Wow, look what I found today when I cleaned my office!  I’ve had this kit for almost 2 months I think and forgot all about it!  This would make a great gift for someone, a nice homemade touch over the hang on the wall calendar from Barnes & Noble.  

This Create a Calendar Kit found in our Winter mini-catalog comes with the calendar pages for the year 2009, some stickers and tabs for the cards and month, the outer pocket and sticker borders, and a large piece of chocolate chip grosgrain ribbon.  It requires that you purchase the triple clipboard separately, and the paper you’d like to cover the clipboard with. 

I covered left and right sides using the Old Olive dsp grid paper using a template that I made originally with our single clipboards awhile back.  I traced the template onto a new piece of sturdy confetti cream and shortened the length to 7.5" and trimmed a sliver 1/16 off each side.  With this new template created for the triple clipboard, I needed 3 sections, and traced it onto the backside of the dsp I chose.  The middle section is a piece of striped Hawaii Papaya dsp.  I added two pieces of Pumpkin Pie grosgrain over the seams and tied at the top of clipboard.  I used Chocolate Chip stitched ribbon, Riding Hood Red striped ribbon, and Old Olive 5/8” grosgrain ribbon for the tops.  I used Old Olive and Pumpkin Pie felt flowers from accents kit, with an aged build a brad in the center.  I punched the red flower with our 5 point flower punch, and placed a smaller pumpkin pie flower from the collection of die cut blooms.

On the packing, they used two sets of number stickers:  one on the clipboard, which you don’t see adhered yet, and the other on the outer calendar pouch.  Since there was only ONE set of “2009” stickers inside the kit,  I took a “2” and “9” from on board chipboard letters, and two solid circles from our other chipboard collection, on board essentials.  On the two solid circles, which were the same size as the numbers, I used the crop-a-dile to cut away at the center a little at a time. 

I used a chipboard label, also from the on board essentials, covered with Old Olive cs on the outside packing and attached the “calendar” sticker.  I covered square chipboard with dsp, attached Riding Hood Red mat, then Whisper White mat, and then “2 0 0 9” numbers sponged in Pumpkin Pie.

For my display, I included a small bag stamped with punches of flowers, and lots of arrows in coordinating colors, punched with My Way arrow punch.  I also included lots of stamped images from Calendar Cues and Fundamental Phrases (nice and small).  Calendar cues and Cute Cues would work especially nice in this project (I think). 

This may or may not be an upcoming “gift” class, because I have TOO DARN ideas already for others that I want to do!

I hope you think of the teachers and the HS and college students on your list, or make it for yourself to coordinate with your office or craft room!  Of course, everyone needs a new calendar at the beginning of the year, and this is just a really unique and special one.

See you soon!  Thanks for looking!

Gosh, I had five birthdays this week!  what the heck?  I guess all those xmas party babies, huh?  This one is late too.  whah!  I know I’m not supposed to get notified that it is their birthday and THEN start making their present.  I have to go figure out how to change all of my notifications to warn me like 10 days in advance instead of the day before. 

Here’s my gift for another friend.  I stamped the background with Linen background stamp.  Then I colored Pocket Silhouettes with markers and spritzed them with water.  Then I stamped them on top of the linen stamped background.  I repeated this several times, varying shading and colors of markers.  Then I stamped another flower image from the same set onto a spare scrap of white cardstock, twice.  I cut both of them out carefully, as the stems are quite thin.  I cut slivers of dimensionals, and placed on these two flowered images, and placed on top of the first flowered images.  Then I stamped the sentiment, also from the same set.  I’m sooooo lovin’ these nature-inspired stamp sets with the grasses, and flowers.  Since it’s too hot to landscape, it’s the next best way to bring my outdoors into my stamp room.

The paperweight is from photoweights.com and they have some really cool shapes to work with.  The big deal about them is that they have depth that allows scrapbooking, embellishments, and dimension to the base.  So you create your artwork either directly on the supplied white chipboard background that comes with the paperweights, or you can do what I do which is to trace it first and then cut it out, and then adhere it to the base chipboard.  To finish them off, they provide a nice velvet black bottom.  So all you do is turn the paperweight over upside down, insert your artwork upside down (adhered to the provided chipboard) and then peel away the backing behind the velvet and stick over  the entire thing.  It’s the exact shape and size of the paperweight itself. They come with instructions and there’s even a video to Martha Stewart’s website when she and Dianna Ross made them together.  I tivo Martha because she’s so crafty and I also love cooking. 

Here’s another view so you can see how thick it is:

I’ll be holding a class on these too, since they make great gifts for ANYONE, but I would think they’d make an excellent Christmas gift for a teacher, business owner, secretary, etc. I’ll be starting at mid -October having almost weekly events to create wonderful gifts for everyone on your list.  I hate shopping at the mall, and I hate waiting to the last minute at Christmas time because there’s just too much to do.  Believe it or not, I do my Christmas shopping all  year long and stash stuff away in my closet; when I see something that reminds me of someone, I buy it then and there.  It sure takes the sting out of waiting until December, and having to put it on a credit card.  So I’m going to help you out, and who wouldn’t prefer a handmade gift by you over a gift card? 

Enjoy!

I love to cook, as does my sister, who is actually a chef.  I borrowed this Voila set from my friend Tina Sullivan to make the Take Out Menu Holder, found on my SU website.  More recently, I won this set from my upline for my monthly sales a couple months ago.  I have used this Voila Chef set in order to make my sister a recipe scrapbook, and then I made her a set of note cards.  I’ve recently made this recipe box, and the contents are tabbed divider cards made with From the Kitchen Of.  I also mailed her a little note pad/pen set and then Julie made one for me!

The apron is done by stamping onto the apron background, then the fabric which I cut into pieces for his uniform, and finally onto fabric sizing, which are then ironed onto my apron.

Of course the Voila set doesn’t need to be used just for cooking and as gifts for cooks.  There are other items that you can place onto his large platter, for weddings, birthdays, etc. 

This recipe box is an altered tin, and is a little more time consuming than some projects.  My plan is to have a class where we all bring a recipe and share them with the other class members so that our box is filled when we go home.  It would make a great addition to anyone’s kitchen, but of course great for gift giving too!  I will be sending out a newsletter update soon, for the upcoming classes.  Thanks for stopping by.