Sweet Teacher Cookie Basket and another eBosser Video

 

So, I got the Papertrey Ink Berry Basket Die a few months ago and haven’t even used it yet…and I was sitting there thinking what can I make with this that is Back to School?  The problem was that none of the ideas that I thought of really worked with those classic back to school colors.  Then I thought…DUH!!!  I don’t have to use the classic colors if I don’t want to!

I went with my gut and drove myself over to our neighborhood bakery.  They make these wonderful sprinkled butter cookies and I could just envision a bag of them sitting in that berry basket.  After I bought the cookies (way more than I needed), I went home and got to work.  I cut the Berry Basket die four times from Aqua Mist cardstock and scored and adhered the four sides together to create the basket.  I added some pink shredded paper to the basket and then a clear bag and filled it with the cookies.  I knew that I wanted to make a tag to be tied in with the ribbon that I was using to hold the bag closed.  Again my eBosser came to the rescue!  I cut PTI’s Tag Sale 5 from Hibiscus Burst Cardstock, My Favorite Things Fancy Flourish from Aqua Mist, PTI Doily Details from Dark Chocolate, PTI Ad Sense from Dark Chocolate Gingham pattern paper and PTI Double Ended Banner from Hibiscus Burst. Now for my sentiment…

For the sentiment, I went through my stash of sentiment stamps and did not find something that I wanted to use.  So that is when I decided that I would just need to create my own.  Using my computer and the Lettering Delights LD Carefree Black font, I printed out my sentiment onto a piece of PTI Aqua Mist Damask patterned paper.  Then I picked out a Spellbinders Label #4 die that I wanted to cut it with.  The question was how to do that so that my sentiment was perfectly lined up.  That is when the experimenting started with different sandwiches in the eBosser.  I finally found one that allowed me to get that cut perfectly lined up and so that is what today’s video is all about!

 

Now, what to do with these leftover cookies…LOL!!!

School is Almost Out!

 

Do you have a mess like this?

In case you were wondering, that is my scrap drawer and it is overflowing.  These are just the patterned paper scraps and I hate to hoard my scraps so when the drawer stopped closing nicely for me, I knew I had to do something.  At the same time, I also was trying to come up with a little something to make for my son’s teacher on the last day of school.  I like to give the teacher a gift card to an office supply store so that they can get supplies that they need for the classroom, but I really like to add a little crafty something.  I always try to make it something that is useful to them.  Kill two birds with one stone right?  Well here is what I did.

First off, I cut down some scraps to 4”x6” (this could really be any size you want) and then I went through my stamps and found a bunch of “Take Note” or “Just A Note” stamps.  I also used some of my school themed stamps.  On each sheet, I stamped something so that each sheet was different and unique.  I then cut a piece of medium weight chipboard to the same size and stacked the papers. I ended up having enough sheets that I opted to make 2 sets.  Once I had the papers all stacked, I backed them with the chipboard and then used binder clips on the sides to keep them all together.

I then (using a paintbrush) added 2 layers of Padding Compound sold by Chica & Jo on Amazon and let it dry.  A little bit of this goes a long way.  When it was all dry…I had custom made note pads.  I love these!

Now, of course since this is a gift, I have to package it up!  So using my eCraft, I cut out a couple of shapes from eCraftCentral.com and layerd a circle tag stamped with Papertrey Ink’s Tag-Its #6 mini set.  Then I tied a pretty red ribbon in a bow around the two notepads and using Scor-Tape attached the label that I made right to the ribbon so that it could easily be removed from the notepads.

Well I couldn’t stop there, I had to make a coordinating card (after all I need something to put that gift card in) and using some more scraps, I created a simple patterned paper background and then used some more shapes from eCraftCentral.com to frame my stamped tag.  I think I will put all of this together in a cute little gift bag with some black felt tip pens to go with the notepads.

This project was really easy to do and I think I am going to make up some more of these for me!

