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~

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~