One Dozen

Quite a milestone today... as Rebecca turned 12! She was not in the mood for any pictures today, and at the time I tried to take some the sun was really too bright and impossible to keep her eyes open. Instead I shot a few with her eyes closed and not looking directly at the camera.

It's been quite busy over the past couple of weeks and as usual things are happening in my head, but are being left to be executed right at the last minute. Can you believe it I made her birthday card last night? Definitely not my best work.

Supplies: Cardstock: Bazzill Basics Paper | Patterned Paper: Echo Park | Pearls: Prima Marketing + KaiserCraft | Butterfly punch: Martha Stewart | Clear Stamp: Papertrey Ink (Birthday Bash Sentiments) | Ink: Stampin'Up (Turquoise) | Corner Rounder: Woodware Designs | Border Punch: Martha Stewart.

We also took a lot of time deciding on what kind of party to have for Rebecca. Finally two weeks ago David and her found chocolate workshop party at a shop nearby. Last Thursday I made these invitations for the 5 friends she wanted to invite. Of course I had to make a spare one for the archives.

Supplies: Cardstock: Papertrey Ink + Bazzill Basics Paper | Clear Stamps: Papertrey Ink (Fancy Flourishes, Friendship Jar, Just the Ticket) | Ink: Stampin'Up (Turquoise) | Tools: Silhouette Digital Cutter | Brad : K&Company | Border Punch: EK Success | Software: Photoshop CS | Fonts: Avenir + Sweetheart Script.

Then this week the task was also to create some party boxes. I always enjoy making them. I decided on one of the designs from Lauren Meader which she created for Papertrey Ink. The original design was just a little bit to small to fit in the little notebooks which we bought at Smiggle. I needed to make some adjustments to make them fit. They are gorgeous boxes, but I underestimated the time it needed to assemble them. Nonetheless I finished them today. I made two different colour combinations.

Blue with green ones:

And pink with green ones:

Supplies: Cardstock: Bazzill Basics Paper | Patterned Paper: Echo Park | Box Design: Papertrey Ink (Keeping Tabs) | Clear Stamps: Papertrey Ink (Fillable Frames 5, Butterfly Dreams) | Pearls: Martha Stewart | Ink: Stampin'Up (Turquoise), Staz'On (Timber Brown) | Ribbon: B*Inspired.

The party will be tomorrow afternoon. This should be a nice opportunity for some great pictures with her friends.

Happy Mother's Day

Today it's Mother's Day, so to all mums out there - with the exception of the UK, as they had their's on March 14th - Happy Mother's Day!

My Mother's Day present for my mum didn't make it there on time, but I'll still post it here today anyway. That way she knows what what to look forward to. When I showed you the sneak peek in a previous post, my mum had already guessed it is calendar. I've already made her two calendars before, but they are different every time, it's practical and it has newer updated pictures of her grandchildren. And what grandmother doesn't want new pictures of her grandchildren.

I got the idea how to display the calendar from browsing the internet, hunting for this:

While looking at all different stores that supply them - none of which in Australia by the way - I got the inspiration for the size to use (I tried to find it again, but couldn't).

A calendar seems a long and drawn out process, but once you decide on size and layout it's just a matter of copying. I decided to make the pages for each month 6 inches wide and 8 inches tall. Since I'd intended to already make the calendar for Christmas and never managed to, I made it a 18 month calendar starting from July 2010.

Firstly I created a canvas in Photoshop of the finished size. I then typed all the months by using a new layer for each month, each name of the month and both years. To be able to print each month individually you need to only select the layers you want to print. Next I printed all the months and rounded the bottom corners. Step two was to decide how to use the patterned papers and the pictures. It looks as if there isn't that much patterned paper on each month, but it's amazing how much you need to make one of those flowers.

I cannot display it with the display stand, as I couldn't find it. Ingrid was so kind to arrange one for me in Holland.  But I did hang one of the months on a barbecue skewer balanced in between two chairs so you get a the idea.

And here's what the whole calendar looks like:


























Supplies: Display Stand: 7Gypsies | Cardstock: Bazzill Basics | Patterned Paper: October Afternoon 'Fly a Kite' | Brads | Clear Stamp: Papertrey Ink 'Year of Flowers: Violets', Fancy Pants | Ink: Staz'On (timber brown), VersaColor, Palette | Border Punch: EK Success (embossed scallop) | Photoshop CS3 | Fonts: Avenir, Chopin Script

Of course I made her a card as well.

Supplies: Cardstock: Bazzill Basics | Patterned Paper + Die-Cuts: October Afternoon 'Fly a Kite' + 'Thrift Shop' | Border Punch: EK Success 'Embossed Scallop' | Ribbon: Paperchase | Tag: from clothing | Buttons | Clear Stamp: Papertrey Ink 'Delightful Dahlia' | Ink: Staz'On (timber brown)

Would anyone be interested in a downloadable calendar file, or a tutorial on how to build it from scratch? I have no clue how to this right now, but if anyone would find it useful I could look into it.

Enjoy!

Valentine's Day...

...that's the movie my friend Beth and her daughter Lauren, Rebecca and I will be seeing this morning.

As promised I would show you my Valentine's album, which is created for Papercrafts Inspirations' February 2010 issue. Two weeks ago I received my copy of the magazine and I was overwhelmed with the way they managed to feature the album. It's a three page spread. I struggled a little to take good pictures, but I think they did a marvellous job. It even had a tiny picture of it on the front cover!







