Author's Party LO

At the end of Kindergarten, Tanner's teacher Mrs. Stock hosted an Author's Party.  At first, I thought they were bringing in a famous author to the school....then I learned that the "famous" authors were the children!!!  We were invited to hear our children read their story they worked on for about 3 weeks as well as Guided Reading books from the classroom.

It was so awesome listening to Tanner read his stories!!

I used San Serif for the title and sized the letters to 1.47 inches.

I used Recess for the book.  I sized it to 2.53 inches and hid the word Math.

I added my cardstock scraps to the mat and cut them out.

I used the negative piece as a template for my letters.  This spaces them out perfectly!

Here is my title.  It is a little plain, so I added a twine border.

I loved Tanner's teacher!!!  

I added a little twine on the background paper too.

On the book, I wrote my journaling and pop-dotted it to the bottom of the page.

What a fun layout for a fun day!!

C is for Cookie

Hi! I have a fun project today!  I have an adorable set of twins in my daycare who are turning 3 this month!!  They love Sesame Street.  I do not have any of the Sesame Street cartridges, but Mom had a great idea to decorate a cookie jar and make a sign.

I even framed it for her to display at the party.

We started out with this super cool plastic cookie jar that Mom found at Kohls.

I used San Serif for the font.  I put a "C" on my mat sized to 2.52 inches.  The "is for cookie" is sized to .96 inches.  The cookie jar is 5 inches tall, so the entire phrase is gouped to 4.64 inches tall.

When cutting vinyl, I set my Gypsy to 3-3-3 (speed, pressure and blade depth).  I use my cricut dental tool to weed away the extra vinyl.  I use clear Contact paper as my transfer tape - make sure to dirty the contact paper a little on your jeans so it is not too sticky.

I burnished the vinyl onto the cookie jar and peeled off the contact paper.

Just add cookies and it is all ready to party!!

For the sign, I sized Happy Birthday to 1.17 inches, Mallory and William to 1.85 inches, & to 1.26 inches and the rest to 1 inch.  I cut out the entire page in blue.  This gave me my template.

I copied and pasted Mallory, William, M, W and 3 to the next layer and cut them out in red.

I laid my template on a white piece of cardstock and adhered the letters and numbers down.

I peeled away my template to reveal my sign.

I put this in a frame for mom so she could hang it for the party!

Aren't they adorable?  Happy Birthday Mallory and William!!!

Monogram Notepad (Frosted Designs Cardstock Only Challenge)

This week at Frosted Designs, the challenge is to use colored cardstock only (no patterned paper).  Sounds easy?  I thought so too!!!  

I decided to make a note pad for me (for a change) and had a hard time with the design that would use all solid colored cardstock.  Here is what I finally came up with!

I put a 3x5 rectangle on Layer 2 of my Gypsy so I knew how to size my letters.  On Layer 1 I put several "L"s within the 3x5 rectangle.  

In the center is Creative Memories Reminisce Accents (Monogram Shift Lock)  sized to 1.59 inches.

From top to bottom, left to right:

CM Storks Delivery (LC) sized to 1 inch

Martha Stewart Elegant Cake Art (UC) sized to 1.82 inches

Paper Lace 2 (UC) sized to 1 inch

Rock Star (UC) sized to 1 inch

Songbird (LC) sized to 1 inch

Paper Lace (LC) sized to 1 inch

Sans Serif (UC) rotated 90 degrees sized to .80 inches

Quarter Note (UC) sized to 1 inch

Pooh Font Set (UC) sized to 1 inch

I welded the letters all together.

I cut it out of purple cardstock.

I put the design on a 3x5 piece of green cardstock.  I lowered the design so when I punched the holes at the top I would not punch through it.  I cut out a 3 1/8 x 5 1/8 piece of chipboard and purple cardstock for my cover.  The top of my cover looked a little bare so I added some purple ribbon and green twine.

I used my ATG gun to adhere the cover.  I used my Bind-It-All to complete the note pad.  I have a tutorial HERE for making note pads with the Bind-It-All.  I use blank 3x5 notecards for my paper.

I am delighted to design for Frosted Designs!   I hope you consider entering our challenge this week!!

Brotherly Love

Today on Frosted Designs, the challenge is to use paint with your project.  I typically use a stamp pad to ink edges, but I do have more paint colors than stamp pad colors!  I dug out some red, green and black paint for this layout.

I started with my trusty $1 thesaurus from Wal-Mart and punched out three different size circles.  I painted them red.  Next I painted the edges black.  I crumpled them a bit and glued them together.

Here is a close up.  I poked a hole in the center to use a brad, but later changed my mind and stuck a pearl sticker on instead.

I do not have a leaf punch, so I used a heart shaped punch and cut it in half.  I ran them through the cuttlebug for some texture.  I painted them green and the edges black.

On my Gypsy, I welded the word "love" from Home Decor and hearts from George to make a border.

I used San Serif for "brotherly".

I painted the edges of the paper with red paint.

I used an extra circle for my journaling and painted the edges.

This photo was taken last Easter....I asked my boys to pose for a picture and this is what I got!!

First Day of Preschool

This is the first layout I have completed in a while that is for a scrapbook, not a class sample or blog sample!  I have been busy playing catch up with my Gypsy since she was at the "spa" for 2 months. 

There are so many great challenges and blog hops and guest designer spots that I have not really been making any plain-old scrapbook pages.  Thanks to Erin, I was motivated to make this one for her challenge AND put it in Tanner's scrapbook!

I used San Serif for the font.  I centered the words on my Gypsy screen mat and then used the negatives as a guide to stick the letters and numbers down.  I used the apples from Create a Critter.  The paper inside the apples is scrapbook paper found at Hobby Lobby (not the actual paper we used in grade school).

I hand stitched (aka made "x"s with a black marker) around the inside of the apples.  I inked the apples and inner pages with brown ink. 

I am not very good at leaving "white space" but this layout is pretty busy, so I decided to leave it as is!

Here is one last look at the finished product.

Stars & Stripes Challenge

The Gypsy challenge on the Gypsy ChitChat Message Board was to use your Gypsy and stars and/or stripes. 

I am still waiting for my Gypsy to return home from her "spa" trip.  I borrowed my friend's Gypsy and found a star that worked on Home Decor.  The star has a swirl coming down one end.  I used Hide Contour to erase the inner star.  Then I copied the star and flipped it.  I welded the two together lining up the x axis.  I repeated the copy and flip (this time flipping upside down) and welded together.

Layer 2 had a 4 x 6 square on it to represent the photo.  I ended up tilting the frame because it looked better with the actual photo.

My layout was missing something, so I added Tanner's name and used the same star for the "A".  I used San Serif for the font.

I added some faux stitching around the edges of the paper.  Then I added a little bling:  red stickles and star shaped gems and here is the final layout.