Upcycled Easter Gift - Epiphany Crafts

I love to reuse things if I can. I hate to throw away perfectly good boxes and bags if I think I can repurpose them later. When I was challenged by Epiphany Crafts to create a last-minute Easter gift, I thought instantly of an empty stationery box that I had:

The orange stripes were original, and since the box was in perfect shape, I didn't change a thing. If your box is a little worse for wear, you can recover it with pretty scrapbooking paper.

To dress it up, I simply added a fabric flower (like these from my Etsy shop - this particular fabric will be available very soon!). I made a flower center with my Epiphany Crafts round tool and a vintage setting. I love the pop of green!

Lastly, I added a tag (SRM Stickers labels by the dozen).

Filling the box with pink grass and yummy Reese's Peanut Butter Eggs was my favorite part. If you look closely, you'll see that the wrappers of the candy actually inspired my colors. All in all, I'd say the project took about ten minutes :). Easy-peasy.

Visit the Epiphany Crafts blog for more Easter projects and the chance to win some great Epiphany Crafts product. I hope you have a wonderful Easter weekend! I'm excited for the egg hunts, family time, and Sunday services. What a great time of year! Have a good one :). Tessa

Wrap it Up Wednesday - Cupcake Poppies and Washi Tape

Hello and welcome to my last installment of Wrap it Up Wednesday :). I created today's gift wrap for my mother-in-law for her birthday gift. I had fun with this one because it features a new product for my Etsy shop - Luxe Cupcake Poppies.

I was making a batch of these new flowers and my mother-in-law stopped by. She saw them and commented that she thought they were pretty, so of course I had to adorn her gift with one! This is the pink bloom.

I wrapped her present in kraft paper (what else? You know I love it!), then dolled up the paper with washi tape. This coral and gold metallic quatrefoil tape is by K and Company for their SMASH line. It's my new favorite tape. I layered it with a yellow polka dot.

So, would you like to know what's inside? I'll share soon! Have a great day! Tessa

Fancy Pants Sneak

Hello, all! I'm devoting more time to my kids than to my blog over Spring Break this week, but I wanted to point you in the direction of my first assignment for Fancy Pants Designs. I was challenged to play with trendy chevrons, and play I did :). You can check out the full layout on the blog HERE.

Have a great day! Tessa

DCWV + Tombow Spring Fling Blog Hop

Hello and welcome to my stop on the DCWV/Tombow Spring Fling Blog Hop! You should have arrived from Jennie's blog, but if not and you'd like to hop along, start at the Tombow blog here.

DCWV and Tombow have teamed up to bring you a week filled with pretty paper and awesome adhesive, all with a Spring theme. I worked with the Chickadee stack, which is one of the new 6 x 12 stacks. I also got to play with Tombow's stamp runner permanent adhesive, Mono multi liquid glue, and power tabs:

The Chickadee stack is filled with pretty pastels in pinks and oranges, as well as this gorgeous aqua and a bit of gray. I chose to use just the aqua and gray for this photo of my oldest (whose birthday is today - happy birthday, Colten!). The blue/green color was perfect.

I loved using the stamp runner to adhere my layers. The stamp function is so much fun! I also really liked the power tabs. To adhere this flair, I layered three power tabs on the back, then used a fourth to attach it to the page. That flair isn't going anywhere!

I also used the power tabs to add this fussy-cut flower to the page. I love the dimension it adds - just the right amount. Also, these power tabs are keeping my thread accents in place for forever! I love a good, tough adhesive :).

For my title and journaling strips, I used the Mono multi liquid glue. The precision tip was perfect for getting just a bit of glue onto the back of my cameo-cut letters.

So do you have Spring fever yet? Each day of this hop is a new batch of projects and designers, so be sure to catch Monday through Friday's posts for the best chance of winning some pretty amazing product. I'm glad you stopped by :).

Your next stop is my fellow DCWV design team friend, Karen. Enjoy the rest of the hop! Tessa

Wrap it Up Wednesday - Doilies

I love kraft wrapping paper because it is neutral. I can embellish a brown paper package with whatever materials and colors I would like. When I wrapped this birthday gift for a friend (hi Rachel!), I chose the colors and embellishments based on what I had seen her wear recently. I thought they made a fun and festive combination.