Dressing Up a Gift with the eCraft

 

One of the things that I love about my eCraft is that it allows me to take something that is bland and boring and turn it into something beautiful.  That is one of the things that I did with my eCraft for Mother’s Day, but this is something that can be done for any gift-giving holiday.  For Mother’s Day I got my mom and my mother-in-law a necklace and they came in these silver metallic boxes.  With boxes like these, I don’t need to get out the wrapping paper, but I did feel like they needed to be dressed up, so my trusty eCraft came to my rescue!

Using the Gift Bow file from the Christmas Gift Bags & Boxes collection at SVGCuts.com, I imported it into my eCraftshop Pro software and I was off cutting.  I used double sided papers from K&Company (from Citronella and Poppy Seed) so that you get that little peek of color inside the bow.  Such a nice touch.

To assemble the bow, I followed the video that SVG Cuts created to go with it.

 

The doily underneath is the My Favorite Things High Tea Party Doily die and I also die cut the Tim Holtz ticket strips to make the “tags”.  Using Distress Inks to match the colors found in the patterned paper, I colored the tags and then used some Tim Holtz Visual Artistry Seamless Experience stamps to embellish the tags.  I then handwrote the “To” and “From” for a more personal touch.  (We affectionately call my MIL “Gal” in case you were wondering).  Once the bow was assembled and everything else was ready to go, all I needed to do was adhere it on the box.

 

To finish off this post, I thought I would share with all of you a story about my Mother’s Day.  First off, I am leery of Mother’s Day.  Every single Mother’s Day that I have had since becoming a mother…something has gone wrong.  From the grill catching on fire, to a flat tire on the car, to baby Jared spitting up all over me and having to spend the rest of the day in borrowed clothes…Mother’s Day has not been kind to me.  Mother’s Day for 2012 actually wasn’t half bad!  Did something go wrong?  Yes, but it could have been so much worse.  We were leaving the house to go to our Mother’s Day lunch with all the moms and extended family.  I put these boxes in a white plastic grocery bag along with the cards to bring along.  I needed to drive that day, so I handed the bag to my husband so that the kids didn’t smash them up.  We stopped at a local store to get flowers for my husband’s grandmother and I ran in the store leaving him in the car with the kids.  When I got back to the car, I noticed that the car was cleaner.  I admit that my car is not the cleanest thing and usually the cup holders have old drinks sitting there which it did that day.  My husband turned to me and said, I cleaned up for you.  I said thank you and then asked him where the bag with the presents was.  The look on his face was….well you can guess.  Turned out that he used that white plastic grocery bag to throw away some of the garbage and did not take the gifts out of the bag!  Quickly he fished the boxes and cards out, but it was too late.  The bows and cards were wet.  Yuck!  Fortunately they did not get soaked and he spent the rest of the drive cleaning them off so that at least we had something to give the moms.  So overall, not a bad Mother’s Day…at least for me.

eCraft Monday Design Team Project

 

Before I get started with my project today, I have to send a BIG Happy birthday to my son Jared!  Happy Birthday Jared!  I love you and I cannot believe that you are already 7!  Yikes, I just realized that means that in 9 short years he will be driving!  Where does the time go? 

 

This week the eCraft Design was given quite a challenge!  I personally love to use non-traditional Christmas colors, but I usually go with bold darker colors.  We were challenged to use a hot new color combination for Christmas…Baby Pink, Baby Blue and Lime Green!  Well I love a good challenge and this one is definitely out of my comfort zone, but I have to say that I LOVE what I made!

There is such a whimsy to these colors isn’t there?  Since I am also focusing on treat containers this month, I thought it would be fun to take something that all of us have at home, and use it for our treats (which even though they look complicated, are REALLY easy, keep reading and I will explain).

 

The first thing that I did was take a jar of Classico Spaghetti sauce and made spaghetti for dinner so that I could use the jar in my project! I love the details on the jar itself, so it was perfect for this project!  I used Martha Stewart’s line of acrylic paints (found at Michaels) and painted the jar.  These paints work on all sorts of things including glass, so this was easy as can be.  The paint that I used was the satin finish and the color is called Pink Carnation.  Oh and don’t worry about the paint job being perfect because the glitter will conceal a lot!

