A Million Little Things

CELEBRATE: freedom...with buttons

Ok, I don't know about you but I know that any time Jill posts a sale or gets a new shipment including those cool packs of buttons, I am tempted to grab them up. And yep, I often do! (With her prices, how can you not?!) I don't really use buttons in my scrapbooks much but I love to use them for other projects and they add so much color to your life, right?!

Well here's a simple project where you can use these awesome buttons from AMLT!

I had these great little frames from Ikea but you can always spray paint a frame you have around the house and you can make your flag to whatever size your frame is! Yay for simple!

So I just measured a piece of cardstock the size of the frame opening and then cut out some blue & red cardstock to build a base for my flag.  Hallelujah for GLUE DOTS because that's what I used for popping those buttons onto the flag. Easy peasy!  

I finished off the frame with a few border stickers along with some glitter letter stickers from Making Memories.

What do you think?!  Seriously if you have 30 minutes, even while you're watching the evening news, you can create this project for your holiday weekend. Your friends and family with love it and you can use it all year long!

So get to creating, people!  And don't forget to post your projects on our AMLT Facebook page. We'd love to see what you've been up to!

Happy 4th!

 

CELEBRATE: freedom

HOWDY and Happy Monday!  Are you gearing up for some fun holiday celebrations this next week?!  Our neighbors up north are getting ready to celebrate Canada Day while we are prepping for some super fun July 4th celebrations around here.  

This week I hope to bring you a bit of inspiration on decorating your home and preparing for some holiday fun with some simple party decoration ideas.  I love using my scrappy supplies to come up with creative and unique decor, party favors, etc.  These ideas will be coming at ya just in time for you to make some yourself for your own shindig!  The kids would even love to help out with these simple projects. 

First up, this week, a little art.  First I googled "United States outline" and downloaded a quick piece of clip art to give me an outline of our nation to trace onto patterned paper.  Didn't I tell ya it was simple?!  So I printed out my outline, put it with my striped pattern paper (American Crafts) and cut it out with my scissors.  Next I grabbed some KI Memories fun circle paper and cut out a section of it, adhered it to my outline and trimmed the edges.  

Next, I found some American Crafts letter stickers in my stash and added my little "let freedom ring" phrase onto the flag, popping in a little piece of Heidi Swapp tape under the "ring".  Then I attached the finished outline to a 8.5" x 11" piece of white cardstock and then mounted it all onto a piece of cardboard trimmed to the same size.  I outlined the shape with my fine-tip American Crafts Slick Writer and then with a little handwriting, I added in the lyrics to "America the Beautiful" all around the outline. Whaaaalaaaa!

Didn't I tell ya it was simple?!  And seriously, the entire project took me less than 30 minutes.  This would even be a fun project to do with the kids on July 4th.  Let them be a little creative with your scrappy supplies. :)

Celebrate freedom!

---patterned paper inspiration 5---

Woot woot!!  Can I hear a little holler about the fact that it is FRIDAY!?!!  

I'm winding up my week of hosting on the AMLT blog today.  I have one last little patterned paper DIY for ya and then I'll be passing the torch off to Shelby for next week. Can't wait to see what she has planned to share!

So for today's project, I had a little cheapo "canvas" lying around that - once again - I had found in the Target dollar spot section.  I decided to make a little wall art piece by adding some fab patterned paper from AMLT. (I used My Minds Eye and October Afternoon.)  I attached the patterned paper and then using some letter stickers from Bella Blvd., I added the phrase I wanted.  Next up, a little Prima flower.

And here's the end result.  The whole project took me easily less than 15 minutes. Yippeee!  Fun, time-saving art. Gotta love it.

 
Happy weekend, guys!

---patterned paper inspiration 4---

Howdy all!  Hope you're having a fantabulous week!

Here is day #4 of this week's DIY inspiration using patterned paper.

I have been holding on to this little initial hook that I found recently.  I think I picked it up in either the Target Dollar Spot or at Michael's in their little dollar bins.   And I just discovered the perfect project for it.  Again, another simple project.  This one is a little more time consuming but not hard at all!  This would be a great project for kiddos, too.

