Quick Little Tags from Valentine paper scraps

 Now that the Valentines have all been made and delivered, it was time to clean up before starting a new project.  The one thing I like to do while cleaning is make some tags from any of the usable scraps that way I don't just store a ton of scraps in the craft room.  Many times it I just box up the scraps into a basket to be used later I usually never get to them and that mountain just keeps getting bigger and bigger.  So I found that if I actually just sit and make some tags after my card project most of my scraps will be used.  Of course I also whip up a few embellies while I'm at it.  You're probably thinking "ok but what do you do with all those tags?".  You are first correct in also thinking that there is no way I could go through all the tags I make.  Well I give them away.  I pack some all occasion packs as gifts, leave some with friends and mail some out in Happy Mail.  They eventually get used and I am always looking for opportunities to spread them around.  Often I have thought of just leaving a small pack on a table at a restaurant where we would have lunch.  So now it's time to clean up after the last project I did and that was the Valentine cards.

If you remember I made quite a few for a community project here and then of course for my grandkids.  I also had a gathering with my card group where we also made Valentine cards so needless to say I had alot of scraps.  I had made alot of embellies from quite a few of these scraps and now I'll make some tags.  I decided that the tags will probably just be "girlie" type tags.  Honestly folks....how many Valentine tags does one really need? LOL  This way they can be Birthday, Thinking of you, etc.  Oh and maybe I'll use that Teacher Day stamp I bought! So that was the plan along with a couple Valentine tags.

Here's what I came up with.  Most are 2.5" x 5".  A few are 2.5" x 4"and I used heavy weight card stock from Hobby Lobby for the bases. Scraps will be from the pink double-sided papers I bought for all the cards I did for the community project and the teacher Valentines as well as some g45 paper scraps from the cards I had my group of ladies make when we had our gathering.  All the embellishments will be the ones I made with some of those scraps though I will be adding things like sequins etc where needed.  Otherwise I hope NOT to bring out ANY new supplies.  So how did I do?  I stuck to my guns and I'm pleased.  What do you think?

15 extra tags just out of scraps.  Not bad.  Oh and I was still able to make another 8 cards.  It's almost as if this paper pack will never end.  Did I ever tell you that there were 24 sheets of paper in this pack and I only used half of them?  I put the rest away for when I need pinks.

Now I'll add these to my box of finished tags and cards so I can  get ready to begin my next project. 2 Birthday cards. 

Til next time.......................................................................

Teacher Valentines and More

 Hello again!  Well as per last post I have made teacher Valentines.  All Fancy Fold of course.  Now your probably wondering why I am making the cards for my grandkids to give their teachers instead of them making their own.  Well here's the story.  These kids are active in a ton of activities.  2 of them at the moment are in the school plays (2 different schools).  So there is running around to a zillion rehearsals nearly everyday.  Plus they are all in chorus, 2 in band and orchestra, the third in swimming.  YIKES!  I get tired just thinking about it.  So I thought I'd do them the favor and make the cards instead od them taking one out of those boxes of Valentines every other mom buys from a local store.  Plus........I might have a few leftover supplies hahahahaha.

One thing that excited me a bit was while on Amazon looking for a phone case a pop up came up.  It was of a stamp and die set that of course I assumed I didn't need.  But wait!  What did I read?  A stamp that read "Happy Teachers Day".  OMG I have got to have that!  So there I go.   Forgetting my phone case and buying dies and stamps and I don't usually stamp.  LOL  Anyway for only $8.99 I couldn't' pass it up.  Oh ok I could pass it up if I had will power but what fun would that be?  LOL.

What a great set of stamps.  I am sure I will be using these alot.  I'll have to ask my daughter in law when teachers day is.  Ok back to the Valentine cards.

Once again Fancy folds were the thing an since they were teacher cards and teachers have desks, I decided they should be cards that can withstand the bumps a desk takes.  So tall cards are out.  I thought a regular one would blow over too so my choice was an "Easel Card" .  for a sturdier platform I thought a 6"x6" might be a good choice.  So here's what I came up with.

Aren't these adorable?  They are pretty simple and though I don't usually do duplicates for the kids to hand out I had decided it was best this time to just assembly line the cards so I could get them done and move on to other projects I have planned.  I was able to use up a few more embellies and unlike most projects I had very few scraps left so maybe I have slowed down on the Valentine Embellishments LOL.

Well that's it.  They are now off to the kids to give their teachers and I am on to the next project.

So until next time................................................

