Mini Recipe Book Gift

This past summer I attended my company's annual Seminar event. At The Angel Company's Seminar there are always really easy, simple and wonderful Make 'n Takes. The concept and base of this project is one of those projects from this past summer. I thought I would share it with all of you!

The supplies are: Tea Break Chipboard Book, O-Wires, scrapbook paper (mine is an elegant double-sided collection called Emma), coordinating mini flowers, ribbon and buttons.

I simply printed out a few of my favorite, tried-and-true recipes on ivory paper, layered them onto the cardstock. Then embellished away!






The photo below shows a little library type card where the recipient can write in birthdays and names to remember. They would LOVE this cake for their birthdays for sure! So YUMMY!

Girl's Ribbon Holder

If you've ever bought little kids' shoes at Old Navy you may have received one of these, which were holding the shoes on a hook at the store. The little hooks caught my eye, and I thought to myself 'How can I recycle this into something useful?'

Then it hit me! Ribbons! At first I thought about using it in my craft room, but with as many ponytails as I put into my 2 1/2 year old daughter's hair, I thought why don't I have ribbons? I have plenty in my craft room to use on her hair. So then I designed it with her in mind.

At the local craft store I had picked up these puffy 3-D stickers. They were on sale, and if you know me, you know I pretty much only buy things on sale hehe.

In a nutshell, I placed the princess crown and the word "princess" onto a light pink matching cardstock and cut them out. Then I took my white opaque gel pen and just dotted the outline for added decoration. Thinking that I would hang this onto the wall, and that the width of the hanger itself wasn't enough room for a nail, I adhered the princess crown and word with thick foam tape.


Lastly, I used these little felt flowers I got on sale at the local craft store's Easter aisle with an adhesive dot on the back of them already.

This was the end result! Quick, cute, easy and practical!

Simple 5 Minute Sweet Treat Gift

I'm sure at some point in your life you may have stuck a sticker onto a glass surface and tried to remove it. It's just stuck! You can rip or tear it off for sure, but it doesn't easily come off. While walking through our local Hobby Lobby, I saw that stickers were 50% off. While walking through their glass crafts aisle, I saw these cute little milk glass jars with a flip lid. (I also bought an apothecary jar which I'll post later.)

Then the light bulb went off, how about dressing up a glass container with a sticker! I mean seriously, how much easier could that get! Not to mention that the longest part of the process was deciding on what stickers to buy!

This was what I ended up buying:


Here are links for these photos going clockwise.
Making Memories Puffy Alpha Stickers in Pink
American Crafts Remarks Journaling Stickers - Veggies
Mini Milk Glass Jar with Flip Lid, which by the way was only $1.49

I also bought some teal sheer ribbon and some Chocolate Hershey's Eggs at the supermarket.

This was the end result, and it truly took 5 minutes!!! Plus the journaling tags were so freakin' adorable and that took time to pick one that I wanted to put on my milk jar.


Here is a close up with the puffy stickers. They are pretty with their mini polka dots and their high sheen :)


Lastly, I just want to add that not only was this a really quick gift idea, it was also affordable. You can easily find stickers on sale at your hobby store, or even the dollar store. Use some ribbon or twine you have on hand even. Try and buy candies that are on sale due to the season, example: Easter Candy, Halloween Candy, Christmas Candy etc. This is perfect as an add on to a gift. A little handmade gift always makes anything a little more special, because it's from the heart ;)

Wall Art with Simple Embellishments

We painted our new baby Jocelyn's room the lightest pink we could find. When she's 2 we will move her into her sister's room, and we will then change that room into a guest room. Before I got pregnant, I had bought a beautiful Shabby Chic bedspread with matching frilly pillowcases. The room currently holds the crib with a cute little baby quilt with many similar colors to my beloved Shabby Chic bedspread. To make more of my money I wanted to buy artwork for the walls that I could maybe keep up on the walls after the baby moves out.

After looking around my craft room I realized I had little flowers, some glittery brads, and matching scrapbooking papers. Plus, I had some leftover white paint from when I painted the dresser in that room.

Here was a photo frame I picked up at Wal-Mart for $3.


I simply painted the frame white. Then I cut the color coordinating cardstock to the bedspread and the crib quilt to fit the frame (I used a white lace looking paper from a Making Memories package I had, and the pink is from Lilly Anna Soar With It Collection from The Angel Company. I layered the flowers and secured them with the glittery brads and put them in a row. This was the turnout!

It's Jar-tastic! Repurpose Small Jars

In our home we've got clutter scattered all around. Some of the things that bother me are the loose change that we find on the counters, on the floor, on the kitchen table, etc. Another thing I can't stand is losing my chapstick or my keys.

So, I thought of a way to repurpose these little glass jars I had, into attractive, and decorative pieces that would hold these scattered items. I once read in one of my home decor magazines that in places that gather clutter, you should place many containers, jars or glasses in that location, so that you may put things into them instead of having them pile up on your table/dresser space.

So what I did was gather some scrap pieces of cardstock that matched my home decor, and embellished with a bit of ribbon, a flower, a fuzzy brad, and a little scrapbooking charm I had that said "inspire". It took me about 30 minutes to put both of them together. So fast. So simple. So cute! You can easily find these items pretty cheaply at your local craft store. If you like the paper though, you can go to The Angel Company and click on Shop Now.







Here are some other ideas for what you could repurpose your own decorated jars for:
- Fill one with a recipients favorite candy and attach a mini tag.
- Decorate one with the initial of your child, and fill it with crayons.
- Decorate one with matching colors of your little girls room, and put all her pony tail holders you find around the house into it.
- I showed one with Q-tips, but it could also hold cotton balls nicely.
- Put one by the front door to hold your keys.
- Keep one on the back of the toilet with some lovely smelling potpourri.
- Use it to hold paperclips on your desk.
- Create many with the same color scheme for an outdoor or indoor party, and put votive candles inside of them.

