Category Archives: papercrafts

Interwebs dominoes

Sooooo I’ve been hanging out late at night on Twitter while I work away and Thursday is *always* there.  She mentioned The Vintage Cabin, so of course off I went to Etsy to see the shop.  Then I bought something. . . s.

In my poking around I ended up at the Vintage Cabin Blog (which is hillarious and local so I love it).  In one of her posts she mentioned a shop in Toronto, SMASH that seems super awesome, but has wacky hours *sigh*

 

She mentioned her love of industrial inspired stuff and said Three Potato Four was a favourite, so then there I was on that site.

 

Vintage Cabin was also featured in N.E.E.T magazine, which is awesome and full of all sorts of cool stuff.  I can’t even link all the neat things I found in there, just go check it out for yourself and you too will be playing Interwebs Dominoes.  Yeah, I’m making up a new term.

 

Scrap swap goodies

My giant envelope of Scrap Swap goodies came earlier this week. We sort of accidentally conducted a little experiment too since Jessica and I mailed our packages on the same day. Mine got to her waaay before hers arrived here. So apparently Canada to US is faster than US to Canada. I’ll have to test again with the next scrap swap!

So here’s all the fantastic goodies Jessica sent. Complete with a moose, you know because I’m Canadian.

Fabric, fabric, fabric! Turns out destashing is almost as addictive as the stashing.

Little doilies, which are awesome because I’ve wanted to either learn to make them in funky colours, or collect some and dye them. She also sent these fantastic vintage buttons that belonged to her grandmother, such a nice thing to give.

And a ton of corks that I can get inventive with. Her hubby is a bartender so she said they’re buried in corks.

Ashley Ann hauled in this fun load of stuff. Jessica made an adorable stuffed animal with the bits and pieces I sent her.

I am going to organize another one of these, it was super fun and getting a giant package in the mail is awesome.
Perhaps in March, sort of a spring cleaning type thing!

Some much needed Mommy organization and crafty fun.

Somehow I’m getting stuffed up again.  It’s so not cool.  We all just got over some hideous cold.  I don’t want a new one.  I saw this printable linked  and had a great idea for it.  It’s from yoursecretadmiral and she’s a superstar for sharing such a fun little printable.

I wanted to make something to help me plan lunches during the week.  I teach in the afternoons, which at my school start at 12:25, but I have a 10 minute yard duty everyday from 12:15-12:25.  So I have to start lunch for me and the boys at about 11, especially with all the winter gear.  If we go out in the world to do something in the mornings I’m usually rushing to get a lunch ready and I’m lucky if I get to eat before we have to run out the door and across the street to the sitter.  I *hate* feeding them quick convenience food and really make an effort to prepare from scratch.

I printed out the file, cut the days apart and laminated them.  I have the cute little “My lists” house set aside for a notebook or something, I didn’t laminate it.  Then I cut pieces from a roll of magnetic tape and attached a little bit to the back of each day.  Then you have little magnets that are also write off/wipe off boards!

You could put them on your fridge or anywhere else magnetable.  These are on one of the handiest things in our kitchen, that isn’t used for cooking.  I’m a tad embarassed to show the inside but it’s such a wonderful little thing I’m going to share.  Magnetic front, builiten board back and storage compartment, all in one handy good looking thing!

Cheap easy gift/item tags.

I’ve been floundering trying to decide on how to prettily package my items I sell.  I know it’s so fun to get something all wrapped up beautifully, it’s enough of a present to get your order, then it’s like another present to have it look beautiful.  It doesn’t determine wether or not I re-order from that person, but it does make me smile.

I absolutely adore all the MOO products I’ve accumulated but I’ve noticed it can get pricey to decorate your items with pretty packaging so I was looking for a inexpensive way to create some packaging and reusing things I already have is a bonus.

I gathered some paper stuff I had lying around, used envelopes, those return envelopes that for some reason still come with all the bills I pay online and some pages from an old atlas.  I cut them up into little rectangles sized to fit my SewTara custom stamp.

Then I SewTara’d one side, punched a hole at one end and used these cool kraft reinforcements I’ve had sitting around waiting for the perfect use.  You can also find white or coloured reinforcements in stores.

On the other side I stuck a small piece of Japanese washi tape to create a little canvas for my thank you message.

This would be a great technique for gift tags.  There’s even little ‘To: From:” stamps out there you could use if you didn’t want to just write it.  Every year when I pack away the Christmas decorations I keep the stack of cards we received.  Next year I’m going to turn those into tag for all our gift giving fun!

Anyone else addicted to this stuff?

I think I’m a little late starting a collection of washi tape but better late than never!

It’s pretty stuff.  Now I’m just ironing out a use for it.  I’m afraid it will grow to the size of my fabric collection.  I vow to use my crafty supplies, otherwise what are they for!

Today we had a family swim morning at the community center down the street.  Then we came home and went into hibernation mode.  I had a nap, it was glorious.  This is the view out to my street.

