Truffula Trees

Being a Horton, I have to love Dr. Seuss.  Right?  I recently made a project that was entirely just for fun and my daughter said they reminded her of the truffula trees in The Lorax.  I used the Pop-Up Posies Kit to make them.  They have little tiny styrofoam balls inside each 'flower.'

So ... what do you think?  Do they remind you of truffula trees?  Sometimes, you just have to make a project just for fun.  These were fun.

Gotta love Dr. Seuss!

As a reminder, here's the Pop-Up Posies Designer Kit:

Have a great day and try making a project that is purely just for fun!

Guest Artist: Laura Worden

For today's post, I'd like to feature a good friend of mine and a member of my Inkin' in the Land of Lincoln team:  Laura Worden.  She is a super talented lady and I'm so fortunate to have her on my team.

I have several wonderful samples of her work.  For today, I'd like to share 2 of the cutest boxes ever.  These were made with the Pop-Up Posies Designer Kit.  I've featured several kits lately and just want to remind you that you can do a lot of creative things with a kit as your starting point.  Here are Laura's boxes:

The tags from the kit are used here for the lids of the boxes.  Laura has made excellent use of framelits and punches to create her 'just for you' tags for each box.  The colors are Calypso Coral and Pool Party.

Here's what comes in the kit:

This kit and everything else in the Spring Catalog will only be available until the end of May, so don't wait too long if there's something you'd really like from this catalog.

- Thanks for stopping by my little corner of the blogging world. 

- Click on the tab at the top of the page to see my class schedules and registration policies or click on the left for sneak peeks. 

- Come back soon and come back often for more creative inspiration.

A Pop-Up Posies Banner for Spring

Remember the larger banner I made for Spring?  I decided the tags from our Pop-Up Posies kit would make a cute banner in a slightly smaller size.  I made this for my Prairie Treasures booth (Root Cellar, Wildflour) but I think I might have to make another one for myself.  I really like how it turned out.  If you haven't gotten one of the Pop-Up Posies Designer Kits yet, you really need to get one.  You can make so many beautiful projects with them.

I was going to share some of my new wreaths with you today, but decided I needed to share my new Spring banner now because we still need more Spring here.  Maybe this will help.

We had a wonderful weekend.  Starting Friday night, my daughter and her family took me out to dinner to celebrate that I finished my taxes (I think:)  Then Saturday, my son and family came over and we took them out to dinner.  Sunday morning, we had an absolutely packed church to celebrate Easter.  It was a beautiful service.

Here are a couple of shots from Easter Sunday morning.

My handsome boys on Easter Sunday morning.

My sweet Olive Jane's first taste of a peep.  It was a hit!

 *Please Note:
If you would like to make a Spring wreath, you will need to pay to register at least 2 days prior to the class so that I can have all your materials ready for you.

Decorated Pails for Easter

I found these cute little pails on sale at the fabric store and knew I should take them home and decorate them.  I think they turned out pretty cute.  Each one has a tag for Easter.

Here's the pink one.

For the tags, I 'painted' in parts of each image with white craft ink, using the Aqua Painter and then went back and painted in the colors I wanted, using various colors of inks.  I went back and highlighted a few areas with Stampin' Write Markers.  It all makes for a really nice subtle, pastel look to the images.

Here's a close-up of the pink one:

Here's a pale blue one.

Here's a lavender one.

...and here they all are together:

As with my Easter baskets in my last 3 posts (pink, blue, and wicker), I hot glued the flower trim around the top edge of the pail.  I added ribbons one each side of the handle.  I used the same filler material as I used in the blue basket.

I had a tax glitch in preparing the inventory from my booth and neglected to figure it for beginning and end of 2012 so I spent 12 hours yesterday learning more about using the Excel program, everything and then getting the needed totals.  I am sooooooo happy to have that done!!!  Now... I can get back to stamping and sewing and scrapbooking and cleaning and laundry and playing with my grandbabies and celebrating Easter at church tomorrow and... just enjoying doing anything BUT taxes.

I hope you're having a wonderful weekend and I wish you a blessed Easter tomorrow.  Surely Spring will find us soon.

- Thanks for stopping by my little corner of the blogging world. 

- Click on the tab at the top of the page to see my class schedules and registration policies or click on the left for sneak peeks. 

- Come back soon and come back often for more creative inspiration.

A Blue Basket with Bunny

As I promised yesterday, here is the round blue basket that I decorated.  I think it maybe turned out to be my favorite, even though I love the pink one a lot.  As I did with the pink basket, I placed a decorative egg photo holder into the basket to hold the card.

