Category Archives: papercrafts

Style school binder fun.

While in England I picked up a decoratable binder for my Style Binder assignment for Style School. While watching part 1 and 2 of the BBC remake of Day of the Triffids I decided to work on the cover. Inspired by my location at the time I designed it using a London Underground theme.

There’s a bit of a shine to the binder so it was tricky to get a shot without a glare, but you get the idea. My only available tools were the Lightening McQueen coloured pencils my son had from Christmas. So all things considered, I think I did very well.

By the way, if you’ve never been to London and would like to scramble your brain for a few minutes take a look at the map for the underground. If you live in New York City, never mind the link, you have your own brain scrambler.

My shadow box with a story.

I’ve been trying to keep on track with Style School and keep up my current craft a day speed. So I made my own ‘shadow box with a story’.

story box

The buttons are just fun and all about sewing, scrapbooking and cardmaking. The ‘1 in a million’ is a heads up for my Dad, who was one in a million! I found some vintage looking fabric with little boys on it and cut and framed those little pieces, to represent Wesley and baby Nate. The alphabet blocks are for the boys’ names and Mom and Dad, that’s who I am right now so I used that and not T for Tara. I made a little SewTara banner, in honour of my new little addiction. The K is for our last name and I added the little globe for our travel fever.

It was loads of fun to make and surprisingly difficult to think about items to represent myself.

Merry Ho Ho.

I’m sending out 25 Christmas cards this year.  They’re all handmade by me!

Last year I sat down and made multiple copies of the same card and sent those out to everyone.  This year, with 2 little ones underfoot, I haven’t had time to be that creative so I resorted to digging through my stash of previously completed cards.  I did manage to sneak away to a card making workshop this year so I had 2o new ones to pick from.  These are some of my favourites.  I particularly like the little trend of choosing colours that aren’t traditionally associated with Christmas.  It’s a nice change from the usual red and green!

xmas cards

I don’t remember about each individual card but I know some of them are made with Stampin’Up supplies and some are make it Close to My Heart.

ABC book.

Just cleaned up my desk/craft area and found this hidden away in the corner. I was supposed to be adding some more pictures to it and putting it back together . . . . ages ago. Now there’s a 11 month old sibling to add to it!! But since it’s a papercraft, and I haven’t posted about any of those, I thought I should share.

ABC cover

ABC cover

I used a hinge bound 7 x 7 scrapbook, it was from Creative Memories ages ago so I doubt you can still get one. There are so many school themed books out there I’m sure one of those could work.

ABC poem

ABC poem

I found the little poem online, not sure where but you can download the document here. (as soon as my techie hubby helps me)

An easy letter to fill up, B.  Here's the 2 page spread.

An easy letter to fill up, B. Here's the 2 page spread.

I made each page a 2 page spread for the letter, except near the end I used 1 page for those less likely to fill up, like W, X, Y, Z. In hindsight I should have done that for Q as well, other than quilt I’ve been stuck on that one. I used a bunch of different coloured alphabet sticker sets, again from Creative Memories, but you could just by I sheet and use it for your entire book. I just had a lot of alphabet bits and pieces.

S is for sunglasses, smiles and snowmen!

S is for sunglasses, smiles and snowmen!

You can use scraps and bits of paper to decorate the pages. If you have punches it’s even easier.

C is for cookie

C is for cookie

This is also a great way to make use of sticker odds and ends you have lying around. I also find it handy for using up photos I printed but didn’t scrapbook, I have a bad habit of overprinting. I also print a lot of wallet sized pictures for this project, since the pages are smaller and I can fit 9 of those photos on a sheet it works out well.

M is for messy

I started writing the words next to the pictures as well. Depending on your child you may want to add words.

Guess I’d better get updating!