Better Late Than Never 2011 Planner

Much to my chagrin I have already used up my day planner for this year. It was a little red plastic covered thing that I got from Target and it was too small for all my scribbles.

I found this amazing download and a tutorial and decided to make a half year planner for myself, starting with June.



Brenda from It's a New Day did an exquisite job on the artwork for this planner, the illustrations are sweet and whimsical and the final product looks very professional.



That said, this thing took me a long time to finish. There was lots of paper cutting and gluing and glazing and waiting for things to dry which I managed to drag out into a two week process! I love it and am very happy with the way it turned out but I got a little tired of paper cutting and corner rounding about half way into this :)

In case anyone is interested in making their own little book, I thought you might be interested to see the cost breakdown. I was impressed with how inexpensive it was to make.

Items used:

• 7 pieces plain white cardstock = $.70
• 1/2 each of two fancy pieces of cardstock = $.30
• 12 loops of 1" Bind-it-All o-wire = $.20
• notebook and sketch paper = free, I tore up old notebooks for their paper
• chipboard = free, covers are from the back of an old sketchpad and bird/tree on cover is made from a recycled kleenex box
• Aleene's Paper Glaze = about $.10 worth
• glue stick = about $.05 worth
• printer ink = about $5.00 worth

Total cost: Approximately $6.35, and most of that came from the printer ink!


Tools used:

Paper cutter
Corner Rounder
Bind-it-All
color printer

Of course, the tools make this more expensive. Cutting the paper by hand would give you a nervous breakdown so I really recommend that you use the cutter and rounder. If you don't have a binder you could just take your pages down to Kinko's and get them to bind it (and print and cut it if you like, now that I think about it).

I have already made a note in my new notebook to check Brenda's site for a new planner download in November, or maybe I will try to design my own for next year? Hmmm. Is it ridiculous to spend a month (surely how long it would take me) to make your own day planner?

Probably. But it sure is cute :)

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Super Psyched

I grew up in a part of the world where you described your happiness by telling people how psyched you were. I don't really understand what it means, but when something nice happens I still get psyched and I am super psyched right now. My flag was selected for the 30 Days of Creativity Day 14 Highlight Reel!

Thanks, guys!

Easy & Fun Flower Headband Slider

I have seen so many great tutorials about fusing plastic bags together, and making a tote bag out of recycled plastic is way up there on my massively long crafting to-do list. Because I am tentative about these things I decided to make something small first. I need to get comfortable with the technique and familiarize myself with what the resulting "fabric" will be like before I haul off on a tote bag!



So I made a little flower, which turned into a headband slider, which I really like. It's soft and flexible and up close you can't tell at all that it is from a grocery bag. In person the pattern looks abstract. I'll try to get a good action shot of it tonight at the movies.



I followed this tutorial to fuse the bags together, then I used a couple of different Sizzix dies to punch the flowers. The plastic is really easy to work with and you could easily cut the shapes out with scissors if you don't have flower die cutters. Next I glued my flowers together, sewed on a button and then glued the whole thing to a couple of pieces of felt. I had already hand stitched the felt around the headband so that it would be snug, but so that I could remove it if I like.

The plastic fabric is really fun to work with, I can't wait to make more. Has anyone else used this stuff? What did you make?

I hope your Wednesday is keeping
calm and carrying on!


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Happy Flag Day

I am participating in a project called 30 days of creativity. Today the inspiration was 'picnic', which makes me think of July 4th, so I made a flag.

First I scored an aluminum soda can and painted some stripes on it. Then I die cut a star ( from the same soda can) and photo shopped it onto a painted blue background (the rest of the soda can). 5 more minutes of photoshopping and today's project was complete. Much to my surprise, when I posted the flag on Pinterest someone commented that it was perfect for flag day. Flag day is today?!

What a co-inky-dink!

Happy Flag Day, everybody!

