Friendship Quilt Block Swap

I joined a Fiskateer Swap that was held by Fiskateer Jeannie #5377 titled Friendship Quilt Block swap. A number of Fiskateers each made two 12 x 12 quilt blocks to send to Jeannie. The condition other than the size was we had to use orange and green fabrics. These are the two that I made. They are bright aren't they?! But I thought they were a pretty combination of fabrics. We also were to write our name, Fiskateer # and where we lived on each block. I don't know if you can see the writing on mine but it is in the center square. The tags I made to go with each block may be hiding it. I decided to make a tag out of the fabrics I used in the quilt blocks to attach to each block. This was a fun swap to be a part of. Jeannie is going to put them together into two quilts one of which will be randomly chosen to go to one of us that were in the swap. Keep your fingers crossed for me that I get chosen. How fun would that be?! Whoever wins will have a wonderful treasure. I wanted to share this with all of you. It is one other thing I have been busy with.
I'll be back with some cards soon.

What a Fun Craft Day

On Wednesday last week I got together with my friend Rita. She is the Mother-In-Law for my daughter and we are great friends. We enjoy many of the same things and we love getting together to craft. Rita is a Special Education teacher for children and is busy teaching throughout the school year. So we don't get together for our craft days until the summer break or sometimes the different breaks throughout the school year.

She had seen the frames I had made a while back and had placed on my blog and wanted to give them a try. So that was our project last week and are pictured here. I think they turned out really cute!! Rita said she really enjoyed learning how to make these and had Fun too!!! Thank you Rita for a fun day!!

I thought in case any of you were interested I would give you the directions here. These are for 1 Frame:

1. I used Cosmo Cricket double sided paper. It is best to use the heavier weight paper such as this when making this project.
2. Cut 4 pieces 3x4 from 3 different papers. When using 2 sided paper it is possible to use both sides needing fewer papers. All total you will need 12 pieces of 3x4 size.
3. Cut 2 pieces of chipboard 5x5.
4. Cut a 3x3 center out of 1 of these pieces of chipboard.
5. Cut a 5x5 piece of your papers for the background and adhere to the other piece of chipboard.
6. Take each of the 3x4 pieces and using a pencil or dowel roll into tubes on the long side on every piece.
7. You will glue 3 rolls to each side around the cutout window of chipboard. It is best to use a quick drying adhesive to adhere the rolls closed and to adhere to the chipboard.
8. To determine how tight you need to roll them fit 3 on one side of your frame first before gluing to determine if you have rolled them tight enough but not to tight. Another set of hands was especially helpful at this stage. Place the rolls even with one edge. As you go around the entire frame will get covered.
9. We used a marker (brown) in our case and went around the inside edge of the 3x3 opening to cover the raw chipboard color.
10. After all rolls have been glued to the frame place foam tape on the back of this piece on 3 sides leaving the top side open. Then attach to the bottom piece which has already been covered with the 5x5 sq of paper. This will allow you to place a picture in the frame.
11. Make an embellishment of yuour choice and glue to front right bottom corner. We used initials in this example and my previous examples I placed an ornament on one and a gift package on the other.
12. To finish take a short piece of ribbon and adhere to the back for hanging the frame.
13. Enjoy!!!

If you have any questions I will be happy to answer and help you out.

Check This Out!!

I have added a banner to a website that offers something to download for free each and every day. They are called Giveaway Of The Day. You have a limited time to download and activate that download each day you choose it so keep that in mind when you are doing this so you don't miss out on an exceptional offer. Each day you will see the offer for the day. If it is something of interest to you then go ahead and download it. You can be taken directly to there site by clicking on that banner on the left side of the page.
It;s always fun to get some free programs. Check it out if you're interested.

New Cricut Offer!!

I have placed a banner on the left side of my blog that you can click on to go to Cricut's latest offer.
Here is what it is in a nutshell. Purchse one of four Cricut cartridges for a chance to find a winning Cricut Ticket!! Look for a winning ticket in Jubliee, Simply Sweet, Home Decor, or Stand & Salute cartridge.

If you are a Cricut owner I thought you might find this interesting. Have fun and good luck at being a winner!!

Quick Note

I updated my slide shows. I am working on some projects to add as well. Hope everyone is having a great weekend!!

A tutorial on the Corner rounder Embellishment

Corner Rounder Embellishment Technique

This is Step 1. Cut your pieces 2 1/2" x 2 1/2"

Step 2 Fold your 2 pieces each in half.

Step 3. Punch all 4 corners on each piece. They will look like this.

Step 4 Open and fold again matching the cut edges. Punch.

Step 5. This is how your pieces should look when all corners are punched.

Step 6 Put the 2 pieces together by turning the top piece 1/4 turn. Embellish the center as desired. The punch I used is called Laurel and is a 3in 1 embossing corner punch. I hope this is a little easier to understand. I know my previous post on this was confusing and so I wanted to clear up the confusion and thought making photo step by step direction that would do that.

Some punches don't work for this technique so you will have to test them out. You may need to adjust the size square you start with as well. But it is a fun technique so give it a try and leave a comment here if you find it to work for you.

