12 Days of Christmas - Hand Made Presents, day 6

HAPPY 95th INDEPENDENCE DAY, FINLAND!

Okay, then to business...

I made these post-it-note holders last year and everybody liked them so I have to do some more this year too (haven't finished this years ones yet, so the pictures are from last year). Again I had used retired products on these- but this way you actually get to use your own imagination on what to use :)

The pens are from Staples Business Depot and they come in a pack of 10 of 12, cannot remember exactly (and I have tossed the packaging so cannot even check)

Post-It Note and Pen Holder (for post-it notes sized 3” x 3”)

• Cut your base card stock into 7 ³/₈” x 3 ¼”
• Score the card stock at 3 ¹/₈”, 3 ½” and 3 ⁷/₈”
• Fold the card stock in the middle score line and cut 2 slits from the outer score lines to the center score line.
• The larger part (3 ½”) is the base of the holder and the narrow scores are the part for the pen.
• Fold the holder (remember to push the pen holder “slit” up and adhere the part staying under the pen to the back page)
• stick the post-it note to the base (double sided tape/sticky strip)
• Decorate the cover and add pen (I used mini gel pens from Staples)

 

Simply My Digital Studio Challenge Week 1

My idol in digital scrapbooking has to be Heather Summers. You can find more about her from her blog www.stampwithheather.typepad.com. She has started together with Kimberly Van Diepen a Facebook group "Simply My Digital Studio Challenges" where they will be posting their tutorial videos and also linking projects done with their challenge.

This week the challenge was how to group your photos and use multiple photo boxes to hold one image.


Simply My Digital Studio Challenge - week 1

And this is my take on the challenge. What I discovered (by accident - I have to admit) was that when I changed the 2 pictures into sepia, but then clicked "undo" - it only recoloured the top image. I had to double "undo" to recolour both. So I used this as an "extra" feature on my page - I left the background sepia coloured and the top layer coloured. And I didn't mat the picture on the top - just did a heavy shadow. I thought this looked pretty cool.

The fun part of this was that I re-did one of my fav scrapbook pages. I was SO proud of this page when I created it - and still am - I was a novise scrapbooker when I made the page so I guess that made it even more special and fabulous! I could not locate the original pictures, but the place and the people are same - just a different day :-)

Here, as a comparison, is a picture of the original page (sorry for the poor quality old picture)

12 Days of Christmas - Hand Made Presents, day 5

I used retired stamp set and Designer Series Paper for this candle set, I also folded a divider inbetween the candles, but it is not necessary for this to look pretty. Think of also just doing the cover from clear window sheet - that way the candles can be seen even without opening the box.

And you can use the tissue paper method also on pillar candles. Just cover the tissue paper with a sheet of wax paper and hold tight when heating the stamped tissue paper into the candle. You can remove the wax paper when the candle has cooled down.

1. The box starts as a 3-3/4x8-1/4" piece.
2. Your longest score lines are at 1/2", 1-1/8", 2-5/8", & 3-1/4"
3. Your short score lines are at 1/2", 1-1/8", 7-1/8", & 7-3/4"
4. Cut out the shaded areas and on the cut line to make flaps.
5. Decorate box as desired.
6. Crease all folds well with bone folder.
7. Apply sticky strip  to the 4 outer most sections and assemble to box.
8. The box cover is made from a 5x6" piece. 
9. Score lines will be 6" long at 5/8", 2-1/4", 2-7/8", & 4-1/2".
10. Crease folds well with bone folder and put sticky strip on one edge flap.
11. Decorate top as desired. 
12. Peel the sticky strip and wrap cover around box, adhere flaps together.
13. Fold a piece of tissue paper into 4 layers, and sandwich between 2 layers of copy paper. Punch out your 1-3/8" circles. Leave between the copy paper layers and punch 3 times in the center with the 1/16" punch to make a hole big enough for the wick to fit thru.
14. Stamp tissue paper with desired images.
15. Slide tissue paper over the wick onto top of the tealight.
16. Put tealight down! Do not hold for this step. Heat top of tea light  with heat gun until the tissue  paper melts into the wax. All done!

Here is the diagram for the box

12 Days of Christmas - Hand Made presents, day 4

Village of Cuteness

These wooden decorative houses are such a pretty decoration - through out the year! We first did these at the Stampin'Up! Convention in 2010, and these are based on those - but I changed things up a bit and used new Designer Series Papers.

My Father-in-Law helped me two summers ago cut all the house shapes from left over 2"x4" lumber (I think we cut some 2"x6" shapes too). Then I just sanded them lightly and painted them with acrylic paint. Rest is pretty much paper or various little trinkets. The door hinges are a retired Stampin'Up! product (little paper clips) and the key is from a retired embellishment set, but you can use what ever little trinkets you find.

I made these more generic ones, so I can actulally display them through out the year but I have seen them made into Halloween and Christmas Houses - I guess what ever holiday you have at hand :)

Here is an other look at the houses

12 Days of Christmas - Hand made Presents, day 3

This is the best gift ever - atleast that's how I feel :-)
First of all - it is super simple and in-expensive and most importantly: IT IS VERY USEFUL!!
You are always looking for coasters and since I'm obsessed by them - I have them all over the place. And this causes an other dilemma - they need to be pretty so that they can be left on the tables :)

So what I did was this:

• in-expensive kitchen tiles (you can choose what ever style you like - even different colour!). I got mine from Rona, but most home hardware shops would sell them
• Clean the tiles
• Stamp your preferred image (in this case I used the "postage due"-set with StazOn black (or white) ink. Note! The ink has to be waterproof!
• Mod Podge (or you can use Stampin'Up! Crystal Effects) over the stamped image
• adhere either cork feet/base or those clear "bumps" which you use on your kitchen doors and drawers (available at the home hardware stores - usually where they keep their kitchen door hardware)

ENJOY!

12 Days of Christmas - Hand Made Presents - day 2

My second present is a pin cushion in a frame. The one at the background is a frame from IKEA and fits a 4"x6" picture. I call this my "serious seamstress" version, as the cushion is very large (well - you could make it into 12"x12"). The smaller frames are from Michael's and are much smaller and work nicely with just your "sew on a button" seamstresses :)

With the pin cushion, you remove the glass or plastic to allow the fabric to pop out of the frame. I used hot glue to adhere the fabric to the frame and then added the background. And a great tip: fill the cushion with STEEL WOOL! why?? this keeps the pins sharp! So there is my tip for all your seamstresses too

12 Days of Christmas... Hand Made Presents - Day 1

As my "12 Days of Christmas" I decided to showcase 12 different gift ideas, that you can easily get ready before Christmas.

Explosion Box

My 1st day may seem like more work - and that's what it actually is, but atleast you now have time to work on it.

I used the "Merry Moments Simply Scrappin'" kit (from the Stampin'Up! Holiday Catalogue, p. 9).

Explosion Box without lid

The kit allowed me to do 2 boxes (well... probably would have allowed more, if I would not have made a mistake with the lid size TWICE!!! and not used so many embellishment stickers on the boxes :)



Explosion box open (outside)

 I didn't add pictures to this one - I thought the person receiving this can add their own holiday pictures to it afterwards and personalize it to their liking.

The last picture shows where the slits are on the pages. If you prefer, you can cut the 4 corner pieces out all together, or if you want to make it even bigger, you can add a second layer to it. Just use a slightly smaller cardstock to start with, so that it fits inside the box!

And finally, here is the template for the box. Have fun!