Whirlpool of Imagination

Snowman Gift Card Holder

As I wrap up 2011, I have one more item from Christmas that I forgot to post. Might as well do that today. I've taken to giving gift cards to the teachers for Christmas so I can feed my creative need by creating cute gift card holders.

This year I used the die from Papertrey to make them.

Here's the front, using stamps from Papertrey and spica markers.

I found this sentiment from Papertrey fit perfectly on the flap covering the gift card ~ it was meant to be.

And with that, ends my 2011 creations. I wish you a wonderful new year and hope you'll continue to follow my creative journey in 2012!

Gifts of Green

Nope, not money but rather some pretty monochromatic green items. When I showed the Thinking of You cards the other day, I mentioned the green ones were for a gift basket for my massage therapist. She is awesome and really helps with these arthritic areas of mine so I wanted to give her a little something. I didn't know her favorite color but her company logo and items are all shades of green so I thought that might be a safe bet. Here is the gift basket...

The basket consists of a set of the "thinking..." cards - I used Papertrey's clearly creative boxes and packaged seven cards and envelopes into the box. Around the outside of the box, I created a little decorative "belt" that repeated the cuttlebug embossing to keep everything matching.

In the front of the basket, I added a decorated memo cube.

Using Papertrey stamps and Memento cottage ivy ink, I decorated the sides of the cube. I used to get my cubes from Annette over at Stamp on This. It seems she can no longer get them but I hear they have them at Oriental Trading. I'll need to check that out - these cubes are a great addition to gift baskets.

Lastly, I decorate a mini pad from Papertrey.

I spent most of my time looking for a good quote. I wanted something inspirational and I think I really hit it right with what I chose. The paper I used was Bobunny sweet pear and added some buttons and ribbon from Papertrey. The crystals are Swarovski (khaki color). I will leave you with a bigger form of the quote. It's a wonderful quote that really embodies living in the moment and enjoying life. Enjoy!

Live with intention.     

    Walk to the edge.

            Practice wellness.

   Play with abandon.    

Laugh. Choose with  no regret.

                                     Appreciateyour friends.

                                            Continue

        to learn. Do what you   

              love. Live as if this

                   is all there is.

                             - MaryAnne Radmacher

I need a gift.....

A fellow mom needed a gift basket for a Bat Mitzvah she was attending and she asked me to put together something for her.

The first thing she wanted was a personalized notecard set. The invitation was pink and orange so she asked me to use those colors for continuity. The name was stamped with hibiscus ink from Papertrey with the Fresh Alphabet, also from Papertrey. I found this great patterned paper from Daisy Bucket Designs (Rachel's Ribbons) that matched nicely with the hibiscus and was the color scheme I wanted.

The name layer was cut out with the deckle rectangle nesties and the pink layer is on pop dots over the strip of paper. I made a set of ten of these and packaged them in the clear boxes from Papertrey.

From there I created theis altered composition notebook. I used the same patterned paper and this time stamped the name with Papertrey's Trajan Monogram Alphabet with the hibiscus ink. I don't know who the flowers are made by - I went through my stash of big flowers for those. I topped them off with a cute orange button (which I'm pretty sure came from Papertrey).

I didn't bother taking a picture but I also made a matching rsvp pen using the same patterned paper.

I needed just a little something else so I made a jumbo paperclip bookmark. The pink flower is layered onto a circle of cardstock for stability. I then layered the orange flower and topped it off with a doodlebug jewel. All layers are secured with red line tape.

I then used a glue gun to glue this to the paper clip. To keep things neat, I punched out another circle of cardstock and glue gunned it to the back of the clip.

This is the first time I've made these but I like them - you will most definitely see more of these in the future.

Here is a picture of the wrapped up gift. Sadly, I had run out of time for packaging it and all I had for crinkled paper was green. I would have loved to have some pink but such is life.

The paper clip is attached to the comp notebook with the pen and set of notecards in the front.

The metal tin came from the dollar spot at Target. I have seen these at my target recently. I really like the size if them. They are just the right size when you want to add the comp notebook to a gift set.

And here is a close up of the tag I made. These stamps are also from Papertrey stamped with palette noir and hibiscus ink. The tag opens up with a spot for signing inside and is attached with a bit of gold cording.

It's been a busy holiday weekend so far. Yesterday was game day for us with baseball and lacrosse. Today was the bbq day and tomorrow is the parade. Hope your weekend is spectacular!!

Let the Gift Season Begin

Having kids this time of year means gifts, gifts, gifts. With everything ending, it's time to show teacher appreciation. Last Sunday was Meg's last CCD class and Miss Procrastinator herself (yep, that's my official title) waited until the very last minute to finish these up. Picture me Sunday morning, running around getting everyone ready for church and trying to pretty up these packages at the same time. We made it in time but it was a but iffy there for a while.

