Recent Projects

*remember to click on the picture for a larger image view (sorry some of them are blurry)

Well folks, I've been working a lot lately and not in the professional sense! Birthdays, graduations, swaps you name it! I've been making a lot of different items and thought I would share some of the high lights with you!

This jointed mermaid was created for my friend Polkadot P. I really like the way it turned out. I know a lot of folks get really detailed with their dolls by adding more 3D embellishments, but I like the simplistic look only paper can give.

The cool thing is, if you take out the brads out of her clam-shells, fins, and tail you can flip them over to reveal other coordinating patterns. I also made 3 parts to her hair so their is lots of movement to her.

I've been slacking on my homemade cards lately, so when a few birthdays came up, I tried a new style.I started making these fold out cards. I've only made a few, but I need to branch out with some different ideas. The Giraffe one got great reviews! I find that putting googlie-eyes on anything makes it 10 times cuter! The Giraffe was done in bold marker and I chalked in the back ground to give it an airbrushed effect. These are really fun and different and VERY easy to make. One of these days I'm going to sit down and make a bunch of them to keep on hand. I'm having a hard time finding ideas for these cards. I've thought of doing other animals like a wiener-dog, snake, alligator and maybe something naughty for a bacholorette party (I'll leave it up to your imagination)! The Pinocchio card was made for a friend of mine who is really into Disney. She thought it was pretty funny. I think if I ever remake this card, I'll draw some leaves coming off his nose. I had to make it in a rush, so the close up of the picture might reveal a few errors on the paper. If you have any cute fold-out card ideas, I would love to hear them!

Another project I worked on was a creative Matte frame for my best friend's little girl's first birthday. Her baby room is done in a jungle theme so I thought (since I'm poorer than a church mouse) that I would make her something for her room that would last through the years. I first bought two mattes. The bottom one I lined with DCWV glitter stack paper and the top one I chalked with various yellows and greens for the back ground of the "jungle". On watercolor paper I painted bright animals and added glitter. I used really cute tropical letter stickers to add in her first name and birthday. This picture doesn't do it justice!!! I figured that mom could put in a family picture from the party, or a picture of baby Paige eating a messy cupcake! The frame was a HUGE hit at the party. Little Paige liked it and I love this picture of her pointing to a lion. I know that this frame will be on the wall for a long time as it has her baby theme and hopefully a cute 1st birthday picture! Oh, and for those of you wondering, yes Paige is really 1 year old, but is the size of an average 2 year old. She got her dad's genes and he's built like a linebacker!

I think my favorite new project has been Matchbox fills! I really had no idea what they were until swap-bot had a bunch of listings for them. Basically, you take an empty matchbox, decorate it, and fill it with tiny items. You can make different size matchboxes depending on what you want to fill it with. I found that making the matchboxes from scratch using the template on swap-bot found here: http://blog.swap-bot.com/rachels-matchbox-template/was way easier than trying to cover up an old one. The one shown here, was for a summer themed 32 count matchbox fill swap (BTW 32 count means that the matchbox holds 32 matches). I think anything "sun" colored reminds me of summer so I stuffed this matchbox full of yellow, pink, orange and white items. Some Disney, spongebob and hula hello-kitty stickers were added to represent various destination vacations (beach, Disneyland etc.). I have seen a few pictures where people had only filled their matchboxes with a few items, but I stuffed mine as full as I could get it! I hope my swap partner likes it! Since I had a lot of fun with this project, I whipped out a few more in different colors and themes! when things slow down, I'll host a matchbox fill swap myself! I love brads and tiny embellishments to use in my projects so the more the merrier! I also find myself saving small odd items for future fills.

Those are just a few things I've been working on lately (outside of regular scrapbook projects). I've had a lot of fun experimenting around with different projects. I've been getting so much inspiration lately that I've been full of ideas!!!!

Miss Nat's baby book

So, a VERY close friend of mine entrusted me with the task of "re-doing" her baby book. It all started when we were having a discussion about the proper care of pictures and how when you leave them in the 1980's peel and stick style albums that your pictures will yellow and tarnish with age.

Being the crafty person I am I offered to re-do her book and I went over to her house and sat down with her, her mom and sister and took apart her album. Each picture was numbered and had a brief description written down. This way I could re-piece the album in the same order. Since her folks thought she was going to be a boy, her baby colors where mainly primary and had a train theme. Since Nat was a tom-boy in her youth, I've honored the album with the same themes: Primary colors and trains. Granted there is a splash of pink and secondary colors (green, purple and orange) through out, but I think she'll be happy with the look. To keep the baby album personal, I've kept the detailed picture list and left spaces for her mom to go back and "journal" who was in the pictures and the events. This way the baby book will be written in her mother's hand and have a more personalized touch.


This task was given to me about a year ago and I'm nearing the end of my journey (well mostly). I feel like I've gotten to know baby Natalie very well through her little smiles and gestures only a beautiful baby could display. Although her album is mostly complete, I'm having a hard time wrapping up the rest of the book. There are several pictures still waiting to be placed. These are pictures I wanted to do a special layout with, but can't seem to commit to paper. I'm sure Natalie would say that she doesn't really care and that she REALLY wants her baby book back (and I would to after a year), but I'm starting to feel the pressure. In some ways, I feel like I slacked off on this project, but then again I've put a lot of time into it. I told her I would have it for her Spiffy Graduation party, but now I'm not sure I can deliver on the deadline. Every day I go over it adding little embellishments here and there and I've even re-done a few layouts I'm unhappy with. I'm normally not this much of a perfectionist, but this gal is someone I consider a best friend and "okay" is not good enough. I'm not hoping to inspire tears, but in the years to come when she shares this book with others, I want it to shine!


I'm frustrated because each time I open her album, I see a design flaw or realize that one layout isn't as detailed as another. I'm hoping I can kick it into gear, but I don't think I'll have it finished by next weekend. I know that I have all the time in the world, but being creative is like writing and sometimes I get "writer's block" in the creative sense. Some days are better than others. UGH! Well, for now, I keep adding to it and hope she'll end up loving it anyways! I'll keep you guys posted....

Poppies!!!

So, a really cool gal (MonkeysInk) from swap-bot sent me a fun package for a recent swap. Inside was a really fun (and might I add beautiful) mini album along with the template. It was so different and fun that I decided to make one for myself using the Autumn Leaves "Pretty Poppies" collection. It's odd because I've never seen this style before and I considered myself pretty up to snuff with the latest and greatest templates. To keep the gift of scrapping rolling, I'm posting the link for the template of this album here

what's great about this album is that it's VERY quick to make. Paper bag albums and chunky books are time consuming, but I was able to whip this out in just a few hours. I think they would make awesome gifts for baby/bridal showers or for any holiday. I love how this album turned out, but I might pass it a long in a swap along with the template to keep the inspiration flowing. In fact, I was so inspired by this mini-album, that I'm trying some other new projects too. Thanks again MonkeysInk for such a wonderful inspirational piece!

This is the Cover (the back, not shown has a giant Red Poppy)

The view after you untie the ribbon and open the first page

The view after you open the right panel

The view after folding out the center; with the 2 side panels closed and the center opened

The view with the 2 side panels open