Easy Christmas Countdown Banner

I haven’t hung this up yet since I haven’t decided where it’s going but thought I’d share this quick Christmas Countdown banner.

Once again, I fell in love with a paper stack. It’s an illness. I accept  I have it.

This time it was “Joyful Christmas” by Recollections at Michaels. Lots of vintagey goodness with some sheets full of glitter accents. Yum.

You can see how easy they made it to make this banner since there are a couple of countdown sheets in the stack. I just cut each one out and mounted onto a black panel.

I had these brads in my stash from after Christmas shopping last year:

Connected the corners using the brads but decided that 1-25 all together would be way too long so I did 1-12, 12-24 and then 25 as a standalone.

Framed "25" with a silver glitter scrap and snowflake brads. Used black and white bakers twine to finish things off.

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It's Overflowing

Skully Coffin Boxes

I’m having fun with a neutral Halloween palette again this year and black and white fits right in. You’ve probably seen these little coffin wood boxes at Michaels or other craft stores. Michaels had some for $.99 and some for $2.99 that make noise when you open them. Yes, I bought both kinds.

My camera battery was charging when I was making these so I didn’t get a lot of pics along the way but it’s pretty easy to follow along even w/out step by step pics.

Decide on your color scheme ( you could go bright and whimsical with this too). I painted my plain boxes black, let dry, then painted a layer of white school glue ( plain old white glue) over the black paint. Let almost dry and then went over that with white paint. Oooohhhh crackle crackle.

Ann at Make The Best of Things has a great tutorial here.

I traced around my boxes on the back side of the scrapbook paper I chose ( Recollections Spider Web) and cut out tops and bottoms for my boxes. Mod Podged those on using MP Matte Formula ( my go to).

While everything was drying, I grabbed a Bag O Skulls. Literally:

I picked these up last year at either Dollar Tree or Michaels or Target or somewhere I was scrounging around after season. I debated whether to leave them the color they were or paint. Went with paint.

Used Martha Stewart Craft paint….that stuff sticks to anything including cheap plastic skulls.  Went over that with Martha Stewart glitter paint in sterling.

These are fashionable skeleton heads. Must have glitter! Glued them to my boxes and embellished.

Pulled out RIP letters from my stash of alphabet embellishments. These were clear acrylic which didn’t show up well so I painted the back with a white paint pen.

In addition to the must have glitter, must have rhinestones. The black on black doesn’t show well here but I like it in the middle of the spider webs and it picks up the light.

Total cost: $3 (if that)

If you want to see another great coffin box idea, check out this one from Sarah at Alderberry Hill: A Glitzy Halloween Coffin

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It Don't Mean A Thing If It Ain't Got That Bling. 21st Birthday Card.

I don’t feel old enough to have a friend who has a 21 year old daughter! Darn you reality!

Special occasion called for a special card so I outblinged myself.

I used a black and white damask paper from a  Recollections pack I picked up at Michaels, and a pink and white paper from the same pack.

The focal point of the card is a dimensional sticker from KandCo. It already had rhinestones so of course I added more.

Layered the two papers and went over the border with pink glitter ribbon. For the “21” I used clear stickers on a plain bezel charm and filled in with Dimensional Magic.

Finished by adding crown shape self adhesive rhinestones on the corners.

I’m still not old enough to have a BFF with a 21 year old. Nope!

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Recollections Glittery Graduation Cards

I’m starting to feel old when the children of friends I knew when they were pregnant are now graduating from college!

Children of two friends are graduating from the same school Mr. C and I went to, so I had to go all out with school colors for the University of Washington …purple and gold. I found the perfect glitter Recollections papers at Michaels.

I haven’t figured out how to really capture the sparkle of the glitter in photos.

The cards are 5x7 and I cut the papers for the front to 4.75 width and then layered them as shown. Stamped the sentiments with clear embossing ink and used Recollections gold sparkle embossing powder.

Really good that I paid close attention to all of the words on this stamp because one card is for a guy and one is for a girl and wouldn’t want to send the one with “Atta Girl” to the wrong person.

I had some paper bag filler stuff in my party stash so I pulled some out and stick it to the card before I put the stamped focal pieces (layered with purple, black, and gold mirror cardstock). 

Finished with stars punched from the gold glitter paper.

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Pink Poppies and Butterfly Cards

I’m not normally drawn to pinks but you might remember the Recollections “Fashionably Chic” paper stack that attacked me at Michaels:

There are several patterns within each color family  and the pink papers immediately reminded me of two ladies I know. I think the flowers are poppies but Martha and I part ways at gardening so whatever they are, I liked them and chose a couple of coordinating papers from the stack.

Made my cards (5x7) and covered with the coordinating papers. Mounted the floral paper onto some lightweight cardstock and then trimmed around the flowers, spritzed them with Elmer’s spray adhesive, and then a good shake of Recollections extra fine iridescent glitter. 

The swirly embellishment is a Memory Box steel die. The chipboard butterfly is from a package of chipboard shapes I found at Michael’s (20 pieces for $1) by Studio 18.

 

Finished off the cards with coordinating self adhesive rhinestones I had in my stash.

Fortunately  I can deliver these cards  in person because they would cost me more to mail them than to make them.

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Recollections "Fashionably Chic Mother's Day Cards

I’ve confessed my paper addiction before. It’s not getting any better. I wasn’t even looking for paper when I walked past the paper stack section at Michaels and Recollections “Fashionably Chic” jumped off the shelf at me. Practically attacked me. It did!

The cover doesn’t do it justice. It repeats the same series of patterns in several colors and within a color family, you can mix the patterns.

I  made several different cards because I always like to recognize the special women in my life on Mother’s Day.

For the first card, I glued the scrapbook paper to a piece of cardstock to give some body, and then cut out the flower, hit it with a spray of adhesive and glittered it.

I used another piece of the same floral paper and a piece with a coordinating damask print for base panel of the card . Used foam dots to adhere the glittered flowers to the card.

For this one, I used a different floral pattern and dotted the inside of the flowers with iridescent Stickles. For the focal flower, I used Tim Holtz Alterations Tattered Floral die and cut the flowers using my Cuttlebug.

I don’t like to waste pretty paper so I use scraps to make embellishments to use in cards and other projects. This double sided tape I got at my local stamp store and is by a company called Sookwang. You can also use this tape to make your own washi tape.

I also played with another color combination from the stack:

I'm telling you. Paper just jumped off the shelf at me. Really.

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