Christmas Gifts – Coasters Part 3

Here’s round 3 of the coasters.  These are using and older line of paper, so if you don’t have it in your stash, you’ll have to find something more current!
 So now I have to give my disclaimer – if you know me IRL (er, are family), there might be a chance something you see could be coming to you as a Christmas gift.  So if you don’t want to see, please stop reading!  Thanks :)

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Supplies:  Pink Paislee Paper (bayberry cottage, 2010, I believe), Echo Park For the Record alphas, mod podge, ceramic tiles, felt & hot glue

Christmas Gifts – Coasters

I’ve been very busy making stuff lately.  Haven’t done anything scrapbooking.  I’ve been making lots of gifts and just plain playing I guess you could say.
So now I have to give my disclaimer – if you know me IRL (er, are family), there might be a chance something you see could be coming to you as a Christmas gift.  So if you don’t want to see, please stop reading!  Thanks :)

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I’ve been wanting to make some coaster with some of my beautiful scrapbooking paper.  So when we stopped at Home Depot to buy a Christmas tree, I managed to sneak down the tile aisle and bought some tiles.  Very inexpensive, $.16 each.  Add some paper, mod podge and love and you have a beautiful (and practical) gift!!
This is a glittered die cut from My Minds Eye.  I trimmed it and adhered it down.  Worked beautifully!
Supplies:  My Minds Eye (paper & die cut), Staz On ink, mod podge, ceramic tiles.
If you want to know how I did these, stay tuned.  I’ll have a few more variations and then a tutorial coming shortly.

Christmas Gifts – Coasters & Tutorial

I love handmade gifts.  To me it really says “I thought about you.” But I admit, they must be nice and they must be practical.  And pretty too. 
This is a fast and inexpensive gift idea.  And practical too.  You can make beautiful coasters with some inexpensive tiles from the home improvement store, mod podge and some scrapbook paper.


List of supplies:

• Mod Podge
• Ceramic Tiles
• Paper (I prefer the 6x6 stacks – the scale of the pattern is perfect for the project and it’s an easy way to have coordinated product.  And accessible at Craft Warehouse)
• StazOn ink
• Foam brush (or any brush, I prefer foam)
• Hot Glue gun or Beacon 3 in 1 adhesive
• Felt (enough for a 4x4 square for each tile)

Let’s get started!
Pull out 4 sheets of coordinating paper.  Cut into 4 4”x4” squares.  Cut 4 2”x4” strips and 4 more 3/4”x4” strips

(I’m trying really hard to make Santa’s “Nice List” this year so he’ll bring me a new self-healing mat LOL)
Using the StazOn ink, ink all edges.  I tried several inks and found StazOn was the best and didn’t bleed.

Use Mod Podge as adhesive and glue paper to tile.

Apply pressure even and work out any wrinkles.

Adhere (using Mod Podge) the additional strips (after inking).  If desired, use stickers or other completely flat embellishment to add some decor.

When you have everything adhered, coat with a coat of Mod Podge.  Use long straight brush strokes to minimize brush stroke appearance.  Use consistent pressure and evenly distribute mod podge.

Here’s a little trick for drying.  After you wipe all the edges of mode podge drips, I put them on an upside down measuring cup.  I find it very useful to keep a set of inexpensive measuring cups in my stash – this is a perfect application.

If you have any wrinkles appear, when the mod podge is about 80% dry (dry to the touch, but still soft and not firm and hard) you can smooth out any wrinkles.  Any sooner will result in smudge mod podge, later it will be too firm to smooth out.

Next, we need to do the final step of adding the felt to the back to protect the surface of the table they’ll be used on.  Cut the felt to 4” squares.  Adhere with hot glue or Beacon 3 in 1 adhesive (I like this because I don’t burn myself :) )

Let dry completely.  Then you can stack them and tie them together with a pretty ribbon and maybe a tag.
 