This bunny is sporting a little ribbon bow tie.  The roses are hot glued onto the ear.  (It only hurt him for a little while.)  Instead of using tulle (I only had pink.) I used a material of some sort (can't remember what it's called) from the floral department for the basket filler.  I think it looks nice with this color story.  I hot glued roses all across the handle and tied a ribbon bow onto each side of the basket handle.

I will share with you how a lucky accident helped me to figure out the best way to attach the skirt to the basket.  After I fitted the skirt over the basket, it slipped off.  When I went to pull it up, it turned wrong side out and slipped up to the handle.  That is when I realized that this would be the best and easiest way to attach the skirt.  You see, up to this point, I hadn't really known for sure how I was going to do it:)  I just knew that I wanted to hide the rows of stitching.  So here are the directions, step by step.

To make the skirt for the basket:

• Measure out and cut 2 long strips of fabric, depending on the size of your basket.
• Make a seam to attach the 2 fabric pieces into 1 long piece.
• Make a second seam, so that you now have a fabric tube.
• Sew 2 rows of long stitches, for gathering, along 1 edge.
• Gather up the fabric until it looks close to the size you'll need for your basket.  This is trial and error, but pretty easy. 
• Slip the fabric tube over the basket, with the wrong side out and the gathered edge closest to the top of the basket.  This means the edge that will become the bottom edge of the skirt is now up at the top.  The fabric tube is now on the basket upside down and wrong side out.
• Run a bead of hot glue along the top edge of the basket, doing a small area at a time.
• Be careful because this is hot glue.  I did get burned a bit.  It's all in the price of being an artist.
• Gently press the gathered edge into the bead of glue.
• Continue, a little space at a time, until all the fabric tube is attached to the basket.  You will need to adjust your gathers before you start and continue adjusting them as you go along.
• Once the hot glue has cooled, allow the fabric tube to gently fall down over the basket and... you have your skirt.  It's just that easy.

As with all projects like this if you think it through before you begin, it's pretty easy and a ton of fun.  Don't forget:  Our fabric is on sale at half price right now.  I got this More Amore fabric on sale!  Stock up while supplies last.

Come back tomorrow and see my Easter pails.  I have a cute little trio of pails that I decorated for Easter.  They are all ready to add treats.

- Thanks for stopping by my little corner of the blogging world. 

- Click on the tab at the top of the page to see my class schedules and registration policies or click on the left for sneak peeks. 

- Come back soon and come back often for more creative inspiration.

A Decorated Basket for Spring

Today I have a basket for you that I decorated with more of our wonderful fabric.  The fabric I used for this one is from our Twitterpated collection.  It's a really good fabric for Spring projects.  Yes, I'm just going to keep making Spring projects until our Spring actually decides to show up for us.

The basket started out without a bunny, but I just knew that it wouldn't be complete without it.

I came across a super find at the fabric store for the pink tulle.  It is sold in the wedding/bridal section and it comes in a package of 25 (10" circles).  You can just gather them up in the middle and poke them down into the basket.  It makes a super nice filler and there's no mess.

The ribbon just makes it into a gorgeous little basket.  Our 2-Tone ribbons are gorgeous!
I made a tag for my basket using tags and flowers from our Pop-Up Posies kit.

The fabric insert for the basket was super simple.  I pressed 1 complete piece of the fabric (similar size to a fat quarter) and then folded it in half with wrong sides together.  I stitched it together leaving just enough opening to turn it once I'd finished stitching.  After turning it to right-side out, I sewed up the opening and then pressed it again.  The size just fits this basket and is big enough to make a liner and a 'skirt' all in one piece.

I tied a big ribbon bow on each side of the basket.

It does look best with a bunny though.  Right?

In case you missed it, check out yesterday's post to learn more about the bunny.  

Thanks for stopping by.  Have a creative day and don't forget to stock up on our fabric while it's 50% off.  I just ordered several packages --- all on sale!

Oh, I almost forgot to tell you --- I finished my taxes today!!!  Yay!  What a relief.  Now I can play more with my stamping goodies!!!  Again, Yay!

- Thanks for stopping by my little corner of the blogging world. 

- Click on the tab at the top of the page to see my class schedules and registration policies or click on the left for sneak peeks. 

- Come back soon and come back often for more creative inspiration.

Pop-Up Posies Spring Layout

I had so much fun at Hostess Scrapbook Club last night.  I am blessed with some beautiful ladies with whom to scrapbook.  We finished early and had time to just sit back and relax, chat, laugh, chat, and laugh some more.  I shared some new techniques, showed some new products, and shared some new ways to use old favorites.  All in all, it was a great evening.

For our layout, we used 12 X 12" Calypso Coral, to coordinate with the Pop-Up Posies.  This was a very simple layout, leaving room for our photos to be the stars of the page.

