finding time to be creative

Today my "to do" list is long ... but I have promised myself that I am going to carve out a couple of hours in between all of the things that I have to do to make time to do something that I want to do.

Yesterday when I was at work we received a number of new products and I packed a few of them to take home and test out project ideas. I was so excited as I packed my bags to come home and was daydreaming almost as soon as I got into my car. I swear my head was in another place while I was driving home ... do you ever do that? ... suddenly notice that your exit off the highway is next (or worse, you just passed it) and you honestly don't remember driving home?

Our house is for sale and my home studio space has been moved from our diningroom to the basement so that we can sell the house. I loved my studio on the main floor ... everytime I walk past our "staged" diningroom I feel sad. It is hard to feel "creative" in an unfinished basement with 1/2 of your supplies packed away in banker boxes so that the space will look "decluttered".  I dug through a few of the boxes last night so that I could find some of my supplies on the off chance that I would find time last night to create something ... no such luck.

So today I am promising myself that I will make time for myself for a couple of hours ... to be creative ... for me ... not for any purpose or anyone ... just to have fun, experiment and enjoy the journey.

Wish me luck!



paper flowers using the spellbinder flower die on my cuttlebug machine

My oldest daughter just recently celebrated her 18th birthday. She didn't want a party or to do anything special on her day ... her only requested was that I made her a chocolate cake and to make sure that her Scooby-doo candle was on it.

We gave my daughter money for her birthday and I wanted to personalize the gift box so that she would want to save it. The green kraft paper box is from Creative Bag. I picked up some of the new Basic Grey "kissing booth" papers and my first Spellbinder flower die to decorate the box. I've wanted to buy a spellbinder flower die since I first saw them last year at Scrapfest but they have always been out of stock when I look for them. This die is amazing and I know that I will be using it a lot.

Here's a quick tutorial for how to use this die on a Cuttlebug die cutting machine ...

1. To use the spellbinder flower die on the cuttlebug you will need: (1) A board, (1) B board and (1) C board. 2. Place the A board on the cutter, 3. followed by the C board. 4. Then place the die on top of the C board with the cutting edges facing up. 5. Put the paper you want to die cut on top of the die, 6. and put the B board on top of that. Now you are ready to turn the handle and watch the boards go through the machine.

7. Remove the scrap paper from the die and 8. carefully remove your cut flower shape from the die. 9. To form the flower, start with the smaller end of the die cut shape and start to roll the paper as shown.

10. Continue to roll the paper until to you can twist the flower shape to rest on top of the widest end. Glue the flower in place to hold.

Here's Haley's finished gift box beside her birthday cake.

Here's Haley making her wish and blowing out the candles on her cake. That crazy Scooby-doo candle has been on everyone of my daughter's birthday cakes since she was 3 ... I cried when I packed it up after her birthday ... next year Haley will be in University and I have a feeling that this was our last birthday at home with our baby. sigh.

GreenCraft Magazine and a blog giveaway!

I'm so excited to share some news about a couple of exciting things that I've been up to lately. First, I just received my new copy of GreenCraft Magazine by Somerset Studio in the mail and a few of my projects have been featured in it!!!

My glass tile earrings made from travel maps were featured first ... you might remember them from here and the tutorial here.

And to my surprise, five more projects were featured near the end of the magazine. Two on this page ... my Archie comic scrabble tiles and my vintage light reflector gift tags ...

and three more on these pages ... my bottle cap tutorial is here and I'll have to post sometime soon about my photo blocks and recycled tea container!

I have been crazy busy with Creative Bag lately. If you don't know about Creative Bag - it is the best place to buy all of your packaging, party, wedding supplies - they have three retail stores in Toronto, Mississauga and Pickering as well as a website. We were just at the National Bridal Show last weekend ...

it was so much fun. We are doing a giveaway on the Creative Bag blog for one of our most popular items at the show it's called "diamond wrap" (see those fat rolls of rhinestones ... they are 10 yards long!!)

and all you have to do is hop over to the blog and enter to win. Just follow me on the Creative Bag blog for a chance to win. Leave me a comment on the Creative Bag blog and get a second chance to win! But do it soon because I'm going to be drawing a winner tomorrow (Friday February 3, 2012) morning. I've got another free Valentine themed download that I'll be posting tomorrow on the Creative Bag blog and if you are a chocolate lover ... I promise you won't be disappointed!

push pop cupcakes for a Valentine party

I was so excited when I saw the push pop containers arrive at Creative Bag last week. Have you seen them yet? Apparently they are the next "big" thing since cupcakes! My daughters and I had fun making mini cupcakes to fill inside them on the weekend and I created a tutorial to show you how to make them for the Creative Bag blog this week that you can see here.