First, I decided to attach some patterned paper to the edges of the letter rather than get the paint out and go through that drying process.  So I simply popped a few glue dots around edge, cut a strip of patterned paper the same width as the letter and attached it around the edges. Glue dots are awesome. 

 

Next up, I chose a sheet of patterned paper with all kinds of colors and stripes and decided to go with it.  I cut small strips, in differing widths depending on where I was going to place them on the letter.  Using a pen, I started my little paper roll-ups and used adhesive to keep them together.

Then I just started building them on.  After I finished a roll-up, I'd attach it to the front of the letter with a few glue dots. Easy peasy.

And there ya have it.  A simple little initial hook with a pop of color & texture.  Is it perfect?  No way. But I'm okay with that! Love a quick project that can add a punch of color to life.

Go ahead. Give it a try!

---patterned paper inspiration 2---

Happy Tuesday, guys!  Thanks for coming back today for our 2nd day of patterned paper inspiration!

Last week was my youngest nephew's 1st birthday.  Yep, babies have birthdays all the time but this was a unique milestone for our family & for sweet little baby J.  He was born May 10, 2010 a full three months earlier than he was due at a tiny little 2 lbs 4.5 ounces.  You better believe we counted that .5 ounce! :)  After two months in the NICU, many prayers and much love from his mommy, daddy and big sister, he is doing fabulous!

Of course, I have to share photos so you can rejoice with me!

Here he is at 13 days old:

and here he is at 1 year old:

Completely adorable, you must agree! :)

And yes, this does have to do with today's project.

So we just celebrated his first birthday and I wanted to use some patterned paper in a creative way for wrapping his gifts.

First up, a plain ol' box and some patterned paper.  I just measured the size of the box top and the sides and cut my paper accordingly.  Then I used glue dots to adhere the paper to the box.  Next, I cut the letters of his name from another sheet of patterned paper and attached them to the top of the box along with a cute little cut out.  Ta-da!

Next, I had a little Elmo figurine that just need a little place to be tucked in.  A little gift bag - perfect!  I'll just make my own, thank you very much! So I, once again, grabbed a sheet from my collection.  I measured it according to the size of the little gift and cut my paper.  Then I simply folded it in half.  I stapled a few X's along each side to close up the sides and then finished off the edges by cutting a little fringe with scissors.  Add in a few hole bunches and some ribbon and there ya go, your own custom gift bag!  I finished it off with a few more die cuts and there ya have it!  Easy as pie...well, easier actually!

   

See ya back here tomorrow for patterned paper inspiration #3! 

---patterned paper inspiration 1---

Happy Monday to y'all!  Hope you had a fabulous Spring weekend!  

This week I want to bring you a few ideas of how to use your patterned paper in new & interesting ways!  I, like most of you, have quite a stash of scrapbooking supplies.  However, probably unlike you, my days have been filled with many things other than scrapbooking lately unfortunately.  I haven't even picked up my camera and taken many photos for me since I started my photography business so I don't have much to scrap of my every day.  (insert sad face here.)  

But I still LOVE to create and love to use all these awesome goods that you can get at AMLT!  So, this week I want to inspire you to use your supplies in different ways.  Maybe you, too, haven't had been clickin' your camera as much and still want to use all these beautiful patterned papers and products that Jill offers.  Well stick around the blog this week and maybe - just maybe - we'll inspire you to purchase a few new products and to give these projects a try!

Today, I have a little project to share that is so SO simple but can add quite a touch of color & fun to your wall, entry table or some other little nook in your casa!

I love the typography prints you can buy now with all the fun phrases in cool type.  So why not create your own?  

Here's what I did.  I opened a new file in Photoshop and created the size I wanted - 8.5" x 11".  (You could easily create this in Microsoft Word as well.)  I typed up the verse I wanted to print and used a block font that I love...Lane.  You can get it at dafont.com for free here.  I spaced it just the way I wanted it and printed it on a thick cardstock.

