Turning 40: Welcome to the Dark Side

When my friends and I turned 40, we made a point of finding joke cards about getting older for one another.  I wasn’t a card-maker then, but if I had been, I would have made a card like this for the guys in our group.  

It would have worked perfectly with all the old age pranks.  Of course, now that I’m actually 40-something, it seems less funny:  The knees that pop, the hairs that are turning grey, the stretch to get out of bed in the morning.  I feel like I could be getting close to that old skeleton. :)

This card is for the new linky party theme, Fall'n for Flair, over at Paper Issues.  This super cute Star Wars inspired button is from Shelley Haganman’s etsy shop, A Flair For Buttons.

Here’s a close-up of the card:

If you love Fall and love flair, come join us over at Paper Issues. The linky party starts today for all your Fall and/or flair projects and runs through Oct. 6.

If you’d like to win some of Shelley’s flair buttons for your very own, please join us on the Paper Issues blog hop.  This is the hop order:

Audrey Yeager

Lori Wilbanks

Sabrina Alery

Kate Vickers

Heather Leopard

Izzy Anderson  <<<You Are Here

Ashli Oliver

Paper Issues

To be entered in the drawing, please “like” the Facebook Page, A Flair For Buttons.

Comments on the hop will be open for two weeks and two winners will be chosen by random draw and announced on Oct. 7 on the Paper Issues blog.

You can find all your card-making and scrapbooking supplies over in the Paper Issues etsy shop, including October Afternoon's new Witch Hazel collection.   And everything's on sale.  Just use code IZZYB20 for 20 percent off your entire order.  

Card supplies:

CS: American Craft

PP: Echo Park Paper

Stickers: Echo Park Paper

Twine: Trendy Twine

Flair: A Flair For Buttons

Ink: Ranger

Font: Copperplate Gothic and Arabic Typesetting

Altered Frame: Hexagon Punch

Hi!  Today I have an altered summer frame using hexagons as my backdrop. 

For my project, I altered an old picture frame. I used patterned paper from Canvas Corp and Bella Blvd, cutting them with a hexagon punch, and adhering them them to black cardstock. 

I used seven patterns from Canvas Corps White Basics line and two patterns from Bella Blvd’s Sunshine and Happiness collection for the base of my project.

Then I used a hexagon punch from Creative Memories to punch a bunch of shapes for the base of my project.

I arranged the the hexagons on black cardstock and stitched around the edges to form the base of my project. I love the way the black makes the color pop. Using black also gives the project more depth when inserted in a frame.

Here's a closeup of the top of the altered frame.  I used a large burlap flower from Canvas Corp as the sun and added a tag as a title spot.  Alphas are Webster's Pages.  Banner pieces are October Afternoon.

Here’s a closeup of the bottom of the frame. I added a photo of my son in the pool and a piece of chipboard from My Mind’s Eye to the hexagon background. On the frame itself, I added waves punched from Canvas Corp paper and a large felt flower. I wrapped some burlap string around the flower stem to echo the burlap sun at the top.

Thanks so much for stopping by! 

Documenting Baby's First Year: 11 Months

I started scrapbooking in 2009 just prior to my son’s birth with the goal of making a baby book of his first year. Someone had given me an album, cardstock and stickers at a baby shower and that was my start.

As my son grew, I was dogged about one thing: taking a photo each month of my baby on his birthdate and writing down that month’s milestones. Recently, I was looking through his baby album and saw I had milestone layouts for months 1 – 9 and a birthday page for age 1. Hey, that’s pretty good. I was just missing milestones for months 10 and 11.

So, here we have it: the 11-month milestone page. I was grateful I had written these down. At the time, you think you’ll never forget. But trust me, new mommas, you will.  Here, I added the list of milestones to a cardstock pennant.

I used Echo Park Paper for this layout, primarily the Note To Self collection. The star paper is from EP’s Pride and Joy mini theme. The wood veneer heart is Studio Calico; stickers are October Afternoon. The Polaroid frame is a die cut from Paper Issues’ etsy shop.

And coming soon to a blog near you: the 10-month milestone page.

