Recipe book

This is what I gave my sister for her wedding shower, a recipe book. By her request she wanted a compilation of all of the favorite recipes from siblings and other family.Target had some nice looking designs in 3 ring notebooks. So I just went with it.




Some of the little details on making the dividers: I had to extend the size of the dividers because the page protectors are so much longer than an 8.5 x 11 sheet of card stock. I took a 2 x 11 piece of card stock and scored it down the middle at the 1" point. After folding it over I glued it along the long side of my sheet of card stock with the Tombo multi glue. After it dried I punched the holes with an office 3 hole punch gizmo. The tabs were made with two 1 3/4" punched circles and I hand wrote the titles with the white uniball jell pen.

The wedding invitation

For every family wedding for the last few years I've helped design the wedding invitation (if that's what the bride wants). This go round was my sister Hillery. She's getting married in December and we're ready to start sending them out.

When designing invitations remember how many you have to make. Then decide how much time you have to put into it. On the front the invitation has black embossed on black. That worked out really well. Since the colors were the same, it was more forgiving if you made a little mistake. We also made sure to use punches instead of having to cut out intricate shapes. One flaw in my design this time was the use of a background stamp. That was tricky because of the intricate design it was easy to get a doubled image, and it takes time to re-ink the stamp each time.

One cool little money saving trick is that the photo on the inside is 3 x 4 inches. We printed two photos on one 4 x 6 at costco and cut them in half.

Ornament made with the Tab Punch

The last post was pretty long so I thought I'd show you how I made this little ornament on a different post. I was thinking about a way to use my punches to make a couple of ornaments for the different drawers on the advent calendar and this is what I came up with.

First, punch with the round tab punch. You don't need the piece that is being punched out rather you just want the negative image.
You want the part that looks like a bracket. (see above)Slide it back inside of the punch. Center the bracket part with the lower bracket of the punch.

If you look at the photo above there is a slight gap on each side of the bracket. I just made sure that the gaps were as even as possible.
This is the shape you end up with. You will have a little bit of an edge on each side but that is easily trimmed off with some sharp scissors. See the post below for the final product of the advent calendar.

Box Advent Calendar Tutorial

If you're dying to get your hands on one of those box advent calendars by Karen Foster Designs but they're sold out everywhere you look here is a tutorial for you! Create this fun advent calendar in a day's work. (Or many days spread out.) If you do actually obtain one then lucky you skip ahead to the decorating!

I found these ugly little boxes at The Dollar Tree. I bought 12 of them for a total of 24 days.

First step I carefully lined up the boxes and glued them with Crystal Effects for a strong bond. Right now I am just gluing the vertical lines but I have them stacked together so I am sure they will fit for the next step. If you use Crystal Effects a few hours drying time is required. I just did this step before I went to bed. Also you may notice that I weighted the boxes with various items just for added pressure.

Gluing the horizontal lines now. Again another wait time. I just did it before I went shopping.

Now that everything is securely glued I painted the facing parts of the box. I also painted the edges of the drawers too. See the picture below.

After the paint is dry spray a clear varnish to help seal in the color.

While all of the drawers are out you can now cover the outside edges of the box. I used some of my leftover kraft wrapping paper but you will get less bubbles if you just cut card stock to size. Apply ModPodge to the outside of the box and then apply cut paper to the dimensions of the sides you are covering.

If you use a thin paper like I did the lid of the modpodge works really well to smooth out the bubbles.
This is my finished product. I found various Christmas themed brads. Made Poinsettias with paper punches and dimensional stickers. The one stamped image is from the Winter Post set in the current Mini catalog. Fill your drawers with candy or small ornaments to hang on a little tree. I was thinking a fun idea would be to fill the drawers with accessories or scrapbooking leftovers that you could challenge yourself to use every day leading up to Christmas... maybe.

Supplies:
mini 2 drawer boxes
Stamps: Winter Post
Card Stock: Old Olive, Always Artichoke, Mellow Moss, Kraft wrapping paper
Paint: Moroccan Red by Delta

Birthday LO

Yeah another scrapbook page. I know, I know when will I make a card. Well, I've been busy putting together a Christmas Card class for next week and I have the ideas together but just not all of the supplies I need. In the meantime here is a LO that features my extremely photogenic Genevieve. She's gone through a phase where she wants to be girly but doesn't so her birthday theme turned into a Sponge Bob Square Pants theme. I just wasn't up to anything but a small family party this year so I busted out a Sponge Bob cake the Lazy way. I've gone crazy with this theme before and now it's make a cake, frost it, and find a character that I can put on top of the cake.

Here's the last Sponge Bob cake I did four years ago:

and I even made a pinata too:

I guess second kids get gypped.(pardon the expression!)

Quilt Give away *for a good cause*

Consider looking at this blog today. This little baby was born with a heart defect and the family has to raise $450,000 upfront to get on the list for a heart transplant. Some things just make you count your blessings. A kindhearted friend is doing a quilt give away to help raise money for her friends. Even a small donation of even just a dollar will help. Just go to the link on her blog to see how you can help. Click here for more info.

Baby Yoga

Sorry I just haven't made a card lately so here is a page I made while scrapbooking with my friend Natalie last week. The kids got whiny and we just couldn't stop. I used the Dill Blossom kit by SEI that I bought last week. This paper is just so eye catching when it was 50% off I had to get it. This picture is of Poppy when she was 7-8 months old. I know there is no stamping on this page but with paper like this you just have to go with it.