A Call For Valentines

Hello.  It's almost Valentines Day and I have been working on a few different cards these last few days which have given me quite a few scraps.  Seems to be the story of my life LOL.  As usual I turn to tags to use up my scraps and this time is no different as I turn many of these scraps into tags and embellies.  Here are some I had been working on.  Some tags for Valentine gifts but some tags I just made as pretty girlie tags.  The embellies were all used for the tags and of course I just kept making embellies until the pieces were just too tiny to use.

Then my Village News Letter came.  One of the articles was about our State Representative and a Dist. Representatives working together in our community to collect Valentines for local frontline heroes in my community.  The drop off location is actually just down the street from me across from the fire dept.  Well now........do I have any Valentine supplies that I could whip up a few cards with?  Hahahahaha.

Do I ever!!!!  So I pushed those embellies aside (they will be used for sure now) and got to work on card bases.  Now you know me.  I can't just do regular card bases.  I have to go a little fancy.  I mean they won't be overly embellished but they can at least have a fancier fold right?  And no piece was wasted.  The angled accordion card?  Well the piece cut off actually measured 4" x 3" when folded closed.  Well in my book that's still a Valentine sized card, so I went with it and made it a card too.  So I started with a few angled accordion mini slim cards.  Very simple with 4 saying Happy Valentines Day inside and 4 saying Thank you inside.  Then with the cut off pieces I made mini cards that say Happy Valentines Day inside.   Here are the beginning ones partially decorated.

I then started making another mini slim card though I have no idea what it is called.  I know I've seen them somewhere but for the life of me I can't remember where. It too is pretty simple and uses just scraps.  So then I also found that the simple triple fold (I think that's what it's called) would also work as a slim card but I had decided to glue down one of the folds so it still opens like a regular card.  Another day and another time I will go more in depth with some of these cards but for right now I just wanted to share the ideas.  Below is the first batch to be boxed up and I still have papers leftover and quite a few more embellies.  Because?  Well....more scraps....equals more embellies!!  I guarantee by the end of this project I will still have a bunch of Valentine Embellies.

I had decided to stick with the mini slimline cards because I can use Dollar Tree envelopes for them.  I just stamped a postage cancellation on all the envelopes so they didn't look so business like.  Now those short little cut off cards I had to make the envelopes for them but having the envelope punch board from WRMK makes that an easy task.

I'm going to keep making until I run out of paper from this generic paper pack I have.  There will probably still be extra tags out of these scraps too.  I'll let you know.  This is such a fun project.  I think I have really found my Mojo.  I need more local projects like this one. With still a large amount of paper left I think I'll also make some Valentines for the grandkids to give their Teachers. 

Til next time.......................................................................

G45 Valentine

 Well I finally did it!  Finished my Graphic 45 Valentine Fancy Fold.  I have been in such a rut lately that nothing seemed to motivate me.  Then I got my e-mail from g45 with the new project sheet for the Love Notes and Imagine Card kits Corner Pop Up cards.  Well one of them caught my eye and I just so happened to have some leftover 8x8 sheets of Love Notes.  With Valentines  Day around the corner I thought it would be a good idea to give this one a whirl.  The Graphic 45 site has alot of free projects sheet available to print under the inspiration tab so be sure to check them out.  Many of these project also have You tube videos you can look up.  Well worth it if you are a g45 fan.

Anyway back to my card.  Obviously I used the Love Notes Collection.  I decided to make mine a bit more busy than the inspiration card.  Though I loved the simpler version it seemed like every time I looked at mine I was adding something to it.  I handmade every embellie on this card which is also time consuming.  It's one of my favorite things to do.  For example the little tiny bow on the heart and the little #14 flag.   Of course I can't just make 1 of each I have to make at least 6 just incase I need one later.  Sometimes I get carried away and make more than a dozen of each embellie so I can use them on tags too or give them away.  

So it took over 2 weeks to complete this card but I think I'm finally done.  I do not have a pop up element on the inside.  The ends pop up but there are no embellies on them as I wanted to keep them plain.  Since I still had paper left I made some kits for my ladies group (there are only 4 of us) and out of the scraps I made a few tags. Again all embellies were made by me and I have a bunch of duplicates of those too.  No scrapes were tossed if they could be used lol.  Let me tell you ....I have quite an array of grommets now for tags to probably last me the next 200 years!!!   May need to start putting some in Happy Mail.

From another card kit I put together for my ladies group I also had scraps.  I really loved this Fancy fold card so much that I decided to do it again but this time make it an all occasion type card.  Definitely for a female but it can be used as a Birthday or Thinking of you, maybe Just because.  I decided to make it for my granddaughter who uses the expression "Be You" alot.  So with this I decided to shorten it with just using letters      B      U    and then on the inside say    "with sugar on top" .  Just a little motivational card for a high schooler.   Then still having scraps I of course I'll be making more tags. lol.

