Quirky Collages: Hummingbird Gift Bag

I've completed another coloring page from Don Stewart's Quirky Collages to Color (affiliate link here and below). This time, I colored his hummingbird collage. I used Prismacolor art markers, cut out the image using microtip scissors, and adhered it to a plain gift bag.  

Here's a closer look at the colored image. Can you spot the nine flowers that make up the hummingbird? You should find: anthurium, bird of paradise, calla lily, chrysanthemum, crocus, hydrangea, orchid, rose, and trumpet vine. 

Adding your colored images to gift bags is a great way to get them out of the coloring book and seen. It's also an easy way to personalize a gift bag. Just choose an image you know the recipient will love!

Craft Foam Gingerbread

A friend bought one of those inexpensive craft foam kits for her daughter's party and ended up with one extra gingerbread shape, but none of the self-adhesive pieces to decorate it. So she asked if I wanted it. Of course! Here's what I made:

Materials: craft foam gingerbread (either from a kit or cut from a piece of brown craft foam), small hole punch, white yarn, small white buttons, white brads

Start by using the small hole punch to create holds around the perimeter of the gingerbread man. Sew the white yarn through the holes, using backstitch. Punch holes for the face and insert brads. Glue buttons onto the gingerbread man's chest. 

The completed gingerbread can go on the tree as an ornament. Or, glue it to the front of an inexpensive, plain gift bag to dress it up.

 

Just a reminder: Project Penguin starts up on Monday. Trevor has been hard at work designing and preparing all the crafts. Kids of all ages are welcome to play along for a chance to win prizes. Tell a friend! The more, the merrier. 

Penguin Gift Bags

This is Cindy again! I hope you enjoyed Trevor's blog takeover yesterday. It will be interesting to see if that is still what he wants to do for his party once his birthday rolls around in June. I hope so. It's a really fun theme. I especially loved the gift bag. It's so easy to make! Affiliate links below. 

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Penguin Gift Bag

Materials: 

• black gift bag
• microtip scissors
• cardstock (white, orange, and black)
• craft glue
• googly eyes

Steps: 

Start with a black gift bag, then cut a white piece of cardstock slightly smaller than the bag. Cut a dip at the top and glue it in place. Use orange cardstock to make two feet and the beak. Cut a pair of flippers from black cardstock. 

Glue the eyes in place, the add the beak below the eyes. Then open up the gift bag and glue the feet in place. Finally, add the flippers to the side of the bag. Done!

How To Train Your Dragon Party

Trevor turned nine yesterday. NINE. I can't believe it. We celebrated with his friends at the ice rink where he takes lessons. As part of the party package, the rink provides non-themed cups, plates, napkins, goodie bags, etc. Because Trevor had his heart set on a 'How to Train Your Dragon' theme, we did a few simple crafts to work the theme into the fun.

Even though goodie bags were provided, Trevor REALLY wanted to make some that look like Toothless. We found small black party bags, then cut green cardstock ovals, used a Sharpie to color in the pupils, then glued them in place. We filled the bag with a dragon's favorite food, fish.

Swedish fish, that is.

We printed out The Viking Alphabet. Trevor used it to make placecards for each guest. That's his own name below.

We kept the cupcakes very simple: chocolate cupcakes in black wrappers, with green-tinted vanilla frosting.

They're topped with Shrinky Dinks. For each topper, we colored Toothless onto a piece of opaque white shrink film using Sharpies (left photo). Then we rounded the edges and punched a small hole (center photo). Finally, we shrank them (right photo). 

We shrank narrow strips to create anchors, which we attached to the main charms with Glue Dots. That way, the party guests could remove the anchor and take home the charm to use as a keychain, zipper pull, etc.

Of course, the birthday boy's cupcake was extra special. We got glittery black candles which we arranged just like a spiny-backed dragon.

Happy birthday, Trevor! You've made the past nine years the best of my life. I couldn't be happier being your mom.

Stamped Gift Bag and Card

Check out this gift bag and card.

I didn't make them.  Trevor did.  Aren't they nice?  The only thing I did was to help him use the paper trimmer to cut the papers for the cards.  He even put the tissue paper puffs in by himself.  These are based on the gift bag and card on my Found Object Stamping and Trash to Treasure projects.  

