Pink Piggy Hat

I have made this for my friend Laura who loves pigs. It was really fun to make and the book is brilliant - Animal Hats by Vanessa Mooncie. I've also made a children's chicken hat and I plan to make a cat & a frog in the near future.

Too many projects, too little time!

Googly Tags

This is a guest blog post for my sister's shop, Millymog (her blog is here). 

Hello! My name is Bexx and I am Emma's much younger sister (Sorry Em, couldn't resist!). I live in Southern Maryland with my husband, two little boys & cat. I occasionally help Emma out tweaking images for the Millymog website but more often you can find me sewing, knitting, crocheting or papercrafting. Emma asked me if I would share an easy craft project on her blog, so here it is!

When we were kids, our mum & dad would wrap our Christmas presents and separate them out in the living room. Our older brother Richard's presents would be on one chair, mine on another, and Emma's on the sofa. However, they would NEVER EVER have tags on them, so usually at least twice on Christmas morning, a non-plussed Emma would open up some underpants, or Richard would be stunned by a beautiful make-up set. I am now a huge fan of using gift tags, one per gift.

I'm going to share with you today how I whip up cute and easy gift tags for all occasions. They don't need a lot of fancy equipment, although there are a few things that would be helpful, if you REALLY get into making tags.

Step 1: Make or buy your tag. You can usually buy luggage labels from WHSmith, or from places like Amazon or eBay. If you've bought them, skip to step 2. However, if you want to make them super personalised, it isn't difficult. First up, find some good card. I like to use neutral colours so that when you're writing them, you don't need a fancy pen. But coloured card also looks awesome.

Next, you need to cut your card to about 10cm x 5cm, or 4in x 2in. Then, mark a spot in the middle near the top of your tag. That's where your string is going to go.

If you want to reinforce the hole, punch out two 1/2" circles and stick them over the dot. You can use any colour for this, cheerier the better!

You then need to punch your hole in the tag. A standard office hole punch works perfectly for this, or if you have a craft punch, that works too. Just make sure that, if you used reinforcement, you wait until the glue has dried. Otherwise your punch is going to mangle the whole thing up.

Next, you need to add your string. I use a lot of baker's twine - it's cheap, readily available & cheery! But you could use garden twine for a rustic look, wool if you have it lying around, anything really. You need to fold your length of string in half, poke the loop through the hole, then string the ends through the loop. You just made a Lark's Head knot, former scouts & guides!!

Step 2: Stamp your image on your tag. I used a stamp set called Fox & Friends from Stampin' Up!, but you could use anything with eyes. I also used Stampin' Up! ink as I have it on hand, but there are lots of different brands available from craft shops.

Step 3: Take your googly eyes (get them from that craft shop we mentioned, or raid your kids' art box, or sometimes you can find them in haberdasheries) and glue them on. You're all done! Easy eh?

Step 4: Run with the concept and make tags for all occasions. Here's a Hallowe'en tag using exactly the same idea, and a Christmas tag to which I added a couple of jingly bells and replaced the googly eyes with glitter glue.

I've enjoyed blogging with you today. I'd love to see your tags - check out my own blog, the Dented Spoon, if you'd like to share your tags with me, or to see more ideas.

Bexx xxxxxx

Happy V-day!

Hello everyone! I am sitting her in my PJs at 8.05am because my wonderful husband has taken the boys to nursery. So it's just Solomon and I here, enjoying a lazy morning.

I wanted to share some pictures of the Valentines I sent for Jacob & Leo's nursery pals & teachers. I am quite proud of myself this time round, lesson learned: start early!

OK so here are Leo's pressies - Leo is 10months and he goes in the Baby Room every Thursday. So thinking of an appropriate Valentine was tricky but then I spotted these in the cupboard:


So I jazzed them up a bit:

In case you can't see, the sentiment says "Whale you be mine?" How cute!!!

Then, for Jacob's room, I got these pencils at Target and whipped up these little labels:

I cobbled the "You are just" and "for me" together from some random stamps. There was cutting up of stamps involved! (shock! horror!)

