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Baby Gifts

Posted by Kathy Torrence on Sep 28, 2007 in Crafts, Other items

I finally got myself in gear and made two baby gifts that I’ve been meaning to put together for a few weeks now.    We’ve had a baby explosion in our community in the last few months – it seems like there are new babies EVERYWHERE!

I saw this cute idea on a craft show a few months ago and have been meaning to make a few as gifts – just haven’t had the time! 

Here’s a gift for a baby girl:

Baby gift - girl

 

The bottom of the gift bundle has a baby play mat – solid on one side, patterned on the other:

Baby mat -- pattern

Baby mat - solid

These are very simple to make – and no sewing is involved! 

You start with a piece of foam – these were square and were 22″ X 22″:

Baby foam

Then you take two pieces of fleece – I used one pattern and one solid – and cut them 8 inches longer than the foam on all sides.  I chose 8″ because the fleece came in bolts that were exactly 8″ longer than the foam on each side – less measuring and cutting for me! 

Put the solid piece under the foam and the patterned piece on top.  Then go around all four sides, cutting fringe slits through both pieces of fleece approximately 1 1/2 inches apart.  You don’t have to be incredibly precise – the fleece is very forgiving.  It also helps to cut away the corners of the fleece so that it ties nice and neatly.

Next, tie double knots in each set of fringe – and that’s it!  This mat is great for play or using as a changing pad…and when it gets dirty, you can untie the edges and throw it in the wash.

I only had to buy one yard of each fabric and after I covered the foam, I had a large piece of fleece left over…so I decided to use the leftover piece to make a small baby blanket using the same technique (but without the foam in the center).

Baby blanket

This is not so much for use as a blanket (it’s pretty small), but more for snuggling and carrying around.  It is also patterned on one side and solid on the other.

I also made one for a baby boy using a duck pattern and solid blue fleece:

Baby gift - boy

I folded the mat in half and rolled up the blanket and put it on top.  I tied the bundle together using strips that I cut from the fleece.  I also made a little matching cardstock tag with the initial of the baby and some other embellishments.

I still have three more sets to make (I told you there was a baby explosion!), but we’re not sure of the gender of the other babies yet, so I picked up this patterned fleece and will use solid red for the reverse side:

Baby fleece- neutral

A quick, cute, simple and inexpensive baby gift – hope this give you inspiration!

 

 
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A Few Card Occasions

Posted by Kathy Torrence on Sep 28, 2007 in Cards

I had a few occasions this week to make cards – some good, some not so good.

Wednesday was Mike’s birthday (that’s a good occasion).  I made him this spinner card:

Gold Card

The golf ball spins and rolls across the card to reveal the sentiment – the tutorial can be found on SplitCoastStampers. 

I picked up these golf stamps at the Stamp and Scrap show last spring and have been waiting for an excuse to use them.  I gave him a Pitman Golf Course gift certificate inside.

I also made a card for a little boy who was in the hospital this week with an infection (not so good).  I snapped a photo before I sent it to him:

Alex Card

I sewed the steam coming off the bowl of soup and tied a little spoon charm underneath.

I also need to make a few more cards…I’ll post them when I have a chance.

 
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Birthday Wishes!

Posted by Kathy Torrence on Sep 26, 2007 in Uncategorized

I just wanted to wish a happy birthday today to my wonderful husband, Michael – happy birthday, dear!

 
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Stamp-A-Stack Cards

Posted by Kathy Torrence on Sep 24, 2007 in Cards

Just a quick preview of the cards for my upcoming Stamp-A-Stack tomorrow night:

Baby cards

Flower card

Happy birthday birthday card

Kids birthday card

Thanks so much card

For those who have never been to one of my Stamp-A-Stacks before, we meet at my house and everyone makes a total of ten cards – two each of five different designs.  (For this SAS, everyone will make just one baby girl and one baby boy card.)  They are always so much fun!

I usually have five different stations set up with all the supplies necessary for each card and you move from station to station at your own pace. 

If you are interested in being added to my mailing list to receive notifications of future events, just leave me a comment with your email address – thanks!

