Artful Avocations

Celebrate...a little ;)

Here's another card I made on spring break last month and never photographed.  The more I look at it, the more I like it, so I thought I would share it with you.  This card was so simple to make with the help of Stampin' Up!'s rub-ons.  I LOVE these rub-ons!

This card is very straightforward.  I used Close to Cocoa, Pixie Pink, and Whisper White card stocks.  The scalloped square was punched with a Marvy punch and I used my paper piercer to poke little holes in each scallop.  I also used SU!'s word window and three flower punches for the "celebrate" tag.  The background layer was embossed with a Cuttlebug folder.  FAST and EASY!!!

Have a great evening and thanks for stopping by!

Beachy Box and Cards

Here is another collection of papers I drew up on spring break.  Here I have used them for a box (template download in my previous post this evening) and two cards.  I also used the new SU! rub-ons for the sentiments and flowers.  The background papers match very nicely with SU! Tempting Turquoise and Pixie Pink card stocks, as used in these projects.  I printed the designs on SU! Whisper White.  Other embellishments include Primas, eyelets, and ribbon from Michael's.  The beach bag also has a felt flower that I trimmed and rolled to resemble a beach towel stuffed in the bag.

I hope you find some inspiration to create your own goodies with these box and bag downloads.
Thanks for looking!  God's blessings to you!

More Original Paper and a Late Blog Birthday Gift!

Hi everyone! First off this evening, I want to thank all of you who take the time to read my blog and leave comments and e-mail me.  Your comments and e-mails mean so much to me.  You are truly some of the nicest people ever!  I had a blog birthday...ok, so it was a couple of months ago...and I wanted to provide a little birthday present for my faithful blog readers.  So, read on.

While I was on spring break  a few weeks ago, I drew up these papers, but haven't really had time to photograph and post them until now.  Things have been busy!  I know, that's always my story...but I'm stickin' to it!  And may I add I cannot wait until summer is here!!

I made the background papers: one with just the dots as used on the bag pictured here, and one with little flowers on top of the dots as used on the card.  I also made two pages that have the flowers, leaves, and tags in assorted sizes.  The card stock I used to print these paper designs on was SU! Whisper White.  The papers print out SOOO nice!  You would never know you printed them yourself.  The other card stocks used for the card base was SU! Green Galore and Chocolate Chip for the tag on the bag.  I also used a couple of Primas on the bag with a yellow flower brad.  The punched out flower in the center of the large flower on the card is a SU! punch. The sentiments and white and brown flowers are rub-ons from SU!  The ribbon on the bag is from Michael's.   The second picture shows a box and another bag made with the same papers and elements. 
NOW, for the birthday presents! More free downloads!  Here are downloads for the box and bag.  The box takes two sheets of card stock, so be sure to download both pages.  They are different!!  The bag is one sheet.  Both patterns can be downloaded and printed directly onto the card stock of your choice.  I always print on the side of the card stock that will be on the inside of my project so the lines won't show on the outside.
Here are the box downloads (remember to download both pages!!)  Page One Download box_1_template_page_one.pdf  AND Page Two Download box_1_template_page_two.pdf .  Here is the Bag Download bag_template.pdf.   I hope you can download and use these patterns.  Let me know if you do.  I've been using these patterns for little boxes and bags for years to package up little gifts and love them because they are quick and easy.

Thanks for stopping by and God's blessings to you!

Gift Bag with Custom Background Paper

I wanted to create something special to wrap up my gift for my friend's baby shower.  I had been playing around with my drawing program drawing some other things that I will be posting soon ;) when I came up with the idea to make some custom background paper to use in wrapping the baby shower gift.  My friend's favorite flower is a daisy, so after playing around some I ended up making this daisy background paper.  I drew the daises and played around with the fill and shadow effects until I was happy with the result.  Then I got the idea to  use the baby's name "Kailey Leah" as the stem on the flowers.  I think you can see it better if you click on the picture to enlarge it.  I made the layout a full 8-1/2 x 11 inches and set my printer to borderless printing, so it printed all the way to the edge (SO cool!!!).  Then I played around some more and made the daisy in a few different sizes to cut out for the package embellishments and tag.  My friend scrapbooks (of course..doesn't everyone??) and I am going to convert these drawings to PDFs to send to her so she can print out the pages to use in her baby's scrapbook.  She has another daughter that will be turning two next month, so I will be making another set of drawings only with her other daughter's name as the stem.

I printed the background and daisies on SU! Whisper White.  I used the Martha Stewart eyelet border punch on the edges.  The bag topper is a full sheet of 8-1/2 x 11 card stock scored at 3-1/2 inches from each end.  I folded on the scored lines and used my Fiskars paper trimmer to cut out slits for the bag's handles.  I bought the frosted bag and violet tissue at Target.

Thank you to all of you have been visiting my blog and leaving all the thoughtful comments.  It really makes my day to read each of them.  :)  Have a blessed week!