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!

Getting Ready

I guess I have been in a card making mood lately because I have more cards to share with you. Maybe it's just that I am gearing up for World Card Making Day on Oct. 1st. Speaking of...if you are planning on posting some cards to your blog for WCMD, why don't you go sign up HERE and be a part of the WCMD blog tour. :) Notice the logo on the right? Yep, I will be posting. I already have my cards made for that blog post.

But first, why don't I share some other cards that I made, all of them use the beautiful The Bright Side of Life collection from The ScrapCake, as well as some other fun stuff. :)

That awesome butterfly comes from the Embrace You stamp set from Unity Stamp Company. I have missed stamping lately, and just had to pull out some stamps. :)

And this card uses the Where You Are stamp set from Unity.

And here is one more card...

Speaking of The ScrapCake...did you see the sneak of their latest collection? I can't wait to play with it! Here's a sneak:

And you can see more of the collection here.

Thanks for stopping in today!!! Have an awesome day! :)

How You See

Hi everyone! Thanks so much for all the comments lately...you all seriously rock! I have loved reading them all. :) I have another layout to share with you today. It uses the beautiful Summer's End collection from Fancy Pants.

Here are the close up's:

That circle border is punched circles, one acrylic glitter cut doily and one rub on doily.

That corner piece is a printed filter embellishment that I folded over and then once more...worked perfectly and I think I will be doing this again. :)

It came together rather quickly because I had this sketch/idea in my head. :)

Hope you all are enjoying the week! Thanks for stopping in! :)

Have some fun!

Let me just put this out there...this hobby is meant to be fun! If you are not enjoying it maybe a good old fashioned photo album is the way to go. :) Just sayin'.

Last night I created a layout, but first I had fun editing the photos. I just played a bit. :) It gives it a little bit of a more artsy look. I know there are people that do this all the time. And there are fantastic actions available, but sometimes it's fun to just sit down and try things and see what you come up with on your own. I promise you'll feel more proud. :)

Here's my layout that uses my "fun" photos.

The layout uses the lovely Summer's End collection from Fancy Pants. I used TWO transparencies and some acrylic accents on it! Lots of clear loveliness piled on this page. :) Here are some close up's:

Something else I want to say....it's been on my mind lately. I posted this on my facebook page yesterday: We need to learn to fight FOR each other, not WITH each other! We are all starving for encouragement and love. :) I just want to say that this DEFINITELY applies to us scrapbookers too! There are many different styles and many scrapbookers at different levels. I am so sick of hearing people say negative things about others' work. I know it's not everywhere (mostly because it's not allowed). But I encourage you to ENCOURAGE. Go leave 5 (or more) comments on people's work! I promise that it matters! People need to hear it.

Have a fantastic day!!! Thanks so much for stopping in! :)