 

He used the same four items for stamping that I used: an empty pill container (yellow), an empty tape roll (red), an old sponge dauber (green), and a drinking straw (blue).  

 

There's something soothing about the dip-stamp-dip-stamp rhythm.

 

After the front dried, he stamped the back.  He didn't know how to stamp the sides, so I taught him this little trick.  Works like a charm!

 

 These are two of Trevor's 8 fair entries.  Just over a week until the fair opens and we can see how he did!

More Scrapjazz Articles

I've been writing articles for Scrapjazz.com for 7 months now.  It's a great job.  I love dreaming up projects and writing about them. And I especially love getting paid for it!

The hardest thing about the job is dealing with the lead time.  Each month, I'm assigned several articles and given about a month to write them.  These articles then go through editing and are published 2-3 months later.  Many of the articles are seasonal.  Which means that I made these in early February:

The article, Throwing a Luau Party, was published at the end of May.

Here's another example. The first week of February, I was assigned an article about making your own camping embellishments. I love camping, but it's a summer activity for us. It was strange to work on all sorts of camping projects in the morning, then help Trevor make Valentines in the afternoon.

 

 

 

Here's the article: Make Your Own Camping Embellishments.

My next articles due to be published are about space-themed cards and a product review, neither of which were seasonal, thank goodness!  

From Trash to Treasure

Today I'm sharing more stamping projects from the Fiskateer Spring Stamp Out.  As you probably know, Fiskars is famous for their orange-handled scissors, so we Fiskateers are frequently challenged to pair orange with another color.  In this case, we were asked to pair orange with a color that (allegedly) doesn't go with orange.  I chose purple.  

You don't see a lot of orange and purple together, which is a real shame.  Orange and purple were two of my three wedding colors and they looked great (if I do say so myself).  Anyway, here is the orange and purple gift bag I stamped.  Any guesses as to what I used to do the stamping?

If you guessed empty tape roll, old sponge dauber and drinking straw, you would be correct!  You know what they say: one man's trash is another man's treasure.  Why spend money on circle stamps when these are free and just as cute?

I used two of these (tape roll and straw) for the Girl Scout cookie box makeover that I showed a few weeks ago.  For the full tutorial, go here: Found Object Stamping.

For the "Dumpster Dive" challenge, we had to turn something we would usually throw out into something beautiful.  I remembered that Pamela #8040 had made a card using the patterns on the inside of security envelopes.  I decided to do the same.  The patterns I found were very interesting.  I thought they'd make a great sympathy card.

 

From trash (well, recycling actually) to treasure!  

Found Object Stamping

Today I'm sharing two more projects I made on National Scrapbook Day for Fiskateer challenges.  The "Stamp It!" challenge asked us to make a card using stamps, and the "Upcycle It!" challenge required us to make something from an item we'd normally throw away.  I made a stamped card and matching gift box, both of which featured stamping and the use of items I'd normally throw away!  

To make the card, I started with a piece of white cardstock and acrylic paint (green, blue and red).  I stamped large blue circles using an empty pill container.  Next, I added the green concentric circles using the center piece from an empty roll of tape.  Finally, the red circles came from a used drinking straw.

 

I let the paint dry, then matted it with red cardstock and attached it to a card base.  Then I stamped the sentiment, matted that, and attached it to the finished card.

The gift box started life as Girl Scout cookies.  I painted the box white.  It took two coats to get good coverage.  

 

When it was dry, I stamped it the same way I did the card.  Add the gift, some tissue paper, and it's ready to go!

Oops!  Good thing acrylic paint washes off so easily. 

 

Now I'm seeing the boxes in my pantry in a whole new way.  And I'll definitely be on the lookout for other pieces of 'trash' that we can use for stamping.  The possibilities are endless!  

My Latest Articles

As I've mentioned, I joined the team at Scrapjazz.com as a Contributing Writer in January.  My first article (which, coincidentally, was published on my 40th birthday) was called "Using Your Camera's Self-Timer."  