Below are the pictures I took (beware.... picture overload):

For a list of supplies please refer to the magazine, or else contact me if you have any questions.

And finally the card I made for my Valentine...

Supplies

Cardstock: Bazzill Basics Cardstock

Patterned Paper + Die-cut labels: Pink Paislee 'Cupid'

Ribbon: Paperchase

Heart Punch + Border Punch: Martha Stewart

Button: Making Memories

Pearl: KaiserCraft

Machine Stitching

Still there?? Thank you for your visit and we'll meet again soon... Happy Valentine's Day!

Teacher's Gifts

Before I get onto my title's subject, Catherine asked me what fonts I used for the New Year's Party invitations. The fonts I used were:

• Palatino (standard with Photoshop)
• Bordeaux Roman Bold LET (standard with Photoshop)
• Chopin Script (downloadable for free from DaFont.com)
• Avenir LT (downloadable from LinoType.com)

I made a very simple homemade gift for them. I recycled some glass jars, decorated them and filled them with Quality Street sweets.

For Ruben's teacher:


The card was inspired by one of the DT members of Papertrey Ink:


For Rebecca's teacher:


This one was also inspired by a DT member of Papertrey Ink:


And finally for Renee's teacher:




And I was in the mood to make cards last night, I made another one. Not sure whom I'll be sending this one to yet.



Well, I got to... time for the school run. Thanks for stopping by.

Shortcuts Guest Artist - Week 3

Another Friday, yeah! Today is week 3 of my Guest Artist spot over at Sheetload Shortcuts. Alicia asked me for this post to create an altered object. I think these are the hardest ones to think of, especially because everything has already been done once. Which is the case of this cutie as well, but I couldn't resist.

I purchased the template for this little bag here. I printed the templates on my inkjet printer on the frosted sheets. After cutting out the pieces the lines would easily wipe off for a clean look.





Supplies: Sheetload Shortcuts sheer sheet | Papertrey Ink Ready, Set, Wrap Template + clear stamps | Staz'On ink Jet Black | Powderz Glitter Lemon | the Essential Glue Pad | Making Memories patterned paper + die-cuts + ribbon.

Thank you for visiting.

Goodbye Oma + Polka Pots + Another Wall Art

Yesterday my mum went home after five lovely weeks of being with us. Friday evening all the children were sitting in bed with her, spending the last night reading and playing with her.

We will miss you lots, mama.

Today we went to Polka Pots to pick-up our creations that we made last week on Mother's Day. This is how they turned out:

Aren't they cute. I had to hurry up with taking a picture as it was just starting to rain again.

Lastly, Friday evening I also started on my other wall art that I wanted to create. I was looking for a particular butterfly punch, but it seems that it's been discontinued. I decided to use a Quickutz butterfly that I cut with my Silhouette instead. It was a lot of work as I needed to cut it out of 20 different pieces of paper. After a lot of noise (those machines aren't the quietest) I managed to cut them all. Last night I calculated where I needed to stick them to evenly space them on a piece of 12"x12" cardstock. This is the end result:

And here's a close-up:

The frame was purchased at at IKEA. I used patterned papers from: Scenic Route, Basic Grey, My Mind's Eye, American Crafts and Making Memories. I also tried Jenni Bowlin, but the paper was too thin to cut. I used foam dots to adhere the butterflies to the cardstock to give them some dimension. I hung the frame in the hallway to replace the Christmas frame that was still hanging there.

We've had a lovely weekend, ready for another week at school before they have a week off again. Enjoy!

Wall Art

Quite a few month's ago we bought 9 picture frames at IKEA to put above Rebecca's bed in her bedroom. What to put in it was yet to be decided. About two months ago I put David through the fun job of hanging them on the wall measuring each one individually to make sure they were all spaced out equally. Rebecca already asked me several times whether we could put something in them, but I lacked inspiration.

When we started decorating her bedroom Rebecca decided she wanted blue and pink. At first I struggled with the combination, as I thought it would be better to go with either blue or pink and not both. After a bit of deliberating, we came to a compromise. I would paint two walls blue, one wall white and the other wall is where her built-in wardrobes are with her desk in the middle. I would then use pink as an accent colour.

Yesterday all of a sudden I did have inspiration. A while ago I saw this on someone's blog (I thought it was Ali's, but couldn't find it on there) and was totally inspired by it. Thinking I'd saved it somewhere, but couldn't find it anywhere. I had to browse through the Flickr gallery for quite some time until I found it again. While browsing I also came across this. Planning to do a blue version of this for downstairs in the hallway.

Here's how mine turned out:

In the second frame I put a piece of wallpaper that I used to put on the wall behind her desk.

While I was working on this I received an email from Memory Makers Magazine with inspiration for my next frame.

Last night I already printed some pictures of Rebecca in black and white. In one of the pictures she's wearing a bright pink hat, so I recoloured that which turned out like this:

Then this morning I finished the last frame. In this frame I used my Silhouette to cut out Rebecca's initials. I stamped the background and used foam dots to stick the initials on top.

Here's a close-up of the letters.

And here's the end result:

The blue/pink combination worked out very well, we even extended the colour palette through into her en-suite.

I just love the internet and the endless inspiration you can find. What's the last thing you found that inspired you?