Almost Time for a Countdown!

The Holidays are fast approaching and I have one more project for you today to help you with your Christmas preparations! If your house is like mine, counting down to the big day is a BIG DEAL, with the excitement of the little guys growing each day as they eagerly anticipate Santa Claus and all the other fun stuff that comes with Christmas. My project today is a quick and easy way for your family to count down, plus a cute decoration to put up in your house!


I used the gorgeous new Christmas papers from My Mind's Eye Lost & Found line to create a countdown clipboard. I bought a wood clipboard from the dollar store (love the dollar store!) and covered it with one of the papers, using glue stick to adhere it to the wood. (two coats, one on the back on the paper, one on the front of the clipboard). Then I added a bunch of fun ribbons across the top, including some lace, seam binding and a jingle bell. The numbers and "days until Christmas" I printed off my computer and cut to the right size. If you would like to make a similar clipboard for your home, I've listed the dimensions below to help you!


Dimensions:
Paper for clipboard base -- 8 3/4 inches wide x 10 1/2 inches long (round corners)
Numbers -- 5 inches wide x 7 inches long (printed two to a page and then round corners)
"days until Christmas"-- 7 1/2 inches wide x 2 3/4 inches long (round corners)
Mat for "days until Christmas"-- 7 3/4 inches wide x 3 inches long (round corners)

Supplies used:
My Mind's Eye Lost & Found Christmas Collection Kit
(unfortunately out of stock, but check out these other Christmas papers)
Colorbox Fluid Chalk-- Chestnut Roan
Seam Binding-- Kocha
Misc. ribbons
Rhinestones
Jingle Bell

I hope this helps you in your holiday planning! Keep those Beary Best projects coming for our month long challenge, we are loving seeing all your talented work!

Time for Christmas Decorations!

Happy beginning of the holiday season and thank you so much for all your wonderful entries so far in our month-long "Beary Best" challenge. I am so impressed by all your great projects, keep them coming!

My project this week is a couple of quick and easy Christmas decorations featuring the awesome Merry Christmas line from Echo Park. I completely adore the color combination in these papers-- traditional red and green but dark paired with BROWN (I love BROWN!) and just a tiny bit of grey. So pretty! I am in a red/green/brown mode this week as I prepare for my Christmas craft shows and I have been painting and embellishing everything in these colors, including both of these:

First is a set of stars, about 4 x 4 inches painted, sanded, varnished and then a little bit of paper added before my vinyl words.


Next is a set of JOY letters, about 12 inches tall, also painted, sanded and varnished then decorated. I added my Echo Park paper to the J by tracing and cutting it out then putting it on with a heavy layer of glue stick (one layer on the paper, one layer on the wood). I glittered up my O using tacky glue and some glitter-- imaging this O done with the German Glass Glitter from The Beary Scrap store; I didn't have any brown but the vibrant hues of the Glass Glitter would be absolutely gorgeous on a wood letter like this!

Supplies Used:
Echo Park Merry Christmas papers (on sale right now, check out the great prices!)Colorbox Fluid Chalk-- Chestnut Roan
Aleen's Tacky Glue

I hope I passed a little of my holiday mood along to you and I can't wait to see what you create this month!

Grateful

Please scroll down to see out Beary Sweet "Double or Nothing" winners!

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November is such a lovely month-- the beginning of the holiday season, a time for excitement, family and to remember to be thankful for all the wonderful things we have (as we celebrate Thanksgiving here in the United States). It's the perfect month, then, for the great challenge we have going on now, show us "Your Beary Best" and I am so delighted to see all the wonderful projects you have entered so far!
My project for this week is a Gratitude Journal:


I started with this Thanksgiving quote that I absolutely love and altered a composition notebook using papers from SEI's Oasis line-- these are perfect for fall and Thanksgiving theme projects with pretty fall colors and foil accents.

This journal could be used just by one person to record all the things they are grateful for or it could be used at the Thanksgiving table and sent around so that different family members had a chance to write down their thoughts, creating a family keepsake.