 

 

I then took some Mod Podge and covered the entire jar and then went a little glitter crazy!  I used Martha Stewart Snow Glitter and Sterling fine glitter.  I used the Sterling sparingly just to add a little touch of silver.

 

 

While I let the jar fully dry, I went to work on my tag. I used THIS ornament from eCraftCentral.com but also found on the Jen Allyson Celebrates SD Design card. I skewed it in eCraftshop Pro to form a more oval ornament and one that was big enough for my stamps.  I cut it out of Core’dinations cardstock using a veggie mat, pressure of 5.5, no tabs and blade cover on.  I then went to stamping.  My Pink by Design stamp set Beary Merry Christmas was perfect for this whimsical project.  I actually only stamped the bears heads on the tag along with the sentiment.  I then used some Picket Fence Distress Stain to color in the bears.  I love how it gives a chalky look to it!  To do this, I just put some of the Distress Stain directly on my non-stick craft mat and then used a paint brush to paint in the bears.  I did two coats of this.  I messed up in a couple of places and just went over the black stamp lines where the Distress Stain ran over them with a black marker.  I also used the same method with Shabby Shutters Distress Stain for the scarf and the little bit of the sign that is showing.  I then used Perfect Pearls and painted that onto the ornament hanger.

 

 

I added a scalloped oval behind the whole ornament and also if you look closely you will see that there is a small amount of glitter along the edges of the blue ornament to add a little more shimmer. I then set about creating the bow around the top of the jar.  I used some Christmas ribbon from my stash and then layered it with a bow out of handmade Crinkle ribbon and topped it off with the pink button.  The ornament is actually the same thread that is threaded through the button.  I used some amazing Crafty Power Tape adhesive from 3L Adhesives to adhere this bow onto the jar, and let me tell you….it is not going anywhere!

 

 

I added some floral foam inside the jar and started to add my “Cheater Cake Pops” (more on this in a bit, I promise) into the jar and decided that I wanted one more element in there, so I created this super simple decoration using the bird cuts and the snowflake cut from the Jen Allyson Celebrates SD Design card. The snowflake can also be found on eCraftCentral.com right HERE.  For the snowflake, I again doused it with the Martha Stewart snow glitter.  After I added this into the jar, I filled it up with some decorative filler.

Now it is time to talk about the “Cheater Cake Pops”.  I got this idea from the Frugal Crafter who did this for a birthday party and I decided that I absolutely had to do this.  You see, I have been seeing recipes for the cake pops for a while now, and they look wonderful.  The problem is that, I would rather spend my time eCrafting than in the kitchen.  Who can blame me right?  That is why I never made them, they always seemed like they would take more time to do than I was willing to give to it.  So here is my recipe and it seriously took me maybe 10 minutes to do, and they were good too!

CHEATER CAKE POPS

12-16 Donut Holes (I got mine from Dunkin Donuts, you want the cake donut holes)

1 (16 oz.) package of Candi-Quick (found at any major grocery store)

Sprinkles or any other type of edible decorations

Lollipop sticks and something to stand them up in (I think floral foam would work beautifully)

 

Put your donut holes in the freezer for a few hours or overnight.  After they are frozen, insert your lollipop sticks in using a twisting motion.  Follow the directions to melt the Candi-Quick and then dip each donut hole into the Candi-Quick and let the excess drip off.  Then place in your floral foam and add your sprinkles.  Let the Candi Quick set.  That’s it, you’re done! Oh and I should mention too, that I recommend that you wrap your cake pops in a small cellophane baggie.  They sell some in the major craft stores in the candy making aisle if you plan on giving this to someone.  That way they will be protected from all the glitter!  I didn’t do that on my project because I think I am going to use this for a small centerpiece on my table.

 

 

Have a great day everybody, and be sure to come back every day this week to see what the other ladies have in store for you with this hot new Christmas color combination!

