Creative Gift Wrap

 What do you do when you don't have any wrapping paper and you are too lazy to go to the store?  You get creative, of course!  I needed to wrap gifts for a brother and sister birthday party.  I looked around to see what materials I had available and then just let the shape of the gift dictate what I did.  (The paper for both was bulletin board paper.)

This top gift was such an odd shape.  Instead of trying to wrap that handle part, I decided it looked like a nose, so I just went with it.

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This box I thought was shaped like a truck or bus.  Since she would soon be starting pre-k, I decided a school bus would be appropriate.  The number 4 represented her age at the time.

I was pleased with the final results, and they were a big hit at the party.  I also had a great time making them.  Sometimes it's a good thing when you have to think outside the (gift) box.

Graduation Cards

I had to make a few "quick" graduation cards.  (Quick for most people; hours for me.)  I have learned cardmaking is not my thing, but sometimes it is necessary.  At least for these I had already decided to make them just black and white so that saved me at least an hour.  ;-)

 

 

I always feel I need to put a little something on the back of a card.  I was too lazy to use my Silhouette just for one small thing, so I looked around for a sticker, punch or some other quick addition.  I ended up coloring blue number stickers black and jamming them on this punched shape.  I should have just cut something on my Silhouette.  LOL!

 

I made this one a pop-up.

 

 

 

 

I like to add a little fun to cards when I can, so even though you can't tell from this picture, I added and homemade action wobble to make this girl dance.

 

 

 

I made these last two on another day and remembered to cut images for the back.  :-)

 

 

 

 

Yee Haw! It's a Western Theme Party!

Since I'm not doing much crafting these days, I just keep digging up past projects.  This was my table for our ladies tea at church back in 2012.  I was pleased with how it turned out.

 

This is before I added all the details. 

 

After adding more accessories.  It was probably a little too cluttered/busy for some people's taste, but I liked it.  😊

 

 

 

 

 

Here is a close up of one of the table settings.  I made the placemats from old blue jeans.  For the plates, I started with a clear glass plate and put the design on using reverse decoupage.  Working from the backside (in reverse layering), I first put the cowboy themed cutouts which were made using my Slice machine and the Happy Trails design card.  The faux leather look was created by ripping kraft paper into small pieces and inking the edges of each piece, then overlapping the pieces until the area was completely covered.  For the final layer I used bandana fabric.  Each of the layers was adhered using Mod Podge.  I added a couple of extra coats to finish it off.

 

 

 

 

These two pictures show some of the details.  I was excited to find the cactus glasses at the Dollar Tree.  I personalized each one using vinyl.  I also added vinyl cutouts to each of the coffee mugs.  The tiny cowboy boots are keychains.  I used bandanas for napkins.  The little pails were from Logan's Roadhouse.  (I saved them from their little bucket desserts.)  I filled them with peanuts.

 

 

 

As you can see, I used a camping lantern and rope on top of two pieces of burlap (a light piece over a dark piece) as the centerpiece.  I added the small lanterns and cacti and then scattered small stones and cowboy themed cutouts.

 

 

 

Here is a better shot of the cactus glass.  I added the small cowboy hat and some jute for rope.  If you look closely you can see the wagon wheel coaster under the glass.

 

I sent my guests home with their whole table setting -- cowboy hat, plate, placemat, cactus glass, bandana napkin, bucket of peanuts, and cowboy boot keychain -- everything except the coffee mugs and silverware.

 

Everyone seemed to enjoy it, especially one of my guests who is from Texas.  😊

 

Pastor Appreciation Bulletin Board - Flowers

A few years ago I did a bulletin board for Pastor Appreciation (found HERE).  This year I finally got around to replacing it with this one.  Once again I had church members write short notes of encouragement and/or appreciation to the pastor and his wife, only this time I used flowers instead of lambs.  This one was also inspired by various ideas on Pinterest (my best friend).

Although I did plan ahead a little more for this one, I still ended up rushing through the assembly.  I cut the flowers out a couple of weeks in advance and handed them out, but I had to wait for them to be returned to me before I could put it all together.  I decided the flowers needed to be inked so I did that last minute too.  Fortunately, I was able to reuse the cloud border from some previous bulletin board, and I made a similar shaped border for the bottom to resemble bushes.

Unfortunately, the photo is not very good, but I added two tiny butterflies and bent their wings to make them 3-D.  Except for the ones for the word "GROW", the flower stems and leaves were drawn after I had already stapled down the flowers.  (Definitely not the best way to do it, but I had to come back and add them later because I just ran out of time).

Spring Explosion Box

Here are some close-ups of the explosion box mentioned in this post.  It has been so long ago I don't remember many details, but if anyone really cares you are welcome to ask and I'll try to answer any questions.  You can't see it very well in the picture, but the line of green beads is supposed to be a caterpillar. 