My tip for this week - doilies! I love the way the paper doilies look against the kraft wrapping paper. To attach them, I used spray adhesive. I went outside with my stack of doilies, the spray adhesive, and a big cardboard box (to catch the overspray). I held out each doily, gave it a spray, then carefully placed it on my package. I probably should have used my tweezers to hold them, but the glue washed off just fine. My spray adhesive was a little smelly, so I was sure to let the package air out a bit before giving it away.

And yes, more yarn pom-poms! They are so easy to make, not to mention cheap and cute. They were definitely the way to go for such large packages. I wrapped each piece separately and saved the pom-poms just for the top.

For a quick card/tag, I used paper from the 6 x 12 Chickadee Stack by DCWV. These new 6 x 12 stacks are great for cards. Each one has a fun decorative edge. To make Rachel's card, I trimmed a sheet down to 5.5 inches wide, then folded it over an A2-sized, white card. I trimmed off the extra patterned paper, added an SRM Stickers sentiment, and a few enamel dots. Easy-peasy, done :).

Thanks for joining me for another installment of Wrap it Up Wednesday! I hope you have a great day :). Tessa

Catching up at The Studio

Happy Monday! I love Mondays. I'm glad to see this Monday in particular because it signals the weekend is over. Between work, putting on a cub scout Pinewood Derby, another scout event, a water main breaking on my street, and my husband and son getting sick, I'm ready for a routine day. I was so busy playing nurse and napping when I could that I didn't share my latest layout for The Studio Challenges yesterday:

This challenge is a sketch challenge:

I took a little license with this sketch and basically shrunk the sketch and put it in the center of my page. What can I say, I really like my white space ;).

My grand achievement with this layout is the title. Do you see the word "love"? That is my handwriting, cut on my cameo. I am so excited to have pulled that off! I don't have one of those fancy tablets, so this is how I did it.

Using a felt-tip marker, I wrote the word on white printer paper. When I had one I liked, I scanned it. I uploaded the scan to the Silhouette Studio software, then used the trace function to trace the word. Next, I zoomed in to take care of all of the bumps and areas where the marker ink had scanned lighter than the rest. I clicked on the point feature then smoothed and deleted points until I liked what I saw. It was a little time consuming, but now that it's done, I can use the word over and over again without starting over.

You can find all the details for playing along with the challenge here. And if you're into recipe challenges, we also have a recipe challenge going this month. For this layout, I used kraft cardstock, at least one tag, two different alphas and mist or paint. Here's my take:

I love that a recipe challenge limits my choices right at the start. It's like working with a kit, or manufacturer design team supplies. A limited pool of materials gets me started on the project sooner, rather than stash-shopping.

As you can see, I followed the recipe exactly. I used kraft cardstock as my background, two tags act as my photo mat, two different alphas make up title, and I used mist.

I wanted the mist and the thread to be reminiscent of the waves and sea spray that my photo depicts, so I curled the thread to look like waves and splattered mist like water droplets.

As with any recipe, I like to add a bit of something special. For this page, it was this beautiful flair by A Flair for Buttons. I love the simple, typewriter font.

If you'd like to play along with the challenge, you can find all of the details here. Thanks for stopping by today! I hope your Monday is productive and happy :). Tessa

Wrap it Up Wednesday - SRM Stickers and DCWV

A friend was celebrating her birthday recently, so I made a card and wrapped up a box of Girl Scout cookies for her ;).

I made the card with the Magnolia Way stack by DCWV. This stack includes some sheets of paper that have a different design on each quarter, so I simply cut out the 6 x 6 piece that I wanted for the background, then fussy-cut the matching flower from another sheet. The sentiment is by SRM Stickers.

I also used SRM Stickers to cover the wrapped box. After I tied the grosgrain ribbon bow, I added stickers here and there to make it a bit more festive. 

All in all, it was a quick project to put together the card and package. I loved using SRM Stickers and DCWV to get the job done :).

