Cutting fabric with the Silhouette

This week I tried something new with my Cameo: I cut fabric to make an applique for my son's costume. I forgot to use the fabric blade that I had bought long before. Apparently there is a reason you are supposed to use a fabric blade. It still cut most of the way, but not as cleanly, and I ended up completing the cut with my scissors. I did iron on adhesive before cutting, in order to apply the dragon applique to the fabric of my son's tabard. I also stitched it, mostly because this was a last minute project, and I had more time than he did.  My son can sew. In fact, he made the tabard itself. All I did was convert the dragon design he emailed me into a cutting file, cut it for him, and zig zag the applique on while he was at work.

Oh, for those who may be wondering, the furry thing on his shoulder is a griffin shoulder puppet from Midsummer Knight's Dream. He can make it move so naturally that some people have actually asked if it's real.

October Perpetual Calendar

This is a project I created a few years ago. I had seen a perpetual calendar made using scrapping paper, and decided that it would be fun to make one for October.  I found the black tray at Michael's. I used wood blocks, painted them black, then used Halloween papers and stamps that I had on hand. I'm not going to even try to list everything I used. Few, if anything, would still be available, anyway.

Halloween Plaque

This is a plaque I made a couple of years ago, using a design from Silhouette.

It was simple and fast, just vinyl on a tile.

It's October, which means....Halloween fun!

These pictures go back a ways, although I did the layout much later. The pictures were taken at a church "trunk or treat" for the church kids. My husband and I wore our Renaissance Fair outfits, decorated the back inside of the mini van, and had a ball. I used a Tim Holtz border die to cut the fence, a Tim Holtz ticket stamp, phrase stamp by Northwoods Rubber Stamps, Skinny Legs stamp from Pink Ink Stamp Co., Graphic 45 papers and borders from their Eerie Tale line, and an acetate overlay by Little Yellow Bicycle on the left side of the page, with bats cut from a second acetate overlay for additional accents on the right page. Simple and easy.

I have more Halloween and fall projects to post soon.....

Cherry Blossom Layout

It's been a long time since I created this layout, but I had never taken a photo of it or posted it. Normally I list papers and products used whenever possible.  This is not one of those times, because I don't remember what patterned paper I used.  Our family used to go to see the Cherry Blossoms at the Tidal Basin by the Jefferson Memorial. This was probably the last time we went, or at least one of the last times. I used a cherry blossom stamp to create the embellishments. I used the same stamp to watermark the blue cardstock.  I think it was from a Fiskars Oriental themed stamp set. 

I tend to use stamps fairly often in my scrapbooking, but as I have said before, I was a stamper for about ten years before I started scrapbooking.

Time to Flourish Mini Album

Back before we moved, I went to the Scrapbook Expo with a friend.  Pinecone Press was one of the booths, and they had mini album kits. Some of them were very cute, so I bought three. This particular one used the Time to Flourish line of papers by Graphic 45 (one of my favorite paper companies):

Above is the completed album, front cover. The kit included everything, including ribbon, although I did substitute a few things of my own. I also made a few slight alterations, such as using a different ribbon for October. However, the album itself is 99% Pinecone Press.

All of the papers are monthly themes, but each month followed the same construction format.  Here are January's pages (the calendar page is a smaller size than the album pages):

You can see the back of the calendar page shown in this next photo. There is a built in pocket for the tag between January's and February's pages, and the same is done for each month:

This line of papers was one of the best (in my opinion) that Graphic 45 has ever done. Here are a few more samplings of the pages, starting with March:

July:

October:

December:

Making mini-albums gave me something fun to work on when all the craziness of getting ready to move was going on. They didn't really require any creativity on my part, and scrapbooking with my friends gave me time away from the decluttering, renovating, and packing.  It helped me to stay sane.

Scrapbook Paper to Home Decor

This had to be one of the easiest home decor projects ever.  My daughter and I went to a scrapbook store near her apartment, and they had something like this on display. They also had the right sized wood blocks.  All we had to do was paint the blocks white, and once the paint was dry, use Modge Podge to adhere cut outs from scrapbook paper we had bought with this project in mind. Easy peasy!