Supplies used:
SEI Oasis papers
Bo Bunny Double Dot cardstock-- Mint, Burnt Orange, Gingerbread
Tim Holtz Distress Ink-- Vintage Photo
Seam Binding-- Canyon (sprayed with Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist in Latte)
Misc. crochet flowers, rhinestones and stick pin

Keep those "Beary Best" projects coming all November long! I love visiting your blogs and seeing all of your fantastic work-- I am grateful for you!

Spooky Double or Nothin'

Spooky Friday wishes to all my crafty friends out there!

I had so much fun making my Double or Nothing project for this week and can't wait to show you what I came up with:



I got this little wood coffin at my local craft store (it's about 6 inches tall and two inches deep) and couldn't wait to decorate it up. First I painted the whole thing black; for two reasons, first so I didn't have to cover every tiny surface with paper, and second, so that no wood would show between the edges of the paper.



Then I measured or traced each surface and cut some paper to fit from Authentique's fantastic Glowing papers. I know these are sold out in the story but Kimm has some super cute Halloween papers from My Mind's Eye and Echo Park that would also work great!

After covering the coffin with my TWO designer papers, I went to work embellishing it (oh, the most fun part!) with TWO types of trim (black tulle and Pumpkin Seam Binding) , two vintage Halloween potion tags (digi images bought off etsy), TWO black candy dots and TWO sparkly spiders.

But wait, I still have one more DOUBLE on my project, it's also a DOUBLE treat-- a cute coffin and then inside--


an extra goodie! I filled my coffin with some Halloween candy and this cute little mummy. I actually was thinking of putting a creepy skeleton inside but I've been making lots of these candy mummies and my daughter insisted this was perfect for putting into the coffin.


This one is a mini version made from a package of Tic Tacs (though I have been using full size Hershey bars for my other ones). Simply rip some strips of muslin fabric, glue around the candy, add two eyes and a sentiment (or any other decoration; I wanted to add a spider but then that would be 3 spiders and ruin my doubles! Hee hee).

I hope you have enjoyed our first week of Double or Nothing projects and are inspired to make one of your own. WE LOVE SEEING YOUR CREATIONS AND VISITING YOUR BLOGS so be sure to enter our current Beary Sweet Challenge by clicking HERE; you just might win a Beary Sweet voucher!

Pumpkin Free for F'All

I have been so excited to see all your wonderful projects entered in our Free for F'All challenge-- wow! Keep those entries coming, you are all so talented and creative!

My project for this week is a quick paper pumpkin you can make as seasonal decor or to use as table favors for a fall occasion. All you need is a scallop circle punch and some great fall paper!


If you want to try out this little pumpkin for yourself, follow these steps:

1. From your patterned fall paper (you could use Halloween papers for a spooky pumpkin!), punch 8 scalloped circles. My punch was 3 inches but you could do smaller or larger depending on what you have or cut them out with a die cut machine.


2. Ink the edges of your scallop circles and then carefully line them up exactly and fold them in half.


3. After they are folded and even, unfold them and cut off the bottom scalloped edges to make a straight edge. The straight edge needs to be the same on all of the circles so measure carefully. (I had a little bit of a hard time getting them even, so don't get frustrated if the first try doesn't work out perfect! Just try again!)




4. Begin attaching the circles to each other, one at time so all the scallops match up (as close as possible) and the flat edges are all together on the bottom. You may have to fold a little more and adjust as you go to get everything matched up. You also may have to trim a little off the bottom to make the pumpkin stand straight if not all your straight edges lined up. You should end up with a shape that looks like this:



5. Embellish however you want! I broke a branch off a tree in my yard for a stem and worked it through the center of the pumpkin. You could also use some wire, fabric or just more paper for a stem. Add leaves, curled up wire or anything else you like! I spritzed some seam binding with Glimmer Mist and used that for my leaves.

Supplies used:
Authentique 6 x6 paper pad-- Glowing
Seam Binding-- Key Lime
Colorbox Fluid Chalk-- Chestnut Roan
Glue Dots
Aleene's Tacky Glue

Happy Crafting this weekend and remember to enter your project in our current challenge!