Finally for the teachers, I made these little cookie goody bags:

Spot the funky cookies? I used food colouring on my usual speciality, sugar cookies stamped with SU! cookie stamps. They bizarrely matched the DSP I used... now that's serendipity! Truly accident rather than design as I was aiming for pale pink & pale purple, NOT Calypso Coral and Rich Razzleberry, but who's counting!?

Have a wonderful day... I suppose I should start thinking about de-PJing...

My Dad is 70 on Wednesday!

Isn't that crazy?

I have been absolutely wracking my brain trying to think of something really special to give him, but I have failed. So I settled for a book about the Auto Train (he's a huge train buff), and a handmade card. I'm still hoping for a flash of inspiration on his pressie!

Anyway, here's his card:

Supplies:

Whisper White cardstock ($8.50, 100730)
Champagne Glimmer Paper ($4.95, 127885)
Pool Party cardstock ($6.95, 122924)
Sakura Gelly Roll pen
Rectangle die
Designer Paper from my stash

I drew and cut out the numbers all by myself!

I also have another couple of BIG projects to get on with:

** Jacob's Ninjago costume for Halloween. I picked up a super-cheap Karate uniform on Amazon which I am going to dye blue (for Jay, the Lightning Ninja). Then I will sew on some silver parts, somehow fabricate shoulder pads and a head scarf type scenario and hopefully he will be a very happy Ninja!

** Florida scrapbook album - I've bought divided page protectors and a Simply Scrappin' kit (my first, but I have NO IDEA why I waited this long, it's lush!)
Supplies:
Pinwheels on Parade Simply Scrapping ($21.95, 126929)
Divided Page Protectors ($5.95, 127690)

** House move (October 15th onwards)

** .... and last night I booked myself onto the November 3rd Praxis 1 tests... yep, I'm going to try to get certified to teach over here as I have reasons to believe we'll be here longer than planned... I am excited but nervous. It's 2 years since I did anything remotely intellectual so I expect I am severely rusty! The plan is to get Praxis 1 under my belt, then hit the books to prepare for Praxis 2 in the areas I need. I am kind of excited, but also nervous. It's amazing how quickly you lose all semblance of self-confidence as a SAHM - it's not all it's cracked up to be! :D

Lucky Lady

I looked around at my wonderful friends at the "workshop" tonight and I felt very blessed. When we lived in Lancaster, UK, we both worked full-time, so we barely saw Jacob during the week, and needed the weekends to recover & do all our household chores. Consequently we had very few friends, and none that we saw regularly. Well, now I have a circle of friends, most of whom I see around once a week, and I just love it. They are all awesome!

Anyway! I promised you projects, so here we go!

The first project was a Ghoulish Googlies tag. It was pretty much straight from the kit, and we put two stamped cookies in the little bags. For some bizarre reason I failed to take a picture. Sorry! I suspect I might have actually convinced at least one of my friends to try that kit - WOW! I am the opposite of a hard seller. In fact, given the chance, I'd just give all my stuff away.

Second project was a Hallowe'en card:

For this I used the Toxic Treats stamp set (127901 - $20.95 (CM), 127898 - $28.95 (WM))I got FREE in the Printer's Tray kit I blogged yesterday. I just love this set. Usually I gravitate more towards "cutesy", so I would never have bought this set, but now I have it, I absolutely love it. I need a personal shopper that buys what I would actually use, rather than what I think I would! I also used some of the Howlstooth and Scaringbone DSP (126906 - $10.95), some bling, and some of that luscious striped ribbon (127837 - $7.95). This card went down very well! Lindsay flipped the papers over and improved the card IMHO. I just love when people improve on your stuff!

Lindsay with Chrissy working away in the background.