My 4th grader is competing in the county spelling bee today. He won at his school, then the district level. I have no idea what to expect tomorrow, but I know one thing for certain - I am more nervous than he is! It's been hard to get his nose out of a book long enough for him to study, so who knows what will happen?! I just hope he enjoys the experience. Hopefully your day isn't filled with nervous butterflies! Thanks for stopping by :). Tessa

Mini Thank Yous - SRM Stickers

I love that SRM Stickers carries tubes of all different sizes these days. I had the opportunity to play with the mini tubes recently, which I used to make a few small thank you gifts:

I filled the mini tubes with chocolate-covered raisins. I love those! I could polish off a whole bag in one sitting if I allowed myself. That's one of the reasons I love these mini tubes. They are a little bit like cute portion control ;). Anyway, the tubes themselves were done, so I fancied up some tags to go with them.

Inspired by this pin on Pinterest, I dipped little feathers in gold glitter paint. It took a long time for them to dry, but I was really happy with the result. I misted plain manila shipping tags with Heidi Swapp's gold lame color shine, then attached the feathers. Next came the thank you sticker. I love the brown ones that SRM Stickers makes. I added a few gold sequins and a wood veneer feather (Studio Calico), then tied the tags to the tubes with gold shimmer twine.

I loved how easy it was to put together the treats once the tags were made, so I am thinking of putting together a whole bunch of tags ahead of time for quick thank yous down the road. Hmmm, post to follow! In the meantime, you can read more about these tubes on the SRM blog today.

Thank you for all the congrats regarding Fancy Pants! Your comments here and on Facebook were all so sweet :). I hope you are having a great day! Tessa

Some Fancy News!

Yes, my name is on that list! I am really excited to be designing with all of these talented ladies and for such an awesome company. I fell in love with their booth at CHA this past January and cannot wait to get those new lines in hand :).

You can check out the announcement here. Thanks for stopping by today! Tessa

SMASH Sunday - new SMASH book

SMASH Sundays so far this year have been all about my One Little Word SMASH book. I love working in that one, but if I want that to be a year-long project, I need to pace myself a little better ;). So what is a SMASH addict to do? Start a new one :).

This is the Vintage style folio. I LOVE the designs in this book - right up my alley. I like my SMASH books to have a theme, so this book is inspired by these:

A Flair for Buttons is where you can find these beauties :). They are called SMASH words flair, and I am basing this entire SMASH book around them. I have the book sectioned off so that every few pages is a response to the flair prompt. I've got the first pages almost done, so I'll share those next. But for now, just my title page is complete.

I love this Basic Grey journaling card that reads "my thoughts exactly." This SMASH book is definitely going to be more writing and even more personal than my others. I'm excited to see how it comes together.

Thanks for stopping by for another installment of SMASH Sunday! Have a great day :). Tessa

Lunch Date - SEI

While we lived in Wyoming, my husband was able to come home for lunch almost everyday. I loved that time of the day to spend with him. Since being back in California, lunch dates are few and far between. On special days, like birthdays and anniversaries, I'll make the trip to him. It doesn't happen often, though. I took this instagram photo of us on a lunch date last year:

I have wanted to scrapbook this photo for a long time, but because it is so washed out, I never found quite the right papers to use. Then SEI released the Mia Bella line. It includes a patterned paper called "gallery walk" that features paint drips and splatters in beautiful colors. I knew it would make the perfect backdrop for my instagram shot.

You can read all about the details of this page on the SEI lifestyle blog here. I had a lot of fun working with this gorgeous new collection and will definitely be putting it to use more in the future.

You can see the Mia Bella line here. Online photos do not do it justice. It's truly a very pretty collection. I hope your weekend is off to a great start! Thanks for spending some of it here :). Tessa

Lucky Green Necklace - Epiphany Crafts

I told you I had more St. Patrick's Day crafts coming! I was challenged by Epiphany Crafts to make something along the lines of green and/or lucky. I haven't made any jewelry with my Epiphany Crafts supplies lately, so I decided to make an accessory to wear on St. Patrick's Day. I wanted to be able to wear it for other occasions, too, so I designed this necklace with versatility in mind:

First, I spray painted the silver-toned charm gold. I made an epoxy with the Round 25 tool and a patterned paper by Websters Pages. I loved the yellow rose and deep green leaves! Right up my alley :).

I attached beads to a gold chain, graduating in size and switching up the colors, finishes, and shapes.

I know this necklace is going to get a lot of wear, on St. Patrick's Day and beyond. What will you be wearing to avoid pinches on St.Patrick's Day?

Have a good one! Tessa