April Challenge

The April Challenge was to complete a kit. I have had a mini-book kit for a couple of years I have wanted to complete and I thought our recent Easter pictures would be perfect for this project. Michele at the Scrap Shoppe has a monthly challenge so join us in crafting our stash and see what the challenge will be for May. Here are some pictures for what I completed this month.



This shows some of the items in the kit and the front of my completed book.

Here are the rest of the pages in my mini-book:

I noticed taking a picture of the original picture did not turn out that great but I hope this will get your creativiT going. I would encourage you to pull out a kit you have not completed and start working on it. I made myself complete this one wihout spending tons of time worrying about what to put on the page because I find that I start to get overwhelmed and walk away from a project so remember the most important part is to have fun doing what you enjoy and capturing the memories.

Happy Crafting!

Tracey

Weekend Getaway

This weekend Jessicia and I headed to the Smoky Mountains for the Women of Joy conference. We had an amazing trip, the weather was beautiful (Sunday was a little cool), and the conference was the best it has been in a few years. The speakers were great this year – Lysa TerKeurst, Sheri Rose Shepherd, comic relief from Anita Renfroe, and my all time favorite speaker and writer Angela Thomas. The weekend included great music from Charles Billingsley and a wonderful concert with Chris Tomlin and Christy Nockels. It was a great getaway and a very refreshing trip.

While away we also had time to go shopping and no trip is complete to Sevierville without going to Your Scrapbook Superstore and Clearance Store. My favorite place is the clearance store where EVERYTHING is 50% off the original price – let’s just say I spent a while in this store and came out with some really great buys. On Saturday we hit the Tanger mall for a little more shopping. It was a wonderful weekend and nice to get away for a few days.

While the girls were away the boys decided to play as well. Ty is into trains so they went to see the train in Nashville and feed the geese.



This weekend I will be working to finish my April Challenge - what craftiness will you be doing this weekend?

Tracey

Paper Bead Bracelet Winner!

Congratulations Jenny Martin on winning the Paper Bead Bracelet Giveaway!

Jenny said, “I follow via Google Reader! I love your unique projects and can't wait to try my hand at paper bead making soon!!

Jenny I have sent you an email requesting your mailing address.  

Tracey

Paper Bead Bracelet Giveaway!!! {Closed}

On Saturday I posted the tutorial for the new paper bead bracelets I made and I thought it would be fun to give one of these bracelets away to a lucky blog follower. All you have to do is post a comment and tell me how you are subscribed to my blog – Google Reader, Google Friend Connect, etc.

Hey did you notice I added the RSS feed to my blog? This is an easy way to follow me!

Giveaway Details

What you are entering to win:

This giveaway is for one paper bead bracelet like the ones in the above photo. This giveaway will close midnight CST on Sunday, April 22 and I will randomly select a winner on Monday, April 23.

How to Enter:
Mandatory Entry: Post a comment telling me how you are subscribed to my blog.

Good luck!

Tracey

 

Paper Bead Tutorial

 
Hey everyone – sorry I have been MIA but my work schedule was a little crazy this week so I did not have as much crafty time.

Last month I created my black and white paper beads for Michele’s monthly Craft your Stash challenge and I thought I would write a tutorial on how I made them and share some lessons learned.

For those of you who have a Silhouette there are two different patterns available:
paper_bead_set_2_C01302_20508
paper_bead_pattern_set_1_C01287_20508  

If you do not have a Silhouette there are several patterns available online, I searched the web using the keywords “paper bead template” – you can look for links or I viewed the images available on Google.

Using the Silhouette patterns I played around with the size and the pattern to use. This is the pattern I used for the black and white bracelets and changed the size to 1.94” x 5.8”. After cutting several of this pattern on the Silhouette I then cut the pattern in half to create my beads but part of the fun is making the different patterns to determine what you like best.

The first lesson I learned is even with cutting this pattern in half the beads were really too long as the bracelet does not lay flat on my arm.  

For my new bracelets I decided to use a different pattern but the process is still the same when making the beads. I used this pattern and changed the size to 0.5” x 6.0”.



After you have determined the pattern you want to use then comes the fun of selecting the paper you would like to “wear” and you have so many options from newspapers, magazines, scrap paper you couldn’t throw away, or that new paper you have wanted to use but could not decide what to make. I wear a lot of black and white so I used coordinating black and white paper for my first set but for my do over I decided to use colors for Spring/Summer.

After you have cut your pattern from the paper of your choice using either your Silhouette or a template from the internet, it is time to start making the beads. The second lesson learned is I used bamboo skewers to roll my beads and if you look at the original picture you will see how large the base of the bead is so I decided to use toothpicks to roll my beads for the new bracelets. It depends on if you want a smaller or larger rolled bead. I am going to use my newest beads for the remainder of this tutorial.

1.   Select the paper bead pattern and paper of your choice. I selected the triangle pattern using the Lime Rickey line from Basic Grey and coordinating cardstock.

2.   Cut the number of templates for the desired number of beads. I am making extras to have more than one bracelet.

Tip: If using the Silhouette to cut your template use your exacto knife to cut over the cut lines to make sure you have a clean pattern to make your bead due to the small points.

3.   First make one complete roll around either a toothpick or skewer.

4.   Once you have one complete roll made use the glue of your choice (I used Mod Podge) and add glue to the portion of the pattern that has not been rolled.

Tip: I made my beads on Wax Paper so I could apply glue and not worry about the paper sticking to the area I was working on.

5.   Once you have glue applied to the remainder of the pattern, slowly roll the pattern to make your bead. This process should be done slowly so you can keep the pattern lined up or the bead will become longer instead of staying centered - depending on your pattern the point(s) should end in the center of your bead.