Tic Tac Toe for Back to School

I love this time of year-- back to school! And no, it's not just that my two older kids have been driving me crazy and I was excited to send them back (though that is a tad bit true.) As a former teacher, there is just something about the smell of a classroom, clean and awaiting new students, that makes me smile! Mostly it's the promise that the new school year holds-- those piles of new notebooks and unsharpened pencils, new school clothes and backpacks all represent the journey that the kids will undertake this school year and makes me wonder where they will be at the end of it next May and how they will have grown and changed.



So my project for this week's round 2 of our Tic Tac Toe challenge is a little teacher gift for the first day of school. This one is actually for my 4 year old's preschool teacher as he doesn't start until next week and her gift is still at my house-- the other two kids already took theirs on back to school night.


This was a really quick and simple gift to make. I used a small legal pad and just covered it by cutting a 5 x 8 piece of paper for the front and gluing it securely to the top of the notebook (not the paper itself). I cut a 5 x 9 piece for the back and folded it over the top to cover where I glued the first piece. The pencil holder is an empty Prima flower bottle that I have been holding onto knowing it was too cute to throw away! It's always great to reuse stuff!

I used some not-so-typical school paper from SEI's Sonoma collection. I really love the colors of these papers and they are perfect for a more vintage look instead of the typical bright primary colors. I thought the sheet of numbers really represented a back to school theme. I also used the Die Cut Labels and Arrows from that collection. These are all a fantastic price right now at the store so make sure you check them out!


For the Tic Tac Toe choices I used distress (dark brown ink around the edges and I used my Zutter Distress-All to roughen up some of the papers), glitter (red Stickles around the apples) and lace. For me lace wasn't an obvious choice for a back-to-school project either but I really loved how it turned out and adds to that vintage look.

Supplies used:
5 x 8 legal pad
Prima flower bottle
SEI Sonoma papers and die cuts
Stickles-- Red
Colorbox Fluid Chalk-- Chestnut Roan
Pink Paislee Expressions Whimsies Alphabet-- Chocolate (wow! only $1.00)
Misc. lace, clip, buttons and bakers' twine
Sizzix apple die

YOUR Tic Tac Toe projects so far are phenomenal! Check out everything that has been entered so far by clicking here, it's definitely worth looking! There are still a few more days to enter this challenge for your chance to win a $20.00 voucher to The Beary Scrap so spend some time this weekend getting your creative juices flowing.

Do It Yourself Eyelet Flowers

Happy Friday all! I have been so excited to see a couple of entries already in our Do It Yourself Embellishment challenge. I know you all have fabulous ideas out there and I can't wait to see how you create your own unique embellies so keep those entries coming!

My project for this week is this little covered notebook and matching pen-- I found it for only $1.00 at my local craft store.



My main DIY embellishment is an eyelet flower-- I saw this idea recently in PaperCrafts magazine (along with a lot of other DIYs) and was dying to try it! It was super easy to make (as long as I kept my fingers out of the way of the hot glue) and I was really pleased with the end result. If you want to try your hand at this kind of flower, here are some instructions:


1. Gather your materials--
Cardstock and circle punch (I used a 1 1/4 inch circle)
15 inches of rick-rack trim (this makes a 1 1/4 inch flower, use more if you want a bigger flower)
Glue Gun


2. Begin at the outside edge of the circle and apply hot glue around the edge, then start pressing down the rick-rack onto the hot glue, twisting it slightly to make it go around the circle. (You have to kind of twist and bend it as you go, as rick-rack does not naturally curve!)

3. Continue circle inward with hot glue and then applying the rickrack, twisting and turning to make it circle. Continue all the way into the center. Mind your fingers! I used hot glue because I like how fast it is and I'm not sure anything else would have held rickrack as it doesn't turn easily. If you used a lighter weight trim or lace I think Tacky Glue would work just fine and be less dangerous for your fingers!


4. Trim off any excess rick rack in the middle and any excess cardstock from the back circle. You'll end up with something similar to this:


Then add a brad, button or whatever you can come up with to the center for the middle of the flower. I used a brad and pierced it all the way through the cardstock circle.


