Winter in Blue Tags

 Blue is one of my favorite colors.  When I was a little girl I loved blue dresses and coats.  My room was blue and white, oh the pain on moms face when I just had to have the white ruffled bedspread lol.  My first record player was blue and my first telephone was blue.  Fast forward to my first apartment and everything was blue and white with ruffles and lace and flowers.. Then I got married to a guy who liked BROWN!  Yikes!  None of my stuff went with his manly stuff.  I slowly weaseled my blues in.  So lets fast forward to now.  Now there's nearly not a speck of blue in my house.  Not because I've out grown it but because I have found so many other colors really do exist lol.  But Blue is still my favorite and so making Blue tags should be a breeze.  Should be.  Seriously............IT SHOULD BE.  So why is this sooooo hard????

Earlier this summer I gave 2 of my nieces a package of homemade tags.    I had just realized that my nephew, who just married this June, might be offended if I did not include his wife in the tag giving so I sped off to get some done for her.  But hold my horses.   She's a very religious girl of the Jewish faith.  She doesn't celebrate the Christmas holidays the way we do.  So much for the reds and greens.  But wait.....I was going to be doing a blue tag project up at the cabin and Claire punched stuff out and I have extras right here at home so since I have some time before I go up to the cabin I decided to get some "WINTER TAGS" made for her .  Easy Peasy right?

HA!  All I made were 7 but trying to come up with 7 embellishments that are non Christmasy is hard.  Especially when you want to stay in the blue color.  Just incase she wants to use them for Chanukah.  Because I had found that alot of stuff I had preped, although all in blues, had Santa's mangers, angel's etc.  All things that are not part of Chanukah.  UGHHHH.  Well here's what I came up with.

Now I know the gold looks a bit out of place but it is what it is.  This is not an easy task.  I think I really should have made an even 10 instead of seven so I'm going to try and work on that.  But for now this is what I have.  I'm starting to second guess my cabin project.  I have 25 tags cut out for that and you know how I am not a fan of duplicates.  Its going to be difficult to come up with enough different looking embellies to do those tags.  I want to say these were fun but in all honesty it gave me a headache.  Trying to make them look festive for the holidays but not represent our Christmas traditions.  You never really think of those things until it is really brought to your attention.  You even have to omit things like Christmas Socks, trees, jingle bells, sleighs.  Wouldn't you know it as I am typing I am now thinking of some things I could have used.  Dang......I may have to add some more tags.  New ideas are popping into my head right this minute! LOL

Stay tune there might be a part 2

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

Crafting at the Cabin Tag DUMP

 JINGLE JINGLE JINGLE!!!!!!  Yep.....I've spent an entire 8 days playing with paper!  The weather here at the lake has been beautiful and my neighbors' grandkids were up for a week.  So while I made my tags on the porch looking out at the lake I was able to watch all the antics of a bunch of young teenage boys.  OMG the craziness!  But those kids had a blast had they were fun to watch.  In the meantime, I was able to get alot of tags made for Christmas.  To keep myself from getting bored with one design I would limit myself to 8 of 1 design.  Some I only got 6 of others only 4, depending on the scraps I used.  It was definitely a process.  I thought I could whip out a ton in one day.  After all they are just little tags but when you have to cut every single piece, make every single embellie, wait for all the glue to dry, and keep clearing up your mess 3x's a day for meals (because the only place available to craft is the eating table) you sure don't get many done in a day.

So today is PHOTO DUMP DAY.  We all know how to make tags so I don;t need to walk you through how I made these.  I just need to show them off so here goes.  A weeks worth of tags.

So 46 tags in 8 days.  Ok I know I can do better.  Especially if I don't use alot of embellies or if I only use embellies that are pre-made.  Pre-made by me of course.  I think that's going to be my next goal.  Make a bunch of embellies ahead of time.  I have a couple weeks of being back home where I can get everything cut, meaning tag bases and layers, then have all embellies pre-made.  Get a container full of homemade grommets and gather all my bling.  Then when I return to the cabin I'll see how many I can whip together in a day when all I have to do is design them with what I already have cut.  Hmmmmmm...better call my little Claire Bear to come help me punch some more paper so I can get to work.

Til next time

PUNCHED SCRAP EMBELLIES

 So after all that hard work Claire did punching paper for me here at the cabin it is now time to make some use of these precious gems.  One of my favorite people to follow on YouTube is Septeria18.  She has so many great tutorials that are very easy to follow.  She has great ideas for embellies as well as some awesome Happy Mail projects that are flat for easy mailing.  So when Claire punched out all these pieces of various shapes I decided I was going to take Septeria18's approach and just layer things together and see what happens.  All the papers Claire used were either Christmas prints or Christmas colors so all the embellies will be Christmas inspired to be put on simple tags for this years gifts.   I need alot and I have alot of pieces so I better get crafting.  Let me remind you of the pieces she punched.

