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31/07/2013

Washitape Wednesday

I couldn't think of anything to post last night, and this morning I found a stack of letters I need to envelope and get in the mail, so I did a washitape envelope. It's super quick and simple.


Here's the envelope before I put the address label onto it. I used various shades of blue/teal.


I angled the address label so I wasn't completely hiding the washitape in the middle. I think I'm going to make more like this!


In other Washitape Wednesday news, Jon picked up a couple more racks (on top of the far right rack). I still need more to get all my multi-coloured rolls onto racks, but I'm happy with how it's starting to look. I'll get it all onto racks, and everything where I like it, and then we're going to move and I'll have to reorganize all over again!

Hope you all have a wonderful Wednesday. Don't forget to share your projects over at Crafting a Fairytale.
-Alex


30/07/2013

Felt Flower Tutorial

That's right, another flower tutorial. I have no idea what I'm going to do with all these flowers I've made, but when I figure it out, I'll let you know!


Here's my finished flower. Below I'll show you how to make it.


You start with a piece of felt. Mine is 8 1/2" x 11"


Trace and cut out six large circles and one small circle. My large circles are 3 1/2" and my small circle is 2 1/4". You can make yours any size you want.


Start by folding your circle in half.


Next, fold your circle into an S or Z shape.


Put hot glue at the base where your felt meets to form your S shape. Make sure to hold the felt in place until the glue sets to prevent the felt from separating.


Place hot glue onto your small circle and adhere your S shapes to it. Make sure that no more than half of the S shape is on your circle. You want to be able to fluff your flower when you're finished.


Adhere a button, or large gem into the centre of your flower and fluff the petals around it. If you don't want a button in the middle, you could layer more felt circles to fill the hole.


There you have it! Mine has pen marks on the edges (I trimmed them off later).

Have a wonderful Tuesday!

-Alex

29/07/2013

DIY Coasters

Good morning, hope everyone had a wonderful weekend! I had hoped to get more accomplished this weekend, but unfortunately procrastinated my way through the weekend. I did however get this tutorial made last night while watching Breaking Amish L.A.

I found a similar tutorial on Pinterest a while back, and since I don't have any coasters, I figured I might as well make some myself. In the process of making some myself, I made this tutorial for all of you!



First off, you'll need terracotta planter bases (the orange breakable ones), some paint (I used acrylic), paper of your choice and Mod Podge (not pictured) and a paintbrush or sponge brush. My planter bases are 4 1/4" inches across.


Start by painting your bases the colour of your choice. I avoided painting the middle of the base because it would be covered by the paper so no one would see it.


Make sure you paint the sides as well, they'll be visible! I painted my bases with 2-3 coats of white paint, allowing it to dry between coats. I need to do a few touch ups to a couple, but otherwise they look really good despite that!


I measured the bottom of my bases and cut a piece of paper into a 3 1/2" circle. 


Put a thin coat of Mod Podge onto the centre of your base.


Place your paper circle onto the bottom and smooth it out. Then put a thin layer of Mod Podge over the paper. I also put it up the sides and applied another coat once it dried to make sure it was sealed and that moisture wouldn't ruin it.


They're not completely dry, but here's what my finished coasters look like! I made them black and white so they'd match the room I used them in no matter where I used them!
I think I'm going to make more and use them as house warming presents! They're so simple but so pretty and the possibilities are endless with all the paper out there!

I'd love to see your projects, feel free to E-mail them to me any time!
creationsbycoal@gmail.com

Have a great Monday!
-Alex

26/07/2013

Birthday Wishes

Good morning loves! Hope you're all feeling wonderful today! I'm sure everyone is excited for the weekend. I'm working again this weekend, but I'll try and come up with something other than cards and shopping trips to post next week! I have a few projects in mind, but they take longer than a couple of hours, and since I do most of my posts the night before, I don't have time to do a few things I'd like to.

Today, I tried something a little different. I never use border punches on the edge of a card, but today I wanted to hide the fact that the paper didn't quite reach the edge without cutting it smaller.