Best Grits Ever

Grits are good food. Lately, I have been making my grits using a recipe that Suzanne McMinn from Chickens in the Road managed to tease out of someone at a restaurant in Charleston. There is heavy cream involved, so this recipe is decadent (but oh-so-worth-it!). You have been warned ;)

Quilts for everyone!

When I was a little girl I had a puff quilt, which I called the poofy quilt. Really, I had a couple of special blankies but the poofy quilt stands out because it was SO DARN POOFY. I was endlessly poking at it and squishing the puffs, I couldn't help it.

The old puff quilt is long gone but I really wanted to make a set of digital scrapbooking letters that evoked its memory. I couldn't find any photographs online that gave me the look I wanted so I had to take EXTREME measures and make a quilt of my own. Behold, the teeny-tiny (fake) puff quilt:


Can you tell what it is? I'll give you a hint:


Yup, It's a painted, debossed coke can and while it would make a lousy quilt in real life It made a great background for the alphabet!

click the pic to embiggen, this set is huuuuge!

The zip file containing the Poofy Quilt alphabet set can be downloaded here, for free*, I hope you enjoy them!

Happy FRIDAY!!

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*This alphabet set was created by me, myself, and I, for you, and is for personal use only.

I think I can?

I ironed some appliques on a few onesies this week, but I haven't gotten up the courage to do the sewing part yet because I'm pretty sure that's where things will go wrong. I have sewn appliques onto cotton fabric before, but never stretchy knit fabric. Should I be scared or is this no big deal?

Do you use Photoshop?

Or do you just own a copy of it, and wonder about the mystery of it all because it looks too complicated?

I just saw this tutorial on YouTube and thought it might be useful for anyone who is wondering how to use the scrapbooking letters I posted here and here.

I hope everyone's Monday is going faaaabulously ;)

Freebie Father's Day Alphabet Download

I had to get up at 5 am to take my dad to the airport (I know you will read this, soooo, HI DAD! You're welcome and thanks for the watermelon!) so I had lots of time this morning to finish up this set of Father's Day scrapbooking letters. I took my inspiration from the pinstripe suits that my dad always used to wear to work :)

click the pic to embiggen

The zip file containing this alphabet can be downloaded here for free*. Each character has been saved as an individual image so just open up the letters you need and get going. Father's Day is in two weeks here in the U.S. so that should give you plenty of time to play around with these!

*This alphabet set was created by me, myself, and I, for you, and may be used personally or commercially.

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Craft-O-Maniac Monday

Free Scrapbook Letters Download!

I love to play around in Photoshop. Today I made a few different sets of digital scrapbooking letters. I've posted the first one here as a digital download for anyone who would like to have it.*



Each letter is saved as an individual image (.png) file, just open the ones that you need and start creating.

I'll post the other letter sets as soon as I finish saving all the files. I have a cramp in my mouse hand right now so I might take a long break. Files should be up sometime in the next week :)

Have fun!

*This alphabet set was created by me and may be used personally or commercially.

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Check me out Saturday

He drew a cat for me!

I am going to live on a farm one day and I asked Steve of I want to draw a cat for you fame to draw a picture of what that might look like. He posted it up on the website today. It's a cat milking a cow standing next to a sheep. The cat is listening to Bon Iver (YouTube link) on his iPod. Thanks, Steve!

Easy on the eyes

You can't help but scratch your head as the Yankees destroy our beloved A's.

Do you have Instagram for the iPhone? Every picture comes out infinitely better when I use it. Case in point, I took a very boring picture on Monday night at the A's-Yankees game. Instagram made it interesting. Don't know how, but they did. And it's free! Instagram is also a social network, so when you take pictures they are automatically shared out into the network of other users. You can follow people and "like" their pictures and leave comments.

Taken this morning, while walking at 3.5 mph

Instagram can really turn your pictures into art. There are all sorts of little flip and tricks embedded in it that allow you to make enhancements. I used the tilt-shift feature for the picture of the geese on the path. Basically, it allows you to focus in on a certain part of the picture (in this case, the geese) and blur everything else.

Disobedient geese!

