This makes a fun little book and/or gift card holder. You start with some of the cardboard coffee sleeves that you get with your coffee at sbux and the like. If you are going to make a book - flatten and glue sleeve together so it creates one flat piece. If you want to make a gift card holder, glue one sleeve together and just the bottom area of the other one. Now trace the sleeve shape onto decorate paper or cardstock of your choice and cut out inside the lines so that it will fit on the sleeve. If making a book cut more cardstock for inside pages. Then punch the holes on one end with your

'>Bind-it-All and then put the owires on and close. Now you can decorate it to your hearts content! If you don't have any sleeves --- run out and get a peppermint mocha, or a non-fat latte, or whatever floats your boat!

Ornaments and little gifts

I made these small projects at the Scrapbook Island open house last weekend. They had several different projects you could make and so these were the three I chose. I had seen the bird ornament prior to the event so that's what got me to go! I also enticed a few friends to show up there and it was a fun afternoon - except that we did not partake of the cookies since some kids were there and touching all of them - hello Mom? I guess they were free to run wild while Mom did her projects!

The old fashioned girl is cut from some Graphic 45 paper and she is glued on another piece of Ten Seconds Studio metal that I embossed with the polka dot texture plate. Then there are flowers and ribbon and snowflakes added. I did a light spray of gold Glimmer mist over the top of the whole thing and then some touches of big sparkly glitter. You could probably use the new Rock Candy Distress Stickles for that part too.

The birds wing is covered with some metal and we used the Ten Seconds Studio metal and embossing plates to get the design on them and then sanded the high points to remove the color. The bird was first cut out with chipboard. The back is covered with plain cardstock and the front with patterned paper that I over-stamped with white ink. You can really embellish these up - I need to add more to this one, but it's pretty cute the way it is.

The third project was a little 7 Gypsies tag book - this one didn't turn out as nice as I had hoped, the instructor seemed more interested in herself that helping us. The patterned paper was pre-cut for us and it kind of annoyed me that it didn't quite fit the pages. Then the papers and added embellishments she had on hand didn't go together too well, but I made it work. It has pockets on the inside, and a gift card fits in them perfectly so I'll make this as a cute holder for that.

Make like an Elf...

Here's a couple photos of what my kitchen table has looked like for the past week. Actually right now it looks even worse since I've been making some BIA projects! These are gifts for my sisters and parents in the making - so on the off chance that they might actually read this blog I won't show the finished pieces! And if you guys are reading - cover your eyes for this post!

Tags

Tim Holtz does these fantastic 12 Tags of Christmas each year, complete with full-on photo tutorials. Check out his blog - link over on the right side of this blog under favorite blogs. These are a few tags I made last night loosely based on some of his tags from years past. I haven't done the first day tag this year... yet!

Thanks Rinda!

I received this from Maria (aka Rinda) over the holiday weekend. Rinda is very creative - and I especially get inspiration from her mixed media work.

I'm supposed to make a list of seven things about myself - maybe these are new to you!


1. My left leg is 1" shorter than my right - long story!
2. I used to be a Radiologic Technologist.
3. I have two sisters - I'm the oldest and the shortest.

4. In high school I was on the Aquacade team.

5. I have only traveled east as far as Dayton, OH and never out of the country.

6. I covet a 2010 Camaro - SS ofcourse. (white with orange stripes would be nice)

7. My favorite actor is Kevin Bacon.


And in addition to the blogs Rinda had listed as inspiring I'll list a few of my own:

Ginny at Small Studios

Joan at Paperlicious
Janice - http://stampspaperscissors.typepad.com/

Lisa Sommerville - http://www.lisasomerville.com/

Gerrie the Queen of Grunge
Shelly @ http://www.shellyhickox.blogspot.com/

Kimm @ http://artfulsentimentsbykimm.blogspot.com/

I'm back....

Well - a stupid head cold and then a week vacation to visit my folks for Thanksgiving really put a crimp in my creative life and my blogging. I'm happy to say I had a terrific time in sunny Arizona and the cold is just about gone! I'm thankful for my family and for having just a head cold and not H1N1!

The little book above is my Bind-it-All Punching and Binding guide.

This should make it a little easier to have a reference book for all the different punching on a multitude of different sized projects. I need to tackle the 4x4 and 6x6 mini books next and then move on to more projects.

Take a Risk

Trying to get some cards made today - This uses the TJ Depth of Field technique. These are the October kit papers and stamps from Club Scrap - same kit as the big leaf stamp in the previous post.