Finally - my "piece de la resistance" (please correct and add accents as appropriate - my French is woeful):

S'mores in a jar! I got the recipe from here - how cute is it! I love, love, love this, and if someone were to give me this as a gift, I think I'd burst with excitement (as Jacob would say). If you look closely, the fabric is from the "Deck the Halls" pack (currently on the Clearance Rack for $0.99 - yes, you read that correctly). I decided it looked reasonably fall-y. Then there is Island Indigo ruffled ribbon and the tag was a hybrid project. Go me!!!! The front of the tag was first of all printed with DSP from MDS, then I traditionally stamped the jar from the Perfectly Preserved bundle (129944 - $38.95 (CM), 129943 - $44.95 (WM)) and die cut it with the Framelits included in the bundle. Then I stamped & die cut some apples, stuck them on the jar, and finally die cut another jar (without stamping) from vellum. I only stuck that down at the top, to prevent the glue showing through. Finally I die cut the "lid" from the same fabric.

This was the back of the tag:

All done in MDS2+  (130647 - $79.95)!!! After a few teething problems, I am now IN LOVE with this program. How cool is it to be able to do stuff like that? Best bit was, I didn't have the paper I wanted, so I just went online & bought it - so easy & simple (& dangerous). Then I sent them to the printer, which is just a bog-standard HP number, and voila!

Kerry and Zhenya

I am very cross with Lovely Heather as she didn't let me take her picture. Grrr. I'll get you next time, gadget!

All in all, a happy evening, and I am going to bed tired but happy. My SU! objective for the night was to persuade someone to book a party with me, but I failed, as I was gassing too much. Oh well! I will take a photo of the carnage of my dining room tomorrow - it might take me a wee while to get tidy ever again!

Super Excited!

So, tonight I am having a few friends over to glug wine & make a few things. I could call it a "workshop" but that doesn't sound too much fun! I am really excited about the projects I have made, which I will share with you AFTER this evening as I don't want to spoil the surprise!

I just wanted to post this:

It's the free tray kit you get if you sign up as an SU! Demo before 11.50pm MT on Sunday, 16th September. How lush is it? Jacob and I worked together on it, it was so easy & fun to make and I absolutely LOVE the result. Especially the picture of Jakey in his dragon costume from last year.

I've put it in my hallway and I have to keep going and checking it out, that's how much I love it.

The kit truly is comprehensive, it has EVERYTHING (bar ink- but you only need black & Old Olive) you need to complete the project - including a full pack of Lucky Limeade baker's twine, a full pack of Basic Jewel Rhinestones, all the adhesive and components you could possibly need (in fact, two lots of the printed parts - in case your four-year-old helps you too!) AND the full "Toxic Treats" stamp set. To top it all off, you get $125 worth of WHATEVER YOU LIKE from the main catalog and the Holiday catalog for $99...

It's an amazing deal and I wanted to share my excitement and enthusiasm with you all. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions about signing up, or just DO IT! The button's at the top right... :D Be quick though, this deal runs out on Sunday night....

Tawny Cards

Urgh...

Well it has been a tiring few days with Stew working really long hours. As a result I haven't had much energy for stamping in the evenings. I've been feeling really homesick, sometimes I just wish I had some family around so I could get a break. Anyway. Our life here is awesome but I really miss my sister, brother & parents sometimes.

However I had to get off my bottom tonight to make a gift for Mrs. Tawny, Jacob's teacher. It's her birthday tomorrow and she's bringing ice cream for all the kids. So sweet!

I tried to get Jacob to do a secret mission to find out her favourite colour but I think he was nervous. So we went with bright cheery colours!

I am going to call this 4 projects as I actually had to make them twice - had a MASKING DISASTER. Masked them all, stamped them all, then peeled off the masking paper to reveal ink had soaked through. There were some expletives muttered. Sacked off the masking and just plain stamped them in the end. The idea came from the Stretch Your Stamps class.

Jacob has also made her a bead bracelet with her name on it and drawn a big picture of an ice cream.

100.93-100.96 (Almost there!)

I also couldn't be bothered with the light box tonight. Sorry! To be honest it's a miracle they're even being blogged!