PTI October Blog Hop

It is already the 25th of October!  Where do the months go?  I love the 25th of the month because that is Papertrey Ink's Blog Hop Day.  That's the day when they send out a photo for inspiration and we all come up with our twist on that photo.

As Nicole says, the picture has some autumn flair and I think I captured that flair with my paper version of these cute little fabric pumpkins.  I love these fabric pumpkins so much that I think I might buy the pattern on etsy to make later but until then, I have my paper version. 

These paper pumpkins are so easy to make.  All you do is cut several strips of paper, hole punch both ends, run ribbon through them and tie a knot on top so the pumpkins stay together.  This whole project came together in 30 minutes.  The paper needed for these is:  11 strips cut 1" by 8.5" (large), 11 strips cut 1" by 5.5" (medium), 10 strips cut .75" by 4".  Dawn has a great paper pumpkin tutorial on You Tube if you are a visual learner.  I used PTI's Leaf Prints stamp set and matching dies to create the leaves.  I used scrap paper and wrapped it around my finger to create the curly q's.

 I already had the felt acorns laying out for fall decoration and I  found some cute green polka dotted fabric in my stash (just like the inspiration photo).  Cute, huh?  If you want more info on making those cute little felt acorns, see my post, Throwing a Party in Style.

I love how I just added more fall decor to my home, thanks PTI for the inspiration!  I hope you have enjoyed my take on this month's PTI Blog Hop, I know I sure have. 

Sweets and Treats

Halloween is just around the corner, are you ready?  My son sure is with his cape and batmobile.

He's not actually wearing this for Halloween but I couldn't resist taking some pictures when I saw the neighbors pull their car out of the garage (thanks D&D).

I love Halloween, it is such a fun time of year.  I love this time of year in general.  The weather is perfect. The leaves are changing. Everyone is gearing up for all the upcoming holidays.  October is also one of my favorite card classes to create.

 
First up is a cute little light up home decor item.  This project is easy.  I used Papertry Ink (PTI) dies that match the stamp set Halloween Treats & Sweets.  I used colored velum for the moon and bat wings.  I put a battery operated tea light candle in the inside (don't use a real one!). Quick and easy project that you can take to your office.   

Next up are these cute little Ghiradelli Chocolate holders.  I read a lot of blogs and sometimes I find projects that are so perfect that I can't think of anything that would improve upon the original design.  These were one of those types of projects.  For these I didn't stray too far from the original design by Nicole Heady.  So stinking cute, right?

 
Here is a cute spider made with another die that goes with PTI's Treats & Sweets.  The spider's body is made using circles folded in half and glued together.  The spider's web is made with plain white sewing thread.  The orange paper is embossed with a cuttlebug folder.

A cool black cat treat holder, tail and all.  The whiskers are all bent out of shape because my real cats kept eating them.  Be cool kitties, no new cats are walking on your turf.  This project will need to find a new home fast.  :)

Here are a couple other simple ways to hold your holiday treats using a small paper bag and another PTI die.  I used a piece of clear plastic on the inside of the pumpkin face so none of the treats would fall out (a great way to use the plastic sheets that the PTI stamps come on, I never throw those out).   

Have you noticed how mustaches are everywhere?  Super trendy.  People are wearing them on their clothes and jewelry.  Well I wanted to jump on that bandwagon, so here is my take (thank you pinterest).  Sucker stache.  A costume and treat all in one. Just find your favorite PDF of a mustache on the web, I used this one from The Inspired Bride.  Cut out on yellow, brown, and black cardstock and use a marker to create "hair".  Hole punch a small hole near the bottom and stick a sucker inside.  Super easy, super cute, and super trendy.

 Now this last item, a monster bookmark (again, thank you pinterst, I LOVE this site).   Cute, right?  Not my idea but I was happy to make my version of the original one that I found at Blogs.babble.

 See you soon, I'll be back with a blog all about homemade Halloween costumes.  Until then, HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYONE!

Happy Birthday To Me, Happy Birthday To Me

 Another birthday has come and gone and it certainly was a good one.  As usual, I took the day off from work.  My birthday has become my traditional first day off of the academic year for the past 10 years now.  I got up and made myself (and the boys) some cinnamon cream cheese danishes, they were delish.  I then spent a couple of hours working on some miscellaneous paper crafting (you'll see what paper project I was working on soon) before I got to my real objective for the day: make myself a gift.

Yes that's right, I made MYSELF a gift.  Hey, it was my birthday and I deserved it.  Any guesses on what it is from the picture listed above?  First let's talk about the material, cute right?  I found the zebra print in the scraps section at Joann's and thought the orange fabric went perfectly with it.  The two fabrics have just enough sass to keep this piece interesting.  Still no guessing on what it is?  I'll give you a hint:  I've been wanting to make this for several months now. That clue didn't help you guess?  Ok, ok, I'm sure the suspense is just killing you.  It is a cover for my Nook reader.

Now I'd love for this story to end here with you all thinking that I created this in a matter of minutes and it was a cinch but unfortunately that is far from the truth.  Being a novice sewer, this was the first time I decided to make something without using a sewing pattern.  Man, that was not easy.  This little baby is actually my third attempt at trying to make a cover for my Nook. 

After two failed attempts at "winging it", I went online and found directions for a simple reversible bag and used that as a rough guide to complete this project.  Once I understood the concept of putting the reversible bag together, the project came together pretty quickly (probably helped that I had two other trial runs).  I'm so happy with the end product and I can't wait for someone to say to me, "Oh I love your bag, where did you get it?" so I can reply, "I made it" with a big huge grin on my 29 year old face.  WINK

I also got some other lovely gifts from friends and family including these lovely flowers which a special friend bought for me.  I tried convincing my husband they were from another man but he didn't fly into a jealous rage like I had hoped.  I'm not sure why he wasn't feeling more threatened by the idea of his wife receiving flowers from another man because once word leaks out about my mad sewing skills, I'm going to be getting flowers from other men left and right (if that really worked, I would have learned how to sew when I was a freshman in high school).  Ha.