Tags as Gifts?

NOTE: This is the 2nd post of the day, so be sure to scroll down to see my first post!

Yesterday for the Papertrey Ink Blog Hop, I showed you two of the tags that I have created for this year.  Now, I would like to take the time to show you 5 more of the tags that I have created. I will be showing you more tags in the next few days as well until I have shown you all of them! Also for today I am going to show you how I am packaging up these tags to give to some people as a little gift.  Hint:  I am recycling something that any Cricut crafter has laying around... Now onto the tags...

Now onto the gift...I am giving an assortment of these tags to a few people this year.  One of whom is Jared's teacher, which I did last year for his pre-school teachers and was so well received that I have decided that this will be my standard Christmas teacher gift.  I am making improvements on it for this year however.  I decided that I wanted to put these into a box that in itself would be a keepsake.  This box needed to be big enough for all the tags, but also for a few accessories.  I wanted to include a couple of pens and also some Baker's Twine to attach these tags onto each gift.  So in my brainstorming, I came across an idea that I think all of you will love!

Awhile ago, I had to come up with some alternate storage for all of my Cricut cartridges.  After completing that storage, I was left with all of the Cricut cartridge boxes.  I could not do what others had done and just throw them out.  I knew that one day I would find a way to use them, and I did!  So I set out to recover these boxes to use as my tag boxes!  First off, here is the finished product...

Now, a little picture tutorial on how I did this.  To do this project, you will need the following supplies.

1 piece of 8-1/2" x 12" decorative paper (Note: the magnets on the box will work better if you use a thinner paper, but you will want to make sure that you can't see through the paper!)
2 pieces of 1-1/4" x 3-3/4" coordinating paper
1/4" Scor Tape or similar adhesive
E-6000 Adhesive or similar industrial strength adhesive
Empty Cricut cartridge box
Rubberbands

Step 1: Remove the interior box from the outer shell of the Cricut Cartridge box.  I recommend removing the bottom portion of the box first, as when I tried it the other way, I ended up tearing the box.

Step 2 - Apply a strip of Scor Tape to the interior edge of the outer shell right above the magnets.

Step 3 - Apply the paper to the Scor Tape as shown.  Make sure that the overlap on each side is even!!!!

Step 4 - Apply Scor Tape on all four side and along both sides of each "score" in the box.

Step 5 - Slowly fold the attached paper over and apply to each section of the outer shell.  As you go along, bend the outer shell at each "score" so that the paper does not get too tight!

Step 6 -  Fold paper over to the inside of the outer shell and adhere with Scor Tape.

Step 7 - Cut and remove the interior corner sections so that the long ends can fold over easily.  Then fold over the ends and adhere with more Scor Tape.

Step 8 - Apply the coordinating paper to the ends of the interior box that we removed earlier.

Step 9 - Apply a good amount of the E-6000 adhesive to the underside of the interior box and place in the outer shell.  Make sure you line up the "score" of the outer shell with the interior box.

Step 10 - Apply E-6000 adhesive to the back section of the interior box and fold the outer shell so that it completely surrounds the interior box.  Place some rubber bands around the box to hold it in place while the adhesive dries.  I like to let it dry overnight.

Now it is time to embellish our boxes.  On both of the boxes that I have completed so far, I used a thicker cardstock weight paper from K&Company.  Since I did this, the magnets would "grab" onto each other, but they did not hold the box closed the way I would like them to.  I decided to add a ribbon closure to the boxes.  I used Papertrey Ink saddle stitch ribbons on both boxes.  I simply adhered them onto the box with some more Scor Tape and then tied the ends into bows.  I also used the same ribbon to do a layered and looped riboon embellishment on the top of the boxes.  I then used the Jen Allyson Celebrates eCraft Design card to cut out the tags at 3 1/2" in coordinating cardstock.  I stamped each tag with some Versamark ink using Papertrey Ink's Fancy Flourishes stamp set.  I heat set that ink with my heat gun and then stamped the sentiment from PTI's Signature Christmas stamp set and heat embossed it using white embossing powder.  I inserted a little white velvet ribbon in the hole and then added a glittery button to each before adhering the entire tag to the top of the box.  Here are pictures of both finished products.