Then when you open the box, a butterfly emerges.

This picture shows a little of the detail.  You can barely tell that the corners are punched/embossed.  Each of the boxes I made had different butterfly stickers added.  This one probably was the one I liked least, so I kept it for myself.

 

Ladies Tea 2011

This was from the 2011 annual Ladies Tea at church.  It was my first attempt at anything like this.  I was really outside my comfort zone and very intimidated.  Each table is decorated by a different lady (or team).  The other ladies are so creative and talented.  I won't show their tables so mine won't look so bad.  :-)

We were supposed to give each lady at our table an inexpensive favor.  I made these explosion boxes.  I had planned to give them photos from the tea to add to the inside.  Yeah, that didn't happen.  Oh well.  The ladies at my table were my friends and family and they still love me.  I didn't get a picture of the inside of the boxes because I had stayed up all night finishing the boxes and was running late.  But I do still have one so maybe I'll post more about it later.  (Update:  I posted about the explosion box here.)

I made these as place cards.  My sweet daughter wrote the names for me because she is so much better at that than I am.  The bottom one was for my niece who was 8 months pregnant at the time.  :-)

The centerpiece I made.

This shows what I did for chair covers.  I used white pillowcases over the chairs and then just added the bows and butterflies.

It was near Easter so I made the theme for mine Spring/Rebirth.  I wasn't thrilled with how it turned out, but it was ok and we all had a good time.

Mr. Bones Celebrates Valentine's Day

Well, I told you Mr. Bones would be making appearances from time to time.  As I mentioned previously, when I created Mr. Bones I had no idea how much fun he would be.  This post is about the Valentine's Day following his creation.  This was where the real fun began because the whole family got involved.

I had decorated him for Valentine's Day (most likely in the middle of the night while the family was asleep) and apparently my family thought they would add to the fun.  On Valentine's Day my husband (not much of a romantic, but sometimes he at least tries) left his Valentine wishes for me on a large heart placed on the skeleton.  (I was impressed he had cut the heart out by himself!  He just got lucky he didn't use some of my treasured paper!)

At some other time (I can't remember if it was before or after my husband's addition) my daughter added the moustache and monocle.  (Or maybe it was the hat and monocle.  Or maybe all three.)  I got a big kick out of both of them joining in on the fun!

This was four years ago, so I don't remember the details all that well.  (I barely remember yesterday).  Most of the accessories I made were from Cricut cartridges.  The Valentine card (Bee Mine) was from the Spring Holiday Cards cartridge.  The teddy bear and accessories were from the Teddy Bear Parade cartridge.  The dog is from Create a Critter.  The hearts (other than the one my hubby cut out) were probably various punches.  I can't remember where the teacup was from, possibly cut using my Slice machine. 

This was one of the best Valentine's Day surprises for me.  I loved it!

If you missed my other posts about Mr. Bones, you can read about him HERE and HERE

New Year Bulletin Board

Obviously this is another old bulletin board.  It was meant for the beginning of the new year, but it could be used for anytime (minus the year).  It's just a simple bulletin board encouraging church members to find what service best fits them.  The ones in the middle were highlighted and changed out weekly.

It's been so long ago I can't remember much of the details.  I do know the snowflakes were cut from sparkly prism-type paper (Crayola Stardust) which reflects the light and makes them look different colors.  I believe the puzzle pieces were cut using print and cut on the Silhouette Cameo.

Mario Gift Bag

Two posts in one day!  Amazing!

I made this Mario gift bag for a special little boy for his 4th birthday.  He is obsessed with Mario at the moment.  I found the inspiration for my gift bag through a link on Pinterest.  (How did we ever survive without Pinterest?!)  Here is the original blog link.

I cut the various shapes on my Silhouette, but they were simple shapes that could have mostly been done with punches and/or freehand.  I used this pattern for the mustache.  I used a double layer of pop dots on the nose to give it dimension and also because I wanted to make the mustache wiggle using a homemade spring (faux Action Wobble).

Just for fun I also made a bunch of extra mustaches in three different sizes.  I applied double-sided tape to the back of each and had all the guests wear them (including the wee little ones) for a group shot. 

A special thanks to these two bloggers for helping me put a smile on a sweet little boy's face!

Pin the Nose on Rudolph

This is a Pin the Nose on Rudolph game I made last year for our children's Christmas party at church.  I started with a blue poster board and then hand cut the "snow" on the ground.  The snowflakes are punches.  I already had the Christmas tree from another project (to possibly be posted at a later date).  The tree is from the Cricut cartridge Paper Doll Dress Up, and it is decorated with different punches.  The cute little Rudolph is cut on my Silhouette using a cut file by Stinkin Cute,  and the little silhouette of Santa's sleigh is from Paper Piecings by Nikki.