And here are a few of the embellies I have completed so far.

Now I'm not sure as to when I'm going to use these embellies.  I'm pretty sure they will just be put aside as I had some other ideas for some Christmas tags I had made.  Thats in the next post.  I will say I find it very relaxing to just sit looking up out at the lake every now and then and just fiddle with embellies.  I think it's going to be one of my new past times along with the tags.   I'll be doing an embellie "DUMP" later this summer.  Wonder how many different ones I'll come up with?  One thing for sure nearly all will be Christmas inspired.  I may have to find some friends to hand some out to.  I have a feeling I'm going to have way too many LOL.

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

CRAFTING AT THE CABIN EMBELLIES

 Well here we are.  It's July already and summer is half over.  Over the 4th of July I had the grandkids at the cabin.  It was a bit tight here because as I have said before it is only about 900 sq ft.  With a total of 8 people and 1 bathroom, well let's just say a few times there were some cranky pants.  But we made it through.

My youngest granddaughter, now 6, is the most excited about crafting.  Her brother would rather spend time learning how to cook so I do cooking classes with him and her older sister who use to love to craft is now in her mid teens and prefers Tic Toc and her boyfriend.  So Claire and I spent time punching shapes for making embellies.  She had a blast.  We got a lot of pieces punched and even found time to glue some together.  I now have some to get started on some Christmas tags later on.  She's such a good helper.  Here's our 3 evening batch of pieces.

She and her sister Tori and cousins Kait and Emmi also had a " Make Some Tags" day on the 4th.  I had kits for all the kids but getting them to all sit down at the same time was next to impossible.   Then I forgot to take pics of everyone's project.  At least I got the first 4 girls.  Lol.

Kids did a great job with the limited cabin space we had.  I get to do it all over again with the next set of grands next week.  As you can see the older girls tags are the ones that are perfectly lined up 3 in a row on the bottom of each photo.  The top portion of the photos are the tags by the 2 that are ages 5 & 6.  There was a bit of a competition between Claire and Emmi both kept trying to out do the other.  So funny.  I think they did an awesome job.

Until next time...........................

CRAFTING AT THE CABIN 2023

 So the cabin is open for the season and I decided this year to do a mini series called Crafting at the Cabin.  Many of you know I spend  a couple weeks on and off all summer and fall up here with very limited supplies in a 900 sq foot log cabin.  There are 3 of us and absolutely no storage.   Its really chaotic when my son and his family of 5 show up for 2 weeks over the 4th of July. My sister on the other hand lives up here year round, is NOT a crafter and her home (4 houses down from me for just her and her husband)is a whopping 3000 sq ft.  I should rent space lol.

Anyway, this 4th like every 4th we have crafts planned for the kids and it was requested that they make Christmas tags.  Yay!  Right up my alley.  So in my limited space with limited supplies, I started with embellies.  I had some leftover scraps here from my tag making last year and a pack of red, green & white cardstock.   I had a few punched out circles and I apparently left my mini envelope punchboard so I got to work.  A weekends worth of embellish and more to go but it's a start.

I also bagged starter kits with 10 tag bases, a dsp layer cut to fit each tag design ( I made 3 different tops)strings, grommets & paper lace trim if needed.  Also included in each bag was some glue, sequins & buttons.

I made a few samples of unembellished tags to keep things and then a few with embellies to show the difference.  4 of the 9 kids are teenagers 5 are under 10 and there is a possibility of 2 drop ins so i had to have extras.  This is the first time. I had so many kids for tags/cards.  Shouldn't be much different from doing the nursing home right? Lol.  Here are just a two of the samples ready to go.

I cannot wait to share the others we make with you later.  I also have some ideas stirring in my head for the new G45 papers coming out soon.  I cannot wait to make tags from the new Christmas line.  So stick around Crafting at the Cabin will be around at least until October.

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

Flying SeaGull Card

Do you ever wonder where people come up with their ideas for card folds? I know I do.  I have often thought of myself as being creative but then BAM I see something like this and think.......Why didn't I think of that? Then I think....how long did that take them to come up with that?  I mean seriously I can take an entire day deciding exactly what paper I want to use with a certain embellie.  Or a week to try and figure out what kind of card and paper I want to use with a unique looking button.  But figure out a new fold?  OMG it'll take me months of non stop thinking and I don't think my brain could handle that LOL.  Anyway this lovely lady Susan Campfield on YouTube shared this card back in February and called it the Flying Seagull card.  It is adorable and oh so easy to make.  This is the card closed.

I chose to have the wings close towards the back but you can also have them close to the front.  In which case you would be covering part of the front panel.  Since this is a sympathy card I did not want the words to be partially covered so I folded the wing part back.  When folded this card is a standard size of 4.24" x 5.5"

Signing the card can be done either on those inside white panels or on the back panels.

