The Girlfriends Club

Hello All,

Sorry I have been kind of a slacker between school, work, birthday and life I haven't been as diligent as i should have. But I have a super cute layout for you today. OK maybe my layout is not so cute but, the possibilities with this kit definitely are. Oh and sorry for the bad picture its been rainy here all day and its hard to get good light.

Be sure to check out http://thegirlfriendsclub.typepad.com/ For tons of inspiration and more fun ideas!

Mothers Day gift for $10 and some stash!

Sorry scrappy friends, school and work is bringing me down. Today’s post is about scraping off the page. I know in these tough times its hard to buy things that aren’t necessities like art. This is where our scrappy supplies come in, no maybe I have just seen too much HGTV but you can make some great pieces to put on the wall.
If you keep your eyes out you can buy a stretched canvas for about $10. The canvas I used is a 13x13 but any size will work.
I found (from my stash) a piece of paper I thought would look good with the décor, I recommend something that is not to bold but has a subtle texture.
Use mod podge or watered down Elmer’s cover the canvas in a thin layer and add the paper.
When the glue is dry trace your photo with a pencil.
Stamp flourishes in random around where your photo will go. Don’t forget to stamp under where your photo will go will flourish’s peaking out, it will look more natural.
I also chose to apply rubons to my photo I then glued the photo down and used a thin layer of mod podge to cover the entire piece.

I gave this to a friend of mine as a house warming gift. The only thing I had to buy was the canvas. I think this would make a super mothers day gift.

Fast and Easy

So this is a quick nugget set I made for my work's craft/ bake sale. Its amazing how fast everything came together, the whole project took just a few minutes to compleate. I think that it is a wonderful little gift and could be used for so many other occasions. The end of school is just around the corner...

I used the limitless labels set from papertrey ink as well as their white labels and nuget tin. The ink and mothers day setement are from Close to my heart. The little tag is a Fiskars squeeze punch and the elastic cord is from stampin up.

So you wanna be a scraper?

I get asked a lot “what do I need to buy to start scrapbooking?”
This is a list of must have items:
· A paper trimmer : (don’t spend a ton of money here, one about 10 bucks, that accommodates 12” paper with a pull out ruler will be fine for a beginner) If you decide that scraping or any type of paper crafting is right for you then you can invest more in a fiskars rotary trimmer.

· Cardstock: Don’t buy the multi color combo pack, you will end up with wonky colors you won’t use. Buy a few sheets of each Black, White, Craft, Cream and your favorite color for me it’s usually red or blue. When you start to do more then you can buy colors for a specific project, don’t buy cardstock just to stock up.

· A set of alphabet stamps: I don’t recommend buying letter stickers unless you have a particular project in mind a large (about 2”) and a small (1/2”) set of alphabet stamps will give you a lot more mileage in the beginning. Please get clear or acrylic stamps so you can see your words I promise this will save you so much frustration.

· A high quality black and brown inkpad.

· An acrylic block large enough to accommodate your largest alphabet stamp

· Scissors: You can’t go wrong with fiskars soft touch micro-tipped scissors. These baby’s are spring loaded so you won’t fill fatigue.

· Adhesive: Something important to remember here is that you need the right type of adhesive for each thing you are trying to glue down. You will need a dry adhesive like Tombo Mono rollers. You will need a wet adhesive like designers dry clear. You will also need glue dots mini.

· A sketch book or magazine. My personal collection includes Page Maps, all of Close to My Hearts books and best of Becky Higgins. The importance of a sketch book is to give you a starting point. After you have a sense of what you like and don’t like you might not use these as much.

This is the most basic list of what you need to get started. Now don’t get me wrong, there are tons of other things you will want but STOP! If you don’t know where on a particular project it will go don’t buy it. If you are a beginner you will be upset that you have stuff just sitting around and this hobby can grow overwhelming.

Did I forget anything? Leave a comment…

This is only a test...

Here I am everyone, this is my entry into the blogging world. What to expect: 1-2 posts per week, lots of scrappy and stamping advice. Fantastic links for shopping. Cute (or ugly) pics of my projects. And very likely some crazy rambling from good old me.