Showing posts with label crafting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label crafting. Show all posts

Teacher Appreciation Week

Well hello there!! Long time no blog post!! Gosh being back in school full time has become quite the juggling act, but I had to post about some super easy, inexpensive teacher appreciation gifts!! 

Last week was teacher appreciation week at my kids school. The PTO at our school decided to have the kids write a note and give a $ donation to purchase a gift card for the teacher. At last nights PTO meeting I got to see first hand how much the teacher loved their notes and gift cards. I, of course, wanted to give my kids teacher just a bit more. It didn't sit right with me that it is teacher appreciation "week" but we did not have something planned for each day of the week for them. So I did a quick search on my favorite sight Pinterest and came up with a few ideas. I came up with five small gifts to give to my son's teachers each day last week (it was super hard to narrow down all the awesome, creative ideas to 5). The best part was I was able to whip all this up for under $10.00 per teacher!!

The best teachers teach from the heart not from the book. Teacher quotes

Glue Sticks - I bought a 6 pack, split it 3 and 3, found this super cute tag, printed, and washi tape it together.



Gum - Extra Gum, cute saying, washi tape it all together



Nail Polish - nail polish (any kind), cute saying, washi tape it all together!

 


Crayons - 1 box of crayons, and super cute saying. Washi it all together!



Berry Lotion: 1 small tube or bottle of any type of lotion that has the word berry in it. I found strawberry at Bath and Body Works (I really need to stay out of that store!), super duper cute saying and you got it......washi tape it together. 

  



So I hope you have found and idea or two for your children's teachers as I think they have a pretty tough job and could use some appreciation!


Box Card

Have you seen these box cards?? They are so cute!!! I really wanted to make one but was a little intimidated to try. Wow I wish I would have tried to make one of these a lot sooner. It was super simple and so much fun. I made one with a St. Patty theme but turned it into a good luck card. 

Here is how it came out:



Supplies:

Paper: The Paper Studios - All Seasons Three
Good Luck Title: Create a Critter 2 from Cricut
Shamrocks: Cute Shamrock from Miss Kate Cuttables
The instructions for how to make the card: Cardz TV - How to make a box card

Your My Lucky Charm

St. Patricks Day is just around the corner. So I jumped on the chance to make a St. Patrick's Day themed card. I just love this little leprechaun cut!




Supplies:


Paper: Green and white paper were border strips from Martha Stewart Crafts. Shamrock paper was a free digital paper from DBS Digi Scraps
Leprechaun: Freebie at Pretty Paper, Pretty Ribbons
Sediment: Typed and printed in Word and the font was Andalus

Happy Scrappin! 

Hello!

I love the card sketch challenge at Peachy Keen Stamps! This months sketch was so much fun!

Here is the sketch:



And here is what I did with it!



Supplies:
Paper: Studio G Owl 6x6 paper pack
Border: Dolly Border 2 from Birds Cards
Hello cut: Love, Friend, and Hello cut from Silhouette Store 

Head on over to Peach Keen Stamps to see how everyone else interpreted the sketch.

Happy Scrappin!




Card Sketch Challenge - A Little Cake!

Sketch -n- Scrap runs an awesome card sketch challenge. When I came across their blog I couldn't wait to play! I LOVED this sketch!! Here is the sketch............


.............and here is what I did with it:


The inside of the card completes the saying "A little cake......a lot of fun. Happy Birthday" I also stickled the frosting but it is hard to see in the picture. I also inked all the edges.


Supplies:

Paper: Ki Celebrate 6 x 6 paper pad
Cake cut: Miss Kate Cuttables Slice of Cake
Banner cut: Carta Bella Banners by Carta Bella
Flower Punch: Marvy Uchida Mini Flower Punch
Mat: I used  Cricut's Elegant Edges cartridge the swirl (shifted)
Stickles: Crystal
 Ink: My favorite - Tim Holtz Distress Ink in walnut stain


Happy Scrappin!


Photo/Color Inspiration Callenge - Happy Birthday Card

Peachy Keen's next challenge was a photo/color inspiration challenge. As soon as I saw the colors in the photo I knew I had the perfect paper with those exact colors in it. That was my inspiration that I took from the photo to my card. 

Here is the photo:


And here is the birthday card I created with it:



Supplies:

Designer Paper - Light Bright 6 x 6 paper pad
Banner - Silhouette cut - banner that came free with my silhouette
Font: Arial Rounded MT Bold
Cupcake: Have a stash of these laying around but I have no idea who made them - sorry. 
Stamps: General Statements wood block stamps

Happy Scrappin!