Here's a close up of what the container looks like ... can't you just see these at a birthday party, wedding or any celebration involving food!!

To display my push pops I put a piece of styrofoam in a container and filled the container with sugar. I carefully punched holes in the styrofoam with a screw driver keeping in mind where I wanted to position the push pops. Then I added the push pops.

I posted earlier that I am now writing for the Creative Bag blog too. You can view the blog here. If you like my personal blog, I hope that you will follow me at the Creative Bag blog too ... I have some free downloads there (I'll get them on this blog soon too!) and I plan to do some giveaways, contests and lots more!

paper pops tutorial and my holiday wrapping is done!

My holiday packaging projects are done and I'm ready to start our holiday baking with the girls after they come home from school this afternoon. Yum!

I have one last tutorial to share with you - paper pops! I made a few of these to attach to larger gifts that I was wrapping. I also added paper pops to some tin wine containers that I purchased from Creative Bag.

1. gather your supplies: (scrapbook) paper cut into long strips and circles, bone folder, scoring board (optional but handy if you are going to make lots of these), circle paper punch (again optional - you can cut out paper circles), and glue (gel medium my adhesive of choice - hot glue or white glue will work too)

2. you will need two strips of paper for each paper pop {mine were 2" x 12" each but you can cut yours wider or thinner depending on the final size of paper pop you want to make} and you will need to score each strip of paper with your bone folder every 1/2" {or 1/4" for smaller pleats}

3. after scoring, fold each strip like an accordian

4. glue the two folded strips of paper together as shown and

5. glue again to form a circle

6. once the glue is completely dry, you will push down on the paper so that it flattens and creates the paper pop ... it's a little tricky at first and will not stay that way until you glue a circle to the front and back to keep the paper pop in place.

7. apply a generous amount of adhesive to the backs of your circles and position onto the paper pop

8. you can decorate the centre of the paper pop however you want!

Here you can see the difference between scoring your paper every 1/4" {on left} and 1/2" {on right} ... you will get less pleats with the 1/2" fold but it will be thicker. Either look is fine - it's really up to you.

Here's another picture of the tin wine container with a paper pop ... because the container is metal you can add a magnet to the paper pop it you want!

Here's a paper pop on a present ... this paper pop has a bottle cap embellishment from an earlier post/tutorial in the middle. I used pop dots to adhere the paper pop to the kraft paper.

I used natural kraft paper as the base for all of my larger wrapping projects and then added divine twine and handmade tags to dress them up!

I attached fake polariod pictures of who the gift is for to some of the pictures and attached them to the divine twine using small wood clothespins that I decorated with glitter tape. It's a simple look but it goes with the rest of my holiday packaging!

I hope that you are done your holiday shopping and ready to complete your holiday wrapping!

I hope that you have a wonderful Christmas with your family and friends. Cheers!

holiday packaging details & my paper flower and decortated bottle cap tutorials

My holiday wrapping continues! This time I wanted to share with you my little tin gift card holders.

Again, I purchased these plain metal containers at Creative Bag and I used the digital scrapbooking kit I purchased here to create the art to decorate them. I printed my designs as 4x6 photos at Costco but you could do this on your inkjet or laser printer. I've used patterned scrapbook papers to decorate these gift card holders as well. All you have to do is cut your paper into 3 3/8" x 2 1/4" rectangles and round the corners with a corner cropper. This same size will work for the outside and inside of the tin ... it's important to round the corners of the paper to fit the shape of the container.

I prefer to use a gel medium to adhere the papers to the tin. Golden (medium matte) gel medium works great and there are lots of other brands of gel medium available at most arts & craft stores. Modge podge will also work or if you don't like to use "glue" you can use two sided tape.

I decorated my tins with paper flowers, decorated bottle caps and of course, divine twine & buttons to match my other holiday wrapping projects. 

