Hostess Gifts: Stamped Tiles

I am in love with these tiles! I made coaster tiles for hostess gifts for my baby shower. I am thrilled with the results! Here they are packaged in groups of four.

To make the tiles all you need to do is a little planning beforehand and gather your supplies and off you go!

My supplies were:

1. Basic 4x4 white tiles

2. Brilliance inks in assorted colors

3. Color Box Gold

4. CTMH Promise of Spring stamp set

5. Lacquer spray

6. Felt circles

To start stamp your image onto the tile. You will have to play around with this as they are incredibly easy to smear. If you don't like what you created, wipe off and try again. I started over a number of times. I also stamped all of one color first and then allowed each step to dry a couple of minutes before going back over with a different color. I really like the 2 tone look of the flowers.

After you stamp your image, smudge the edges with gold ink. It is amazing how much better the tiles look with a little gold on them!

Next, put your tiles on foil lined baking sheets and cook for 20 or so minutes at 325-350 degrees. This sets the color.

Allow to dry and then either give yourself time to allow the tiles to cool and cure or do like I did and rush them along with 2 coats of lacquer once the tiles are dry.

Once everything is dry, place self adhesive felt circles on the bottom of the tiles.

And wallah a very nice gift!

Technique Tuesday: Nothing new here today, but a bunch of thank you cards made!

Tomorrow is my baby shower at school and here are my thank you cards that I have created. I just love them :) I also love using up paper scraps! These cards are oh so easy to make and I think very cute.

Something I see as a theme of mine is to not go all hog wild on using a ton of product on a card or project, but still create something that I am proud to give away. One each of these cards I have used scraps from other projects and minimal embellishments. I can't remember the brand of the stamp set, but isn't it fun! I used BoBunny papers as well as CTMH papers and inks. The embellishments are random companies.

I am working on a real Technique Tuesday project, so check back in a couple of days. I think it is going to be a wowzer!!

Technique Tuesday: Stamp and Scratch Art

As you can guess by now, I am always looking for a new use for my stamps. I really, really don't like stamp sets just sitting in a box and collecting dust. I also get tired of the traditional stamping ways, so I've got to play! And I did! Once again, I love the flexibility of stamping and creating fun and interesting projects from a nontraditional standpoint.

So for today's technique, I brought out the scratch art paper and got my new World's Best Dad Stamp from CTMH and went to town. Now I know many people are worried about ruining a stamp, but I think that there is always a risk when creating, so I do my best to try to prevent total destruction, but allow myself the freedom to play.

To create these totally cool images here is what you need..

1. You need scratch art paper. Get the cheap and pretty kind that is made for kids to use. You want to find the kind that is scratched with the wooden stick. DON'T get the kind that has to be scratched with the metal blade. That is WAY more work!!


2. Using StazOn, ink your stamp with a color that can be seen on the black paper and stamp your image. Depending on the stickyness of the ink, you may leave only the stamped image in the paper OR the ink might just pull off the black for you!! I got both impressions.
3. Yes, this does leave your stamps gunky and icky! Get out your stazon cleaner and clean off your stamps.


4. Using the wooden stick, clean up your images and add details.

And once again, the final layout with the scratch art stamped images!

We interupt this program..

I just had to share my excitement about a hand-me-down from a friend! My friend and co-worker Jennifer gave me this morning the bedding that she used for her youngest child. It's not the same colors that we were planning, but it's so cute and FREE!!

God has provided a wonderful gift to us!! So please take note of the new colors :) Don't you just love those little birds!

Thanks again Jennifer!!

Fun Food for Kids!

So one of my good friends from college, Megan has a blog that I love to read and she posted a fun food for her kids the other day that I knew I had to try. She calls them Spaghetti dogs (click here for her link).

Here are the results!

While the girls didn't clean their plates, they did have a great time pulling the spaghetti out of the hotdog. They each ate some of the hotdog and all of the spaghetti. I think next time I might do this with meatballs. My girls LOVE meatballs and this would be a lot of fun!

So if you have kids at home, give it a try! It is a quick and easy and fun meal.

Technique Tuesday: Magnets Galore

Today I used Sculpey clay and made magnets using my Close To My Heart Stamps. I love the results! What a fun and easy way to use those neglected stamps :) I used probably 10 different sets, so I'm not going to list them all, but I have to say, I really like the months of the year magnets and the flowers! I also made inital magnets for my girls and did this project with our Life Skills students at school. They seemed to really enjoy this project.

Here is an insider's trick.. put some water on the stamp and it won't stick to the clay! The polymer clay doesn't absorb the water and the stamp just peels right off the clay. If you don't wet down the stamp and it is one of those sticky ones, you will have trouble getting a clear impression.

I took lots more pics of this project, but they are on my school camera and they were not wanting to transfer this afternoon. I'll be posting more pictures and the magnets in action on my school website so you can check there in a few days if you like.

Have fun with your Sculpey! I just love the almost instant results of only 15 minutes in the oven and you are done!

A baby registry.. always a sticker shock!

