Love Monster Banner

Happy Valentine's Day Eve!!!

If you are looking for the World Wide Marriage Day Blog Hop, please go HERE.

I am the Guest Designer today over at TheBugBytes.  I made a Love Monster Banner to hang in my Home Daycare for Valentine's Day!  I had so much fun making these cute little monsters!!  I started out by turning on my Gypsy!

I found these lacy hearts from Sweethearts and sized them to 4.63w x 4.41h.  I could only fit 5 on my mat so I cut this page out twice on red cardstock.

I have seen a ton of doilies on Valentine's Day projects lately and decided to use a this doily from Art Philosophy sized at 2.97w x 2.88h.  Since I was cutting out 10 hearts, I cut out 10 doilies.

I cut the doilies out in white cardstock.

I found 5 cute monsters from Mini Monster and put them and all of their layers on my mat sized to 2 inches.  Once I sized the monsters to fit the doily, I ungrouped the layers and moved them around on my mat grouping them by color.

I grabbed a piece of paper from my Paper Layerz pad and cut out my monsters.

Here are my monster pieces!  Now to remember which pieces go where!!  I did not cut out the eyes or skinny mouths as I prefer to use stickles for those parts.

Here are my monsters all put together and stickled up!

While the stickles are drying, I crumpled up my doilies and inked them with Antique Linen to give them a distressed look.

I wanted to give my monsters a heart to hold on to, so I cut out some hearts from George and Basic Shapes sized to .5 inch and covered them with stickles.

I tied the hearts together with twine.

These guys are so cute ~ they make me smile!

I adhered the doilies to the hearts and pop dotted the monsters on.

My Love Monster Banner will look great in my daycare!!  Thank you for having me over to play today Pam!

Love Bugs Banner Blog Hop Day 1

Welcome to Day 1 of the Love Bugs Banner Blog Hop for Special Needs Kids!!!

If you are looking for the Frosted Designs Fabulous Friday Challenge post, go HERE.

 Forty very talented crafty people have come together for a two day hop (Friday, January 6th and Saturday, January 7th) to showcase handmade banners that will be donated to the children at Pediatric Specialty Care. The hope of these banners is that they bring smiles to these children's faces and awareness of Pediatric Specialty Care to all those that hop along.

These precious children and their families will have one of these adorable banners in their doorways to help brighten up their Valentine's Day!  It is my pleasure to participate in the LOVE BUGS  BANNER HOP, where fantastic and generous crafters donated their talents, time and holiday banners to the children at Pediatric Specialty Care in Bucks County, PA. (See http://www.pediatricspecialty.com/)

The “Love Bugs Banner for Kids” Hop has some awesome sponsors and prizes to give away to all those that hop along and leave comments. The more blogs you visit and leave comments at, the more chances you have of winning. That means if you hop through all 20 blogs each day and leave a comment on each blog then you are in the drawing 40 times!

Our Generous Sponsors are:

Jellypark Digital Stamps will award 2 free digi-images to one winner.

K Andrews Designs has donated a stamp set to one winner.

Robyn's Fetish will donate FIVE digital images of the winner's choice as a prize!

Below is the entire line up in case you get lost along the way!

1. Ellen ♥ CardMonkey - http://cardmonkey-business.blogspot.com/
2. Sandie Dunne - http://sandieshores.blogspot.com/
3. Lori Apgar - http://scrappinmystressaway.blogspot.com/ ***HERE
4. The Scrapbooking  Queen~ www.thescrapbookingqueen.com/ ***NEXT
5. Linda Simpson - http://lindasimpsoncraftypieceofheaven.blogspot.com/
6. Beckie Woodall - http://justbcreativecrazy.blogspot.com
7. Lisa Lam- http://craftylam.blogspot.com/
8. Jenny (Crazy About Cricut) - http://crazyaboutcricut.blogspot.com/
9. Ashley - http://theglamoroussideofscrapping.blogspot.com/
10.  Haidee-http://created2bunique.blogspot.com/
11. Carol - http://cardstockscissorsandglue.blogspot.com/
12. Edwina - http://edwinascreations.blogspot.com/
13. Jearise - http://lorbysworld.blogspot.com/
14. Janet S - http://ladyluvbug.blogspot.com/
15. Denise - http://vintageheartfeltdesigns.blogspot.com/
16. Jamie http://craftygirl21.blogspot.com/
17. Teresa - http://scrappintplace.blogspot.com/
18. Alina - http://neverstopscrapping.blogspot.com/
19. Dena - http://missdjones.blogspot.com/
20. Martha- http://pattisscrapingtime.blogspot.com/
21. Erica http://mycricutcraftroom.blogspot.com

For my project today, I made 2 different banners.  

The first one is made out of bugs.

I used this bug shape from Simply Charmed sized at 5 inches for my banner.  I needed 7 bugs total so I put 4 on Layer 1.  I cut this page out twice in black cardstock.

On Layer 2, I put the layer sized at 5 inches.  I cut out the top four bug layers out of red Valentine's Day paper and the bottom three out of green paper.