Supplies:  Crate Paper Random, 6x6 paper stack.  Fancy Pants St Nick stickers. 
Enjoy!!

He didn’t break it!

I’m always the one taking pictures in our house.  Of course, it would make sense being as how it is one of my passions.  But also, the fact that my husband is terrified of my camera might only compound that situation.  Sometimes I think he’d rather hold a newborn baby than my camera LOL.

But every once in a while, he offers to take a picture with me in it, and I always treasure those pictures.  A couple weeks ago (before the snow started flying), he snapped a couple pictures of my parents and I.  I can’t think of any pictures I have in the last 10 years of just my parents and I.  These type of pictures are my favorite.

Okay, and pictures like this are my favorite too….candid moments of real emotion. 

hee hee….this one makes me smile and it’s my favorite of all of them. 

ATG buy-in *UPDATE*

Huh?  If you have no idea what I’m talking about, you may not want to read….but if you’re curious about an affordable adhesive option, read on!!!





I am officially closing this.  If you joined in and have questions, please e-mail me, or still want to join in, I do have a few available still.  You can e-mail me at lovejoypaper (at) hughes (dot) net

The first round is shipping out today, Dec 1.

“Trim the Tree”

Ah, tis the season!  My favoritest favorite time of the year (because I do have a few favorites, so I have to have a most favorite right? – yes, I do know the definition of favorite, I just chose to be a little more generous)

Well, for the first year in, um, ever I think? I was able to get good pictures of the kids decorating the tree.  So happy was I!!

This page is created from a sketch by Sketchy Thursdays.

 

Supplies:  American crafts, (cardstock & Dear Lizzy Christmas & Thickers), The Twinery, ZVA bling

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving!!  Today is one of my favorite days of the year.  Right up there with Christmas.   It’s my favorite meal of the year, and I love spending time with my family.  Really, I can’t think of anything about the day I don’t love (except maybe the sparkling cider at dinner, I could leave that).

We’re having a very quiet day here.  We had our big meal last weekend, so today, it’s simple, football and family…

I wanted to share a Thanksgiving card (because I actually made them this year!).  

Happy Thanksgiving!  I’m thankful for all YOU my loyal blog readers.  Enjoy your feast & waddle to bed.

Cozy Winterness

Ah, winter.  Cold toes.  Cold noses.  Pink cheeks.  Crackling fire. 

One of my favorite things about winter is a warm fire.  I don’t think there is any heat warmer than a good wood fire.  And I love when my fire can pull double duty.  Country life here.  Making toast on a rack on my wood stove. 

Ah. life is good.



Side note:  Only 4 more followers to 200!!  Be sure to post comments because I am going to choose a winner from any comment made between the Nov 4 thread and the time we hit 200 for a winner!  And the 200th follower (and I will pull another random follower) I will send a crystal drop necklace to.  Be sure to comment, because the more comments, the better your chance of winning is.  (and I think if we go much longer, I'm going to start adding some goodies to the stash).

A little sparkle

I think it’s so cute that my daughter who was terrified of snow until she was three, has now realized at five, that snow is glittery!  Because snow is sparkly and glittery, like all good things girly, it is now her favorite thing. 

And since many girls like sparkly and glittery things, I made for my sister some beautiful jewelry that is sparkly and shiny.  (Happy Birthday Julie – if you’re reading and haven’t opened your gift yet, you might want to come back later ;)  Thanks for being a great sister. )

I used some findings I found at Craft Warehouse along with some crystals and some heat set Swarovski crystals.  Sometimes as you create, things take their own path when it doesn’t work right, or if you just think it looks better.  This is one of those.  I hadn’t intended to apply the heat set stones at all, but I found I couldn’t attach the crystals to look natural from the drops.  So heat set crystals filled the loops perfectly.

(sorry for the fuzzy picture of the earrings, I had a very hard time getting a picture, this was the best of them all and I was running out of time because I needed to mail them).

And a simple bracelet to complete the ensemble. 

