Christmas Crafts

My husband and son went hunting during a few days of our Fall Break. I had the house to myself and spent quite a bit of that time crafting. My craft room looked like this most of the week.

I made Christmas cards, gift bags, a birthday wallet, a couple of birthday cards, and some treat pouches.

My Christmas cards have pop-up presents on the inside.

I took an 8 inch by 5 1/4 inch piece of white cardstock in half and made the following cuts.

Fold down the three present pieces and use a bone folder to sharpen the creases.

Push the folded pieces inward to make the pop out of the card.

Use the bone folder to sharpen the creases again.

Measure and attach three coordinating pieces of paper for the present's giftwrap.

Add small coordinating paper strips to the front of the card.

Attach the white cardstock to the inside of the card front with double stick tape.

I used three different sized circles for the tree embellishment. The tree stamp came from an old Stampin' Up set - Holiday Sampler.

I had a Hero Arts Merry Christmas die for a greeting on the front of the card.

I ended up making 16 cards. I still have other Christmas cards left over from previous years that I will also send out.

I followed the directions HERE to make a wallet gift card holder for my Dad's birthday.

I think it turned out pretty cute. It has space for four notes/gift cards.

I used THIS tutorial to make several little gift card holder bags. They are the perfect size for a gift card with a bit of tissue paper.

Then I played around with it a bit and made a larger version with sharper edges.

This card took forever to make. The 5 steps and background paper were challenging to cut. I found the template here.

I pulled out a few old Stampin Up sets  (That's Funny and Roughing It) to make a card for my Mom's 72nd birthday. My son wondered what I was doing when I set the edge of the card over the stove's flame.

These little treat holders have a few Hershey's Kisses inside. I took a 6 in. by 6 in. sheet of paper, added double sided tape on one edge and rolled it into a tube, then used tape to secure the ends of the tube in opposite directions. I used my crimper to add a little detail to the ends.

It has been a long time since I worked in my craft room. It was a lot of fun. I felt very fortunate to have all of my crafty stuff on the night of my son's band concert. Ten minutes before we had to leave for his concert venue, my son realized he did not have his bow tie or cummerbund. We quickly searched for it then I used our last few minutes to whip up a bow tie using a black foam craft sheet and black ribbon. I used a sheer black oversized scarf to make a quick cummerbund. It worked amazingly well. He was able to play in the concert.

He was nervous about not being able to play on the way to the concert but was all smile afterwards with his grandparents. It is hard to tell that his tie and cummerbund aren't the real thing.

What has been going on in your craft space?
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Crafty Weekends

More of Summer 2018

Summer is going by so quickly! We made it home from our Bonaire vacation on July 8th. Boogs went to Mobile Loaves and Fishes Camp from 9 am to 12:30 pm July 9th through July 13th. Mobile Loaves and Fishes is an outreach program to the homeless and needy in our community. Each day, the kids helped prepare sandwiches, cookies, and care packages which were passed out by adult volunteers in the evening on the streets of our city. Each year there is a different theme to the camp. Previous year's themes have been: plight of the homeless, poverty, keep Austin fed, service in your community, cultures around the world - one world/one people, serve to fight the world's hardships. This year's theme was Fling the Doors Open - welcome all without judgement but with dignity, respect, and love. Boogs enjoys this camp. This year he helped prepare food, managing donations for the clothes closet, organizing food pantry donation, paint bags to be sold with the money going to fund the food pantry, and contribute to a community project. It is a wonderful opportunity for him to experience life outside of our suburban bubble.

We had a quiet week last week. We visited with friends, read books, got in some writing practice, played at a couple of different pools, Boogs practiced his trombone each day, we played card games, hide-n-seek,  Boogs and I both had dentist appointments, Boogs had an orthodontist appointment, and we even did a little bit of crafting. Boogs and Daddy took a day to themselves and went to Main Event. They played laser tag, went bowling and rock climbing, played video games, and went to a pinball place.

Boogs bought this emojii poo pool float for my birthday. He is having a blast with it. We have been at our neighborhood pool many times recently. Sometimes as early as 7 a.m.

I am so thankful to have pools near us to cool off in. This summer makes it exhausting to be outside without a cool dip.