Hope you enjoyed these ideas.

Til next time..................................................................................

MOJO GO?

 Hello.  No I didn't leave.  Though I see it has been since October since my last post.  So this one is more like a catch up.  Life has been quite busy and the world has thrown a few monkey wrenches into mine.  I won't go into detail but the lows out weighted the highs and the next thing I knew it was Christmas.  I had nearly no cards ready for the mail but was glad I had some left ove projects that I was able to fall back on and use those.  There was no time for pictures or posting as all attention was on getting ready to make things magical once again for the grandkids as I cannot disappoint them.  Things are now just starting to calm down and BAM we get hit with ARCTIC storms.  Waking up to temps of -14 and windchills of -30 to -45.  We are retired and are pretty well stocked here so we had no need to venture out and actually were able to enjoy the beauty of the woodland wonderland.  Our area is heavily wooded and hilly near a river and we have sightings of alot of wildlife so for us the storms brought beauty of the woods.  Now that I have finally de-decorated (a word my friend used that I seem to like) my house of Christmas, I was ready to bring out some supplies and get crafting.  Decided to start with 2 fancy fold Valentine Days cards.  Well I did find that getting back into the swing of things takes some time.  At least for me it does.  I needed a swift kick and no one was giving me one.  It is now taking me 2 weeks so far to make 2 cards and I'm still not done.  I am so envious of people who post day after day the cards they have made.  Sometimes more than 1.  In addition to those cards they partake in challenges, manage their households and some are even managing their aging parents households.  Good heavens I can barely make 2 cards in 2 weeks.  I thought if I pivoted and went back to my tags the mojo would come back.  Well nope.  All I got done there was cutting of 5 tag bases.  So here I am........trying to shame myself into getting my mojo going.  Maybe this will work.

If you have a better idea let me know.

Here's hoping I'll be posting those cards soon.

Til next time...............................................

CRAFTING AT THE CABIN STANDING TAGS

 Oh so chilly here at the cabin.  The towns are having their Apple and Pumpkin fests and all the farm fields now have huge round bales of hay in them.  We had a pretty rainy day here so I sat and watched some YouTube tag videos.  I came across a woman who was making stand up tags.  Interesting  enough to catch my eye.  Now originally I had no plans of making new tags but instead finish up the ones I already have all the bases and layers cut for.  I have all my embellies  that I made previously so the last time I went home I took a lot of my tool back home.  We are getting ready to close the cabin for the season Sonim thought I'd jump start with things I was finished with.  Then came this video and lo and behold I need a large, like almost 4" large circle die!  Dang it!  Well I tried the trace a bowl and cut system but at my age my hands are not that steady to cut smoothly.   Then I had an "Ah Ha" moment!  Somewhere in the cabinet was one of those old Making Memories circle cutters.  If I'm lucky there will be industry blades!     Old School Won!

Whew!  What a cool tag to use miscellaneous scraps too! No 2 look alike because every one of them are embellished with scraps.  Now these are BIG tags. They definitely make a statement.   "Look at me! I'm a statement tag!"  Lol  they are 4.25 wide and  4.50 tall so one sheet of 8.5x11 will give you 2 tags.  

If you would like to watch the tutorial it is here https://pin.it/7jTbIQH        She uses a die for her base but I did not want to buy one so I came up with this no die version.

Supplies

1 piece 4.25" x 11"  80lb cardstock (lighter weight might be too floppy after embellishing)

1 piece 3.5"  x 3.5"

Twine & embellishments   

Score cardstock at 4.5",  5.5" and 6.5".   Fold in mountain, valley, mountain like photo below.  Then line a template or use a circle cutter on the top edge to create a arch.  Just a slight one and cut.  Find the center and punch a hole for your twine.  I made a grommet using a 5/8ths circle punch that I punched a hole in the middle for added strength.  Its not necessary.  In fact l don't think the original one has grommets but l like the look.  That's it.  Base is done.  Now play!

I know I should be working on all the tags I already have cut out.  Or the cards I prepped at home and brought up here but I'm easily distracted by something new.   And darn Smart Tv's!!!  I would have never been watching YouTube for 2 hours on my tablet but give me a big screen.  Well that's a whole new ball game!

OK focus Suz.....

As I was saying these are pretty easy.  So much so that I made a few.   Just go with it.  Make them as busy or do a K.I.S.S.  as for mine ....I stop when I like how it looks.  Sometimes when I'm working on the next one I'll look over at the last one and add on.