And speaking of Echo Park , I was so pleased to see this little beach ball card I made from EP scraps muscle its way into the week’s top 3 lists at Two Peas in a Bucket.  Two Peas just recently switched from daily top 3 lists to weekly ones. This shaped beach ball card topped the list for the week as the most liked project and came in 2nd as most bookmarked.

I originally blogged about this card here.  I had made the card for a publication call for shaped cards. It wasn't picked up, which is always a bit deflating, so it was extra sweet to find the card in the Two Peas rankings. :)  

Mr. & Mrs. Egghead - Decorating Plastic Eggs

On the agenda for the weekend is to dye Easter eggs with my preschooler. But before we tackle real eggs, I thought it might be fun to decorate some plastic ones. I saw a feature in Disney’s Family Fun magazine of plastic eggs sporting a variety of hats and thought I’d follow suit.

May I introduce Mr. and Mrs. Egghead? These two are obviously Southerners, maybe Texans, given their headgear.

I made Mr. Egghead’s cowboy hat using a paper egg carton, a small piece of cardstock and a bit of twine. I made Mrs. Egghead’s Easter bonnet from a cupcake wrapper, felt trim and small paper flowers.

The couple is sporting border stickers from Echo Park’s This and That collection. I thought the red triangle border sticker looked a bit like a bandana and suited our cowboy. I used a scallop border sticker for Mrs. Egghead to mimic a dress collar. I also used stickers and paper from This and That to build the house. The roof and door are Cosmo Cricket.

They’re just about ready for Easter, I’d say. Have you decorated eggs yet this year? If so, feel free to link them in the comments here or on the Paper Issues blog. Our current theme is Candy Shop. We’d love to see your projects. Paper Issues also has a great giveaway on its blog.  Saturday is the last day to enter.

Going Green: A St. Patty's Day Treat

I’m super excited to have joined the Creative Team at Paper Issues, an Etsy store and challenge blog. There's such a variety of paper crafters on the team and you'll find tons of fun and inspiration on the PI blog and often prizes, too. We post a different theme every other week and everyone can play along. We hope you'll join us!

Our current theme is “ Go Green or Go Home.” For this you can use the color green, something recycled or something home inspired. Since St. Patrick’s Day is around the corner, I decided to upcycle a treat box - green, of course - for the holiday and include a coordinating card.

　

To make the treat bag, I recycled a Martha Stewart paper container. The box was 3 inches on each side, the perfect dimensions for a 12-inch sheet of patterned paper. I used the Lucky Me line from Little Yellow Bicycle. I cut a strip of patterned paper 2 inches high by 12 inches long and scored it every 3 inches.

　

I adhered the scored strip to the Martha Stewart box, then used a 12-inch border sticker around the top of the patterned paper. I added a cellophane bag into the base, filling it with green Hershey’s kisses. Then I folded the cellophane bag over and added a simple topper made from patterned paper. To complete the project, I used a cropadile to punch holes in the topper and threaded through a bit of ribbon.

To make the card, I used a Doodlebug die cut as my base, adding some Lucky Me patterned paper, an accordion flower from LYB's Paradise collection and a round journaling spot for the sentiment.

We’d love to have you play along in this challenge. Just link up to the Paper Issues blog by March 17.

A little more about my new team:  The Paper Issues creative team includes a wide variety of paper crafters including: traditional scrapbookers, card makers, altered art artists, art journal keepers,  Project Lifers, SMASHers, crazy junk pilers, mist flickers and those who have mastered a cutting machine. The newest members of the creative team are: Aimee Maddern, Amy Tsuruta, Audrey Yeager, Christine Heeren, Cristin Drewes, Heather Leopard, Izzy Anderson (that's me), Kate Vickers, Leah Farquharson, Lizzie Oakley, Lori Wilbanks, Marlene Gomez, Missy Gener, Nina Yang, Patricia Roebuck and Sarah Andreotti.  You can find the announcement here.

If you’d like to take a peek in Paper Issues' Etsy shop, you can get 20 percent off your total order by using the code IZZYB20 at checkout. The shop stocks all the top paper manufacturers and gets new merchandise in each week. You can use the discount code as many times as you like. It doesn’t expire and there’s lots of new CHA merchandise in the shop. :)