Gratitude

I'M FEATURED!!!!

Yessss! My new blog friend, Cindy of I Owe It All To Him, loved my greeting card I posted about yesterday, see it here and she featured it on her blog as a Guest Artist!.  Please visit her blog, it's very inspiring and welcoming.  She has made my day, I'm going to be walking around cloud nine until bed time and all day tomorrow at work.  I am honored to be featured at such an awesome blog.

My card was about gratitude, there is so much I'm grateful for, but most importantly, whom I'm grateful to.  God has provided all that I have and I owe it all to him.

Thank you so much Cindy for your kind words and for featuring me on your blog.

Three Frame Home Decor

Before I get into my tutorial, I just have to share a story about my baby.  My seven year old has no limits sometimes, which in a way it's good......sometimes.  Once, when he was two years old, I was sitting on my sofa watching TV and all of a sudden, this little tiny baby comes flying over my head and lands on the floor like in a "frog" position.  It scared me into a coma, almost.  I didn't make a big deal out of it, hoping that if I ignored it, he wouldn't do it again.
That two year old baby is now a very DARING seven year old.  We took him to Disneyland two weeks ago and he decided he would show the teenagers his break-dancing mooves at California Adventure's Street Party, in his pajamas even.  They cheered him on like if he was the main attraction.  People running from all places trying to get to the circle, that quickly surrounded him, to take a peek at what all the fuss was about.  I had to raise my camera high above people's heads to take these pictures.  He's definitely heading to Hollywood.  If not for his dancing, it will be for his adorable looks.  Where are those Hollywood agents when you need them, lol.

 

Well, enough about my baby.  I made a cute triple frame out of old computer diskettes (floppy disks), remember those? I remember the exact day I stopped using those, I was three, oh yes I was, I most certainly was! Just ask my seven year old, he'll verify I was three.  It's so funny, he always tells me, "mommy, you look like you're in your twenties" and I answer, "oh thank you honey, you look like your a teenager" and, of course, that makes him very happy.

Back to my project.  Here's what you'll need: floppy disks, scrapbook paper, scrapbook pictures (or your own pictures),

Zots to attach heavier embellishments, I'll be using them on a key

fringe, ribbon, what ever you have

A rubber stamp with a sentiment, ink pad for the rubber stamp, ribbon, scissors, hot glue gun (I've had mine for over 20 years), a variety of punches, I'm using Martha Stewart's monarch butterfly.

First, you'll need to wrap your floppies with scrapbook paper.  I used pages from an old damaged book.  The picture below shows the back side and the front side, how it will look like after you cover the front.  I didn't cover the back side, only the front.

An easy way to fold the corners is to cut out the corner of the paper at an angle like this:

then fold over for a nice fold:

 Embellish your floppies:

I used coordinating paper to embelish mine:

Here the are individually and embellished:

Next, turn them over in the order you want them to hang and hot glue the ribbon they will be attached to on the back:

Next, I added the bottom embellishment, also with hot glue:

 And wah-lah!

You can add your pictures and more embellishments or maybe follow a theme.  I didn't cover the backs, but if you are going to give this to someone as a gift, you'd probably want to cover the backs with scrapbook paper, maybe you can make it double sided and decorate both sides, that would be nice.

Hoo Are You Tuesdays

It's Hoo Are You Tuesday, it's a linky party where Leslie, Of Night Owl Crafting, will ask you several questions so that everyone in blogland will get to know you better. 

Do you have any siblings? 

I have 8 siblings that I'm very close to, I'm third from the youngest

Do you have any children? 

two boys, they aren't "mamma's boys", but they sure love their mamma

Are you a morning or night person?

I'm a night person, I'm actually pretty quiet in the morning 

 

Are you organized or spontaneous? 

Thank goodness, I'm a little of both and in the right proportion.  It's kind of like having multiple personalities only they are civil about it, they don't fight with each other, lol.  One is cool and calm while the other is chaotic and spontaneous.  The only time they clashed was about a year ago when I ran over to Michael's The Arts and Crafts store, I needed some supplies.  It was a slow sunny day, birds singing to the wind, and there was not a worry on my mind.   For some reason, while walking through the isles, I realized I was having a Rach 3 piano concerto in my head!  the third act, nonetheless!!!  If you are not familiar with Rachmaninov's piano concerto no. 3, it's chaotic, absolutely fantastic and beautiful but chaotic. Check it out on you tube.  

 

What is your typical 4th of July like?
It's the whole nine yards, family, friends, food, fireworks galore, singing and dancing.  I love celebrating the 4th of July.  