• First, we stamped flowers along the edges of where the side strips would be and along the lower edge of the page.  One of my scrappers turned her page on one side, to have the flowers across the top instead of the bottom of the page.  This looked super, too.  (The stamped flower colors are Rose Red, Tangerine Tango, and Regal Rose.)
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• Once we finished our stamping, we added a white CS layer (4 x 12") and then a strip of Calypso Coral (3 x 12") over that.  The DSP is from the In Color DSP Stack.
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• We stacked up 3 flowers for each of the layered Pop-Up Posies and used some of our In Color brads for the centers.
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• The mats (Pool Party) are 5 1/2 x 8 12" so 1 sheet of CS is all you need for the mats on this layout.
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• To add a nice little touch of white to brighten the layout, we cut a scallop strip using our Tasteful Trim die and tucked part of it under each mat.  

If these colors don't shout Spring, I don't know what will.  I hope you'll get some stamping done today --- a card or a layout maybe...

New Projects for my Prairie Treasures Booth

Today, I thought you might like to see some of my new projects that I've made for my Prairie Treasures booth.  I've been busy!  I hope you'll see something that will inspire you to get creating some new projects of your own.

I took a little suitcase and decorated the inside of it with DSP.  Then I added fabric, some doilies and a banner.  The card banner is made with tags from our Pop-Up Posies Designer Kit.  The letters on the banner are made from our alphabet stamp set called Letter It.

I put the gift card holders made from the Boutique Boxes kit in an old milk carrier.  I have several of these carriers, along with my collection of wooden boxes.  I do seem to have a thing about them.

I made lots more cards, home decor items and a few more wine bottle gift bags.  I love to display things in old sewing machine drawers and wooden boxes.  I do this in my studio, too.

...and here's yet another banner, made with the Pop-Up Posies kit.  This wonderful box was a lucky find at a local antique store a long time ago.  It's great for displaying my gift card holders.

So, there's a peek at what I've been doing.  I really have been busy... well, except for a complete couch potato day yesterday.  I seem to have an allergy thing going on that just won't quit.  I see a change of meds in my future.

I had a wonderful time at my workshop Saturday afternoon.  It was so relaxing and we just had a great time creating.  I showed them 2 fun, new techniques which they put to use in their projects.  I'll be sharing what we made in one of my next posts, so be sure to come back soon to check it out.

- Thanks for stopping by my little corner of the blogging world. 

- Click on the tab at the top of the page to see my class schedules and registration policies or click on the left for sneak peeks. 

- Come back soon and come back often for more creative inspiration.

More Fun with Pop-Up Posies

In my last post, I shared some cards and tags I made with the Pop-Up Posies Designer Kit.  Today, I'd like to share what else I've made with the kit.

First up, I used the flowers to decorate a couple of small grapevine wreaths.  I love how they brighten them up --- like a breath of Spring!  I've wrapped the wreaths with some of our new Two-Tone Ribbon --- Basic Gray.

Remember, you can use the tags as actual tags...

... and you can use the tags on projects...

I LOVE using the Fancy Favor Box in my projects.  These tags look so cute on them.  You can fit all kinds of treats and/or small gifts into the boxes.  Who wouldn't want a gift like this?


... and, of course, you can make some more cards...

Instead of using the posies from the kit, I added some of the roses I'd dyed from a previous project.  To see how to dye the roses, click here.

Below, you can see a close-up of how I embossed the card with our new Borders Scoring Plate.  That's another way to add a super fun look to your projects.

So, now I challenge you...   What else can you come up with to make using this fun kit?  Come back and share your ideas.  I'd love to hear from you!

- Thanks for stopping by my little corner of the blogging world. 

- Click on the tab at the top of the page to see my class schedules and registration policies or click on the left for sneak peeks. 

- Come back soon and come back often for more creative inspiration.

Pop-Up Posies... Popping up Some Fun!

I love kits.  They satisfy your need to be creative, even when you're short on time... and they challenge your creativity to use them in unique ways.  

The Pop-Up Posies Designer Kit is just plain tons of fun.  Would you like to see what all I've made with it so far?  Here you go! 

The kit comes with 3 different kinds of precut flower pieces, embossed tags, Baker's Twine for the tags, fancy brads and even a stamp, so you can stamp on the tag.

I used a stamp from Tea Shoppe for the tag on the card above.  I've added a little heart clip to my card, too.  Don't you love the Tea for Two DSP?

You don't have to make cards, either.  They can be used for other projects as well.  You can use the flowers on the tags for a fabulous look to your gift packages.

Come back for my next post and see more projects using this fabulous kit.