living artfully

house party blog hop

Welcome to the House Party Blog Hop! There is nothing like a house party with good friends, especially if those friends are crafty! I'm so thrilled you stopped by my house in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

With the help of Rinda at Gallo Organico, a few of us have put together altered houses and would love to take you on a tour. I put together a little house using some of my favorite scrapbooking supplies.

 

If you're new to altered art, trust me -- you can do this! I've never tried altering an item before, but had so much fun decorating this little house with scraps from my stash. Now that I've given altered art a try, I'd like to branch out even more next time and try adding in inks or paints. I hope you enjoyed this visit to Milwaukee and my house!

Up next, the party is moving to Julie's house at JuJu's Folly. Have a great time at Julie's and I hope you'll visit again soon!

saturday night party

Do you have plans later tonight? At 10pm Pacific Time, we are having an altered house party that you won't want to miss!

 

That's just a little sneak of the altered house I made for this house party blog hop! Please come back later to enjoy a tour of our altered houses :)

Hope you have lots of crafty fun today for National Scrapbooking Day!

 

cool new product - love my tapes

I'm so excited to have found a really cool new product... tapes from a new company called Love My Tapes. They sell gorgeous decorative tapes in a variety of colors, widths and styles. I can see these used on layouts, craft projects, and home decor pieces!  Their website says that they are photo-safe (though I haven't tried yet myself). And because it's a masking tape product, they are repositionable without tearing your project, but stay put once in place. I can't seem to narrow down which ones I want to buy! In the meantime, I'm following their blog :)

 
  

What do you think? Have you ever used a product like this? I can't wait to try it out!

 

valentine's day crafting

Valentine's Day is three weeks away! Have you made any plans? Or started any crafting for the holiday? 

I still remember when I was a little girl and ADORED getting to pick out and sign little Valentine's cards to give to my classmates. And of course I also loved the candy, especially the conversation hearts! Nowadays, I'm not really into candy anymore, but the hearts sure are fun to read!

If you are looking for inspiration to get you into the Valentine's spirit, please check back here on Saturday, January 30th at noon CT. Some lovely friends and I are going to bring you lots of Valentine's Day inspiration!

 
Believe it or not, those hearts are the inspiration for my project! I hope you'll come back on Saturday for our "Spread the Love" blog hop!
 

off to a crafty start

 
(we heart it)

Has your 2010 been off to a magical start? I hope so! 

This has always been an "off" time of year for me, so I'm trying to be conscious of all the joy and things to look forward to that are still around. As much as I get excited about goals for the new year, it's still always a bit of a bummer once the holidays are over. The decorations come down and we're left with short days, bitter cold, and no work holidays until May. But honestly, life really is good and I'm ridiculously excited about all the fun projects and classes over the next few months.

Right now I'm in Week 1 of Cathy Zielske's Design Your Life at BPS. We're learning graphic design for scrapbooking and I'm already feeling more conscious about the composition of my pages. And a bonus -- Cathy is hilarious! If you're not yet signed up but are thinking about it, I definitely recommend it. Here's my first layout created for class; still 2 more layouts to make for this week's assignment...

 

And four days down, I'm sticking with my Project 365. You might be thinking, "not a big accomplishment." But by this point last year I had quit! I had no plan, no place set aside to upload the pictures, and no kit from Creative Keepsakes (which I thought was super important). I'm in a different place this year and feeling very excited. If you want to follow along, I'm posting my images in my 365 Flickr set and you can always click the icon up on the right for my Project 365. 



And as you can see, day 3 of my 365 was a fun little calendar project I worked on this weekend. I wanted something small and cheery for my desk at work, so I used a Maya Road chipboard calendar kit similar to this.  The pages are punched at the top and held together with jump rings when they sit on the stand. It makes me smile!

 

Last but not least, my welcome kit for Library of Memories came in the mail yesterday! Yay! Is anyone else in this class??

I hope your new year is off to a wonderful and crafty start!



 

my year in status

 

Are you on Facebook? I saw this on Molly Irwin's blog and think it's so much fun!  There is an application that turns your facebook statuses into a collage you can customize. I'm envisioning a scrapbook layout ;)

Lots to do before Christmas, but I'm still enjoying every moment even though there is less time for crafting and blogging. I hope all your holiday preparations are going well!

noel banner

I hope you are enjoying the 12*12*12 Holiday Blog Hop! Can you believe all the lovely projects and recipes?! I am dying to try the brownie recipe Melissa just posted. And the good news is that the fun is not over yet! Now that you've had some sweets, it's time for another project... 

 
 
If you are looking to add a little festivity to your space, a banner is something you can easily put together with your favorite scrapbooking supplies that you have on hand! Just choose a holiday sentiment and create banner "bases" for as many letters as are in your word. Then embellish, string all the bases together, and hang. 

For my noel banner, I used a banner set from Jenni Bowlin. But if you don't have a set, you could simply cut triangles from cardboard packaging (like the sheets at the back of packs of paper) or adhere a few sheets of cardstock together to create a thicker base. And if you like the papers in this banner, it's Basic Grey's new holiday line: Eskimo Kisses.

One of my favorite parts of creating this noel banner was putting together tissue flowers. I was going for a shabby chic look, so I think these tissue flowers are perfectly imperfect for holding the letters. To create your own:

1. Start by gathering tissue, cardstock, adhesive and something to cut a small circle with. I used the same tissue you'd use for stuffing a gift bag.