Now like I said these are a bit large 4.25 x 4.5 and I decided to downsize a bit. You can get 3 from a sheet of 8.5 x 11 if you cut the base 3" x  8.5".  Score it at 3.5",  4.25" and 5".  Follow the directions above for the larger tags.  These smaller ones will measure 3" x 3.5" when completed.  They are every bit as cute.  Here's a side by side to show you the size difference.  See super cute.

Funny how a sight measurement change makes such a big difference in the out come of the tag.  I think I really prefer the smaller version and will probably make quite a few more in that size.

It next time...........................

ANOTHER TRELLIS

Hello!  Awhile ago I shared a couple of ways to do Trellis cards.  I thought they were very cute and in my opinion pretty easy to make.  Well guess what?  I stumbled across another variation.  Just as cute, maybe a tad easier and can be made 2 ways.  This is not only a Trellis card it is also a fancy fold.  What on earth could be better?  The first way to make this card is as a "Free-Standing Card".  This you will not open but instead write your sentiment on the back.  It is also a large card measuring 5"x7 ".  

I first saw this card by Sam on Mixed up Crafter and fell in love.  I just knew I had to start playing with it.  This is also a way to use up some stickers you may have laying around and by using very few still have a great looking card.  The papers you use make all the difference as you will soon see.  Below are 2 Birthday cards.  The one on the left is where you would write the sentiment on the back and the one on the right is where I adhered the entire 5x7 piece to a blank white 5x7 card base.  Giving it a more traditional card look.  Either way it still stands freely.

Shall I give you measurements?  But of course!  First, I like using double sided cardstock.  That way I am only dealing with 1 sheet of cardstock other than the white for the back or the optional card base.  The only problem making this card is deciding which side will be the background and which side you will use for the trellis strips.  Easiest way is to cut your pieces and decide later.  This is why double sided is my preference.  I can just flip it over instead of re-cutting if I changed my mind.

Above is the base , the acetate, and the piece used for the strips ( scrap from base reversed) that has been scored but not cut into strips.  So here's what you need:

1 piece 12" x 12" double-sided card stock from this cut the following

1)   5x7

1)   7" x 4.5"  score at 1", 2", 5", & 6" then cut into 3/4" strips should have 6 of them.

1)   4.75 x 6.75 white card stock for back

1)   2  7/8" x7" acetate (I recycle so I used a piece from old packaging from one of the grandkids toys)

With your 3/4" strips fold each end valley..... mountian.  After all have been folded run some tape in the center making sure you stay between the score lines.  Now evenly (as possible) place the 6 strips down the acetate as pictured below.

The sample above remember is just a sample.  I noticed that I got carried away with the strips and cut 7 instead of 6 and didn't realize it until I was writing the post. My measure twice cut once got turned around into measure once cut once make mistake. LOL  Plus.......since I'm working with scraps this one is not the same size as the original finished ones so major mess up and I will not be embellishing it but turning it into a tag instead since it has card closing issues.  But the basic directions for putting it together is the same except yours will close flat.

So after the strips are attached to the acetate it's time to attach to the base.  Line the little flaps up to the edge to one side and wet glue down. (top left pic)  Wet glue gives you wiggle time.  Then repeat on opposite side.  Done!  Time to Embellish!  You can use the cards at the beginning of the post for inspiration as this one will be turned into a tag.

As you can see I have way too much of a bend at each end and that prevents the card from folding flat.  The reason?  Well Since I was using scraps I did the acetate and strips the right measurement for a 5x7 base except I cut an extra strip.  That would not have been a problem if I had placed the finished acetate piece on a 5x7 base.  But like I said I was using scraps and my base was actually a 4x6.  Therefore measurements were way off and card won't fold.  I didn't even give it a second thought until after I glued everything down.  I am a no waste person so I will use this as a tag instead with the tiny tweak of adding a grommet and ribbon.  I let the paper design and the fancy fold be the main focal point of the tag so I did not add much to embellish it.

Guess I'm going to have to find a mighty large present for this tag to go on LOL.

Til next time....................................................

The little flaps on each end kind of remind me of feet.  Now put wet glue on bottoms of each of these feet.  Only the end squares and line them up to the sides of the background panel of your card.  Do this for both sides.  The center then automatically pops up, but when you move to one side it flattens to fit in an envelope. Sometimes a little wiggle room needs to be done for it to totally lay flat and you may have to trim off a teeny piece here or there which is why wet glue is best so you can make sure the card will lay flat.

Now add your White cardstock for the back and flip it back over to decorate.  One thing to remember. Which way you want the card to fold flat.  Yes it could make a difference.  See how on my cards the embellies slightly hang over the pop up part on the right?  That can only work because the card folds towards the left so it is still a 5x7.  If I fold it towards the right, my embellies would exceed the 5x7 by a bit and cause an issue with the envelope.  So keep that in mind.