I've used this kind of gift set before but decided to change up the colors this year. This jr legal pad cover  comes from my own measurements. If anyone is super interested, I have posted the measurements before but I don't remember when so I can't be super helpful and provide a link. If I find it, I will come back and edit with a link.

The cross and sentiment are from Papertrey Ink and stamped in navy ink (Stampin' Up). I added a Swarovski crystal for the center of the cross.

The patterned paper is from Heidi Grace. These are your standard size junior legal pads and I did add a bit of cardstock to the top of the pad in the same blue as the base just to make things match throughout.

Here is the complete gift set. I used a basic blue patterned paper and decorated the RSVP pen (I find the thinner the paper, the easier this is) to go with the pad. Both went into a plastic bag with a back enclosure. I used my circle nesties to create a little tag. I first ran the dark blue through, not completely through the whole nestie so I could create the tiny card. The tan circle is also a nestie and the blue circle is from a SU punch. The sentiment is from Papertrey and stamped in navy.

The flower was a total afterthought out of necessity. Originally I was going to tie pretty ribbon around the package and hang the tag from that so I had punched a tiny hole through the top of the tag. I then realized I didn't have time to fiddle with all that so I plopped this little flower over the hole and attached everything to the packaging.

One set of gifts down....I'm not even going to count how many more!

Bag It

Last month a friend of mine asked me to create wedding shower invites (remember the 60 [SIXTY] I worked on?). Well, the shower is approaching and she asked my to create a gift bag that would hold the cards and such and she wanted it to match the invites.

This is what I came up with. She asked that the colors be the same. Since I didn't have a rose red bag, we decided on starting with a white bag base and go from there.

First things first, stamp the flowers (Stampin Up) in rose red (SU ink). I kept the design the same in that I added the ribbon to the top of that layer. I thought the space was a bit bare, so I added a little quote (Papertrey) in palette noir ink. Just matted in the rose red, the layers seemed a bit lost so I added some constrast with a medium dark grey cardstock.

I had this big block of rose red cardstock that I wanted to put under the flowers block but it looked so plain when I first paired things up. I then decided to stamp the repeating pattern (Papertrey stamp) in rose red and this layer was also matted with the grey. That background stamping made all the difference and there you have it, the finished project.

I'm happy to say that my friend already has the bag and really liked it so I'm hoping the bride to be does too.

The last day of March went out with a gorgeous sunny afternoon. I made the kids stay outside after school until dinner time and now they're off riding their bikes. Lets hope for some tired campers who will go to sleep quickly tonight. It is an Idol night after all!

Yeah, Friday!

I am always happy to see the end of the week get here but this week I'm especially happy. While I had a great time at my fair (hi to any of my fair readers!!), it's been a crazy tiring week and I'm ready to relax for a couple of days. I took a few pictures the first day of the fair which I've finally gotten around to uploading. Here's what my tables looked like:

This is a straight on view of the front of the table. I have all my various covered notebooks (comp journals, jr legal pads, mini comp journals), checkbook, photo brag books and in the far left a few nugget tins.

Up top I have gift sets, binder clips and a couple of mosiac flower pots I had created.

I had two tables for this fair - this is the second table. Here I have my iris folded cards (I charge more for those), notecard sets, memo cubes and little tins decorated and filled with candy.

Here are my two card spinners. This is the first fair that I had two. Each spinner holds 72 designs and I got them at Displays 2Go if you are in the market for card spinners. I have to say the service was very good and the shipping was reasonable, given the size of these things. They break down for transport which makes it (fairly) easy to take to fairs.

If you look close, you can see my mom behind the spinner. She came the first day to help me finish my set up and keep me company.

This was where you could find me all week. I'm hoping to do a few articles over the next few months that focus on craft fair do's and don't's and some ideas for those of you considering jumping into the fair circuit.

But for tonight, I'm going to relax - have a great night!

Sprucing Up a Gift

This weekend Mo and I went to a cocktail party (and it was so nice to get out and have some adult conversation!). The hostess gave the old "just bring yourselves" response so we brought our go to hostess item, a bottle of wine. So we picked out what we were giving and Mo said the magic words "do you have a bag to put this in?" Now he's thinking those shiny cellophane bags you get at the liquor store. I have a lot in my stash but definitely none of those. So I decide I need to pretty up this bottle.

I put together a quick wine tag. Since I wanted to match the Ravenswood colors, the tag ended up being black, ivory and gold.

Start with a piece of cardstock 7 x 3 inches long. I scored the long side at 2.5 inches. Punch a hole in the shorter end so the tag will slide over the top of the bottle.

From there, decorate as you want. I used the party girl from Beeswax and prettied her up with prismacolor markers and a gold spica glitter pen. I stamped the sentiment from TAC onto vellum and layered.

All in all, a quick way to pretty up a bottle of wine when presenting to your hostess.