A couple of other little DIY things I wanted to show you-- to make a leaf for my rick-rack flower, I punched a heart from my patterened paper and then also cut the small heart from some black lace to cover it:


I wanted to add a seam binding bow so I used white seam binding and spritzed with with Glimmer Mist to match my paper. I love how easily the seam binding can be colored and how quick it dries. After I spritzed it, I scrunched it up good and then tied the bow after it was dry.

Here's another look at my final product--


Supplies used:
Bo Bunny 6x6 paper pad-- Timepiece (sold out in the store, sorry!)
Seam Binding-- White
Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist-- Brick Red (currently on clearance at 30% off!!)
KaiserCraft Pearls-- Black
Tim Holtz Distress Ink--Black Soot
My Mind's Eye Lost & Found Union Square Brad
Glue Dots
Assorted lace trims


It's your turn-- show us your DIY embellishment and stay tuned for more DIY ideas from our Beary Sweet Design Team.

Make It Your Own

We have a really fun new challenge of you and I couldn't wait to do this one.
Make your own Embellishments.
 For this one I thought outside the box and not make a card. I have made a few of these cute fences over the weekend and I knew what I wanted to do for this new challenge. Plus I'm having so much fun altering items.

My paper in the picture frame is from the 6X6 Paper Pads from Bo Bunny the Gabrielle Collection. The fence and picture frame are from my stash.

My purple roses were made the the Retro Flower Punches. They were Inked with Colorbox Ink and sprayed with Glimmer Mist. I also added some Mulberry Flowers. My vines were made from a die from Sizzix Vine w/Leaves and sprayed with Glimmer Mist.

My Butterfly at the top of my picture frame is a punch from Martha Stewart and the bottom one is from my stash and sprayed with Glimmer Mist. I have some pretty Robbin's Nest Dew Drops added. This whole project was put together with Fabric Tac Glue.

Here is a close-up of my stick pin I made. I made this with the Baby Bear Tear Bear Acrylic Paper Piecing Pattern. I inked the edges of my Mulberry Paper with Colorbox Ink.

Let's see your own handmade Embellishments and enter your project

---HERE---

Thanks for looking

~Patricia~

Butterfly Notes

Well, it's Friday again already and here I am with my last "Things with Wings" project-- this time with an insect-- and I am back to butterflies again because I just can't get enough of them! My project this week is an altered tin "Notes" holder, the perfect little container for storing handmade cards all ready to be sent out .



I used the Prima Marketing Sparkling Spring 6x6 paper pad and it is just perfect to add flitting butterflies too. I attached the paper to the front of my tin with good old Glue Dots (I prefer Zots by ThermoWeb but I also use the Glue Dots brand a lot). I have tried many different types of adhesives for putting paper on tin and found that the best thing is still glue dots. I edged all my papers with Tim Holtz Distess Ink in Vintage Photo, with the help of a finger dauber to smooth the edges and give the ink a nice soft look (a blending tool does the same thing).


To embellish the front of my tin, I created my own banner spelling "Notes" and then also made some felt flowers by cutting a small circle from felt, then starting at the outside and cutting in a spiral until I reached the middle. Then I put a large bit of hot glue in the spot I wanted and starting from the outside edge in, wound the felt round and round to create a flower, finishing off with a pearl for the center. (Aleene's Tacky Glue works great too, I just used hot glue because I was in a hurry! :)) I added felt leaves and some pearl floral centers to my flowers as well.


Here are some 3-D views of the top of the tin to show how the butterfly and flowers pop up:


And also a quick look at the inside cards-- they are just simple, without any sentiments, that way they can be used for whatever!


I have really enjoyed visiting your blogs and looking at your Things with Wings creations, I hope to see a few more before the challenge deadline on April 30 at 11:59 EST. Click here for all the details! Thanks for sharing your creativity with us!

Take Note of that Sketch

Happy Friday-- I hope a small bit of Spring weather is finding you out there! I am excited to show you my 2nd version of our current sketch-- for my project this week I have embellished a box for keeping greeting cards and I hope you can see the sketch in there somewhere (I promise it's there on the front :):))!



I have used the For the Record collection by Echo Park and I love these papers-- a little bit bright, a little bit vintage, with black accents, it's perfect! I used several of the sticker accents on the front, along with some lace and Prima trellis roses. My roses were originally white but I sprayed them with Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist in Brick to match the paper.


