Strawberry Box Tutorial

I just wrote up this little tute on the Scrapbook Heaven blog, so I figured I would share it with all of you lovely readers, too.  {Plus, it's some content for my lately-neglected little blog...}.

Hello Papercraftanistas!

Today I have a fun little strawberry shaped box tutorial for you.  

I, of course, found this idea on Pinterest a while back 

Source: erinlincoln.blogspot.com via Michelle on Pinterest

and when I saw the red polk-a-dot paper in the May kit, I knew it would be perfect for this project.

So, I started with a little search for a template (the box above is created with an MFT die) and came up

with THIS ONE--just perfect!

1. Enlarge the template a bit.  I did this by opening the PDF in Photoshop, creating a new canvas sized 8.5 x 11 300dpi, drag the PDF to the new canvas, and stretch the corners while constraining the proportions until the template portion fills most of the canvas.
2. Print onto card stock, cut out, trace onto the back of your patterned paper, and cut out.
3. Punch holes in the top center of each side and the center of the leaf cluster.
4. Apply adhesive to the tab and glue to the inside edge of next side to form a five-sided box.

Now you're ready to stitch it closed.  Thread a needle with floss, string, twine, ribbon, whatever you like and leaving a long tail, stitch through the top of the leaf and then through each top side from the inside out {see third photo above}.  After last side, go back through the leaf from bottom up. You should now have two ends sticking out of the leaf on top.


Pull gently to cinch the top closed--don't forget to add your goodies if you're using this as gift packaging.  Thread each end of the string through a large button and tie a bow.   Add a little sentiment pennant and you're done.  How cute is that?!

Paint & Polaroids {two layouts}

Happy Friday!

Hope you have something fun planned for yourself this weekend.

I have two more layouts created with the May kits to share with you today.

First up, a page inspired by Vero's challenge for May 

{create a background with paint, mist, splatters, stamps}

 I did some misting, used paint and bubble wrap to stamp some texture and stamped a few circle motifs.  It's funny, I had this page on my table without the painting/misting/stamping on it and kept looking at it thinking it needed a li'l somethin'-somethin'.  Then I saw Vero's challenge--just what I was looking for!

Then this one: 

I took some of my Instagram photos and turned them into mini Polaroids with some simple white card stock.

Both of these pages used items from the May Petite kit.

Thanks so much for looking and have a super fab weekend!

Happy May {reveal time!}

It's May first, and reveal day over at Scrapbook Heaven.  Be sure to stop in The Forum to see all the lovely creations the team has made with this month's kits.

Here are the kits for May:

Gorgeous, right?  If you want to get your hot little hands on one (or both), stop by The Store before they are all gone!

Here's what I have created so far.

Elite:

a cute little strawberry gift box

I'll be doing a tutorial for this box on the Scrapbook Heaven blog soon and I'll be sure to share it here, as well. 

a layout of my handsome 9 year old when he was just 3

And when I saw the adorable Pink Paislee mini album included in the kit, I couldn't wait to create a mini for our special summer moments to come!

This ENTIRE album was created with ONLY contents from the kit--I added absolutely nothing to it.

I created staggered pages by trimming each chipboard page 1/2" shorter than the proceeding page.  So page 6 is full size at 6" square, page 5 is 5 1/2" by 6", page 4 is 5" by 6", and so on.  

 I adore the little layered map butterflies and flowers Jules handcrafted for the kits this month.

 And aren't these little map envies the cutest?!  She created them by folding a heart shape!

Even the twine on the banner is in the kit (it's part of the packaging to the Pink Paislee washi tape!).

 I wanted little bits and pieces to stick out of the album, so I mounted lots of embellies off the page.

 I can't wait to fill the album with memories of our summer adventures!

Petite:

Now for the Petite kit.  I have created 2 layouts so far, and will have more to come soon.

I loved the striped paper included in this kit.  Just perfect for slicing up to create a layered stripped mat.

More strips, map butterflies and hand made embellies just perfect for layering and clustering.

So there is my reveal.  Thanks so much for checking it out!

a little bit of nothing

Probably not the smartest idea to title a blog post with that title.  

Ummm, yeah, here I am and I have nothing at all to say.

OK, that's not entirely true.  Maybe I should have said "a little bit of something."

Let's just get on with it...

Playing

I discovered PicMonkey tonight.  Very fun little photo editing site--super easy to navigate and tons of options for editing.  Here's one that I created:

And here's the before, SOOC shot:

Creating

The boys went back to school today and that left me with a bit of creative time, so I worked on a mini album using the May Elite kit.

Here's a little Instagram sneak:

Hoping to have more sneaks up later in the week.  

Shopping

I went to my favorite store,

 over the weekend (alone!) and treated myself to a new latte mug:

Buy

Drinking a latte out of a beautiful mug makes mornings (even rainy Monday ones) happy and sunshiny.

So see, I did have a little bit of something to say.  Now you can play around with PicMonkey, be on the lookout for some new projects, and buy yourself a pretty mug.

Aren't you glad you stopped by for a visit?!

at the beach

We're not at the beach this week, but gosh with the gorgeous weather here we very well could be.

Just stopping in during this crazy and fun-filled school vacation week to do a quick post of a couple of layouts I managed to scrape together the past two mornings.

Mixing a bit of old (Colorbok papers) 

with a bit of new (washi tape and baker's twine)

 This fun one was inspired by Vero's April challenge over at Scrapbook Heaven

Did a little pull-out photo on this one.  How cool is that sand castle?!

That's all for now!