smiling colors

{Tutorial Thursday: Quilt block a month #5 : a 2012 goal:}

Smitha — Thu, 17 May 2012 14:03:09 +0000

Hello May! How is it May already!?!

With a new month, comes a new quilt block

If you have been following my blog, you know about my my Quilt a block a month 2012 goal (or if you are new you can read more about it HERE).

So for this months block, the fifth block of the year, I have a scrappy block– something to use up all and any of those fabric scraps in your stash, and you can find my step by step tutorial for it HERE from the Fiskars blog

Hope you enjoy it! This is an easy block fo anybody to start with, and yet it is a bit interesting because of the little bit of design involved. Hope you give it a try!

Its going to be a little quiet on my blog front for a while– We are completely decluttering and rearranging our entire house. Doing some gardening. We have had two babies since we bought this house, and it it time to seriously rearrange how we live (This is what I am good at doing, and all my life, I have rearranged my room atleast 4 or 5 times a year. Just go and ask my brother. ) - and get rid of a lot of stuff that we dont need. That means garage sale And hopefully painting the house too. I am also purging out a ton of scrapbooking stuff– and will mostly be selling them at the garage sale, but if are looking for something to buy, send me an email and I will let you know if I have it

I still have lots of projects to share, and have scheduled blog posts for you all. I just wont be doing any challenges, or facebook and twitter. I really havent sat at a computer for over two days now, and it feels good.

Be good while I am gone!

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Post tags: quilt, quilt block of the month, scraps, using scraps to mae a quilt block

{Freebie: Printable Paisley cards}

Smitha — Sun, 13 May 2012 17:16:07 +0000

Happy Mother’s day!!! Hope you are enjoying your weekend!

So for this weeks freebie, I have ten 3 by 4 inch printable cards with with hand drawn motifs…

Download here

If you are interested in digital freebies, be sure to like/follow me on facebook or twitter to get the latest updates!

As usual, link me up to anything you create using these in the comments section below, I love making new scrapbooking/crafty friends!

Want even more Freebies? Read all previous Printable Freebie posts by clicking here.

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Post tags: free, journaling card, Project life

{happy mothers day!}

Smitha — Sun, 13 May 2012 14:44:13 +0000

Happy Mother’s day to all of you wonderful Moms out there ! Especially my mom

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Post tags: mothers day cards, new mom card, silhouette card

{guest blogging at CK…}

Smitha — Tue, 08 May 2012 19:36:56 +0000

I am popping in early today, as opposed to my usual midnite blogging, because…

today I am guest blogging at the Creating Keepsakes blog!

I talk about using your paper scraps and punches on your scrapbooking layouts

And you might want to head over there and leave a comment, because Fiskars is very generously giving away three of their brand new XXXL Lever Punches to one winner.

And if you are stopping by here from the CKblog and are new to my blog, a BIG HELLO to you

I have another layout to share today, using those XXXL punches, the bird one is my favorite (and evidently my daughters favorite too!)

I punched a whole lot of the birds and adhered them on the XXXL sqaures. This layout was another quick layout, becuase I used a coordinated kit of papers, here SC’s boardwalk kit.

Thanks for stopping by today!

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{Tutorial: a mini book & using triangles to make a chevron pattern…}

Smitha — Mon, 07 May 2012 20:53:30 +0000

Yesterday’s post ended with this image…

And now for a quick step by step of how I put this album together…

The chevron pattern was made using triangles. I punched out two sizes of squares and cut them into triangles…

Stuck the triangles to form the pattern and added machine stitching. There is a whole lot of stitching in this album, because I was in the mood to pull out my sewing machine and try out some new gray thread…

All the pages in this book are different. I chose various shades of brown as the base…

I adhered the photos onto the cardstock, leaving a 1/4 inch extra border on the left– for the spine of the book…

I added stitching all around the photos. You can see the reverse side of the pages, which has a cool grid for the embellies…

I printed out my quotes and day tabs. These are available in yesterday’s Freebie download…

After all the pages were done, I stitched the pages together to form a book. 8 sheets of cardstock, and these are heavy weight cardstocks, but it went very easily…

And here it is all done…

Four reasons why this worked for me,

1. I wanted it simple, no time spent selecting the photos and processing them. Instagram and the photo collage template helped.

2. I am not good at mini books– there are too many options to do, and I always feel overwhelmed. By narrowing my choices this process actually went much faster.

3. I printed my journaling instead of my usual hand written style. I had a lot to tell in this album, and printing it was a faster route– though I did use a handwriting font

4. I added a lot of stitching. This might not sound easy, but for me it was. I am bad at adhering things down and waste a lot of time resticking elements. By stitching I made sure everything stays in place and it acted as a cool decorative element as well.

Stay tuned for tomorrows post!! ITs big one for me

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