Yea, October!

I really like October 1st.  It marks the day that I can definitely put out my Halloween decorations without seeming weird.  It's also the start of my annual Halloween crafting. Here are some of my favorites from last year.

Dressed-up Halloween candy:

 

Pipe Cleaner Spider:

 

Paper Plate Pumpkins: 

 

Crayon Resist Drawings: 

Stay tuned for more Halloween projects!

The First Project for the Tiger Cubs

Trevor is in first grade, which means he's finally old enough to start Cub Scouts! Steve volunteered to be the Den Leader for the Tiger Cubs, which means that he'll be leading a weekly meeting for all the first graders in our Pack. While I'm not officially Steve's assistant (I'm going to be the Advancement Chair for the Pack), I've told him that I'll plan the crafts for the boys. He asked me to whip up a craft that the boys could do during their first meeting.

Here's what I made:

We had no idea how many boys would be attending this first meeting or what their abilities would be, so I wanted to keep the project extremely simple. The materials included: orange cardstock, black crayon, a lid for tracing, scissors, googly eyes and glue.

I had each boy trace the lid to make the face of the tiger. Then, I showed them how to draw two curves to form the ears. Each boy wrote the Cub Scout Motto ("Do Your Best") in the middle. Then they cut out the shape, making sure not to cut off the ears.  

We turned our tigers over and glued googly eyes in place. We darkened the centers of the ears, then drew a nose, mouth, and stripes. Finally, we drew whiskers. Here is Trevor's finished project:  

Here are two of our Tiger Cubs (Trevor on the left) showing off their completed tigers. By the end of the craft, both had memorized the Cub Scout Motto, the first step toward earning their first rank!

As you can see, Trevor didn't have his uniform shirt for the first meeting. I have it now and am hurrying to sew on the dozen or so patches before the next meeting. So far, patch-sewing is the only part of Cub Scouts I don't like!

Grrrr... a Rookie Mistake

As I've mentioned many times before, I usually have at least a dozen works-in-progress sitting around the scraproom.  Sometimes a layout will sit 99% complete, just waiting for adhesive.  Such was the case with this Easter layout.

 

My absolute least favorite part of scrapping is adhering everything down.  I don't adhere as I go- I make sure I love every single part before I glue anything down.  This means that I have to carefully take my finished layout apart, add adhesive, and hope everything ends up back in the correct position.  

The Easter layout had been sitting there for awhile, just waiting for the adhesive step.  I got tired of working around it and decided to just leap in and glue everything down and be done with it.  When it was all adhered, I picked it up to scan the completed layout and noticed this:

 

I forgot to remove the tear-strip before I adhered stuff down.  Meaning my 12x12 layout is actually 12.5x12.  Which means it won't fit in the page protector.  Grrr.  Total rookie mistake.

Unfortunately, I had designed close to the edge, so it was not easy to remove 1/2 inch of paper.  I ended up cutting 1/4 inch off each side to maintain the common margins, but even that small amount changed the feel of the page a bit.  What really frustrates me is that it would have been a really simple fix if I'd noticed before adhering.  Here's the finished 12x12 layout:

Inspired by Sarah Webb's "Summer 2012"

Please tell me I'm not the only one who occasionally still does dumb stuff like this!

Happy 10,000!

As you know, I'm proud to be Fiskateer #4113.  I love Fiskars products and have met some of the best people through the Fiskateer site.  There is always something fun going on over there!

Recently, the number of Fiskateers climbed to 10,000.   (I joined in March 2008, so that means the Fiskateers have grown by over 1000 per year!)  To celebrate this landmark, the Fiskateers were challenged to use crafting materials to spell out "Happy 10,000."  One of the items had to be our engraved personalized Fiskateer scissors.

I wanted to stick with a predominantly orange color scheme, with a just a touch of Fiskateer green thrown in.  Here's what I made:

H: Orange/white bakers' twine (given to me at a Fiskateer crop)

A: Fiskars microtip scissors (a prize from a recent Fiskars crop)

P: Green color pencil and green chalk

P: Orange color pencil and orange chalk

Y: My engraved Fiskateer scissors 

1: Fiskars retractable fingertip control knife (also a crop prize)

0: Orange flower (part of a big goodie bag from a Fiskateer event)

comma: Orange whistle (given to me at the Fiskateer Tweet-Up at CHA W-11)

0: Orange washi tape

0: My "I'm a Fiskateer" button (a crop prize)

0: Orange chipboard letter o (from a Fiskateer scavenger hunt swap)

Anyone can become a Fiskateer.  You just have to love Fiskars products...  which includes not only papercrafting supplies, but sewing and gardening tools as well.  To join, all you have to do is contact one of the two Lead Fiskateers (Emma or Tania) at www.fiskateers.com!

Good Things Come from Combining Assignments

Yesterday I shared a list of the creative commitments I have each month.  Usually, there isn't any overlap between them - I make separate projects and blog posts for each.  Every once in awhile, I'm able to combine assignments.  Check out this card: 

 

I received my latest sketch assignment from The Scrapping Stamper on the same day that I was going through my Flamingo Scraps stash to create projects for a post about using scraps. When I saw the sketch, I realized it would be perfect for using scraps.  I changed the photo to a dog embellishment and the card came together quickly and easily.

Here's another card based on Shannon's sketch, made entirely with Flamingo Scraps products.  

 

I ended up making two more cards using my Flamingo Scraps items.  The 'rug' the dog is on is actually a die-cut journaling tag.  I sliced off a piece of it to use for the sentiment, then cut the remaining part into an oval.    

The last critter in the package was this adorable elephant.  I'd used one from the package eons ago, to make this toilet paper roll gift card holder.  He seems perfect for a baby card, so when I saw this die-cut stamp that said "Heaven Sent" I knew it would be so cute together.  I love how this one turned out.

 

 I still have one brown dog, one crocodile, and one blue dog left.  Stay tuned!