 
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Couple of Scrapbook Pages

Posted by Kathy Torrence on Sep 23, 2007 in Scrapbooks

 I have just a few new scrapbook pages to share…

For the scrapbooking workshop I did the other night, I showed this page as an example of using our Simply Scrappin’ Kits – this one uses Creative License (perfect for boy pages!):

Boys page

You’ll also notice that although this page is a 12X12 size, it also contains an 8 1/2 X 11 page:

Boys page

And a 6X6 page:

Boys page

I like to show how you can take other size pages and sketches (even cards) and incorporate them into your own size pages.

I also made up this page for my Scrapbooking Ministry:

Fruit of the Spirit page

We’re going to do a nine-part Bible study on the Fruits of the Spirit and this will be the cover page for our book.

 
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Ways to Alter Chipboard

Posted by Kathy Torrence on Sep 23, 2007 in Cards, Crafts, Scrapbooks

I did a scrapbooking-based workshop the other night, and during the demonstration, I focused on ways to use chipboard – one of the current hottest scrapbooking items.

Chipboard is basically a really thick, sturdy cardboard that comes die-cut into shapes and letters.  It can come raw, which is just the brown cardboard color or it can come already altered – it’s available in different colors and patterns.

The great thing about the raw chipboard is that you can take it and alter it to exactly match your project.  There are a few ways to do just that…

The easiest way to alter chipboard is probably just to stamp directly on it.  You can use regular ink and your favorite stamp to make your own matching embellishment as I did on this little scrapbook page:

Em page

I took the heart shape and stamped on some flowers then added some paper flowers and buttons in colors to match my page (and my daughter’s bathing suit!).

There are also some smaller chipboard letters at the bottom of the page.  These are done with another altering technique – inking the chipboard.  To do this technique, you just take the letters and either rub them directly onto the ink pad or take a sponge and apply the ink onto the letters.

Here’s another example of a page with inked chipboard:

Fabulous page

I’ve inked the little chipboard bookplate around the work ‘giggle’ on this page.

I’ve also shown how to take chipboard shapes and emboss them with embossing powder.  You take the shape and cover it with either craft ink or Versamark, depending on the color you’d like on your shape.  On this page shown in a previous post, I used Versamark on the flower petals, then embossed with white embossing powder and I used Pretty in Pink craft ink on the flower centers, then embossed with clear embossing powder:

Together page

And on this card, I used Versamark and white embossing powder on the flower:

Hanna Birthday Card

And look at how beautiful these letters turned out shown at the Philadelphia Regional Seminar!  These are covered with craft ink followed by clear embossing powder:

Fall CD

Love that project – I may make it a class next month…

I also showed an example where I kicked it up a little bit more and used craft ink with some Iridescent Ice embossing powder followed by clear embossing powder on this Daisy page shown in a previous post:

Daisy Star page

 

And in a previous post, I showed how to take chipboard letters and cover them with patterned paper.  Just apply adhesive to the shape, place it face-down on paper and trim around the shape. It helps to sand the edges after you’re finished for a smooth, clean look.  Here are some shapes that I covered with paper:

Two pocket folder open

And one more thing – don’t throw away the leftover pieces!  If you look closely, you’ll notice that on the bottom of my “Em” page above, I used the piece of chipboard after I removed the hearts as a stencil at the bottom of the page.  I just sponged ink directly over the stencil piece.

And here’s another example where I used the leftover pieces – on this card, I used the remaining piece of chipboard after punching out the circles:

Holiday card page

Hope you this gives you some new ideas on how to use those chipboard pieces you have! 🙂

 
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Getting Ready for a Workshop

Posted by Kathy Torrence on Sep 18, 2007 in Uncategorized

I will be doing a mainly scrapbooking-themed workshop for a customer on Friday night and worked on some project ideas yesterday.

I want to show a very simple stamped card so that I can keep the emphasis on scrapbooking, and came up with this one for Halloween:

Halloween card

Very easy, but very cute.  It will be a make-and-take.