Here's a couple of quickie tutorials to show you how to make the paper flower and bottle cap embellishments:

1. gather your supplies: scrapbook paper, large circle punch (or you can cut a circle by hand), scissors, and a mini mister (or something to spray water)

2. punch a circle from the scrapbook paper - larger circles create larger flowers, smaller circles smaller flowers (the ones shown are 2 1/2" diameter). You will be cutting a spiral shape from the circle - if you do not want to do this by eye you can draw a shape similar to the one pictured to map out where to cut

3. cut your spiral out

4. I like to trim any edges that are not smooth as you can see in this photo

5. lightly mist your paper so that it is slightly moist - not wet - this will help you to manipulate the paper

6. from the centre of the paper, form a small cone shape and begin rolling the paper into the centre while the paper is still damp

7. continue to roll ... the tighter the roll the more layers you will make ... you can always go back and make it tighter if you feel the flower is too loose when you get to the end

8. you can also loosen the paper if it is too tight. Super easy right?! Let the paper dry before you use it as an embellishment in your projects. While it is drying ... go grab your paper punch and make some more! These are easy to make while the kids at swimming/skating/dance lessons.

Want to know how I attached the paper flowers to my tin gift card holders? My secret is to use a big blob of Golden gel medium ... but this time I use the heavy gel (matte). You can most likely get away with using the medium weight too but I like to make sure that my projects look good and stay together long after I have given them away.

9. & 10. use a wooden stick to apply a large dab of gel medium

11. place your flower on top of the gel medium and press it down into shape ... you can relax the paper and let it open a bit if you want at this point. The gel medium will dry clear so don't worry if you see a little bit of it at the base of the flowers.

12. I think that a grouping of 3 or more of these flowers is sweet. You can add rhinestones, small buttons or glitter to the centres of the flowers if you want. I often add small scraps of green ribbon or paper for leaves.

And now for the bottle caps ...

1. gather your supplies: paper (photo, scrapbooking paper, etc), 1" circle punch, bottle caps (recycle ones you have or use new ones without liners) and diamond glaze (I used Glossy Accents - available at most craft and scrapbooking stores).

2. first you have to cut a 1" circle from whatever paper you are using for the design in your bottle cap. I flip the punch over so I can see exactly what I am punching out.

3. pour a small dab of diamond glaze on the inside centre of your bottle cap to adhere the paper circle

4. press the paper down and leave it to dry for an hour ... you want the paper to be completely bonded to the bottle cap because if not, the paper will move during the next step and will not lay flat.

5. & 6.  once you know that the paper will not move we will apply a thin coat of diamond glaze to the top of the design to seal it and give it a glossy finish. Tip: DO NOT SHAKE your bottle of diamond glaze ... it will give you bubbles and you do not want bubbles. If the bottle is plugged, use a pin to poke the top and allow the glaze to run freely. Start by adding a generous blob of diamond glaze in the middle and then gently move it around to cover the entire surface. It will dry clear.

Allow your diamond glaze to dry for a few hours ... if you touch it too soon you will leave a finger mark. Once it is completely dry you can add a magnet to the back if you wish. I use E-6000 glue to attach the bottle caps to magnets, wood & metal.

Warning: if you are using these bottle caps as embellishments on gift card holders, do not add a magnet to the bottle cap. Sounds like a cute idea but the magnet will deactivate any electronic gift cards that you put inside and you don't want that to happen. I glued my bottle caps to the tin containers.

You can see more of my other wrapping projects over here ...

4 more sleeps till Christmas;)

Holiday wrapping inspiration ... with canvas bags

My Christmas wrapping continues! I bought these adorable cotton bags at Creative Bag and I added iron on transfers to personalize them for my great nephews this weekend. The boys are both under the age of 5 and I could see them using these bags after the holidays to hold toys and books.

You can buy iron on transfers at most craft stores. I like to purchase the blank iron on transfer sheets that I can print on my ink jet printer. The art that I created for my bags are from the same digital kits that I used to make my Christmas cards and tags. You can find the digital art here .

If you have never made or used iron on transfers before, I have two tips to pass along:

1. Read all of the instructions before you print on the transfer paper ... even if you have used iron on transfers in the past - not every transfer is the same - for example I had to print "mirror" image on mine so that the words would read properly after ironing.

2. Test a small transfer on a scrap piece of cotton fabric to get use to how long to iron and when to peel off the paper backing. This is important if you are doing transfers on tee shirts, bags or any other finished items.

Here's another close up of the bags ... you can see that I personalized each bag with the boy's names. I attached more of my Christmas tags to these bags using baker's twine and safety pins.

You can buy these cotton bags in different sizes which is great because I can see using these for lots of different things - party loot bags, wedding favors and custom packaging. I'm sure that you will see these in many of my projects in the new year!!