Bulletin Board: VBS - Colossal Coaster World

I'm a little embarrassed to post this because as I was taking this bulletin board down, I realized that I never actually finished it.  This was to advertise our VBS this past summer.  I intended to put the Scripture verse and maybe some other related info on the bulletin board, but I had trouble deciding exactly what else to add and then I just completely forgot about it.  I was horrified when I realized I had left off the most important part!  Well, it did get a lot of attention, so I guess it served the purpose of advertising VBS.  (But shame on me!)

The "sky" background was some wrapping paper I found on clearance.  The border is a strip of tickets from the Dollar Tree.  The fence and gate along the bottom were cut from the Everyday Paper Dolls Cricut cartridge.  I added the Colossal Coaster World logo over the gate.  I cut the Help Wanted sign using CCR basics and put it on the fence as a subtle hint to fellow church members.  ;-)  The grass in front of the fence was actually a cattails border from Everyday Paper Dolls.  I used the cattails as the flower stems.  The flowers were from a small punch.  The ticket booth, carousel, ferris wheel, waterslide, and the roller coaster on the left are all from the Carousel cartridge. 

The roller coaster on the right is from the Summer Vacation cartridge.  I created the coaster cars by combining several shapes together and manipulating them in CCR until I was satisfied it looked like a roller coaster.  The reason I added my customized cars was because I was originally going to put photos of some of the church members on the rides, but then I decided they would have been too small to notice (and I just ran out of time and motivation).

The plane ride (bottom left) is also from Summer Vacation.

The lakes and some of the trees were from the Campin' Critters cartridge.  The other trees and bushes were cut in various sizes from Everyday Paper Dolls.

Most everything was cut out of poster board since they were so large, and I chose to hand paint them rather than cut layers.  It was a lot of work, but it was fun and I was fairly pleased with the overall result.

 

(See post about the Colossal Coaster World VBS decorations HERE )

Card for Wanda

Since it is quite obvious that I am never going to catch up posting previous creations, I might as well start with the one from today while it is fresh in my mind.  I made this card for a friend of mine for a housewarming gift.  I was unable to make it to the actual party (over a month ago) due to being on vacation, so when she invited our Sunday School class over I thought that was as good a time as any to give her the card.  I have been working on the card off and on this whole time, trying to learn my Silhouette software.  I got very frustrated at times, but I'm glad I soldiered on and won the battle.  Most everything cut with the Silhouette Cameo would have taken MUCH less time to just cut by hand, but I was determined to learn the machine and software.  I would learn a little and then by the time I got around to it again, I had forgotten what I learned and would have to start over.  (Ugh)

After the frustrating part was over, I had great fun adding all the details.  As always, the end result was much different than my original plan, but this was one I was actually pleased with.

The door is huge for a reason.  That was the main feature in order to place a gift card behind it.  I "built" the house to fit the door.  :-)  The window design changed several times before settling on this somewhat plain one.  The shutters were from the hen house Silhouette file by Jillibean Soup.  The grass was a border punch, as was the window valance.  The kitty, wreath, flowers, and tiny butterfly were various punches.  I drew lines for siding and roofing (can't really see the roof detail).  The doorknob is a brad.  I got the inside sentiment from the internet and just printed it and added a punched heart.

The actual card is just the house.  The "sky" and "grass" were just used for photographing the card, but I really like how it looks so I might just have to recreate it as a scrapbook page.  ;-)  The card only opens at the door.  I went back and forth as to whether or not the entire house should be hinged.  I even made the back hinged, but I whacked it off when I decided it was too flimsy to open the whole house (and I didn't want to stay up any longer to add more support).  Decision-making takes way more time than any crafting I do.  (Sigh)

My Little Crafting Buddy

This adorable card was made by my granddaughter.  When she comes over we like to play with my paper crafting supplies and especially the paper dolls.  Here is one of her first projects.  She was 7 at the time.   She made a card for a friend at church.  She definitely has the crafting gene.

Another Simple Card

This simple card was inspired by something I saw on the internet.  (I have no idea where or even what theirs looked like.)  This was for a wedding shower.  Once again I was in a giant hurry.  If I had had more time (and thought the couple would even care) I would have at least put centers in the flowers and maybe their names inside the heart.

She's the Artist

Why is it that I've been crafting all my life (we don't need to talk about just how long that is -- trust me, it's a long time), but my daughter (who has some interest in crafting, but mostly can take it or leave it) can make beautiful cards like this? She is an incredible artist! It makes me proud and jealous at the same time (mostly just proud). These are pretty much her first attempts at cardmaking (other than just drawing pictures). I love them! She constantly amazes me with her many talents!