The winner of the mini book class kit is:

Bernice Says:
May 27th, 2009 at 10:23 am edit

I’d would love to see some tutorials on techniques for things that can be made for Fathers on Father’s Day, but I also enjoy any projects that use up scraps in a brand new way.

Congrats Bernice! Please email me your address and I will send out your kit right away

I am going to work on some new tutorials this weekend so look out for a new giveaway starting on Monday as well as 7 days of tutorials – a new tutorial each day! There will be some techniques, some mini books, and some gift ideas (I had several requests for Teacher gifts so I’m trying to think of something really cool for that!)

In the meantime, I put together a list of tutorials I’ve already done, all with photo step by step instructions. Have fun! : )

Door Hangers

Take Out Gift Boxes

Ranger Distress Ink Mini Album

Quick and Easy Gift Tags

Holiday Card Holder – Felt Wall Hanging

Summer {paper} Flower Garden

Address Book

Accordion Album

Coupon Book

Advent Calendar

Flip Style Advent Calendar

Christmas Banner

Quick Christmas Gift Tags

Glass Pebble Magnets

Photo Blocks

…cherries…mmm, I love this time of year so much. The cherries have just started appearing in the grocery store and market and I’ve been eating some everyday! (ok, been eating lots…)

….Sun Rype Mini Bites

and the best thing about these is that there is nothing bad in them! It is pure fruit and they are so yummy!! 2 servings of fruit and veggies per 14 pieces. (the pieces are quite small). I could easily polish off an entire bag in a matter of minutes but I try to make them last… at least a day. haha

I believe this is a Canadian product, which means I’m going to have to bring at least a case of them with me when I move to the states…..

other obsessions:

…..bike riding and picnics… we’ve been going on weekly bike rides for the last few weeks with my good friend Jodi and her daughter Dasha – through our town and over to this beautiful park right on the water. We take lunch and hang out at the park for an hour or so, then start our ride back home. Good times. Good friends….. I’m going to miss them….tons

and my final obsession: Yoga

I really can’t say enough good things about this. Up until a month ago, and continuously since December, I had been in a lot of pain with my AS (Ankylosing Spondylitis.). I had heard that Yoga really helps manage the pain but I was in far too much pain to go, I could barely walk let alone get on the floor and do all kinds of crazy poses. Finally though, I went and pushed through the pain – for a couple weeks. It was tough but wow, did it ever work. On a scale of 1 – 10 pain wise (10 being highest), I went from a 10 to zero. yes ZERO. I was taking as many pain killers and anti-inflammatories as I was allowed to, and now I don’t even need them. In fact, I haven’t taken any for over 2 weeks now! I never would have believed the power of yoga if I hadn’t experienced this, so now I am hooked. I feel normal again, yay! I highly recommend this to anyone who has AS or any condition like it!

ok, well that’s it for now. I love all the fabulous ideas from everyone on new tutorials. I’ll get to work on some of those real soon -  I was thinking of running 7 days of tutorials starting early next week – a new tutorial each day.  :)

Namaste!

Another week starting already…where is the time going? I am up to my eye balls right now with packing, getting rid of stuff, and majorly cleaning every nook and cranny in the house. Only 6 weeks left until my big move but really I need to have it all done by June 21 as I head over to Victoria to visit my family for the remainder of June.

Some good news: I just got confirmation that I have a place to live in California! yay! I will be renting a house with 3 other girls who will be in my class. It’s only a few minutes away from the college (by car) and there is a fenced back yard – the dogs will love it!

Now onto the giveaway!! From now on, each Monday I’m going to do a giveaway – just a fun little way to start the week off. : )
This week I’m giving away a class kit from a previous class I taught at CKC for a cute little maze mini album.
You will get everything in the kit needed to make this little book, including instructions of course.

I will choose a random winner (via random.org) Friday morning. So leave a comment here by Thursday at midnight to be entered in this draw. My question for you this week is: What kind of tutorials would you like to see here? I had a lot of fun taking a break from packing/cleaning today and actually being able to create stuff! I am going to try to do it more often before I have to pack all my scrap stuff up. (those will be the last things I pack up!).

Summer {paper} Flower Garden tutorial

You will need:

- patterned paper cut into 4 x 4 squares

- popsicle sticks

- buttons or other embellishments

- scissors

- pencil

Optional:

- Claudine Hellmuth Studio Sticky Back Canvas

- Claudine Hellmuth Studio matte multi medium & acrylic paints

1.  Once you have your 4 x 4 squares of paper, freehand draw a flower shape onto the first sheet.

2. Cut your flower shape out, then trace onto another sheet that you want to be the back side of your flower. (they are reversible). Cut your second flower out.

3. Tape the popsicle stick to the inside on one of the flower pieces, then glue the two of them together.

4. I love using these clips to hold things together while I’m waiting for the adhesive to dry.

5. You may need to trim around some of the edges of your flowers, and you can go ahead and ink the edges now if you’d like to.

Optional

6. Another fun way of creating your flowers is by using Sticky Back Canvas sheets by Claudine Hellmuth Studio.

7. Do as you did in the first step and cut the sticky back canvas sheet into pieces measuring 4 x 4. Draw your flower shape with a pencil onto the canvas and cut the shapes out. (You can back them onto another piece of sticky back canvas or onto paper)

8. For the first flower I used a glaze. Mix a dollop of multi medium onto a non stick craft sheet and mix a bit of acrylic paint into it. Mix together and brush onto the flower shape. This will give it a nice glaze with color that is more sheer.