Choo Choo!!

I have been dying to make this train card. My youngest son loves trains so I thought this cut would be perfect for his birthday. But his birthday is not until June...boo! When I came across this challenge I knew I was going to make this card! It is hard to see but I added some smoke coming out of the stack and add some stickles to it! 

I used Boy's Train Card by Alaa K from Silhouette. You can get it here. I cut the train card twice. Once in green and once in blue so I could add more blue parts to the green train. I also embossed the card with Darice swirls. I used the clouds from Rainbow at Miss Kate Cuttables to make the smoke. You can get that here. This was so much fun! Thanks for the challenge!

Owl Be Your Valentine

I just got a Silhouette for Christmas and have been playing with it a lot this month! I wanted to learn how to use the print and cut feature. That is an awesome feature! I can see myself using this feature to make cards when I don't have a lot of time to put into them. Here is the card that I made for the kids to give to their teachers ( I made two of the same). 





Supplies

Pattern papers: Light Brights 6 x 6 paper pad by Designer Paper and The Basics 8 x 8 paper pad by The Paper Studio
Owl:  Pink Valentine Owl from Silhouette Store
Font: Cheri
Oval Cuts: George and Basic Cricut cartridge 
Embossing: Cuttlebug Love is in the air embossing folders  

Happy Scrappin'!!!


Happy Bee Day

Now that I have my Scrap Room all organized (you can see my space here) I have been playing in my room so much. I saw this SVG file and knew I had to make a birthday card with it!





Supplies:
Pattern papers: Light Brights 6 x 6 paper pad by Designer Paper and The Basics 8 x 8 paper pad by The Paper Studio
Bee:  Flying Valentine Bee from Miss Kate Cuttables
Font: Janda Scrapgirl Dots
Extras: I added some sticker googly eyes (left over from a kid project). I also added some diamond stickles to the antenna hearts, wing, and dots on the title paper.

Happy Scrappin'!!!!

Scrap Room Organized!!! The Reveal

I am in love with my space!! It was a lot of work but so worth it. You can see how my room was set up before HERE. The layout of the room is still the same but I organized the closet and re-organized what was in my cubes and bookshelf. I would love for you to come along on the tour with me. Hopefully you can uses some of my ideas to help organized your crafting space. Let's start with my closet storage.


I took everything out of it (which is why my previous post looked like this) and sorted all the items into 3 piles. Keep, donate/trash, or move to storage. I am trying to only keep scrapbook/DIY/school items in my room, so only those items were allowed in the keep pile. I also knew I was not using my space in my closet effectively. Since this is not a closet that will be holding clothes I have the ability to go vertical in my storage. A quick trip to Target and I picked up this 20.00 bookcase. I added some cute paper to the back to make it pop! Meijer had these pink bins on sale and I had no problem finding supplies to put in them. I then added my favorite Martha Stewart chalkboard labels, and wrote what was in the bins with my Bistro Chalk Marker. I added some colorful paper and washi tape to my magazine files to give them a fresh look. The polka dot box (also wrapped in new paper) is my mist/glitter/glue spray box - the inside is not as pretty as the out! The cheveron bin (also a sale find at Meijer) holds all my vinyl and shelf paper.





 I have a love/hate relationship with wire shelving. I hate when things fall through the wire or sit funny. My only shelf in my closet right now is a wire one. To avoid this I took some foam board and some pretty shelf liner to lay on the wire rack. I choose to put the foam board face down because who is really going to see that pretty shelf liner if it is under all my items??? I keep items that I use every so often up top like my sewing machine (I have never used it but I swear I am going to learn how to sew!), spray paints, photo albums, office supplies, and miscellaneous scrapbooking tools.



The biggest change I made was what lives in my big expedit. I thought about the last few times I worked at my desk what I used. I made a list, and then began moving those items into the expedit. I now have scrapbooking items that I use the most at my finger tips.


I of course had to label everything to satisfy my labeling obsession! 





Also in the lower cubes I have office supplies/tools that I use all the time, my planners/binders and files. This is a combo room and I do homework, planning, blogging, and more in this room.

 
In my bookcase I decided to only house my scrapbook albums that I am currently working on or know of pages that need to be added to them. My stickers still live in the zip up binders and my cricket cartridges fit perfect in my narrow shelf. I added my 8.5 x 11 cardstock papers as I use those a ton and need those with in reach. 



