Attitude of Gratitude

For several years now, every November, I have been posting "Attitude of Gratitude" posts every day on Facebook.  Basically I just post something I am thankful for each day.  There are lots of people playing along.  If you haven't started, it's not too late!  ;)

Well for the past three years I have also used my Attitude of Gratitude posts and made a layout with them.  It's fun, and I love looking back at them.  You can see my past Attitude of Gratitude layouts here.  This time I decided to make a 2 page layout to fit it all in better.  The Facebook posts are from last year.

I used the wonderful Hopscotch collection from Fancy Pants.  It is hands down one of my favorites.

Here's my layout:

I really love how it turned out.

Here's how I made it:

1.  I printed off my Facebook posts.  I actually did a screen print and essentially saved a photo of my computer screen for each of my posts and then opened them in Photoshop.  But you could just copy and paste your posts into a document.  Or you could even just print your full Facebook screen and cut the parts out you want.  

2.  I created a base for my layout.

I didn't have enough full sheets, so as you can see from one the picture, I had one sheet that already had a leaf cut out of it and also had to piece together one side of the blue polka dot papers.  No big deal.  :)

3.  I took a craft knife and cut out each of my posts, leaving a tail to make it look like a word bubble.  You can always use scissors or a trimmer and just cut it out normally.  I've said this before, but don'w worry about being perfect!  You can see that mine are not cut out perfectly at all.

4.  I already had an idea in my head oh how I wanted my layout to turn out, so I arranged my Facebook posts and adhered them down.

5.  I cut strips of patterned paper and laid adhered them to my layout.  I made sure to extend them across each page of my layout because I love the way that looks.

6.  Then I added my photo, my title, some leaves and some buttons.  For my title I cut down slightly the negative parts of the numbers and adhered them first.  Then I took the numbers and put them on top, but popped them up.  I really like the cool look it gives the title.

And here are some close up's of my layout:

Well there you have it.  :)

Thanks so much for stopping in today!!!

Have a fantastic day!

Fabulous Fall

I love it!

Fall is my favorite time of the year!  I love the colors and the smells.  I love the cool crisp air.  I love it all.  And it's easy to capture beautiful photos...love that too.  Our fall seems to have come and gone though.  It's cold and snowy here this week.  Oh well.

Well I made it into my craft room!  I decided to make a layout based on my sketch 225a here.   Which, by the way, there is still time to play along with for a prize.  :)

Here's my layout:

I used the fabulous Hopscotch collection from Fancy Pants for my layout.  Yep...still playing with this collection, I just love it!  :)

Here are some close up's of my layout:

After I stitched the word fall, I painted the insides of the letters white to help it stand out a little more...plus I think it looks cool.  :)

Well thanks for stopping in today!
Have a fabulous fall!

Fall Artistry

Man I love fall!!! It hasn't seemed like fall as much lately because of all the snow we've been getting here, but it is still fall...the best time of the year! :) I took these pictures of the tree in our front year, like a day or two before it started snowing here. I just love it when the leaves change colors. I did this layout for the BasicGrey blog, you can see the post here.

My layout uses the awesome Picadilly collection from BasicGrey...are you sick of it yet? :) I ran out of some of the letters for my title so I put stickers that didn't match on my layout and then traced around them with a Sharpie, then removed the stickers. I like how this looks! The hexagons are cut using my Slice. I just hand cut the leaves and folded them to pop out some.

Here are some close up's:

Hope you have a FANTASTIC day!!! Thanks for stopping in! :)

Gettin' Cozy!

Hi everyone! Hope you are having a fantastic day! Back in June the lovely Deb asked me to design for her company Say It With Letters. I LOVE Say It With Letters so of course I said yes! :) If you haven't heard of them, check them out here. I've done several other projects using her stuff, you can find that all here.

I was thrilled when I received her new 8" Cozy letters in the mail.

Here's what I did with them:

I used the fabulous Autumn Splendor collection from We R Memory Keepers on my letters.

Now...

Let's break it down

I started with my bare letter.

I covered it with adhesive.

I turned my letter over and laid it on the backside of the patterned paper I wanted on it.

I like to turn it over after that and use my brayer to run over it all to make sure it all gets adhered down, with no air bubbles or lumps.

Do this to each of your letters with 4 different pieces of patterned papers. :)

Depending on what adhesive you used, you may want to allow it to dry some at this stage. It's up to you...I don't always. ;)

Then I turn my letter over and I take my craft knife and cut the paper off around my letter.

Then you should have something like this:

I like to sand my edges some just to make it look smoother.

And then another thing I always like to do is paint the edges of my wood.

All of mine:

Then you have the base for your projects. You could leave it at that and it would look beautiful, but I am an embellisher. :) So I took each letter and added a few things to it.

Here are my letters embellished:

I added two chipboard photo corners. Those leaves are hand cut and stitched around, and I added a chipboard tag on top.

Wasn't this tag just perfect to use with this project? I placed it over the middle (popped up) and added ribbon.

On my z, I decided to change it up and add some patterned paper behind the wood (you can cut holes for the mounting holes on the back of the wood). Then I added another one of my leaves and some chipboard that I again popped up.

And finally, for my y I added some more chipboard photo corners. Then I wrapped some ribbon around the y, twisting and knotting. Then I printed the words for "a cozy home is a happy home", layered them on paper and popped them up on my y. :)

Now for those of you who don't know how to do a blanket stitch, I thought I would share that as well.

Blanket Stitch Around A Shape

Step 1:

Start your stitching by coming through the back.

You want to leave a tail on the backside.

Step 2:

You want to take your thread from front to back in the next hole over so it looks just like a normal stich.

Step 3:

Take your needle and go UNDER the stitch you created, like so:

The first stitch will look weird right now, but it gets fixed when you come to the end.

Step 4:

From the front, you go through the next hole, like so:

I KNOW IT STILL LOOKS WEIRD....just wait! :)

So repeat steps 2-4:

And keep repeating...

Now...when you come to the end you should have something like this:

Keep going as you've been going...

And then take your needle under the first crocked stitch you had, and now is when you will be making that look right.

And pull your two tails out.

And then you can tape them behind or tie them off. I tape. :)

And there you have it....a lot of pictures, but hopefully that all made sense.

Here's my Cozy letters for you one last time.

Thanks for stopping in today! Have a fantastic day!