I love the different shades of green paired with the navy on this one! I just wish I'd had ribbon to match that could hide the seams.


Here's a side view of the card. The punch I used along the side is one of the new Stampin' Up! ones that I picked up last weekend.


I inked the edges of the birthday wishes, and used foam squares to adhere it to the card. I added gems to give the card a little something more.


Here's what it looks like closed. I only trimmed the front layer with the punch, and left the back layer the way it was. I love the business of the middle, and the simplicity of the top and bottom.

That's all for today! Hope you all have a wonderful weekend.
With Jon being gone this weekend, I should have tons of time to get things done!

-Alex 

25/07/2013

Hello Darling - Project Life Inspired

Good morning darlings! I hope you all had a wonderful Wednesday!


First off, I made a few cards (like 4 or 5) and there was a giant mess afterwards. Today, instead of cleaning up my mess I simply made it worse. Now tomorrow I'll have to clean it all up.


Today's card is inspired by the Midnight Edition of Project Life. I was opening up my kits today, and flipping through all the cards. I'm so in love with the variety, and I can't wait to mix and match them throughout my album. I've decided that I'm going to start documenting things with Project Life starting in January. I have a lot of changes happening in my personal life towards the end of this year and  the beginning of next.


The Midnight Edition is black, yellow and grey. I rounded the corners to look like a Project Life card (only larger), and added ribbon to bring in more yellow. The gems were an after thought.


Here's a slight side view of the card. The "Hello Darling" is raised above the ribbon with foam squares, and the ribbon wraps around slightly inside.


I originally wanted it just to say hello, then I remembered I had this stamp, and it really tied the whole card together. I rounded opposite corners for a unique shape, and inked the edges with orange and yellow.

This card was so simple, and I love it so much! I love the yellow and black colour combo. It's bright and happy without being too in your face cheerful.

Hope everyone has a wonderful Thursday! See you all tomorrow, for one last post before the weekend! Maybe I'll do something a little more exciting! We'll see how much time I have after work!

-Alex



24/07/2013

Washitape Wednesday

Hooray for Washitape Wednesday. Super excited to link up with Tiffany at Crafting a Fairytale! This is possibly my favourite post of the week. It allows me to try different things with my washitape collection, and use it for different things as opposed to just having a bunch of tape sitting around collecting dust.

I encourage all of you to try some of your own washitape projects and submit them to Washitape Wednesday over at Crafting a Fairytale. We'd love to see what you can come up with!


Alright, so here's the card I made. The banner is made with washitape, scrap white paper and tan coloured twine. I decided to make it a get well card since yesterday's was a happy birthday card.


I adhered my washitape to the scrap white paper and left space between them so that I could cut them out. I left an overhang on one end to wrap around the twine, and folded the other end over the back.


The top of this piece was where I cut the triangles out for my banner, and the pieces hanging over went around the twine to adhere them to it.


I secured the washitape banner to the card with my tape gun. Keep in mind the adhesive doesn't stick well to the washitape so leave space for your adhesive on the back.


Here's a close up of the other two pieces. I tied the ends of  the twine in bows and adhered them with a glue dot. I tried to use the yellow and red pieces to hide it slightly.


Here's a close up of my sentiment. I used black ink because I didn't want to try and match one of the colours from the banner.

Hope you all have a wonderful Washitape Wednesday! Don't forget to share your projects over at Crafting a Fairytale (or in the comments below). We'd love to see what you can come up with. Or feel free to leave future project suggestions in the comments!

-Alex

23/07/2013

Chevron Birthday Card

I'll admit that I struggled with this. I spent my morning working on it, and finally came up with this. It's simple, and cute and I'm so happy with how it eventually turned out.


I added the swirls at the top to make it a little less boring and balance out the bottom.


You can't really tell, but I cut the black and white paper with decorative scissors.


I'm not perfect, the middle one smudged a bit, but I kind of like it.

Hope everyone has a wonderful day!
I'll see you all tomorrow for Washitape Wednesday!

-Alex

22/07/2013

Craft Supply Haul

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend! Today I have more craft supplies to share with all of you!

