Paper Made Bakery: Using Packaging on a Card

The Reveal
Inside this month's Tea for Two kit at Paper Made Bakery, is a cute metal canister of button shaped brads. I liked the packaging so much, I decided to feature it on today's card.

Canister of Brads

I replaced the brads with mini M& M's and utilized the canister as the central element in my interactive card. Here is the card in mid process. 

To learn more about the card and to view the finished product, please stop by today's post at Paper Made Bakery. If you like the shape or design of something, try incorporating it into a project, even if it isn't officially a scrapbooking supply.

Thanks so much for stoppin' by,

Florida Vacation Mini-Album

 Masculine Card Challenge Update
I made this tie rack card last month for Father's Day and entered it in CutCardStock's masculine card challenge. If you want to make one yourself or see the link to the origami fold, please go here. I ended up winning the viewer's choice award, so I wanted to say thank you to everyone who voted for me.

Tie Rack Card

As an added bonus, CutCardStock asked me to be a guest designer for them this month. I made two projects using their cardstock and invitation sets which will be shown on their blog today and next Saturday.

The Supply Base

For being a guest designer, CutCardStock set me a Priority Mail Box filled to the brim with their products. I was so surprised by their generosity and loved the versatility of their products. My favorite item was the brown bag A7 (5 x 7") folded invitation set. It really does feel like a brown paper bag, being softer than Kraft cardstock and that cut out on the flap is super cute. I decided to create a project featuring the brown bag set. 

Brown Bag Card & Envelope

This month from Pages from the Heart, I worked with two new Echo Park collections - This & That (Charming version, which is boy themed one) and Enjoy the Ride (which is a mini-theme featuring travel).

Echo Park Collections

I paired the solid paper bags with fun images from the patterned papers to create an interactive vacation mini-album. 

The Reveal

I bought a small three ring binder from Big Lots for $2.00 for my album's exterior. I decorated it with the Echo Park papers and stickers, along with some photos and Glossy Accents. 

Orlando Vacation Album

For the inside cover, I covered it with light blue airplane paper and adhered my itinerary for the week. Each page inside the album consists of an envelope. I have 7 pages total, one for each attraction I visited plus a bonus envelope to house unused items like extra postcards. 

Inside Cover and First Page

Inside each envelope is the matching folded card, which can be taken out and opened up. This allows for six surfaces to be decorated - the front and back of the envelope, the front and back of the card, and the interior double panel of the card. This is a lot of room to work with, so I actually used everything I brought back from my trip - photos, brochures, pressed pennies, souvenirs and other memorabilia. 

Envelope Opens with Pull Out Card

The Interior

I'll show you one complete page in my album. This one features a trip to Gatorland. Here is the front of the envelope with has a group photo, description of the park cut out from the brochure, a pressed penny, admittance wristband and real alligator teeth I adhered to the alligator photo. 

Front of Envelope

Real Gator Teeth

The flap opens and you can pull out the card. I brought some 3 x 4" journaling cards with me on the trip which I filled out each day. I cut them in half and adhered them to the inside flap on each envelope. This way, I didn't have to try to remember the details weeks or months later, especially when I'm in the middle of designing a page.

Inside of envelope and card front

The card opens up and I can place the larger items inside. Here I cut out the map of the park, attached a photo with an arrow pointing to the location where the photo was taken.

Inside of Card

The back of the envelope is the perfect size for a 5 x 7" photo, and the back of the card can hold a collage of mini-photos. I used 10 photos, a map, journaling card, brochure, souvenirs, plus my regular embellishments on one "page" of my album. Anything else leftover from my Gatorland visit, I just tossed as I'm never going to use them again.

To see the rest of the pages, they are spread out on CutCardStock's blog and Pages from the Heart's blog. 

This gave me a good feeling of utilizing everything I brought back and a sense of completion regarding scrapping my trip. It was a lot faster than scrapping a 12 x 12" album and turned out to be a fun and interactive album that people might enjoy browsing through. 

