each side (length ways) at 4.5 inches and then score 2 inches top and bottom. You COULD use an 11x8.5 sheet- but you'd have to cut a seperate panel and adhere it peice by peice. I found it easier to just use 12x12 size. Sophia only had 3 books on her stationary set- so you could even use 11x8.5 size and just make 1 less book so you don't have to worry about cardstock being too small. Again- she's got the tutorial for what she made over at her blog- take a look, her take on a stationary set was VERY elegant with some really pretty colours :)

Well- that's it for me! Three weeks and 1 day (and counting...) til the newest member of the Nellis clan is due to arrive and now with the hubabalo of Christmas gone, I may even have some time and energy to craft for fun! Thanks for stopping by!

~Brandie~