9. For the second flower, I used the acrylic paint directly from the jar – this gives it more coverage and more solid color.

10. The multi medium acts as a great adhesive! I used it here to glue the buttons down.

11. Go ahead and embellish your flowers any way you’d like. I really love incorporating vintage book paper in my projects lately, and of course, I still love buttons!

Happy Friday!!

The winner of the Jenni Bowlin WeScrap kit is:

Yvonne Says:
May 19th, 2009 at 5:32 pm edit

I’ve never used a kit before (only been scrapbooking a little over a year) and I’m intrigued! The papers are very lovely. Thanks so much for doing this!!

Please send me your address Yvonne and I’ll send your kit to you : )

I’m going to do another fun give away (for a different kit) on Monday so check back here then – in the meantime, have a wonderful weekend!

WeScrap has some amazing new kits – and they are all under $20! (there are currently 2 different ones with a third being added next week).  The latest one (Scarlet Nights kit) is full of cool Jenni Bowlin Studio products (I love her stuff!). So, I’m giving one of the Scarlet Nights kits away, if you want to enter, just leave a comment here by Thursday May 21 (by midnight) and I’ll have random.org choose a lucky winner on Friday. I’d love to hear what your favorite new products are that are currently on your wishlist!

oh and btw, I am working on some more tutorials… sorry it’s taken me so long, but with finding out suddenly that I’m moving away this summer, my laptop dying and trying to get our house ready to go up for sale, things have been kind of hectic around here…. but I am working on them : )

I meant to get this tutorial up here long before now….however my laptop decided to call it quits on me recently. Luckily I was able to get most of my files and photos and thank goodness for back ups! This is the 4th computer that has suddenly died on me over the years – so I learned the hard way to back things up. After the first time, where I lost EVERYTHING, I learned how to back things up from then on. Anyway, because of my not so great history with PC’s, I decided to go for a Mac this time around. So far I love it, but I’m still getting used to it so I’m a bit slow with things.

Now for the tutorial! This is a fun and easy project, a bit time consuming but totally worth it in the end! It’s an address/ contacts book. I made one for my mum for her birthday this month and I think I’m going to make a smaller version for myself to take with me when I move away this summer.

What you need:

-A lot of paper! cardstock weight, double sided. A good mix of patterned paper and plain cardstock works best. (this is a great time to go through your stash and use up some paper you’ve been hanging onto for awhile)

- 2 pieces of 12 x 12 chipboard sheets or craftyboard for the front and back cover

- A Bind it All Machine and the largest sized coils you have

- Stickers, embellishments, ribbon, etc. (anything you want to embellish the pages with but try to keep them as flat as possible)

- inks (for inking the edges of the pages if you so desire)

- print outs for each page (please feel free to use mine if you’d like – download them here)

- Letter stickers (flat) for the inside pages and puffy letter stickers for the cover (such as Thickers)

(Please excuse my messy desk in the photos!)

1. Cut 2 pieces of chipboard/ craftyboard to 9.25 x 12″

2. Choose your paper and cut each piece to 9 x 12″

3. Cover both your chipboard cover pieces with paper and trim excess. Sand the edges until smooth.

4. Stack your pages together and punch holes using the bind it all (you’ll have to do it in sections)

5. Punch holes through cover pieces with the Bind it All then insert coils through all pages and covers and bind together.

6. Print out enough sheets (to fill in name, address, phone, etc) for each page. Download mine here

7. Trim pages, then ink edges (I used Jumbo Java ink)

8. Glue a sheet onto each page

9. Once all sheets are glued onto the pages, it’s time to add the letter stickers. I used Remarks Alphabet stickers by American Crafts. For more popular letters, I used more than 2 pages (either 3 or 4 depending on the letter).

10. Now finish off your book by adding a title on the front. I choose to use “Contacts” but you could put “Addresses” or “Numbers” or anything you’d like

….and not enough hours in the day.  Our house is in complete chaos right now. With trying to clear some stuff out, pack and get the house ready to sell, it just seems like there is too much to do and not enough time left to do it in. I walk into a room and don’t even know where to start. We have boxes and rubbermaid bins in every room, as we try to sort out what to keep, what I want to take with me to California, and what to get rid of.
I won’t be able to take much, basically what we can fit into the back of the car.

I found this video on youtube – its about the EATM program that I got into – very cool!

Exotic Animal Training and Management Program

Zoey had her surgery a few days ago and is doing well. Her first night home was not good – she whimpered for hours and it broke my heart. She has a huge incision all the way from the bottom of her rib cage to her lower abdomen. We should have the results from her liver biopsy at the end of the week.

June will be my last month teaching scrapbooking classes at Precious Memories, well teaching classes anywhere actually. (for the next 2 years anyway). As of August, I officially become a student again. crazy…

A new class I’ll be teaching at PM in June is a Date book – this was really fun to put together! I made one for my mum for mother’s day and I also made a matching address book to go with it. (I put together a tutorial on this, I’ll try to get it listed in the next couple days).