So Doug and I were able to get a few moments without the girls today and we registered for baby stuff. You would think that since we've been doing this parent thing for a while now that we wouldn't be so shocked at the cost of baby items. But yes, we were "those" people at Babies R Us... We did settle on some items and got our registering done! I love the bedding that we found! It's not an exact match to what my inspiration was, but it is very close color wise and I love the soft flowers and the 3d butterflies! This is Angelica made by CoCaLo for Babies R Us.Here is the valance with the paper samples. No, the bright blue won't work, but the soft blues and browns still look really nice with the fabrics. The cranberry (or Vineyard Berry to CTMH people) and the sage are great together!!

It was fun to finally figure out something for this baby. Strange, but the valance is the only thing I have purchased. I have got to start getting with it! This baby will be here before you know it! I am 25 weeks!! Here is a picture of me from today :)

Technique Tuesday: How 'bout a chubby book??

One of my favorite things is making little gift books for people, so I thought for Technique Tuesday this week, I'd make a chubby book. My inspiration is from a lot of sources, but here is a recent tutorial that I like from Memory Makers Masters Blog.. Chunky Book Tutorial. My book is made with papers, inks and mostly stamps from Close To My Heart. The paper pack is called Stardust and the colors are Moonstruck, Topiary, Bamboo and Honey.

My chubby book is made almost exactly like the chunky tutorial except that my book is 5.5" tall by 5.5" wide and I have a couple additional pages in my book. While I like little books, I do like to be able to actually put pictures in the book too.

So step 1: Cut out 12 squares of chipboard. Set 2 pieces aside for your front and back.

Step 2: Cut 10 rectangles 2"x5.5"

Step 3: Adhere strips of paper to chipboard. Do your best to keep the chipboard pieces lined up. A little bit off ends up making a wobbly book.

Step 4: (Not pictured.. I have a picture, just forgot to include it. I'll go find it later!) Choose a piece of paper, pattern or solid and cut 5.5x11, fold in half and adhere to the front and back of your book.

Step 5: Cut a piece of chipboard 5.5 tall by as wide as your book. My piece ended up being about 3/4 of an inch wide.

Step 6: Get a large piece of paper (if you use my directions you will need one that is MORE THAN a 12x12 scrapbook piece of paper!) and place your front, spine and back on the paper with a couple of inches all around and a small space between each piece. Adhere well when lined up correctly.

Step 7: Trim corners.

Step 8: Using a bone folder, credit card or ruler fold over your pieces like you are wrapping a present and adhere very well!Step 9: Stand up your book and crease your spine into a book shape.

Step 10: Adhere book to cover. Do this by placing lots of adhesive on the paper flap and lining it up on the edge of the inside of the cover. It is important to line this up evenly and ahere well! Do this to front and back.

Step 11: Cut out 18 inside pages. My pages were 4.75"x5.5"
Step 12: Adhere paper to pages and decorate as desired.

Here are a couple of finished pages. I am really trying to not go crazy with embellishments, but I know that I will add more once I get the pictures of my new nephew coming from N Korea!!

I'll try to remember to post pictures of the completed album!

Happy Birthday Madalyn!

I can't believe that Maddie is 9 today! Wow, how the years fly.

I started this pastel of Maddie back in August and just can't seem to finish it.
Maybe one day I'll get my act together and get it completed. I have to say, in person, the shading is more shading and doesn't look like bruising! I'll have to fix that via photoshop!!

When I think back on these years, I am a amazed at what I have learned from being Maddie's mom. Maddie's middle name is Grace and that is such a wonderful description of her. She lives her life with grace. Grace in school when dealing with mean kids, grace at the doctor's office when she is being poked, prodded and asked a thousand questions, and just a wonderful sense of a life filled with grace.

My prayer for Maddie for this year is that she has a year of good health. We have spent so much time with doctors and sick days, I pray that will be a year of no "procedures."

How thankful I am to be Maddie's mom!

No baby name yet, but I have chosen nursery colors!

It seems like I get asked at least once a day about a name for baby girl and also about nursery colors. Well, we still haven't decided on a name, but I have chosen nursery colors! All of you scrapbookers out there will appreciate that the colors and patterns are from Close To My Heart Emporium papers :) Here is a close up of my favorite pattern. The colors are Cocoa, Sweet Leaf, Twilight, and Vineyard Berry.

Here they are in the catalog..

So here's my plan, I am going to take my pieces of paper with me to a fabric store and get everything I need to make the baby's nursery stuff. I am also going to paint our hand-me-down dark brown wood crib the vineyard red color. I am so thankful to have the crib! What a huge savings that was!!

Also, if our house doesn't sell, Lexi's bedroom will become Lexi and baby's room and guess what? The color of the walls matches PERFECTLY!! I will paint Lexi's bed the same red and we will bring in the large bookshelf from the den that just happens to already be the correct color :) It doesn't look so hot in the picture below, but you can see where I am going..

And that's all folks. I am feeling much better now that I have a good idea as to where I am going with the room situation. Now, yes, the goal is to sell the house, but I have to plan.. I am a planner. Everyone that knows me would attest to that!

That's why a name is so hard. I have to plan the sound, the look and the feel of the name.