Inside I created dividers with different categories of greeting cards. Now it's all ready to fill up and organize some great handmade cards.

Supplies Used:

Echo Park For the Record Collection Kit
Tim Holtz Distress Ink Black Soot
Prima Trellis Roses White
Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist Brick
Pearls
Assorted Ribbons and lace

Now, it's your turn-- let's see how you interpret this sketch and enter it in our current Beary Sweet Challenge before April 14 11:59 EST. I can't wait to see your beautiful creations!

Happy Spring!

Happy Spring to you! I hope wherever you are, a little bit of sunshine is finding its way to you. Here in Idaho, it's very wet and muddy but the birds are out and singing so I know spring is on its way. Of course, we probably will have another snowstorm or two, that's just a normal spring here but at least winter is on the way out!

To celebrate Spring and our big Birthday Bash here at The Beary Scrap, I hope you will enter your project in our current Spring challenge, create anything spring related and enter it here for your chance at winning one of our 5 incredible birthday presents!

My first spring project to go along with this challenge is a quick and easy Easter treat that would be great for kids' classes, teachers, your neighbors or anyone you want to bring a smile to!




To make my treats I started by filling a 4 x 6 open top plastic bag with some Easter candy (I love Sixlets, aren't the spring colored ones cute?) Then I cut a piece of double sided designer paper from the Echo Park spring collection-- check out the Springtime Collection Kit which includes 12 - 12" x 12" double sided papers, one 12" x 12" sheet of alphabet stickers and one 12" x 12" sheet of element stickers for only $11.20!!! It's an awesome deal!

I punched one edge of my paper with a Martha Stewart border punch and cut a strip of satin ribbon about 15 inches long (more or less). I laid the ribbon underneath the designer paper, folded over the top of the bag with candy and laid it over the designer paper like this:

I then stapled the ribbon onto the back of the paper, making sure to catch the edges of the plastic bag so it would be secure.




Then I folded the top (the border edge) over to cover the top of the bag and tied the ribbon around the front.




Last I added just the heads of some Tear Bear critters-- Bella Bunny and Charlie Chick-- to the front along with a "Hoppy Easter" saying. Treats are ready to go!



I can't wait to see your Spring creations, so take the challenge and join us! And don't forget, I am also celebrating the one year anniversary of my craft blog and I am offering some Birthday Candy so if you'd like to enter for your chance to win, hop on over to my blog to see how. Thanks for looking!

A Frame using a Sketch

Happy Friday everyone! I hope you are all wonderful out there and that you are as excited for our Guest Designer Call as I am. I can't wait to see what you have in store for us and to have two of you join us in creating future projects. There are so many talented crafters out there, it's going to be so exciting! Make sure you check out all the details at The Beary Scrap Store Blog!

I have wanted for awhile to try using one of our Beary Sweet sketches to make something other than a layout or card. I just wondered how that would work but couldn't quite wrap my mind around it until this week-- then I finally found the perfect thing and sketch to try it out on!

And so here is my altered frame, with the right hand side being taken from the sketch.


First I painted the edges of the frame black with craft paint. Then I covered each side with My Mind's Eye Fine & Dandy paper from the Union Square paper line. I absolutely love these colors, and they just happen to match my bedroom perfectly, which is where I will be putting this little frame. I adhered the paper with good old glue stick but put a coat of glue on both the wood frame and on the back of the paper to ensure a good old. Then I inked around the edges with Tim Holtz Distress Ink in Black Soot.

Here's a view from the top so you can see the painted edges:



And here's a view of just the right hand side, which is based on the actual sketch, though I flipped it the other direction so that my bow would be at the far right edge. I added some KaiserCraft pearls in the top corner and made my bow out of ribbon and tulle with a decorative pin through the middle.


And there you have it, my experiment on converting a 2D sketch into a 3D project. I'd love to know what you think! And I'd love to see your take on the sketch so make sure to join our current Beary Sweet Challenge (remember, our regular challenge is separate from our new Guest Designer challenge and we'd love to see as many entries as possible in both!)