Easy Little Easter Treat

Immediately after Valentine's is gone, you start to see an overload of Easter Candy in the aisles of your local Wal-Mart, Target or grocery store. This little treat calls for mini egg candy.



In this case I used these mini bubble gum eggs in mini clear cartons that they sell 4 for a $1.00 at Dollar General. They aren't sold individually, they are actually 4 in a package. Now I also did find them at my local grocery store, but they were going for 10 for $10. They make that sound like a steal when they put it that way, but I don't really think it's worth $1 each little mini carton.

So basically all I did was dress up the outside of the mini carton. I thought this would be a cute little item to throw into your kid(s) Easter baskets. Or if you have a little Easter tree you can mimic the example I have with the mini clip on it and hang them on your tree with each child's name. This is just a fun little activity that you and your kids can have fun doing or you can do it on your own and hand them out.

There are no rules or no directions. Take this and make it your own! Be creative!


P.S. If you like the paper I used, I used The Angel Company™ exclusive paper. I did use some of a pad that they've discontinued, but if you like the word cut outs I used on the vertical bubble gum treat, they have a 12 x 12 sheet that has all sorts of cute one lines and bold words in their collection Tutti Frutti™.

Pretty Post-It Gift ... Free Download!

I've been itching to post this online for a few days now! Now, instead of me just throwing it up on here I thought I'd actually use my own free download and show you just a few of the ways I thought of how to jazz it up. You are definitely free to use this download and embellish it as you wish! If you do, I'd LOVE to see what you've done with it.

This is what the download looks like when you visit the link and print off the PDF. I've put simple instructions, but I will furthermore tell you how to assemble it here. This would make a PERFECT office gift for your co-workers in celebration of St. Patrick's Day, Easter or a just-because gift. It's so cute and I'm definitely proud of this pretty little thing.

Click Here for your FREE Pretty Post It Gift Download.


This is how you do it.
1. Visit the link above, print off the PDF. I printed mine on a thin white cardstock for sturdiness. I recommend the same or at least a heavier weight of paper if not cardstock.

2. Take note of the faint white lines (there are arrows pointing to them on the print off). That is where you'll score (fold) AFTER you cut the shapes out.

3. Cut around the shape without leaving any white of the page.

4. Score along the lines.

5. Using a paper/craft glue (I use Zip Dry) glue the back of your post it pad to the center of the cut out. (Refer to the image for placement).

6. If you'll be using ribbon to create your closure, then punch holes with a hole punch where the white dots are. If you plan on embellishing, you can use Velcro dots with sticky backings as your closure. (Refer to the image for placement).

7. Embellish and most importantly HAVE FUN!!!


These are the few that I created with the download.


1. For the Easter Bunny I used Paper Bliss' Bunnies. It came in a pack of 4. It was approximately $4.00 at my local Hobby Lobby. For the "eggs" I used Polo Shimmer Brads.

2. On this one I punched out the holes and fed the ribbon through both sets of holes with this ribbon from Crafts Etc. Their mini ribbons are $.99 each!!! You can't beat that. The little flowers I found in the wedding section of my local craft store.

3. No, I didn't spend time cutting felt flowers and gluing the bling. I actually found these in pack of approx. 30-40 or so, and it was $1.99! I found these in the Easter Crafts section of Hobby Lobby. They already come with an adhesive backing too! Too easy! (The middle flower I added a pop dot to.)

4. This one was the quickest to make as all I did was add this embellishment from K&Company's Amy Butler Adhesive Chipboard.

OH and lastly, the sticky note pads come in a pack of 3 for $1 at Dollar General in Pink, Yellow and Blue!

Late Night Crafts

Last night I had so much fun just sitting on the carpet of our spare bedroom/craftroom and creating these cards. Luckily, the princess had gone off to bed at about 6:45 pm. That was a first! I actually didn't start on these until about 10 pm though. There was eating, and chatting with the hubby between that time period.

So there I was sprawled on the floor with paper, embellishments, color pencils, scissors, trimmer just everywhere. I swear I lost what I was working on about 5 times! I'd panic and start to sift through everything, turn over every paper and finally when I'd get up and walk out of the room and walk back in, my eyes would spot it instantly. It was behind me or under my leg the whole time! LOL.

These were made with Lilly Anna, yet another WONDERFUL, fresh, fun and springtime color palette from The Angel Company. I listened to 977 The Hitz channel on my husband's psp and had it playing through my boombox. It was so nice! Talk about a mini little vacation for my mind.



Sorry if the colors are too bright, or off slightly. My camera is dying and I took this shot with whatever options were up so that I could take it quickly. I tried to fix it up a bit, but I'm trying to hurry so I can go and spend some quiet time alone while the little one is still napping :)

One of My Gifts For a Friend

I realized that I have not shown everyone my little gift that I made for our (Brian and I) very very good friends Ben and Alana Gwinner. They are expecting and their little bundle of joy will arrive into this world in April 2009! Very exciting stuff! Anyhow, I wanted to make them something that they could put their boy's hospital bracelet into and his hospital wear as well. I wished I had one of these when my little girl was born. I also created a little mini album to go into it.





I purchased the metal tin and the scrapbook paper from my job. The collection is called Toodle Loo. It is such a colorful palette and works especially well for spring and baby related projects. I had a blast making this gift.

By the way, I just have to say my excitement has not passed. I have been thinking about my blog all the time! I'm such a dork :)