All my electrical cords live in the little drawer, and the big drawer is an open space to add items that need a space after living in this space awhile. The bottom shelf holds mostly my patterned paper in the carry cases.


The patterned paper was another disaster that you could see. I really needed to organize this as well. So here is what it looks like now! I love it.


I sorted out my papers by what the papers were - stripes, polka dot, holiday, etc. Again using my favorite way to label -Washi tape and my label maker - I labeled inserts.  I then cut a label on my Silhouette and laminated it to create a label of what was in the box, and stuck it on the outside of the box. I laminated the label first because I like change. In 6 months I might not like having my patterned paper in these boxes, or I might accumulate more paper and need to shift paper around. With the label laminated I can just remove the label tape and make a new label to stick on there!


Another big change was this baby in the corner. There was no organization to these drawers. I had all kinds of stuff in each drawer and most of it were things I hadn't used in years. I am a firm believer in using up my scraps! So after every project I sort my solid scraps by color, and I used to keep them in a 12 x12 box (like the ones that hold my pattern paper). This worked for awhile but due to the various sizes of the paper it was becoming a mess. I decided to give each color it's own drawer. So now all my color scraps live here! The top drawer is my pattern scraps drawer for now. I am starting to get quite a few scraps so I might have to come up with a new place for these soon.




Across the room my 12 x 12 solid paper still live in these drawers, organized by the rainbow!



I still use my Cricut, so this guy lives on top of my smaller expedit. Below are in the cubes are items that I use but not daily, and items that I don't need at my fingertips. It houses a lot of my binders, school stuff, and photo boxes. 


This is where the tour ends. I hope you enjoyed your tour and maybe even picked up and idea that you can use. I would love to hear any of your ideas that you have used in your scrap room/craft room. Leave me a comment below!

Labeling - my favorite ways to label

I have been hard at work organizing my scrap room! Have I ever told you I LOVE to label things??? Well I do and my scrap room is my favorite place to do a labeling project. If you are a scraper you know how messy things get when your scrapping. I sometimes have to stop and clean up a bit before I can continue working on a page. 

I like to have a place for all my scrapbooking supplies and have them at my finger tips. I use several different types of storage bins to keep my supplies organized. But what good is a bin with scrapbooking supplies in them if there is no label on the outside of the bin telling me what goodies are inside. 

I have a few favorite ways to label. 

1. My favorite is Washi tape and my label maker. I use this type of labeling for file folders, but also used it in my re-organizing of my scrap room.





2. Making my own and laminating. Sometime I need a "tough" label, or a label that can get messy and would need to be wiped off. I love to make my labels in Photoshop and use all the neat fonts out there. However, for Christmas I got a Silhouette and something tells me that I will be playing with that the next time I need to make a label! 




3. My other favorite way to label is with chalkboard labels. I love to use these on containers that the contents in the container might change. I am constantly organizing. Sometimes my "OMG this is an awesome organizing idea" ends up flopping after living with the idea in action. Being able to wipe the label and write a new label makes those not so great ideas disappear!




What ways do you label? I would love for you to share your ideas. I am always looking for new ideas.

January's Focus - Organizing My Scraproom - The Details

My word this year is focus so I have been trying very hard to focus on one project at time and completing it from start to finish. So I just wanted to pop in with the details.

I am currently working on taking this mess:




and this mess:



to an organized state. There are some very visible projects and some not so visible projects involved in this re-organize of my scraproom. Here is the break down, and I will be showing you a few peeks every few days with the grand reveal at the end of the month

1. FUNCTION: now that I have lived in my scraproom for awhile I have found things I need are not where I need them. I sat in my room and really thought about what I need close to me, and what I use every so often that I didn't mind getting up for. I also thought about what is in this room that is does not need to be here.

2. CLOSET - I cannot do a California Closet at this time so I need to work within a small budget and make this storage area more efficient and organized. 

3. LABELING - it is needed all over my room!

4. PURGING - getting rid of or donating scrapbook items that I no longer use.

5. STORAGE - using all storage that I have on hand to make a more organized space.

6. UPDATING - updating my Scrapbook.com account to reflect what I have created. Updating my "scrapbook to do list" to know what pages I still need to do, what pages I need to add journaling (knowing the pages I need to create helps keep me focused). Updating my blog to reflect more of my love for scrapbooking memories.

My goal in this project is to create a space that functions for me, that shows me what I have available to create, that creates a sense of calm when I enter it, that keeps important tools at my fingertips. I am half way through this project but have a lot to go. So come on back to see my progress!