The sharing aspect of the app may not be for everyone so there are settings that allow you to make your photos private. If you're interested in seeing a little about how the app works I found this video on YouTube.

In other news, I got my Starbucks gold card in the mail yesterday so I celebrated by destroying my old one. Et voila, the mini Starbucks notebook!



I had another old card cluttering up my wallet so I used it for the back cover. For the inside pages I just cut a few pages out of another notebook and printed out one sheet of graph paper on my printer. I then cut those pages down to fit the notebook, rounded the corners, and bound it all together. BTW, the Fiskars corner rounder is a dud. I have this one and it ruins more corners than it cuts (I had to fix most of them with scissors). I really like all of their other products but this one is a b-o-m-b. No matter though, the notebook still works :)

Happy Thursday, everyone!

And then there were two

Hi, my name is Cheryl and I apparently like offset pink flowers. Thankyouverymuch.

Posie Ring

I became interested in fabric button rings when I saw this tutorial at Smashed Peas and Carrots. I had some fabric and a button blank so I picked up some ring blanks with pads at Michael's (2 for $5.99) yesterday and made one for myself. I used Mod Podge Hard Coat because it was the only thing that I had on hand, but I don't think I would recommend it for this project. It took about 10 coats to get good coverage and the finish is satin, when I would have preferred the look to be more glossy. Lesson learned for next time I make one: Use the stuff recommended in the tutorial.

The button is attached to the ring blank with hot glue. I tried to use Aleene's clear gel tacky glue but after sitting overnight it had not even begun to dry.

I like my little pink flower ring, right now I am wearing it with jeans and a polar fleece hoodie.

Stylin'!

Excuse me...but do you have any Bon Coupon?

click the pic to embiggen

MY GOODNESS it is difficult to take pictures of shiny things, but when you are in love with aluminum you must learn to be zen about these things. (Or take a photography class. Which I did, once, a long time ago-it did not go well).

This latest shiny thing is a coupon organizer that I made for myself. The front cover says "bon coupon" which is stupid and funny and reminds me of delicious mustard. I deliberately made it so it would not be easy to read. Even though I am rabidly frugal, carrying coupons around the store makes me feel frumpy so I liked the idea of whimsically disguising my little book this way :)

I made the cover by gluing some cardstock letters to another piece of cardstock, covering it all with aluminum foil tape and then burnishing. It's hard to see in the picture but the letters are nice and 3 dimensional in real life. Then I bradded (word? not a word? I don't know but I like it) the nameplate to a piece of deckle cut white cardstock.

I put a little pocket inside the front cover to hold my grocery list, I like to use index cards for my lists and the pocket is cut to fit the 3"x5" size. I punched another piece of cardstock with a cute edge and glued it inside the pocket to make a little cover flap. A little scoring and the flap stays closed just fine, but I might re-address this later and add a closure. I couldn't think of anything at the time so left it plain.



I made my organizer a little different than the ones that you normally see. It fits me and my system better to organize my coupons by store, so I made a pocket for each store that I use coupons at, for a total of six. I only use a few coupons at each store so I didn't need any further way of organizing them (i.e. putting them in groups like dairy, canned goods, etc. is overkill for me!). I made nameplates using the technique that I made the cover with, but used different letters. I stuck them on with a little double stick tape and some more brads.

W*Mart. Because close enough is good enough in the heat of the moment.

After much fussing over details I bound the whole thing together using my Bind-it-All and some 3/4" o-wire.

I used store bought pre-cut letters, cardstock, cereal boxes, brads, some aluminum foil tape and a little piece of o-wire for my book, so it's construction was pretty frugal. I did use some tools like the bind-it-all, my sizzix embosser and circle die cutter, but you could get a similar product using a hole punch and some ribbon to bind it all together. And I barely used the embosser and the circle cutter--I covered two of the tabs on the folders because I cut them kind of funny. Don't tell anyone.

It's really fancy compared to what I used to use (a bunch of tattered envelopes labeled with a sharpie!) but I am sorta in love with it.

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Coastal Charm