I also wanted to demonstrate different ways to use our chipboard pieces including stamping, inking, covering with paper and embossing.  I came up with this little scrapbook page to demonstrate embossing the Pick-A-Petal chipboard pieces:

Together page

I also wanted to do two scrapbook-based make-and-takes.  I think I’m going to do one of these – it’s a little mini-book made from plastic badge holders:

Priceless badge book

Priceless badge book inside

Sorry for the lousy photo, but it was tough to get the pages to stay open.  To make the book, you take three clear plastic badge holders (available at office supply stored) and cut pieces of cardstock to fit inside – these are 3 X 4 inches.  The photos are then cut to 2 3/4 X 3 3/4 inches.  The book is tied together with ribbon through the holes – this is nice and sturdy and will hold up well in a purse or wallet.  I think wallet-sized school photos would be nice in these as well.  You do need to keep the embellishments flat since it is a tight fit inside the pages.

I want to do one other make-and-take and I’m trying to decide between a simple scrapbook layout or a manila folder layout like I showed in a previous post.  Hmmm….

 
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Cool Yardsale Stuff

Posted by Kathy Torrence on Sep 17, 2007 in Yardsale Finds

I haven’t had as much time to post lately (busy with my new job and all), but I did find some time in the last few weeks to hit some yard sales with my crew.

I found this great old bridge table for $5 a few weeks ago…

Bridge table

It has some teal and brown in it and it looks great in my family room – you can never have enough tables or chairs!

Here’s some other assorted stuff I found last week:

Yardsale stuff

That’s an old printer’s typesetting drawer in the back (I thought the openings would be perfect to store little stamps or embellishments).  The long, white item in the front is a clip board from Pottery Barn Kids – it was brand new and still in the box.  I thought it would be cute to hold my kids’ artwork.  In the upper right is a little vintage framed children’s prayer and under that is an old box containing an Amish doll.  I’m not a doll collector, but I bargained with the lady to get this for free – I thought someone on eBay might find it valuable (we’ll see if I ever even get the time to list it on eBay…if not, Emily’s got a free doll!).

I also found these other vintage treasures – games and books:

Vintage games and books

An old Pollyanna and Parcheesi game, an old Harper’s magazine from the 1800’s, a vintage camping handbook (great words and photos) and an old geometry book.

I also picked up this vintage Santa collection for $10:

Vintage santas

There’s also a vintage angel thrown in there too.  Most of them are candles (probably from the 50s and 60s), but there’s also a stuffed Santa and a plastic one.  I thought this would make a cool display during the holidays.

Ooh – I also spent a whopping 75 cents on some old stationery sets:

Vintage stationery

That’s 25 cents for each set.  Not sure what I’m going to do with them yet, but for that price, how could I resist?

And, even though these didn’t come from a yard sale, I thought I’d share these great clearance bargains:

target clearance

The letters and wood shapes are from the Target scrapbooking aisle.  The words were each 98 cents and the letters and shapes were 74 cents each.  The little 6X6 notebooks were on clearance at Staples for 90 cents each – perfect for altering!

Love shopping the clearance aisles!

I like to think that it doesn’t take a lot of money to be creative – you just have to keep an eye out for those things that can take on a new life with your imagination. 

 
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Quick Christmas Card

Posted by Kathy Torrence on Sep 17, 2007 in Cards, Crafts

Some of the members of my church women’s circle are meeting tomorrow to do a shoebox swap. We’re making holiday cards and sending them to soldiers in Iraq through Scrapbook Trends magazine’s Cards for Troops project.

Here’s my card:

Soldier's Christmas Card

I used the Season of Joy stamp set and Wild Wasabi and Ruby Red cardstock. I also added some Gable Green and colored in the stamp with markers. I also added a little rhinestone brad for some bling – I think it turned out cute!

 
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Puppy Update

Posted by Kathy Torrence on Sep 17, 2007 in Our Goldendoodle Puppies

Just a quick update on our new family member, Geddy.

He’s still a little shy, but is doing much better.  He is VERY generous with kisses and loved to play with Daisy and with the kids.  He is also very fond of cuddling in bed with me – I love having two dogs to snuggle with!

Here are some new photos of our newest baby…

Geddy-5

Geddy-4

And here are Geddy, Daisy and Bella together – hard to get them to sit still for a photo…

Picture 002 

Of course, Geddy IS still a puppy and isn’t always as sweet as he looks…I had my book club over on Tuesday night and he proceeded to leave a very foul-smelling gift right on the living room floor in front of everyone…sigh…but isn’t he cute anyway? 😉

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