Right about now,

Wow, the last 2 weeks or so has been a bit of a blur – craft show prep, steady Etsy sales, general SewTara stuff, my kids, my job . . . life!  Now I’ve gotten the show out of the way and a few nights of good sleeps I can get back in the swing of things.  I’m not a morning person at all but sometimes I think it would be better if I worked mornings at school and not afternoons.  It would get us up and out and then I’d have the whole rest of the day instead of this broken up day I have.  I usually start our lunches at about 11, so I can walk the kids to the sitter for 11:45, then I have to get to work for my 12:15 yard duty.  It’s still a pretty sweet gig considering school ends at 3:10 and I’m usually back home with my kids by 4.  Not a lot of people get this much time with their kids.

Hrm, I seem to have babbled a bit!  I was posting to share my awesome happytownUSA print that just arrived moments ago.  I love, love, love it!  It’s so silly and fun.  Can’t wait to find a spot for it in my craft space.  She also included 2 fun little postcard prints which was a nice bonus.

Ok, 11:30, I’d better get moving!

Boy do I love Moo!

The first time I ordered from MOO it was for free business cards with an offer they had on Etsy. So I got 50 beautiful business cards for free. I loved the quality of them, they felt great and the picture quality was amazing! The second time I ordered with them I was heading to my first craft show and wanted some minicards to use as price tag type things. I let my order sit in my browser for ages and when I finally got to actually finalizing the order. When the confirmation email arrived it said the cards would be here Monday the blahblahth. My show was on the Saturday. In a panic I sent an email and asked if they could do anything to help, or could I upgrade to the express shipping. They replied quickly and bumped my shipping to the fastest one at no additional charge!

About a week ago I ordered another pack on mini MOOs late at night, it was nearly midnight. When I woke up the next morning I had the MOOsletter in my inbox with a special offer in it for free shipping on mini MOOs. I groaned and sent an email asking if there was anyway to apply the discount code to my order since it was only placed a few hours before. They hooked me up with a quick reply and a refund! So I love MOO.

Today there was an offer for MOO stickers at 35% off. I’ve been thinking of ways to brighten up my packaging for shipping and these will be perfect for that, as well as sticking on my plain brown paper bags I use at ‘in person’ shows! I’m so excited. Above are the images I used, you can upload a ton of images, 1 for each sticker if you wanted. Otherwise it just does the math and figured out how many of each image you’ll receive. So I put MOO in the super cool category and wanted to share.

Promo code is PEFC7Q and the offer for 35% off stickers is on until October 31st.

Congrats and don’t worry your chance is coming!

Congrats to Katie who entered over on Wild Olive and won herself a ‘I <3 t’ cup cozy!

I headed into to Toronto for the Creativ Festival yesterday and boy did I have fun! If you live in or near Toronto and can get there today or tomorrow it’s worth it.  They’ve got stuff for scrapbooking, knitting, sewing, crocheting, cardmaking, and all sorts of supplies and sellers.

I picked up a ton of fat quarters! They were everywhere and so fun and such bargains . . . I think I have over 30. I also met some really creative and fun people and managed to even work out a donation for a giveaway while mentioning my blog. I think I’ll let the posts about my wonderful finds trickle in over the next few days.

“Hi this is Heather Ross”

So I was giving Nate a bath, which is strange because I usually have both kids in there, when hubby brought me my cell. So I say “Hello?” while multitasking and the noise of a splashy bath is going on around me. “Hi Tara. It’s Heather Ross“, and I reply, “Oh! . . . Hi”. It was so strange.

She had a sale on September 15th, thanks Keyka Lou for the heads up. Somehow I actually remembered and popped online to fill out the little request form. Apparently she sold out in 2 hours last year so I figured it must be good stuff and I was going to be part of it. So I filled out a form and said I’d like odds/ends/scraps to have fun with. Somehow something went wonky with my form, hence her phone call.

So Heather says, “There’s a problem with your address on this form. It starts out with a house number and street name and then it says blahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblah California”.

“Oh” I said, “well that’s strange. Wait, it actually says ‘blahblahblah’?” I ask.

“Yes” she replies. Then she told me how her wonderful assistant was talking to her from behind his computer and said to her, “Hey this address is weird it says blahblahblahblah. . . ” and Heather said something like “Can you read what it really says? I might be able to help if I know what it actually says” Then he told her that was in fact what it said.

Guess there was something silly going on with the form, maybe because I said Ontario, Canada or something. I have been tired lately but I’m pretty sure, as I told her, that I didn’t actually type 12 blahs into the form. Good thing the phone number field worked. Now I realize I was on the phone with someone kinda famous, fabrics, cool items and books. She makes cool stuff.

Now to await my fun package!

I know I posted about this already but I can’t resist some more . . .

Emily has the most fun stuff in her mega giveaway right now!

Here are some of the things making their way onto my wishlist.

This one has most of my favs. The camera tote from Jo Totes, the crafty books, and the fun print that’s begging to be put in my craft space.

Another fun print.

Sadly for us poor little Canadians, you have to be a US resident to enter. Perhaps you can bribe a friend you have across the border :)