French Country wallet album

Normally, at any given time, I am working on 2 to 3 projects at a time.   There are so many tutorials and patterns to choose from, it's hard to stick to just one.  

Several months ago, I watched a tutorial (withagrin.blogspot.com).   She had made a wallet-like project by just slipping one paper bag within another one to create a fun, small paper bag album.  I chose this fun "French Country" paper because I loved the roosters.   I created a small faux window with curtains and a window box.

 Each page has a small pocket to slip little journals or tags into.

 This is a small gatefold card for added room for pictures or journaling.

I love the colors and country feel to this project.  Super easy, and only took 2 paper bags, paper and embellishments.

In between projects, I'm always making cards.  Unfortunately, the last couple of cards were Sympathy cards.   We lost a dear friend in our bible study to cancer.  She was so precious and so young.  She has 2 small children.   Our Women's bible study wanted to help her family in some way, so I made a card and our women contributed gift cards and cash to give to her husband and family.

Inside, I made a expandable pocket to hold the gift cards.

The only problem was, it wasn't big enough to hold all the donations!!!   Our women have such giving hearts and spirits.  What a wonderful blessing they are!  (withintheword.com)

Another dear friend lost her father recently.  I know how comforting each and every card were to me when I lost both parents last year, so each card I make is with love and one of a kind.

I have more projects coming.   I am also in the middle of re-vamping my craft room.   Cleaning, organizing and purging.   For mother's day, my kids got me a gc for a professional organizer to come in to try to help me get my craft room under control.   I am slowly seeing some progress ( and my floor) and hopefully will be able to keep it organized.  We'll see!!!!!
Until next time- "Make something!!"
Cindy

"Let Us Pray" Magnet board

I know it's been awhile since I have posted.  But I HAVE been crafting!   My latest project is not only fun to make,  but it's one of the easiest.

Start with any magnet board.  You can find these at Hobby Lobby or Michaels in the garden section.   They come in many sizes.  Mine is about 8x10.

Then start adding papers.   I broke up the design by adding 2 different papers, but still from the same paper line.    I used double sided tape instead of wet glue.  It seems to go on smoother without getting the paper wet.

I then started adding embellishments with flowers, lace , chipboard pieces and pearls.

This was a gift for our teacher in our women's bible study (withintheword.com), and we wanted to let her know how much the women in our bible study were praying for her.  Each woman filled out a card with their prayer for Kathy.   I made a pocket on the back of the board to hold the prayer cards.

 Each day, she can pull out a different prayer and place it on the front of the board.  The cards are held with different magnets I made by adding a magnet to different objects.

I finished it by adding a little clip on hanger from the "Melissa Frances" line.

We gave gift cards to other leaders in our group, so I made little tea cups to place them in.  I used a new Brenda Walton tea cup die to make each tea cup, then decorated each one, placed a gift card in them and covered them in plastic wrap.

I hope you give these projects a try- super easy, super fun.   Happy crafting- Cindy

Vintage Easter Tags

I've been playing around in the craft room, (and trying to clean out.)   I tend to hoard favorite flowers, lace, etc.. but I decided to share it. (That is why I bought it for in the first place, right?)

I found an etsy shop that sells vintage images (lovecreationgal).   She has some darling images and the quality, when your print them, is beautifully detailed.

Prima has a "tag pad" filled with sturdy tags, all with the same background.  It's easy to build on them.

All I did is cut each image out and placed it on a tag.  I then added laces, tags, jewels, etc..

I love this shabby vintage lace I found, and wish I had bought more.  I layered it on top of colored lace.

I found some jewelry pieces at Michaels.   They come in a string like form, so all you have to do is cut them apart.  They go pretty far, since there are on an average of 6 or more jewelry pieces.

I think the purple one is one of my favorites.  It's so "Springy" and makes me want to plant flowers!

Of course I would have a couple of pink tags- pink is my favorite color.

These images are so nostalgic to me.  I have several vintage postcards from my great aunt and mom.

I hope you all enjoy going back in "the olden days" as much as I do.   I'll be back soon with more posts of other projects I've been working on.

May all of you have a wonderful Easter, and know that on this day, Jesus died on the cross and rose on this day, so we may have "Eternal Life."

Tiny Hearts

I found the cutest heart die cut a couple of weeks ago at our local art/scrapbooking store.



They were easy to assemble, so I decided to make some for some friends of mine.   I decorated each one a little bit different.  It was a good way to use leftover, tiny scraps of lace and flowers.

The die cut can be used  different ways.   You can cut out the center with included heart die, or you can cut out a solid heart.   On this one I added a piece of etched plastic to centers.

Here's an example of the solid heart and I just added a coordinating paper heart.  These were so much
fun to make, I made about 15.   Once I started, I couldn't stop!

I love going through all my tiny embellishments and decorating each heart in a different theme.

I added them to a little white tree I had and made a heart topper to go on top of the tree.

I added a piece of chocolate in each heart.

I also made a couple of Valentine cards for the girls.  I tucked some money and a sucker in each one.

Valentine's Day has always been one of my favorite holidays.  I hope each of you had a wonderful
"Heart Day".