crochet yoga mat bag

Summer.  I'm in love with you.  

Your carefree, no-where-to-be days.

Your bird-chirping, sun-shiny air.

Barefoot through the grass,

splashing in the pool.

Kids up late,

mornings spent lounging in bed reading.

And lots of time to create and refuel the muse.

Here's a little gift I hooked up for one of my middle son's teachers:

It's a crochet yoga mat bag, and you can find the pattern here.

A simple pattern worked in joined rounds of 3dc ch2.

The hardest part for me was the knitted i-cord, which I abandoned after several attempts and multiple YouTube video viewings (both knitting and crochet versions).  With time running out, I just did two rows of double crochet joined with single crochet in an accent yarn.  Works for me!

All packaged up and ready for giving.

an inspired page

It's day two of summer vacation 

and I had only one goal for myself:

create a layout today.

So I did:

This page was inspired by Two Peas Garden Girl Wilna Furstenberg.

She has a video step-by-step of her process that ran in the background as I created my page.

Wilna used her Silhouette to cut some pretty leafy stems and flowers for her page, but flowers were not really the look I was going for on my baby-boy-themed page.   

So I scrolled through my Silhouette Library and found this fabulous cut file from Chic Tags:

Perfect for my theme and to replicate Wilna's border alongside my photos.

I filled the cut border with a mix of patterned papers from the Recollections Mosaic Memories paper pack and some star buttons I've had in my stash for over a decade:

Painted and stamped chipboard pieces create the title and this page is done:

Hope it's the first of many scrapbook pages this summer!

Thanks for taking a peek!

project life: weeks 3 thru 10

I am so far behind on my project life, it is ridiculous.

It's the nature of the project, and I was prepared for it. . . well, kinda.

I was a few weeks behind from being so non-committal at the beginning of the year.  And then a few more weeks behind trying to catch up on those first few weeks.  Then throw into the list of excuses the mix getting a job, and well, I was destined to fail.

But I'm not giving up.

Weeks 1 and 2 are here.
Here's a quick look through a few more weeks:

Week 3:

Sorry for the glare.  I hadn't learned how to perfect the art of photographing layouts inside their page protectors.

Week 4:

took me until week four to figure out the whole color coordinating piece of PL!

Week 5:

 Week 6:

a little flip book of archetype me's

Week 7:

eeeks!  now you all know how old I am!

I can't remember where I had seen this great idea to include cards in bags.  I put the two younger boys' class valentines in glassine bags adhered to a reinforced strip of double-sided card stock.  Then simply clipped the bags closed.

Week 8:

Week 9:

Week 10:

Week 10 insert:

when i have lots of photos i stick them in these 8 1/2 x11 coin sleeves.

mason jar how-to

The end of another school year is upon us.  This year is fun because I'm viewing it from both sides of the classroom door.  I am doubly excited to have my boys home and to get my first "real" summer vacation in years after having returned to teaching a few months ago.

And because I am back to work, I needed end-of-the-year gifts that I could put together in a jif.  Here's what I came up with:

I mean who doesn't love the mason jar craze?

To make these, you will need, a mason jar with lid and band, a straw (I found reusable ones at the kitchen store), a silicone grommet from the hardware store, and crop-o-dile punch (or drill and block of wood).

 Remove the lid from the band and punch several holes in a cluster to form a hole large enough to fit the grommet.  

The first one was a bit of trial-and-error, and then I used that one as a template to punch the rest quickly.

Then simply insert the grommet, slide in the straw, reassemble the jar, and you're done!

Don't you just love the vintage blue color they brought back? (Couldn't resist keeping one of these for myself!)

I placed an iced tea packet into the jars and topped them with cute little flags I printed from here.  I used the Print and Cut feature on my Silhouette Cameo to make it even easier.
These ones are to thank the administrative staff at the boys' school:

I used my Silhouette Cameo to cut and piece little toppers for my colleagues' jars:

And for my oldest son's teachers, these jars wrapped with crochet cozies {pattern here}:

Thanks for popping by for a visit!

Have a great weekend!

scrapbooking on canvas

Our middle son has had the same teacher for the past two years.  We love her!

So I created this scrapbook page mounted on canvas as her end of year present:

Originally, I wanted to frame the layout, but when I couldn't find a frame I liked, I opted to mount it on a 12x12 gallery wrapped canvas.  Sometimes things work out for the better--I loved working on the canvas and being able to go over the edges with some of the embellishments:

My process:

1) choose and cut papers and photos, and layout without gluing

2) prepare background paper (cutting, misting, stamping, painting, etc)

3) add stitching where desired

4) paint edges of canvas to coordinate with background paper

5) use Mod Podge for Paper to adhere prepared background to the canvas

This stuff, as my boys would say, is BOSS!  It's acid-free and won't yellow over time.  Its matte finish makes it barely noticeable, and any ripples and waves that occur during application magically disappear when it dries.  

Paint a thick coat onto your canvas, press the paper down.  You can touch up the edges and even put a thin coat on the top of the edges to adhere them down well.  Fingers work well for this.  I also put a coat over my cut words to keep all the little letter pieces down.

6) add any embellishments as you normally would

And you have a ready-to-hang piece of canvas art!

Happy Creating!