You can use any card envelope you have lying around, an empty small binder and a piece of cardstock cut to fit inside your envelope. If you want to use the brown paper bag set that I used, you can purchase the envelope here and the card here. I actually liked them so much, I later purchased the A2 and square set. If you want to see the album in person, please visit Pages from the Heart. 

Thanks so much for stoppin' by, 

Paper Made Bakery: You're my Cup of Tea

The Reveal

Last week, I used the negative space of my teapot die cuts and ended up with 16 mini-teapots that I didn't use. I wanted to use some of those teapots since I had already cut them out. Here is what I came up with. 

Sneak Peek of my card on Paper Made Bakery

I also wanted to show the action of tea being poured so the twine in my Tea for Two kit came in handy. To see the whole card, please hop on over to today's post on Paper Made Bakery.

Hope you are having a "tea"rrific day,

Scrapbook Steals Blog Hop: Fun with Ribbons

The Hop

Welcome to Scrapbook Steal's July Blog Hop! I'm so excited to be a part of this hop, since I love viewing and love even more purchasing their daily offering of scrapbooking supplies. If you've just arrived from Mary's blog, then you've come to the right place. If you want to start from the beginning, please go to Scrapbook Steal's site. If you are lost, here is the blog hop order:

1. ScrapbookSteals 
2. Julie Koets 
3. Sherri Thompson 
4. Corrina Colquhoun 
5. Mary Pat O'brien-Siehl 
6. Michelle McClure (← you are here)
7. Savannah O'Gwynn (← next stop) 
8. Melissa Dehne 

The Product

All the designers were given a different card of trim to work with from the Fancy Pants Designs Ribbon Bundle. I was so happy to receive the Lilac House trim card. When I saw the colors and the lace design, I knew I was going to make something wedding themed. My cousin got married about a month ago and her wedding colors were Tiffany blue and orange. These ribbons were the perfect centerpiece in making a wedding card and gift for her. 

Fancy Pants Lilac House Trim

The Reveal #1: Wedding Card
First off, I made a card for her wedding present which were his and hers gift cards. Since I had separate gift cards for couple, I wanted the card to feature both the bride and groom. I bought this cut file from the Silhouette store and cut out the clothes, hat and bouquet.

Die Cut Wedding Card

At this point, the card looked very boring and flat and really needed some finishing touches. To make it more 3-D, I popped up the wedding dress and added the Fancy Pants lace trim. That really helped. I didn't want to leave out the groom, so I fold a piece of the blue and cream ribbon in half and tightly wrapped the center with some thread to create a bow tie. 

Dress Trim and Bow Tie Elements

I placed the finished card inside a cellophane envelope and tied a bow around the outside. Voilà!

Card & Envelope

The Reveal #2: Post - Wedding Gift

Secondly, after the wedding I wanted to frame one of her wedding photos to give as a post-wedding gift. I thought ribbon roses would make a perfect embellishment as she had a lot of beautiful orange roses in the banquet centerpieces. 

Framed Wedding Photo

I usually get my frames at my local thirft store where I never know what I'll find. On this trip, I found some circular frames which I've never worked with, but ended up really liking the shape. It had a dark finish and since I wanted a more pastel look, I ended up altering it. I painted a layer of crackling medium over the frame and then a layer of antique white on top of that. The result looked like birch bark.

Original Frame

To make the ribbon roses, I searched for ribbon tutorials and ended up using this tutorial. I cut an 8" length of ribbon and just rolled and twisted and glued the ending section to the bottom of the rose. It was really quite easy to make. I adhered some of the roses inside the frame and some on top of the frame using Fabric-tac. As a finishing touch, I brushed on some glitter paint to make the roses sparkle. 

Ribbon Roses Accent

The Giveaway
As a way to say thank you for participating in today's hop, one winner will be randomly chosen from one of the 8 blogs in today's hop. To increase your chances of winning, leave a comment at each stop. You have until 11:59 PM MST on Sunday, July 8th to complete the hop. The winner will receive a $20.00 gift certificate to ScrapbookSteals.com.

Good luck to all! Your next stop is my friend Sav's Blog.

Thanks so much for hoppin' by,