 2. Take two sheets of tissue, one on top of the other, and cut so it's about 12 inches high. The width will depend on the number of letters in your banner. Mine is 7.5 inches wide.

3. Cut your tissue into strips that are about 1.5 inches wide. I cut a few more than I needed, just in case!

4. Take each "2-ply" strip and crumple for texture.

 

5. Then un-crumple and fold strip into a very rough accordion fold.

6. Place adhesive on a small cardstock circle; mine is about 1.5 inches. Then take one end of the strip and set onto the circle.

7. Work your way around the circle, setting the folded tissue onto the cardstock. For extra texture, put a bit of adhesive between the two layers of tissue and pinch extra folds into the top layer.




Banners are such a fun and affordable way to bring a little more holiday cheer into your home. They'd also make good gifts or even cubicle decorations!

Did you work up an appetite?!  Good!  Because in just a short while, at 6pm CST, Carrie at Through the Camera Lens will be sharing something you won't want to miss!

And once the 12 hours of holiday fun are over today, I'd love for you to stop back and share your thoughts! Happy Holidays!

the 12*12*12 holiday blog hop

Welcome to the 12*12*12 Holiday Blog Hop! Today is the 12th and we are excited to be bringing you 12 projects over the next 12 hours!

Some lovely and talented blog friends and I have been crafting and baking like crazy. Starting at 9am Central Standard Time, we'll be bringing you a different recipe or crafting idea for 12 hours. You'll have to visit our blogs to see the exact projects, but here is a complete schedule of today's holiday craftiness:

9am: Laura at Cameron Crazy Mom
10am: Mel at Sunlight & Simplicity
11am: Sharyn at Living Artfully
12pm: Carrie at Through The Camera Lens
1pm: Maya at Basement Chronicles
2pm: Julie at Just our Story
3pm: Laura at Cameron Crazy Mom
4pm: Mel at Sunlight & Simplicity
5pm: Sharyn at Living Artfully
6pm: Carrie at Through The Camera Lens
7pm: Maya at Basement Chronicles
8pm: Julie at Just our Story

If you're not in Central Standard Time, we are GMT-6 and here is a time zone converter to help with the schedule. 

Grab a cup of cocoa, get comfy in front of your computer, and get ready to be inspired! We can't wait to show you our holiday recipes and crafts!

paper wreaths

You might remember my fall wreath from earlier this year; here's what kept me busy tonight...

 

styrofoam wreaths + hot glue gun + over 150 hand-cut paper leaves =
three Christmas wreaths for my sister in law :)

She picked out these fun papers before Real Simple and Martha did their December covers in red and teal. Right on trend! Hope she loves them!


 

cookie sheet advent calendar

Growing up, we always marked the days of December with an Advent calendar. Coming from German heritage, they were known to us as the adventskalendar and were a thin cardboard box with tiny shaped chocolates hidden behind each window. Today, I still enjoy the concept, but was looking for just the right idea to create one of my own. I wasn't sure what kind of calendar I wanted to make until I saw the idea to use a cookie sheet on the Making Memories blog. After a quick run to the store for a cookie sheet and magnets, I created this calendar for my scrapbook room.

To create this Advent calendar, I used a cookie sheet that was approximately 11 inches by 17.5 inches. It's just a cheap thin sheet, which I selected so it wouldn't be too heavy; and without any type of coating on the cookie sheet, I knew my magnets would adhere.


I started by cutting my paper to go around the calendar grid, leaving a hole for the grid itself. If you purchase extremely strong magnets, you can probably skip cutting the hole, but I wanted to minimize the layers of paper between the magnets and the cookie sheet. I adhered the paper to the cookie sheet using my usual scrapbooking adhesive and it's sticking together just as well as paper to paper.

I then created a 10 inch by 10 inch grid by cutting some kraft paper to size and then drawing lines every 2 inches. This created a grid that is 5 spaces tall and wide. I opted to stitch along my grid lines but to simplify you could draw the lines with a marker.

Next I adhered the grid to the center of the cookie sheet, as well as the ribbons and the title. Once these elements were set, I began creating 25 date holders. This is a great way to use up scraps and little pieces of your stash.

Once I had 25 pieces selected, I cut small strips of magnetic tape and adhered them to the backs of my date pieces.  For this project I used super-strength magnetic tape by Magna Card. It's self-adhesive on one side, making it super easy to adhere the date pieces to the magnets.


With everything in place, I put the date holders onto the cookie sheet and moved them around until I was happy with the placement. Then I put the final touches on the calendar by adding numbers to each of the pieces and tying a big bow at the top of the calendar.

The calendar is very sturdy, so it could lean up against a wall on a shelf or sit in a large plate stand. I wanted to hang mine, so I used my mini hole punch to create two small holes along the lip of the cookie sheet, spaced equally from the center. Then I took some picture frame wire, threaded it through the holes, and twisted the ends to secure.

I am looking forward to adding the numbered pieces each day until it's full on the 25th. I am so happy to have found the inspiration for this calendar and can't believe how quickly it came together. My new Advent calendar is now hanging in my scrapbook room and I swear it makes me smile each time I see it.

 

Did you make an Advent calendar this year? What's your favorite way to mark the days of December?