For the base pieces you need 2 pieces of card stock cut at 8.25" x 4.25"  and then scored at 2.25"...4"....& 6.25".  You also need 1 piece of cardstock cut at 4.25" x 4.25".   For layers you will need the following:

1 piece    4-1/8" x 4-1/8" solid

1 piece    4" x 4" patterned

2 pieces  2-1/8"  x 4-1/8" solid for out side wing pieces

2 pieces  2" x 4" patterned for out side wing pieces

2 pieces  1-5/8" x 4-1/8" solid for inside panel

2 pieces  1-1/2" x 4" patterned for inside panel

Center inside panels do not have layers unless you choose to do so.  Here are some pictures on how to assemble the base. Photo steps are top left right then bottom left right.

Both pieces are folded exactly the same but when assembling you will flip one so that the larger 2.25 sections are on the ends.  I held the middle on the back together with a little tape that I removed later.  It just makes it easier.  Watch the video for more details.

For the photos I used an orange piece for the 4.25 x 4.25 piece and I also outlined the edges on the white cardstock a bit since white on white is hard to see.  This is just to give you an idea of where the pieces are suppose to be lined up and glued down.  Again the video helps.

Then remove tape from the back and add your layers.  It's a beautifully easy card and I plan on making quite a few.

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

About Time To Slim Down

 With Springs arrival I thought it was time to "Slim" down. Be a little more sleek.  A little more petite.  Whether tall or short slimmer is just appealing to me. Bright colors look better and busy prints aren't so overwhelming.  I mean think about it ....if you see an elephant in hot pink you say "WOW That's alot of pink !" But if that same pink is on a flamingo you think it's a beautiful color.  Same with prints, if a barn was fully painted with a floral Monet Painting you would think that's alot of flowers! But a 11x14 Monet floral painting would be quite pleasing to the eye.  So I decided it's time.  Time to get back to Slim.  So lets grab some coffee and a raised chocolate donut and get ready.  Oh wait..............you thought I meant weight?  As in diet? Hahahahaha...yeah right!  Not this gal!  I'm talking SLIM...as is SLIMLINE cards.

I have always been a fan of these.  I have also been making these before they became all the rage.  Mainly because I was very cheap back in the day (still quite thrifty).  My supplies were limited and I used standard and business envelopes due to the cost.  They were cheap.  I could jazz them up a bit with a rubber stamp so they didn't look so plain but that is what I used therefore all my cards were slimline.  Though they didn't have an official name back then.

I had decided since I had been on a fancy fold roll lately I thought I'd get back to my basic.  Simple but in my opinion fancy anyway Slimline cards.  I wanted to have a few generic cards to have on hand so "Thinking of You" and Just for You" cards seemed appropriate. Aggghhhh.....ok I can't break away.  I have to do a Slimline a Fancy Fold first   LOL.  It's still simple though and I get to use some G45 papers.

Here it is.  A simple Slimline Step card.  I used one 8x8 sheet of the Graphic 45 Floral Shop Collection on this card with plenty of left overs.  As you can see I also did not use very many embellishments.  I kept the card rather simple.  The 2 3d flowers are stickers I had picked up from the Dollar Tree probably over a year ago and just recently found in my stash. 

Now to the easy part.  I started with an 8 1/2 x 7 piece of 110 lb card stock and with the 8 1/2" at the top of the cutting board I cut a line 1" in from the edge from the 1"mark to the 4 1/2" mark on both sides as seen in the photo below.

I then scored from the edge on both sides at 1", 2" and 4 1/2" and then also scored between the two cut lines at 3 1/2".  Above the marked piece of cardstock in the above photo is what the card will look like after you make the folds.  The side pieces will fold mountain , valley, mountain and the center will be mountain.

DSP needed are as follows:

(2) pieces 7/8 x 2-3/8

(2) pieces 7/8 x 7/8

(1) piece 7/8 x 6-3/8

(1) piece 2-3/8 x 6-3/8

My picture is obviously different paper since I already had my card made before I started this post but you get the idea.  I used double-sided cardstock for this making it simple to coordinate the paper without much thinking.  This also gives you the option of changing how you want to put your card together.  As you can see in the photo below, I decided to use the reverse sides to put the card together.

Now look how different this looks using brighter more fun like papers.  I really liked the florals but wondered how this would turn out using other designs that were more playful or religious or Christmas themed.  I think they all turned out great.  They are so quick and take very little paper.  Now Yes I know....you still use a sheet of 8.5 x 11 of 110 lb cardstock for the base and have a scrap of 4 x 8.5 which is an odd size.  But you could get (4) 2x4 tags out of that and use up the rest of the DSP from the card to decorate those and put the tags in your stash for when you need a gift tag for something.  See that's what I do.  But then again I'm a TAG NUT!

All 6 of these turned out pretty cute.  Now I am off to put together some tags with all those scraps from the last 7 Fancy Fold Slimline Cards.  So until next time...........................................