What a Great Fiskars Demo Day Part 2

I had so much fun today doing a Fiskars Demo at my LSS called Pages in Progress. We used 2 of the Summer Limited Edition Punches. I had a fun group of crafters and even one as young as 4 years old!! She did a fantastic job and even did her own stamping!! It was so much fun to see her excitement in making this project.

We used the "Gettin Antsy" and "Soleil". Don't you just love that ant?! Anyway we made this pocket invitation for all those summer picnics and BBQ's that might be happening. The picture above shows it all put together and the picture below are the 2 pieces separately. I used a die cut for the pocket and the tag. The stamp "You're invited" was from the mini Happy Birthday stamp set with the Stamp Factory. The Soleil punch was used both for the sun and the grass. 1/16" and 1/8" hand punches were used to make the flower center by punching random holes in the red circle and backing it with a black circle. The Admission for One corner rounder was used on the mat pieces that holds the ant.

I also had made a center piece that could be made to coordinate for your summer picnic. I had that on my Demo table to show how you could put it all together and to show other possibilities. It is pictured here along with the pocket invitation. I painted a clay pot and made grass from strips of paper and lined the pot. Then I made a couple different tags using the ant and sun to tie in with the invitation. Lastly I added some flowers. Close up details of the rags in the post are below.

This tag is just a circular tag made with the USX and circle template. Sizes 3 1/2" and 3". The craft color circle was also embossed with a Fiskar Texture plate. I again used the Soleil punch to make the sun and grass along with our cute little ant.

In this tag I used the USX to freehand the cloud and make circles 3" and 2 1/2" (I think those were the sizes) for the watermelon. I added the pop up sun punch to the Soleil sun. I also used a Texture plate to emboss the background for this tag.The seeds for the watermelon are from the Ice cream cone punch. I just used the drip portion of that punch.

To show something of the wave summer punch I made this card. Instead of using it as the wave I made them into clouds. How about punching this punch with patterned paper and making a flower? It can be used for more than just your beach and pool pictures and parties.

This last example shows the 4th summer punch. The Ice Cream cone.
This can be used for a ice cream party or as a coupon card to your favorite ice cream place. I didn't do it here but you can make double or even triple decked cones by punching more cones and adding the tops onto your single cone. All 4 of these punches are so much fun and can be used in a number of different ways. See what else you can come up with. Have fun!!

Check them out before they are all gone. Remember they are Limited Edition punches so when they are gone they are gone. Don't miss out.

Part 1 of a fun Fiskars Demo Day.

I had a great Fiskars Demo day today!! I am doing this post in 2 parts. This part shows some of the examples I showed and the second part will show the actual demo project. I hope you enjoy.

Ways of using the Chicky Baby Spring Limited Edition Punch a little bit differently.

In the first example below the Chicky Baby punch was used by punching flipping the paper so the chicks are facing each other and adding the medium size More to Adore heart punch and placing them in between each pair of chicks. Add some brads in the corners and you have a cute banner for a Easter scrapbook page or a summer page.

This second example is taking the Chicky Baby punch and changing it into a Bird. Punch the Chick first. Then cut the wing off and replace it with the Heart (More To Adore) medium size punch cut in half. The last one on the branch is the chick but with the wing and feet cut off. Replace the cut off wing with the half of heart from the medium More To Adore punch and you have a bird. A wing can also be made from the comma punch if you have that one.

This last example is using the butterfly from the Spring Limited Edition punches and the Soleil from the Summer Limited Edition Punches. The center for the butterfly was made from the scalloped square punch in the medium size. First you punch a square out of black. Then put that square back in the punch so it is in as far as one scallop and punch. The result is the strip with the scallops on both sides.

Have fun giving these a try or any other ideas you might come up with.

Embellishment Idea

This was made using the 3 in 1 Laurel Corner Punch. I started with a 2.5 x 2.5 square. Fold in half. Punch all four corners. Open and fold in half again the opposite way and puch all four corners again. I did this with 2 different papers. Put them together and embellish the center. You could also ink the edges. That would separate the two layers more so.

I tried it again using the squeeze punch corner rounder called Something Old Something New. This is the design that was the result. I used the same papers so you could see the difference when trying different corner punches. Give it a try. It is a fun way to use a corner punch from how it was designed.

Another Birthday Card

I needed to make another birthday card and this is what I came up with. I just got some new stamp sets from CTMH and couldn't wait to try them out. Don't you just love the "girl" on this card? That stamp set is called Be Yourself and it is a very fun stamp set. I also used the set called Buttoned Together. They look like REAL buttons don't they??!! This set is especially nice for the times when you want buttons but need them to be flat. I also discovered that the Martha Stewart button punch works with this stamp set and they get embossed with that punch also. I didn't use it on this card but I will try that soon. Oh yeah the paper and inks are CTMH also. The ink colors are Smokey Plum, Olive, Desert Sand, and cocoa.

Hope you like it.

A Happy Birthday card

Hi Everyone!! Sorry for being so long between posts. Life got in the way is all I can say. But I hope to be crafting again and have started back with a cards. This one is a Birthday card for my dear husband. I hope he likes it. I tried to make it as masculine as I could.

I hope you like it too.