I spend very little time browsing the Yardsale Facebook page for my town. However I've bought so many craft supplies from one lady that she's kind enough to inform me when she's selling items. Unfortunately I didn't seem them soon enough to snag more baby stamps, or her Cuttlebug and a TON of accessories for it, but I still managed to get a lot of other things, mostly stamps.

This massive purchase of over $300 of used craft supplies happened over the course of two days. I'm a little ashamed it went so overboard, but at least she knows I'll buy a lot of things so it makes informing me worth her while!



Here's the two bags of things I got the on Friday. There's a lot more in them, than you'd think.


Here's everything that was in the bag on the left. So much ribbon, a few stamps, flowers books, cartridges, and an embellishment kit. (more photos below)



Here's the Stampin' Up! punches that were in the bag on the right. I can't wait to use them for lots of things! I've always been a fan of Stampin' Up! products, so these will be a wonderful addition to my collection.


Here's the Craft Mates embellishment kit when it's closed. It snaps shut so you can take it with you, which will be perfect for when I do Christmas cards and have a bunch of little pieces I need to carry around.


Here's what it looks like open. It came with a whole bunch of embellishments. The rows slide out and each individual compartment opens on its own. So handy!


Here's what came in the top row. Large button brads, coloured paper clips, metal flower embellishments, I'm not entirely sure what's in the next one. It looks like those things on the back of picture frames that you spin out of the way so you can take the back off to put your photo in. Next to that is little square mirrors, and then little wooden buttons.


Here we have the second row. Little square brads in the first, second and last compartment. Mini clothes pins, large solid colour and patterned circle brads.


In the third row we have three compartments of coloured clips, white circle tags, two compartments of metal letters and more square brads.


Here's a close up of the letters and the square brads. I'm in love with the letters!


I did close ups of the fourth and final compartment so you could see the little pieces better. The first two compartments have more square brads (all of them are a different colour. I plan to move them into the same row), little flower brads, and large flower brads.


In the second half of the last compartment we have metal spirals, different metal flowers and an empty compartment.






Above we have all the ribbon and fibres that I also bought. They all came together, and now I feel the need to make a bunch of different ribbon flowers.


I do have a cricut, I just hardly ever use it. But I was hoping that with some new cartridges I'd use it more. So I picked these up. I also got the Home Accents one, but I already have it, so I'm giving it to someone who will get more use out of it than I will.


I was really excited about these sentiment books. They're full of great things for cards and she highlighted a few that were great for different things! Can't wait to go through and mark different things for future use.


I love using these flowers, so of course I bought all of the ones she had. I also love the two taller glass jars. They're beautiful!



On Friday I also bought a bunch of stamps. I bought the above letter and number set


I love these flowers! I want to pull out my watercolours to bring some colour to them!


I'm always looking for stamps I can use on my baby cards (this is missing one), and when I saw this was the only one not snatched up yet, I had to get it!


I love the hearts on this one, and the sentiments.


I want to do more with my background stamps, but I fail when it comes to actually using them. Any tips?


Love love love this one. The writing is in French, but I thought it was the prettiest thing!


On Saturday, I bought more stamps. I need to make more sympathy cards, so I got this set.



And this alphabet and number set which has upper and lower case letters.


I love Christmas. I love making Christmas cards and these are perfect, except that the 'Merry!' stamp is missing the wood block. I'll get Jon to cut me a piece that will work. Won't be the same, but I'm not going to harass her for a missing stamp and a missing block.


This is hard to see, but they're double sided words. 


Love these stamps! Perfect for simple cards!


These are just wonderful. I love stamps that make the card for something specific without necessarily being a sentiment.


These are great for making my own sentiment and I love the container they come in. It has ridges on the bottom to keep the stamps in place!

I just realized how much I bought in the last week. How am I not broke yet?

In other news, I want to buy a Silhouette Cameo. Does anyone have one? Do you prefer it over the Cricut, or do you prefer the Cricut? I hardly use my Cricut so I want something that I'll use more.

Have a wonderful Monday!