Category Archives: inspiration

Scrapbook Product Challenge: Alphabet Stickers!

Scrapbook Product Challenge: Alphabet Stickers!

Here’s a fun little challenge for all you scrapbookers out there.

You know how you never use up all the letters on a sheet of letter stickers? How you run out of E’s long before you even look at a Z or Q? Well let’s play a fun game of Scrapbook letter scrabble.

I’ve got this ancient sheet of SEI letter stickers.

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Can you see how each letter has both a positive and the negative version? That was such a cool idea, I had to have this. I liked it so much, I bought two sheets! Looking at it now, all I can say is “yikes.”

So here’s what we are going to do. We’re going to approach these stickers as a puzzle, and challenge ourselves to make words that use every single one of these letters and numbers. We’re not going to bring in any extra letters, although we can use the ones we have in any creative way we see fit. (Coloring them and using them as outlines comes to mind right off the bat.) Feel free to play along with any full letter set you have at home, or throw out word suggestions for me in the comments below.

You know what, let’s even turn this into a giveaway. If you comment below, you’ll have a chance to get that second set of alpha stickers to use as you see fit! How about one week to comment, and then I’ll pull a random winner and notify them when I post the titles I manage to cobble together from these letters. *ETA: the contest is now closed! Thanks for playing!*

If you want to play along at home, the letters I have here are as follows: (6) A’s (3 positive and 3 negative); (4) B’s; (4) C’s; (4) D’s; (6) E’s; (4) F’s; (4) G’s; (4) H’s; (6) I’s; (4) J’s; (4) K’s; (4) L’s; (4) M’s, (4) N’s; (6) O’s; (4) P’s; (2) Q’s; (4) R’s; (4) S’s; (4) T’s; (6) U’s; (4) V’s; (4) W’s; (2) X’s; (4) Y’s; (2) Z’s; (2) of numbers 1-9; (4) zeroes; (2) ampersands; (4) periods; (2) exclamation points; (2) apostrophes.

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Let’s show these letter stickers who’s boss!

 

Found on Pinterest: Father’s Day Idea

Found on Pinterest: Father’s Day Idea

Fathers-Day-Pinterest-LogoHow many of you are on Pinterest? Do you love it, and pin with abandon? (I’m HeatherDubarry there if you want to follow me and see what catches my eye.)

Are you completely flummoxed by the idea of it? I love Pinterest. It’s a great way to organize and save and curate ideas you find in your web travels. (Think of it as a giant bulletin board!)

Do you ever make anything inspired by what you collect? I’ve made a few things based on ideas or projects I’ve found through pinterest. My friend Kristie Sloan at Artful Adventures put up a Father’s Day Pinterest challenge, where everyone can link to a project they make based on something found on Pinterest. Thru Pinterest I found a fun recycling project on Spoonful where you can turn a waxed half gallon carton into a wallet/change purse.

Materials are very simple, and the instructions are pretty clear. Helpful tools that I had on hand that not everyone would is my bone folder and the circle cutter set from Creative Memories. (I hate trying to cut a circle with scissors. It never comes out as smooth and even as I want.)

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Things that novice crafters might have trouble with: folding the accordion folds for each side. Getting those lines to meet up evenly is hard enough (try not to move the paper while tracing the folding lines onto your carton) but trying to create new folds over preexisting ones is very tricky. It can be done, but requires you to be patient, and to pay attention. It helps to try to create the fold by working from both the outside and inside edges of the score line towards the middle. Just remember, you want to fold each line in opposite directions relative to each other. (What origami calls valley (v) and mountain (^) folds.) If you start by folding the side flaps in, you’ll have the correct orientation to start your accordion.

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This was so fun and easy, except for folding over the spot where the carton originally was folded. I decided to see how easily this could be adapted to cardstock.

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Answer: Very easily! The score marks were easier to make and see, so the accordion fold was a bit easier to create. After debating with myself on how to create a closure for the cardstock version, I went with a couple small squares of magnet. Make sure they stick together and don’t repel each other before you adhere them! (Remember your high school physics and that magnets have positive and negative poles!)
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These are just the right size to use as change purses or gift card holders. I thought they might work as coupon holders as well, but they’re a little short. You could make a wider version by putting a bit of space between the two sides of the template, and I may do that. (My husband needs a place to keep his coupons!) Lots of options!

Have you made anything inspired by Pinterest? Do share!

 

Sharing a Little Blog Love

Sharing a Little Blog Love

My friend Kristie over at Artful Adventures gave me some love last week, by awarding me with a Liebster Blog Award. (If you haven’t visited Artful Adventures yet, check it out. There are lots of great ideas there for getting creative with your art supplies.) Thank you so much for thinking of me Kristie!

liebster-award-300x143What’s a Liebster Blog Award? It’s an award given by bloggers to other, small blogs. It’s a way to share blogs that people may not have discovered yet.

How does it work? First, someone nominates you. Once you’ve been nominated, you pay it forward by giving the award to five blogs that you like that have few followers (under 200) to encourage new visitors to visit these blogs. Make sure you thank the person who nominated you, and link to both the original person who nominated you and five new blogs.

Kristie from Artful Adventures nominated me, and if you haven’t checked out her site yet, please do. There’s so much fun art-y craft-y goodness there you’re sure to find something inspiring there.

My nominees:

Monica at Scrap Inspired. Monica has a fresh and inspiring voice, and lots of great ideas for getting pages done and stories told.

Laurie at Scrapping Tales. Another fun source for crafty ideas.

Jennifer at Caffeinated Papercuts. Jen’s primarily a card maker, and has some lovely designs that she also sells in her etsy shop.

Leah at Art Craft & DIY with Leah. Lots of inspiring ideas with a non-scrapbooking bent, plus she’s got this awesome and fun project generator.

Tom at Building a Library. Totally not craft related, but I LOVE children’s books. His reviews are epic.

I hope you find these people as fun and inspiring as I do.

(And nominees, feel free to pass this on and nominate more blogs if you want. It’s always good to find and share new blogs!)