Gift Bags

We'll be traveling to Florida in November and visiting friends who are organizing a fund raiser in their retirement community. We plan to help them with the function when we get there. One of the things I am doing is making some items to give as door prizes.
I bought some colored gift bags and stamped floral type images on them. For all but one of the bags (images) I colored them with twinkling H2O's. To the right are 2 of the gift bags.



Here are the other 2 gift bags. These were also stamped with floral images and then colored with Twinkling H2O's.
I bought some colored tissue paper and included coordinating colored tissue in each bag.
I'm hoping someone will be happy receiving these as door prizes.

Banner for Pea!!!

It's Pea's birthday!!! Hurray!!!
I saw an idea for making banners in the Outside the Margins website some time ago and wrote myself a note, I can be so forgetful, so that I'd remember to make one for Pea when her birthday arrived.
Pea loves black and white patterns and I found the perfect paper at my local scrapbook/stamping store. It was double sided with a different pattern on each side.

Here's the flip side of the decorative cardstock I used. I cut each 12 x 12" sheet in half and then drew and cut equal size triangles from them. I only needed 8 for the banner I was making.








I cut 8 triangles from the double sided decorative cardstock. I used 2 of each pattern for front sides of the flags that would make up this banner.





I attached decorative ribbon to the sides of each flag using red line tape. After this picture was taken I decided to also attach the ribbon to the tops of the flags.






I used Tim Holtz grunge board letters. I didn't want to make the banner too long or too short. If I had just used Pea's name it would be too short. If I had used the name of Pea's blog it would be too long. This seemed 'just right'!
I painted each letter with either acrylic or lumiere paint. I wanted the colors to be bright and to be seen on the black and white papers.


Here's a good look at the first half of the banner.
Each letter was attached to a flag using dimensional foam dots. I punched two holes at the top of each flag and then strung the decorative fiber through the holes leaving extra fiber at each end so Pea could hang this in her art/family room.





This is the second half of the banner.










Here's a look at the entire banner... hanging off of my dining room table. Seeing it in pieces just doesn't give you a good idea of what the whole thing looks like.
Well, HAPPY BIRTHDAY PEA!!!

Banner for Alexa

I love the bright colors... and I think my niece, Alexa, will love it. I made it for her birthday, which isn't for another month, but I was on a roll so I got this done early.
Here's what I did....

• Cut triangles from bright pink and lime green cardstock - 3 green and 2 pink 3 1/2 x 4", and 2 green and 3 pink 4 1/4 x 5 1/2".
• Trim edges with decorative scissors and then color edges with lime green and bright pink markers.
• Using double stick tape place each small green triangle onto a large pink, and each small pink triangle onto a large green.
• Cut each letter of Alexa's name using the cuttlebug and the Babyface alphabet dies.
• Color the edges of the alphabet pieces with markers and attach to points of each small triangle with double sided tape.
• Stamp 5 Sweetpea images (from plates 8, 9, and 10) onto white cardstock with black india ink.
• Color images using colored pencil, gamsol, and blending stump method.
• Cut each image and attach one to each flag using double stick tape.
• Attach decorative flower trim to tops of each flag with glue dots leaving some extra trim at each end.
  

Gift tags

Why not create some cute tags????
Using the 2 little girl images from Sweetpea plate #9 and some colored cardstock, I did just that. These can be used to accompany a gift, or attache them to the front of a greeting card as the focal point.
I have 3 young nieces who will love to receive these along with their birthday gifts this fall.





For all 4 tags:

• Stamp Sweetpea little girl image with black india ink
• Color some areas with glitter gel pens
• Color other areas with glitter glue
• Using a black gel pen, draw a series of dots and dashes around the edges of the tags
• Apply glitter glue to dots around the edges of tags
• Select fibers and ribbons that coordinate with paper and slip through the tag hole
• If desired, string colored beads on ribbons and fibers

For Red tag:

• Punch hole in center of red puffy fabric heart and attach gold heart shaped brad
• Attach fabric heart to tag using glue dot

For Yellow tag:

• Select 2 fabric flowers of varying size, insert colored brad through center and attach to tag

For Orange tag:

• Punch hole for balloon shaped brad
  
• With exacto knife cut small slit along the little girls dress
• Slip piece of fiber or yarn through slit along dress and through hole for balloon brad
• Place balloon brad in hole, wrap fiber around several times and press the brad open to hold fiber

For Blue tag:

• Apply gold krylon around all sides of word bead
• String gold wire through holes in word bead and curl ends
  
• Attach to tag using glue dots

Banner for Paige

My niece Paige has a birthday coming soon. I had seen an idea for making banners on the Outside The Margins website.
I had an 8 1/2 x 12" piece of red felt in my stash; how great that there are sparkles in the felt also. I cut the piece of felt in half lengthwise (4 1/4" x 12"). Then marking with a pencil I created triangles that were 4" across the top; that gave me the 5 flags that I would need.