Two more of my articles have now been published.  This one is a tutorial about how to create homemade decorations for a party with a racecar theme.  The article is here: "DIY Decorations for a Racecar Birthday Party."  

My other published article is a tutorial for making a Peek-a-Boo Gift Bag.

There is a two-month gap between when my articles are due and when they are published, so I have actually written a total of 8 articles so far.  Five more will be published soon.  It is really hard not to show off my projects as I've finished them - two months is a long time to wait!

Personalized Lunchsack Gift Bag

I don't think I've ever bought a gift bag.  I keep all the gift bags we receive and reuse them, plus I make a lot of gift bags.  I especially love the homemade ones, since they can so easily be personalized.  

Trevor made a gift bag for his friend Jordan's 6th birthday.  We started with a plain white lunchsack, alphabet stickers, and chalks.  I helped Trevor arrange the letters in Jordan's name on a piece of clear plastic sticker backing, with the top half of the letters hanging off the top edge.  Then we pressed them onto the bag, removed the sticker backing, and finished pressing the letters down.  (I hope you all know that trick already- it is so helpful for making sure your letters are straight and evenly spaced!)  

 

Next, Trevor used the sponge daubers to apply chalk directly over the letters.  I love these things and highly recommend them, but if you don't have them cotton balls work just fine.

 

For the record, I don't normally have Trevor do messy crafts on the carpet of his bedroom floor.  We keep his birthday card making supplies (paper, stickers, and crayons) in his bedroom, so he'd been working on Jordan's card when I started setting up the gift bag supplies.  It wasn't until he finished the gift bag that I realized the mess potential.  Fortunately, Trevor is the world's neatest 5 year old and nothing got on the carpet.

Here's the bag after he finished all the chalking.  

 

The next step is carefully removing the letter stickers.

 

Finally, outline the letters with a black pen.

 

We put the gift in the bag, stapled it shut, then added curly ribbon and a bow.  Here's the finished gift!

Happy birthday Jordan!

Dressing up a Gift Bag

I wrote this as a member of the Design Team at Flamingo Scraps and wanted to share it here.

I love dressing up plain gift bags.  Here's a very inexpensive gift bag from Michaels.  With a coupon, I paid under $2.00 for a pack of 10. 

I didn't like the white handle, so I gave it a quick spray with Peach Delight Glimmer Mist.  I also gave the front of the bag a light spray.  The colors matched really well, so it mostly provided a bit of shimmer.

With Key Lime Pie Glimmer Mist, I colored some lace.  I used the same technique to curl the lace into vines that I did during September's Flamingo Five at Flamingo Scraps.   

I dug into my scraps pile and layered a green polka dot on some plain white paper.  (Actually, the white paper is the back of a very ugly pattern!)  I rubbed some Orange Peel Stickles onto a Prima flower, added a button in the center, then attached my green vines.

Here's the finished bag.  I think it's much cuter and much more personal than the original!

Do you dress up your gift bags?  If so, put a link in the comments so I can see what you've done!

Accidental Scraplifting

I am a big fan of scraplifting and seeking inspiration from others... credited, of course!  But I live in fear of accidentally scraplifting someone and not giving proper credit.  I read a lot of blogs, subscribe to multiple magazines, and frequently look through galleries.  It is definitely possible that I could see an idea somewhere, move on with my life, and have the idea pop back up in my head months later, leaving me to think it's original.  I'm terrified of that.  I wouldn't want someone to do it to me and I don't ever want anyone to think I'd do that to someone else. 

Here is a gift bag and card set I made for an year-end teacher gift:

I finished the gift bag and took a break before completing the card.  During that break, I read through some blogs.... and noticed a card on Jennifer McGuire's blog that was very similar to the gift bag I had just made.  You can see hers here.  Immediately, paranoia set in.  I couldn't have scraplifted it, since I made mine before seeing hers.  But what if people think I did?!  What if hers is merely a repeat of a design she's done before and I had actually seen it?!  Ack!

I know that the design is very simple and has probably been done many ways by many people, but could I have accidentally scraplifted?  Have any of you accidentally scraplifted or been the victim of uncredited scraplifting?