On Layer 3, I put seven hearts from the bug layer (at 5 inches) on the top and cut them out of black patterned paper.  I put the letters LOVE BUG from Art Philosophy sized to 1 inch and cut them out of gold cardstock.

I assembled and adhered the layers.  To jazz up my bugs, I used gold, red and black Stickles.

I punched holes with my Crop-A-Dile and strung gold glittery ribbon through the bugs.

Here is my Love Bug Banner all put together.

I wanted to send an extra banner and also try out a different style.

I used scalloped hearts for my banner flags.

I found this doily heart from Sweethearts and sized them to 4.41 inches.  I cut them out of red cardstock.

I found the frog, cat and dog from Sweethearts.  I cut them (and the layers) out at 2.61 inches.  I cut out the Love (also from Sweethearts) at 1.82 inches.

Again I added Stickles to my banner pieces.

I tied the hearts together with some twine.

I tied a long loop of  twine to each end for easy hanging.

Thank  you so much for stopping by our hop today!

Your next stop is The Scrapbooking Queen!

Let's Park Card (Guest Designer @ ShesASassyLady)

Sheila from ShesASassyLady has inspired me so much with card making this past year so I saved this fun little shape card for her blog today.

I started with my Gypsy (of course) and put the couple at the table from Sweethearts on my mat.  I found this car from Graphically Speaking.  I put the car and the shadow on my mat at 5.35w x 2.83h.  I sized the couple to 3.38w x 3.43h by placing them over the car knowing I just needed their heads.

I ungrouped the car and shadow and made a copy of the shadow.  I flipped one of the shadow cuts and lined it up on top of the other to create my card.  I welded them together.

I added my paper to the mat and cut out my images.

I cut the heads of the couple (kind of morbid now that I think about it!!) and taped them to the back of the car.

I used my 5" Xyron to adhere the car to the front of the card.  I put Icicle stickles on the headlights

I made the grill out of silver stickles ~ kind of looks like teeth.  I personalized the license plate with "I (heart) U."

Thanks for stopping by and Thanks to Sheila for having me over to play!!

I (Heart) Bug Bytes {frame}

I am a Guest Designer today on TheBugBytes!!  I transformed my $1 wooden frame into a beautiful project with a little help from my Gypsy!  Let me show you how:

I picked up this frame at Michaels along with these Martha Steward flowers.   I added some paper, paint and mod podge from home.

The first thing I did was to turn over my pretty paper and trace the frame on the back side in pencil.

Then I cut it out.

I set the paper aside and painted the edges of the frame red.

I used Glossy mod podge to stick the paper to the frame.  I brushed a sort-of-thin coat on the frame and put the paper on top.

I smoothed down the paper as it likes to bubble a bit.

For the top of the paper, I used sparkle mod podge.  If you don't have sparkle mod podge, you can add glitter to your regular mod podge.

You can see there is a spot that wrinkled a bit.  It doesn't help that my paper is thick.  No worries, I will show you how to cover that right up!!

I pulled out my stash of ribbons and buttons that match my color scheme.

On mh Gypsy I find the images I want to use from my Sweethearts cart.  I finally bought this one (glad I did) as I have been eyeing it for the past year!!  I put "Love" and the lock and key on the mat.

I tapped the plus sign and opened up a second layer.

I put a rectangle on the second layer to represent the frame to the right of the heart cut out.

I unlinked the chain between Width and Height (called the Aspect Ratio Link) so I could specify the width and height of my rectangle.

I also tapped the Real Dial Size button so my rectangle is a true size.  I am using a rectangle from George and Basic Shapes and I know from experience that I need the Real Dial Size!! 

I set my width to 3.5....

and my height to 6.00.

Then I tapped on Layer 1 and sized the word LOVE to fit my rectangle width.

The key looked smaller than the lock, so I moved it closer to the lock and rotated it -40.0 so I could get a closer look.

I enlarged the key to 1.72w x 1.89h.

Then I moved the pieces where I thought I would want them on the frame.

While the pieces were cutting, I started placing the flowers on the frame.  I knew I would not have enough for the entire heart and I bought the last pack, so I filled in the spaces with buttons and ribbon.

Once I had everything laid out, I used glue dots to glue them down.

This is the paper I used for my cuts!  Love this shimmer stack!!

I did want to show that I moved my cuts to the top left corner to cut in order to save paper.

Here are the cuts ~ very pretty but a little light in color.

I couldn't decide which ink color to use, so I did a test on the scrap piece of my top 4 choices.  And the winner is........my aAcient Page Stampin Up cranberry pad from a looooong time ago!

I used my Fantastix to ink around the edges.

I kind of like the look on the scrap piece too!

This part took forever....finding a photo to go inside the frame!!  I took this one of my husband and I on a carriage ride at the Phoeniz Zoo looking at Christmas lights.  Don't you love our sweatshirts?!?  I used the heart insert to trace and cut out the photo.

I used lace to help cover up that wrinkle.  I tied the key to the lock with some thin ribbon.

I put the LOVE at an angle.

I love how it turned out!!!

Thanks Pam for having me at the Bug Bytes today!!!