I can finally post this...

I made three special projects awhile ago (with my wonderful zutter). They are envelopes bound together to hold letters to children.

I stuffed the envelopes with pre-printed stationary reading, "A letter from Mom/Dad on your first birthday" from 1 all the way to 18.

Made them for my friends Katherine and Drew (who are adopting, so the usual Baby's First Year album just doesn't work), Kirsten and Rich, and Cory and John (all of whom just celebrated first birthdays with their little ones).

They were so fun to put together and I know that years from now the kids will love them!

Got her game on!

With Scott out of town and a free Friday night, I emailed my crafty friends to see if anyone wanted to come over. Only Carrie took me up on it, and here's some of what we created last night.

I knocked a few more things of my "to be created" list with these cards:

these were based on some cards made by a woman at my school (remember Katy? It took a little while, but I found a smaller scalloped square punch).

and these were inspired by the ones Katy made a few weeks ago when she was here. Both are gifts for a friend.

Carrie, inspired by a set of felt letters and doo-dads she had, got her game on with this little album:

All she needs is to put in pictures! What a satisfying evening!

Zutter

Is my new favorite tool. I have made five albums using it and it is so easy! You can bind together all kinds of stuff (I have just started!). Mostly, I like that I can make it the way I want to.

Here's one project. I need to take pictures of one other. Both are gifts where lots of friends wrote messages, I took pictures of those people, and then binded it all together. Easy!











Love this new stamp, too!

I also have another project I did, but can't post that yet because it has not been mailed. Stay tuned!

Craftapalooza 2

My sister is in town and we are feeling crafty! I was working on a "Words of Wisdom" album for a friend's "green" baby shower, while Katy made these lovely cards.

At one point she asks, "Do you have any green?" To which I just laugh. This is what my workspace looked like:

Getting creative with paint!

I finally had some free time today and Ryan and I used it to paint. First I finished a layout I had started over Spring Break with pink paint and a foam florish stamp:



Then I made some cards that I'd been imagining in my head for awhile. 4" x 4" card (you can make 4 of these from a piece of 12" x 12" card stock) from free Archiver's cardstock, ivory paint swirled in the background, and a "Me and my Big Ideas" jelly sticker:



Finally, a page I've been thinking about for awhile. I've had the pictures printed, the title in my brain, and a bunch of supplies collected to do it. Today, I went by Archiver's (I have coupons that expire on Monday burning a hole in my pocket) and picked out new and different paper to do the layout:



Bazzill, Archiver's and CM cardstock, paint (made the circles with the top of a wine glass!), and BoBunny patterned paper. Wanted to do it 8 1/2" x 8 1/2" to go in my moments albums, but too many pictures led to a 12" x 12" layout. Not sure what to do with it now, maybe a frame.

TFL!

Story Tag Book

Cathy Zielske posted this idea on her blog, and at first I thought, I could do one little tag every day in March.

Wrong! But I can do one little tag for every day of Spring Break!

It's not completely finished (but then again, neither is spring break), but I am very happy with the product. I did not buy any new items for this project, only used things I have been given and have collected over time. I do not even know all the products I used, but if one sparks your curiosity, ask me and I'll try to figure it out!

Feeling too creative!

Apparently 2008 is the year of creativity for me. I am working on a few projects this evening (that I will post sometime this weekend when I get pictures taken) and I was thinking that I have made a few fun, creative things this year, and fortunately I have started this blog and I will be able to keep track of them seeing as most of them have been given away as gifts!

Then I remembered one I had not posted. And truthfully, it would be part of a 2007 collection, but who's really counting?

I made gratitude journals for my sister and for my dear friend Cory for Christmas. I know I stole the idea from someone, but I do not feel like finding it right now. I believe Cathy and Ali posted it, but that it may have orginally been Emily Falconbridge's idea.

My journals involved a 6 x 6 album made from 52 pieces of paper, one for each week of the year. I even tried (as my sister noted on Valentine's Day) to match seasonal paper to the correct week. The crazy part was that I wrote a quote on each page and stamped the numbers 1-2-3-4-5-6-7 on each page. I will probably not do that part if I ever do that again. Here's a look at the inside...the page on the left was actually a transparency:

So now, they can each write down 7 things they are thankful for each week. The other cool thing is I used Hambly clear acrylic sheets for the cover and the back. The title is on the clear acrylic with stickers:

I am eager to see how they turn out.