I cut the felt into 5 triangles measuring 4" across and 4 1/4" long; each flag will be for one letter of Paige's name.







I wrapped black and silver fiber 2 or 3 times around each of the flags. I adhered the fiber to the flags on the backside with Sobo fabric glue. I'm hoping this holds it in place. If you look closely at the photo you can see a shadow like image where the fiber and glue cross the back of each flag. I'm hoping that doesn't show through when Paige hangs the banner in her room. Then I attached pieces of silver rick rack along the edges using red line tape.


Here's the finished banner for Paige. I added a silver fabric star with a glue dot to the bottom of each flag. The letters are metal; I picked them up at a scrap rummage sale. Each letter is attached with a silver brad. I cut 2 slits in the top of each flag and strung a silver metallic ribbon through each.
I'll see Paige in about 10 days to give this to her as part of her birthday gift. I hope she likes it and can hang it in her room.
I'm working on a few more banners for Paige's 2 sisters and for some friends.

Altered notebook

These Sweetpea images and verse are from plate #3. There are several more images and verses on the plate, but I used a small notebook so only had room for these 3.
I started with a 3 x 5" notebook. To make it easier I unwound the wire coil so that I could work with the cover. I cut a piece of white glossy cardstock to fit the front cover. I stamped a background image with versamark, dried with a heatgun, and then applied 3 colors of alcohol ink. I then stamped the mermaid, the shells, and the word (attitude) with black india ink. I added some glossy accents to the shells on the mermaid, but it is hard to see. Maybe adding some glitter to that while wet would have been a good idea. I then glued the glossy cardstock to the cover of the notebook, punched holes through the glossy to match those on the cover, and then rewound the coil through the notebook.
To add a little pizazz, I attached a few fibers to the coil and tied a glass fish bead to the end of one of the fibers.

Sweet Pea Stamps

Hey, You aren't going to believe this.... because I don't....
I was selected to be on the design team for Sweetpea stamps!!!!
How cool is that?? It means that I will be creating various things using their stamps and posting the artwork and instructions to their blog.
I'll add a link to Sweetpea's website and to the Sweetpea Design Team blog on my blog. You'll be able to hop over to look at their collection of stamps and to link to the Design Team blog where you can see the many ideas that will be posted by me as well as the other talented member of the design team.

Sweetpea birthday card

This cute birthday card will be perfect for some little girl. Actually, what I'm thinking of doing is making more using this set of Sweetpea stamps and giving a packet of cards as a gift to my niece and my granddaughter. Then they can give them to their friends for their birthdays!
I stamped the little girl image onto watercolor paper and colored with Twinkling H2O's, then mounted her onto black glossy cardstock. I had some Paper Adventures embossed cardstock that I cut with a decorative scissors and attached to the blue card. But before attaching that I strung some silver metallic ribbon through a star shaped brad and attached it to the embossed paper. I stamped one of the verses from this set of Sweetpea stamps above the little girl.
Here's the inside of the card using 3 more of the images available on plate #9. One of my nieces has a birthday coming up so I think I'll give this to her.
Just as with the image on the front of the card, I mounted the watercolor paper onto black glossy before attaching to the inside front.

Friendly plastic embellishments on booklet

CCSwaps was running a friendly plastic swap and my partner was Pea!!! Back in June Pea, Maggi, Mary, and I had a play day to work with FP. I had never done anything with FP before. It was so much fun and I plan to buy some and do more things with it, but I hadn't gotten any FP before this swap hit the boards so I had to use the pieces I had created on that play day. Starting with a small black booklet bound with the bind-it-all machine I decided to attach the pieces to the covers. But, the pieces alone weren't enough so I cut 4 pieces of foil tape, ran them through the cuttlebug using the script folder, and then colored them with alcohol inks that would coordinate with the colors used in the FP pieces.

On the inside of the booklet cover I placed another piece of the foil tape. For this piece I used the same colors used on the front cover.








Just as I did with the other inside cover, I placed a piece of foil tape. This piece is colored with watermelon, pool, and sailboat blue alcohol inks.







And here's the back of the booklet.... well, it could be the front too!!! I attached my second friendly plastic piece on top of the foil tape that I processed through the cuttlebug using the script folder. This piece of foil tape was colored with salmon, pool, and sailboat blue alcohol inks.