  Daddy joined us at the neighborhood pool one day.

We me friends at Milburn Pool for an afternoon. I prefer the quiet of our neighborhood pool.

Boogs chose some interesting hide-n-seek spots. 

We were in Bonaire on the 4th of July. It is a family tradition for us all to get pedicures on the 4th of July. Boogs was happy that this tradition was merely postponed and not called off.

We went and saw The Incredibles 2. Boogs liked the first movie better. I liked both movies.

In the mornings, it was barely cool enough to enjoy a little hammock time. Boogs spent a few mornings reading in the hammock. He usually came back inside by 8:30 a.m. and then immediately went to take a shower to cool off. This has been a very hot summer.

It has been awhile since Boogs has wanted to do any kind of crafts with me.   I pulled out some canvases and paint and talked him into painting pictures of our pets. He chose to paint his hedgehog Nebraska and I painted my dog from many, many years ago. Our first step was to get pictures and do a bit of sketching.

Boogs is holding Nebraska. Hedgehogs are so cute!

I think my dog Nikki is just as cute as Nebraska. She was a Yorkie Poo. Sweetest little dog, she lived for 17 years. I still miss her.

After we sketched out our subjects, we painted them. Here are the results. My husband thought they were "interesting" looking. You know, it is about the process, not merely the results. Ha! We had fun working on them even though they look a bit odd. Yes, I do realize that my dog looks like a raccoon.

I also did a bit of crafting of my own for my friend's wedding. I made a wedding card and a garter for her. I free hand cut the dress and tuxedo. I embossed the dress with a BigShot swirl, but the card looked a little plain.

I went to Michael's craft store to find a little bit of bling to liven up the card. I think it made a world of difference. The Mr. & Mrs. metal plate was leftover from a set I bought 15 years ago after my husband and I got married.

The couple said that gifts were unnecessary but if you insisted, they would prefer money to help fund their honeymoon. I don't like to give cash as a gift in a plain old ordinary envelope so I decided to turn it into a garter. I took a regular garter, folded bills in half, secured the bills around the garter with small rubber bands, then wrapped ribbon around each bill. I was not very neat with the ribbon, but I was okay with how it turned out. The wedding was beautiful.

It was so nice to have a quiet(ish) week. It seems like life has been non-stop since our school year ended.

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Feeling A Bit Crafty

It has been a long time since I have made anything with my card making supplies. A couple of birthdays and a baby shower were perfect reasons to drag out my stamps, ink, ribbon, and cute paper.

I saw THIS minion card using the Sizzix Pop 'n Cuts die. The card was so cute I wanted to make my own Minion pop-up card. I don't have that Sizzix die so I went old school and got out my How to Make Super Pop-Ups book. I searched through my box of scrap paper to find the perfect colors for my little Minion. I think he turned out pretty cute. It was harder than I thought it would be to get the right shape for the Minion.

When the card is closed you can see the Minion peeking over the top.

This was a fun card to make for a special Minion fan.

I needed a card for my cousin's baby shower for her first child. I pulled all of my baby related Stampin' Up sets off my craft shelf and decided to use the Baby Firsts retired set. I love the screaming baby stamp in that set. The word stamp is from Stampin' Up's Curvy Verses set.

I found this cute card with a free template for a paper bow HERE. The instructions for making the bow are super easy. I may even use these paper bow directions for adding a bow when wrapping gifts.

I went through my scrap paper basket and found coordinating pieces of Stampin' Up paper, cut the paper into one inch strips, adhered them to a cream colored background and mounted them on a folded piece of textured brown cardstock. The happy birthday stamp is from Stampin' Up's Teeny Tiny Words set.

Maybe it will be less than six months before I feel crafty again.

Grandmaman, are you still making cards?

Thank You Cards

Someone gave me a couple of sheets of this scrapbook paper and I thought it would be perfect for end of the year thank you cards for the teachers at school. I used the same few pieces of paper for all three cards. They turned out great to pair with Starbucks gift cards and homemade zucchini muffins.

 

It was fun to try and make three different cards using the same paper, ink, and stamp set. I used my retired Espresso Yourself Stampin Up set.

What did you do for your child's end of year teacher gift?