Next up, grab that exacto knife and start cutting.  I worked on mine while I cheered on my OKC Thunder to Friday night victory over the Memphis Grizzlies (my apologies to you if you're a Grizzlies fan!)   It does take a little bit but with this block font, cutting is actually pretty easy.  Remember that you're going to use the negative space so you really need to just cut out the outline. Don't worry about all the insides of the letters unless you want to save them to use.

Now that you have your entire page exacto'd, you're ready to attach your patterned paper to the back.  I just chose one paper that I loved to use for the entire page but you could patchwork your own so that each letter is a different pattern or even each word is different.  The beauty of it is that you get to choose! 

Once you have your patterened paper attached and peeking through, you're ready to pop into a frame or you can mount it onto some chipboard or cardboard and you're finished!

Lovely art made by you.

If you'd like to make one like mine, just click on the following image and save it to your computer!  A free little download for ya to create your own.

See ya back here tomorrow - same time, same place!  Happy Monday! 

make it a month with an attitude of GRATITUDE

Here in the good ol' USA, we celebrate Thanksgiving Day in November.  One day.  Why not celebrate being thankful all month and making it a daily habit?  That's my goal with today's project. 

I wanted to create something that would help me stop for a moment each day and recognize the many blessings in my life.  I hope it helps me change my attitude each and every day and creates a habit of being thankful daily with intention.  

Meet my gratitude garland.

It's a simple project that took about 2 hours to put together. Kids could definitely help out with a project like this and will have fun creating! 

Here's the plan. The garland will hang along the mantel during the month of November. Every day, Mom & I will write down a blessing or something, someone, some circumstance that we are thankful for and drop our slips of paper into the cone for that day.  We'll also invite guests, friends and family to participate when they stop by the house as well.  At the end of the month, we'll have quite the collection to compile into a little bag or even a gratitude journal to keep.  AND we can store our little paper cones and use it again year after year.  Love that.

So here's how we made it...

First, I sifted through my stash of patterned paper and chose 20-25 different sheets with fall-ish colors.  I downloaded a paper cone template online (just google "paper cone template" and you'll find an abundance you can use!) and used it as our pattern.  We got all our papers cut and then glued them together with some scrapbook adhesive.  I punched out scallopped circles to use for the number stickers.  Once we had our cones all put together, we punched a whole on each side of the cone.  Next, we grabbed our roll of jute (jute is inexpensive & can be found in local craft stores & probably at walmart, too!) and strung them on in order.  Now how did we get them hung up on the mantel?  There was no way tape was going to hold the garland up so we ran out to the flower bed and borrowed a few bricks we use as edging, covered them with orange felt and there ya go!  I love making do with what I have. :) 

I encourage you - even if you don't get to it until later in the week - to create a similar project for the month.  A thankful heart keeps away negative thinking and we all need a little more thankful and a little positive in our lives, right?!  Make a difference and create some new habits - being earnestly thankful each day.

Happy Thanksgiving month!!

xo.
Rebekah

how to: make your own banner greeting card.

Happy Tuesday How-To! 

1.Grab your favorite patterned paper (I used October Afternoon), a pencil and scissors and let's get to work...er, to play!! 

2. Choose a sentiment...get well, congrats, thanks, etc. and freehand the letters onto your paper.  (Make sure your letters aren't too large to fit into the envelope you plan to use for your card.)  I love the homemade look of using your own writing.  Of course, you could also use templates you can print using fonts on your computer.

3. Cut out your hand drawn letters.

4. Go to the sewing machine and using thin scrap paper as your backing, simply machine stitch across your paper, feeding one letter in at a time.  Once you have your banner all sewn together, just pull off the scrap paper and whaaalaa...your banner card!

I had so many small scraps left from cutting out the paper that I couldn't bear to toss!

 

So I grabbed my smallest circle punch and initially planned to make some confetti for the card but then I went to plan B and decided to just design another card using all the fun little circles.  It's fun to see what you can come up with just using your small scraps of paper!
 

We're on Spring Break here in OK!  Hope everyone is enjoying the beautiful Spring weather!