And here is a shot of the box opened with the contents inside...

I have two more of these boxes to complete, and I will be sure to share those pictures once I have them done!

Be sure to check out my first post today, as I announced the winner of the Giveaway!!



Back to School Teacher Gift!

So one of things that I have done with my son's pre-school teachers was give them a little "Back to School" gift.  My oldest son is starting Kindergarten this year, which is a very exciting time for him and I hope that the enthusiasm that he has now continues throughout his school career.  The idea for this gift I saw on a post a few years ago on Splitcoast Stampers and jotted it down and saved it in my idea drawer.  Unfortunately I did not write down who posted the idea, so I apologize to that person.  If anyone recognizes it and know who posted it, please e-mail me and I will give the proper credit.  First let's start with some pictures...

For starters, I used a "My Timeless Template" from Papertrey Ink called Home Made.  This template is only sold in PDF format, but with the help of Kay from Clever Someday and THIS method, I turned this template into an SVG file.  I then imported the template into MTC and made it as large as possible using 12 x 12 Core'dinations Cardstock.  The bus is an SVG from SVGCuts.com.  The windows are stamps from the Home Made stamp set that Papertrey Ink developed specifically for this template.  The funny thing is that I bought this template and stamp set back in November when it was released, and this is the first chance I had to use it!  Better late than never!

Now for the contents of the box!  Each item is tied with some Pure Poppy Baker's Twine from Papertrey Ink.  The tag was created from the Report Card stamp from Taylored Expressions' Make The Grade stamp set.  I got this stamp set at CHA and just knew it would be perfect for this project.  The create the shape of the tag, I used MTC.  I stamped the Report Card stamp on some white cardstock with black ink.  I then put this image on my scanner and using the Twain feature from the Pixel Trace function was able to bring this stamp into MTC.  I had to adjust the threshold to the point where I got a solid line on the outside edge of the stamp.  I then selected the image and did a "Break" and then a "Weld.  This gave me a solid image the exact size of the stamped image.  I then did a "Shadow Layer" and selected the width that I wanted.  If I were doing this over again, I would have made the Shadow Layer a little thicker.  The Taylored Expression stamps are cling rubber stamps and it was a little hard to see if I was getting the stamp completely on the tag.  Once I had my Shadow Layer, I deleted the original blacked out shape.  I then opened up my Basic Shapes and grabbed a circle.  I used the Align feature and made sure that I had half of the circle over the Shadow Layer and that it was centered on the tag.  I then welded the two shapes.  I then grabbed another circle from the Basic Shapes and sized it down and placed it on the half circle topper, and did a Boolean Join.  This method can be used for just about any stamp that you have.  If you have trouble getting the Pixel Trace to give you a solid edge, simple take a black marker and color in the edge to make sure that it is solid and try again.

I cut out 7 of these tags and stamped them with the Report Card and also the sentiment from the same set.  On the back of the tags, I handwrote some messages that relate to each gift to give it a more personalized feel.  Here are the messages along with each of the gifts.

1. Hershey Bar with Almonds - "Open in case of chocolate emergency, for when they are driving you nuts"
2. Post It Notes - "To remind you that this class sticks together"
3. Pencils - "For one sharp teacher"
4. Lifesavers - "Sometimes you need one, Sometimes you are one"
5. Hand Sanitizer - "For always giving your students a hand"
6. Kleenex - "To wipe the tears, thiers and yours"
7. Swedish Fish - "For when you O-FISH-ally have had enough"

I just barely fit all of these into the box, but a little smart packing got the job done.  If anyone would like additional instruction on the method I did with the tags, please e-mail me and I will gladly help you.  I saw a tutorial on this method somewhere, but I can't seem to find it now, but I will keep looking and will post it here should I find it.

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