6.   As you get close to the end of your pattern I suggest applying additional glue to make sure the bead does not unravel.

7.   Continue steps 2 through 6 until you have made enough beads for your project.

8.   Once you have all of your beads completed it is now time to make them shine. I used Glossy Mod Podge to completely cover the outside of my paper beads and remember to coat the end of your beads as well. This will not only make them shine but it seals the paper as well. You will want to let them dry completely before you handle them so I used a piece of styrofoam (you can use anything you have handy) and toothpicks.

 

9.   Once the beads have dried you can now add them to the jewelry selection of your choice. For the black and white beads I used 0.5mm Stretch Magic jewelry cord because you can simply tie a knot (and glue the knot) since I am new to jewelry making. For my new bead bracelets I decided to learn a little about jewelry making, I used black 1mm leather cord and magnetic closures.

Whola – after following these easy steps you have your first bead bracelet, necklace, or even earrings. If you make or have made paper beads I would love to hear from you so drop me a comment to tell me what you have made and if not do you think this is a project you will try?

I have also pinned some paper bead projects on my Pinterest “Jewelry Ideas” board and some will link you to additional tutorials. Have fun rolling your beads!

 

Tracey

Craft Shopping for a Cause

Last Saturday my Mom and I headed out early to go craft shopping at the Spring Threadfest that a fellow crafter told me about and the best part all the products sold are from donations which allows all the proceeds to go to the FiftyForward senior center in Nashville. Since I had never been I was not sure what to expect but WOW was I in for a surprise.

The first thing to greet us was a sign announcing everything was 50% off the price it was marked. As we walked into the center there it was – yarn, vintage patterns, cross-stitch supplies, thread, I could go on and on about all the wonderful things that were waiting for me to look at (umm buy but we will get to that in a minute). So after filling up a basket just in the first room I looked through the next room and it was a large open room full of nothing but fabric.

The fabric was $1, $2, or $5 per yard but remember I had seen that wonderful 50% of sign so it was actually $0.50, $1, or $2.50. The best part was the swimming pools and boxes filled with scrap fabric and some were big pieces. How much for the scrap fabric you asked – you could fill a trash bag for $1 – make that $0.50 because it was 50% off. I walked away with two bags of fabric for $1. So are you ready to see the fun my mom and I had – keep going down and I will show you what I bought!! J

Welcome to Threadfest!

Look at all the wonderful goodies and this is only half the room!

Are you ready – Here is the fabric room.

Me and my sweet Mom digging through scraps – what fun!

Ok, so I told you I would show you what I purchased. I was able to donate $60 but look at all I was able to purchase. You are reading it correct – I paid $5 for each of the small sewing machines and $7.50 for the Singer sewing box.

Everyone meet my big boy Gordon. As I was taking pictures he decided he wanted to make sure he made the cut for the blog and thought my new toy was a great place to scratch his head. Then he knows when the camera is out it is time to pose. He is a handful can you tell?

I signed up to be on the mailing list for Threadfest so hopefully in the fall I can give you a heads up of when they are holding the next sale for those in the Middle Tennessee area. If you have items to donate you can drop them by any time while they are open. For more information please visit there blog – FiftyForward Knowles Threadfest.

Tracey

Surprise Adoption Shower

Last week I mentioned I was excited to share with you the project I was working on but with a few of us throwing a Surprise adoption shower for someone at work I really could not post my project without giving up the surprise. Luckily we were all able to keep the surprise and you should have seen her face when she walked into the room! Lori and her family have been working to adopt their little girl from India for over two years and they are finally in India to bring Lucy home. They arrived in India today and will be meeting her on Wednesday. Before she left on her trip we wanted to surprise her with a shower to celebrate this exciting time in her life.

When we decided to throw a shower for her I immediately started thinking of what to make for her shower that could also be placed in her room. Lucy’s room is decorated in green and pink so I used these colors in my projects.

I wanted a banner that Lori could use in Lucy’s room to welcome her to her new home. I did not attach the banners so she could take down the Welcome banner and still be able to use the Lucy banner in her room. For the banner I used green cardstock for the bottom layer and used the banner template from Silhouette. The second layer was also cut on my Silhouette using pink and green striped paper (make sure when cutting striped paper that you cut the paper and position the paper on your Silhouette cutting mat in the same direction for each cut). The letters are in Cooper Black 428 point font and I outlined each letter with PK Glitz glitter in Light Pink. I then finished it off by using a pink lace trim I purchased at Hobby Lobby.

After looking at all the cute rag wreaths on Pinterest I decided I wanted to make a pink and green wreath using fleece. I used two different textures of fleece. The green is the really soft fleece (this fleece can get really messy as it likes to shed) and the pink is anti pill fleece. I cut 1” by 14” strips of both colors and alternated tying them on the wreath. You simply make a double knot and keep the knots lined up around the wreath form (I used a 14” wreath form). I also wanted to add Lucy’s name to the wreath so I purchased a larger “L” wood letter to paint pink and painted smaller wood letters in green to spell her name. I had purchased green fabric from the remnants section to make the fabric flower and finished it off by adding a pearl bead to the center. Whola!

The last project was a frame to display a picture of Lucy for everyone to see her. Since we used a conference room at work I used my manager’s suggestion to create a slide show of Lucy. I created a really cute PowerPoint displaying some of the picture’s Lori had shared with me along the way so everyone could see her on the “big screen” and Lori has a picture frame she can add to Lucy’s room. This frame was purchased at the Dollar Tree so you guessed it I only paid $1 for the frame. I whitewashed the frame, added some pearls along the corner and created additional pink and green fabric flowers for the opposite corner.

We had a lot of fun surprising Lori and celebrating this new journey in her family’s life. Here are a few pictures from the shower.

 Tracey