Come join the linky party

Hand Made Flower Greeting Card

So many graduations this month but I think we've covered them all from both sides of the family.  There may still be one more pending, my niece who graduated from UC Santa Barbara.....go Mayra! Today we celebrated my nephew's graduation from high school.  What a feeling to have your life just waiting for you and the possibilities are endless.  I was lucky enough to have the choice of going to college.  Earning my bachelor's degree became the most important thing to me after high school.  I had an unrelenting determination to succeed.  I selected Accounting as my major.  I loved the subject but, let me tell you, it's not an easy subject to study.  I became a tax preparer, then an auditor then an accountant and now I'm a manager, I'm so versatile, lol. It goes with my personality, my interests are infinite and my interests become my passions.  I'm happiest when I have a gazillion things on my to do list.....I know it's crazy, but I can't help it.  

The tutorial today is on a very pretty card that you might want to give to a graduate.  It's very easy to make and all you need is two pages of scrapbook paper, 5"X5" envelope, tape, ribbon, eyelets and an eyelet setter.

First, cut a scrapbook paper, plain color into 5"X10" and fold in half.  This will be the "greeting card", set it aside for now.

Next, you will make the "pouch" where you can place a special something inside it.  A tea bag, a gift card, movie tickets...etc...
cut a decorative scrapbook paper at 4 3/4"X 8.5"  Fold the decorative paper lengthwise at 3" like this:     

Next, fold your decorative paper and use your hole punch and punch out a hole in each corner

In the picture above, I'm positioning an eyelet with an eyelet setter on the corner hole I made.  You can skip this part if you don't have an eyelet setter.  Here's what your pouch will look like:

 Now we will embellish the pouch.  Get some pieces of ribbon and pull through your eyelets, like this:

 Use tape on the back, don't worry if it doesn't look pretty, no one will ever see this side:

Do this will all sides and it will look like this on the back:

next, stamp a message on your pouch with a rubber stamp:

Your embellished pouch will look like this: notice how it looks on top of the "greeting card" you made earlier.   

and inside the pouch is where you'll place your gift:

Add some glue or double sided tape to the back of your pouch to attach it to your "greeting card":

 And here's what the finished card looks like. I placed gift tags inside.  To see how I made the gift cards, go here

In this case, I used a gratitude rubber stamp because it was a thank you card that I made, but you can write congratulations or happy birthday or what ever sentiment that fits your gift.  Inside, you can write a special message and insert the whole thing in an envelope.  You can find 5"X5" envelopes at office supplies or craft stores.  This is definitely one of my favorite cards. 

Let me know what you think, click on comments below to leave a comment.





Come join the fun at these linky parties,

Felt Flower

I have been wanting to make those pretty felt flowers that you see at Michael's and I finally had some me time today. I got some felt and some pretty sheer fabric from Joann's and a chocolate cream pie from Walmart, oh sooo good! I was a happy girl. How could anything go wrong when your eating a chocolate cream pie??? The day before I went into labor from my second child, I ate a whole two tier ten inch chocolate cake! It was as if it was the most important thing I had to do that day, eat an entire cake!!

I don't know when it was that I got "hooked" on chocolate. Was it when that cute boy with blue eyes, in fifth grade, shared a chocolate with me? was it when a tall dark and handsome man (who later became my husband) gave me a box of chocolates when I graduated from college? or could it be that I was predisposed to love chocolate when over a century ago my great great grandparent's family business was making chocolate?

back to the flower.....sorry, I could write a book about my experiences with chocolate.

First, you'll need some pretty fabric, sheer would be nice if you have any.

Then you'll need some beads

You will also need a die cutting machine, like the Sizzix machine, mine is pretty old.  I bought it seven years ago and I've really put it to good use.  It's such a sturdy machine, I don't think I'll be upgrading any time soon.  If you are looking for one, I'd suggest you try ebay, the prices are incredible since new machines have came out. 

And finally the flower cartreges

If you don't have a cutting machine, make yourself a few templates of flowers at different sizes and cut your fabric with your templates.  Make felt flowers and soft fabric and sheer fabric flowers so you can layer them.  After you have your flowers, begin layering them and gather them by sewing a bead or button to sew together the layers.  Here are my flowers: I layered felt with sheer fabric and used beads and button to secure the layers in place.  Check out the cute lady bugs, double click on the picture below so you can see it better.  You can find these cute lady bug beads at Oriental Trading

Once you have the flowers, you can use them on your head band:

 or you can use them on your winter gloves or beanie

or you can wear it as a necklace

or you can sew them on your t-shirt...fashionista...ye ne se qua! (sorry for the blurry photos, hubby wasn't around to take the pictures, hey, at least I smiled lol, it's that chocolate I tell 'ya.  It makes me pretty)

 Oh my goodness, I look just like my mom in this picture.  I'll have to post some pics of her so you can see how much I look like her.  Makes me feel special, out of four girls, I'm the only one that looks like her.

But I decided to use them on gift labels: soooo pretty

This is how they look in a gift card:

how pretty is that!!
To make this card go here









Linky Party, click on the link to see more fun projects

http://howsweetthesound.typepad.com/my_weblog/