I love sparkle.  Maybe that’s why I love the snow.

I’ve bean thankful

Really, I didn’t spell that wrong.  I’m not often good with word plays, but this one, made me smile, so I’m going to share it.

At church we have Secret Sisters for a year.  The main focus of it is supposed to be praying for our Sister.  But we do exchange cards and occasional gifts as well.  At risk of revealing myself here, I am going to bear all.  But we are 11 months into a 12 month rotation, so if she hasn’t figured out yet that it’s me, well then, either she’ll need way more coffee or I might have other reason for concern…….LOL…..(it’s a pretty small church and I can’t disguise my writing that well!)

Because I had the name of a very good friend for this year, I’ve tried very hard to hold myself back and only buy stuff.  Do you have any idea how hard it is to buy a card (even when I didn’t enjoy it) or buy gifts when I have so many ideas in my head of stuff she’d love????  Really. it’s. hard.

Saturday night I sat down to make my Thanksgiving cards.  I’ve wanted to do that for the last 4 years but never got it done.  I will get them done this year, I kept saying to myself.  Then I realized I should do a card for my Secret Sister as well.  That thought progressed into a gift.  But…I…didn’t have anything…..

oh wait….coffee……I had some of her favorite coffee beans.  So I grabbed a new mason jar from my cabinet and went to work.

I started decorating the jar, then the phrase hit me.  So I went with it.  Cheesy Beanie and all!  (ha, sometimes I make myself laugh)

Supplies:  Kerr jar, Kirkland Signature (by Starbucks) beans, The Twinery Twine, misc tag & button, Cosmo Cricket letters, 7 Gypsies (thankful word)

And Laura, if you didn’t know it was me, then I completely apologize for ruining the secret…;)….

Simple Elegance

Lately I’ve been called out for saying I’m not a card maker.  I can’t even say it’s how I got into this hobby, because I actually did try making cards several times before I started scrapbooking.  But I wasn’t successful……..

Now I’ve gotten to the point where I do enjoy making cards.  I still have a very hard time saying I’m a “card maker” because I believe there are many people who are truly artists in their card making skills.  I’m just a necessity card maker LOL.  However, I have finally found a way to identify myself as a card maker.  I can identify my style.  I’m a simple elegance card maker.  And proud of it.

I’ve had that idea kicking around in my head for a bit lately.  But then today, it finally concreted itself.  My mom and I made some more cards to send off to Operation Christmas Card.  We are running out of time though, so I wanted a quick, but still lovely design. 

An ink pad, one stamp and some Stickles later and I ended up with a very simple, yet very elegant card.

Sigh.  And this completely sums up me as a card maker.  And I’m happy to be that. 

Shaken, not stirred, please

I’m sure some of you have heard and are wondering, yes, we had an earthquake this morning.  My husband and I were woken at 5:09 by a loud rumble and vibrating.  We didn’t know what it was.  We don’t have a terrible amount of earthquakes larger than 3 (which we don’t usually feel) so earthquake didn’t cross either of our minds. 

I've been through several, larger earthquakes in the Seattle area and this one felt much different.  The epicenter was approximately 14 miles from us.


But that’s what it was.  We are just fine.  No damage (for us), just a bit of a scare for a minute while we tried to figure out what had exploded LOL

“Thankful” Mini Album

Being thankful is such an important personality trait I try to have and try to instill in my children.  I think an attitude of gratitude of of so much value in life. 

Part of our Thanksgiving celebration this year is to do a Thankful mini album.  I think I might do this yearly. 

I made mine with some #8 manila tags.  And I had a silly mishap in purchasing them, so you’ll probably see a lot of projects featuring them between now and December because I have twice as many as I need!!! 

I decided to do 8 pages because there are 8 letters in “thankful”.  As a family, we will fill each page with one thing we are thankful for (and write a sentence or paragraph about why).

Supplies:  Bo Bunny (2009), #8 Manila tags, misc trims & ribbons