New Product

As most of you know, TAC recently released their Fall/Winter 2008 Catalog. One of the new products they are carrying are embellishment jars. I bought the Ava Embellishment Jar and I'm loving it! These embellishment jars contain 100 (beautiful) buttons, 40 blossoms and 20 felt flowers. I had never used the felt flowers before and now I think I'm hooked!

I'm beginning a Technique Club in August and this is the little book that I made for myself. There are 14 members in my club and I've used this book to record club members, what month they'll be hostess, and what technique I'll be teaching. I may even have to take some pictures at our club meetings and add them in later.

I purchased a papercraft magazine awhile back entitled 'Home and Heart' (by CK Media). The magazine is full of simple gifts for each season. One that really caught my eye was the Floral Thanks Gift Box found on page 27. I recently purchased some flowers and had so much fun using them for this project!

I wrapped a strip of TAC's Uptown Girl paper around my gift and used the 'Sweet Goodies' stamp set for my tag. I ran my ribbon up through all three flowers and the tag and then tied a simple knot. What a fun and quick way to wrap a gift!!

Christmas in July

Nicole and I hosted our Christmas in July party yesterday. It was a lot of fun! We each provided three Christmas themed projects for a total of 6 projects for our guests to make. Two of the projects that I did were this ornament and a tag.

The tag uses paper from the Reece collections and the Simply Christmas and Christmas Circles stamp sets. The ornament also uses paper from the Reece collection and the Christmas Circles stamp set. For the ornament, I used the metal lid off the end of a frozen juice container. The Mega Circle 2-1/2" punch punches the perfect sized circle to fit inside the juice lid! And it also coordinates with the Christmas Circles stamp set. It made the project really easy to make. I used the Crop-a-Dile to punch my hole for my ribbon. The crop-a-dile punches through the metal like butter! I may have to use this project with my kindergarten students at Christmas.

Sewing Machine Fun

I love to quilt and sew almost as much as I love to work with paper and rubberstamps. I decided to combine all of this and these are the three projects I came up with. I plan to offer them as a class in September or October. I want to give credit for the circle card idea to a friend named Denise that I met on a forum that I use to be a part of. She sent me the most amazing card and I've hung on to it forever because I knew that I wanted to try and make a similar one someday.

Denise's card said this on the outside, "When I count my blessings I count..." and the inside had a letter 'U'. How cute! She also used a patterned paper that had numbers all over it- very cool concept.

I'd like to share a quick tip with you about using your sewing machine. Try to think ahead when gluing your pieces in place. You want to try and not put glue where the needle will be entering. This will keep your needle from gumming up. For example- on the full size card (the first photo) I ran glue along the top and side of my green piece of paper, only down the middle and very edges of the striped paper and along the bottom and sides of the pink paper.

If you haven't tried sewing on paper yet, I challenge you to give it a try!!

Supplies-
Lilly Anna Soar With It Collection, white thread, zig-zag stitch and sewing machine used on all three projects.

Full size card
Bold Flourishes
Level A Hostess set for sentiment
Bella Rose Palette Ink

3 x 3 card
Build a Buggie
Tag Tidbits
green Bazzill cardstock (actual name unknown)
misc. tag and eyelet
black ink

Circle Card
Coluzzle Circle Template
silver brad
misc. flower

I'm preparing for a 'booth' event and I've been busy making items to sell. I thought I'd share a couple of the cards with you.

Both cards use TAC's Miss Moxie paper. This paper is bright and fun! The first card uses a stamp from 'Birthday Wishes' and the second card uses a stamp from one of the new Level A hostess sets called 'Feel Better'.

I hope you've had a great 4th of July. My husband and I got to spend the evening with our new nephew. He's just four days old and so, so sweet!

Fast and Fun Mini Album

One of the great things about the new TAC catalog is that it is full of samples and project ideas. On page 34 of the new Fall/Winter Catalog, you will find an 'Inspiring Idea' called 'Tri-Fold Mini Album'. The album features pictures of TAC's CEO, Mischelle Smith with her husband. The album is so cute and I've had fun making my own version of it.

Here's the awsome part- the directions for this album are right there in the catalog! I love it! The instructions were very easy to follow and I can't wait to teach this project to my customers.

I'm always saying that I don't have a lot of pictures to scrapbook with. Well, I came across a Christmas card that a good friend had sent me. It was a picture collage and I had the crazy idea that I could maybe cut it apart and use it for my mini album. So, I cut it apart and here's what I came up with... (for a closer look, just click on each picture)

Supplies-

Mimi paper collection
Family is Forever stamp set
My Life stamp set
Juliette Hardware (I used two of the large eyelets- I love these)
misc. ribbon
transparency
Staz-On ink
stapler