Countdown to Christmas, Day 3

 

Day 3...Countdown!  I am a little late but it is still day 3.  I was at our local flea market and found some cute picture frames for $15.  But after I got to searching I figured I could make them for about $2.50-$3.00 each myself.  Wow what a savings.  This year, my boys' teachers are going to get these for gifts: I bought plain picture frames from Michael's Craft store.  Then I picked out scrapbook paper and glued it down with decoupage adhesive; trim off access paper.  Next, layer two coats of decouge on top.  Paint edges of frame and embellish as you wish!

Then you have cute picture frames for a super cheap gift.  Enjoy your holidays!
  

Tutorial: Laminate sample mini album

Hi there everyone! This is Kristina. :) Today it is my turn to post a little something fun for you! Please forgive me if this post looks a bit wonky - this is my first time ever posting on Typepad and I definitely am learning as I go. :) Today I am going to show you a really cute, quick, easy and most importantly inexpensive mini album that you can create with something you might not have ever thought about. You don’t need very many items to create this and the thing that I love is that the base of this mini album is something you can get FOR FREE – yep you read that right – for free!! Now granted, the folks at the home improvement stores might look at you a bit odd if you’re in there a lot or grabbing hundreds of these, but you’ve got to try and make this. :)

All you need to do is go to the kitchen remodeling section of your local home improvement store and grab some of these counter top laminate samples that are usually by the kitchen models or hanging on a wall close by. These are what they look like: 

They have smaller ones as well, but the ones I’m using for this album are the bigger ones – they measure 3.5 x 5.

The other materials you’ll need to make this mini album are: cardstock scraps, letter stickers, double-sided tape (or a glue of another kind - glue stick, glue dots, etc), a hole punch, some sand paper and black ink (for the edges), a d-ring to hold the pages together(you can get these in office supply stores), some ribbon and of course some art, pictures, journaling or whatever you’d like your album to be filled with. :)

Here is what my album looks like:

I created this little mini album to hold some works of art my daughter has drawn for me lately. I loved the idea of capturing them in this little album. I just gave her small white sheets of paper to color some miniature masterpieces on and that’s what I used to fill up my album pages. My album only uses 4 laminate samples, but you could easily use many more - just get a bigger d-ring to hold them all at the top. This mini album would be perfect as a gift, a travel album, an album to jot down favorite quotes or even something like a first year album. Wouldn’t it be great to make one of these little albums every year for either your child (or children) or just about your favorite things? It would be so neat to see how things change from year to year. If you’re a pet lover, you could even create a mini album about your pet! Very cute!

Now to create this album, all I did was take some scrap pieces of cardstock big enough to cover the fronts and backs of the laminate samples. I adhered my double sided tape all over it, placed my cardstock down on top of it and then trimmed away the excess. I sanded the edges a bit to give it a more finished look and then added a bit of black ink to the edges, too. Once I got one side covered I made sure to use my hole punch and punch through the hole so I would be able to see where the hole was when I covered the other side. :) Just continue to do that process to cover as many pages as you’d like and then when you’re done – embellish each page, clip them all together with a d-ring, add a bit of ribbon and you’ve got yourself a cute little mini album! You’re husband/boyfriend/brother/whatever will be so happy that you actually WANTED to go to the home improvement store with him from now on so that you can pick yourself up some of these laminate samples to create with. :)

Don’t forget that they do make smaller ones as well, so you can follow these same steps to create a smaller mini album that could be used to attach to a gift or as a key chain even. The ideas are endless!

Here is a picture of the inside of the album and the back of the album:

I hope the next time you’re in a home improvement store and you see these samples that you’ll pick some up – not to decide which counter tops would be perfect for your kitchen, but to create a sweet little keepsake album that takes very little money or time. Now if you can get some new counter tops – that would be great, too – but work on the album first, ok? I guarantee you it's more fun. ;) If you don't have a home improvement store near you - maybe a friend of yours does and can pick you up some of these or this could challenge you to look at other free items around your house, etc. and see what you can create with it!

I hope you give this a try! Please post them in the AMLT gallery if you do make one of these mini albums!! I'd love to see what you create! Thanks so much! Have fun! :)

Oh, and be sure to check out Jill's blog from CHA below this one! She's got some great photos from the show and a chance for you to win one of 2 Fiskars prize packs! Good luck!