ATC Swapping Preparations and Pretty Holiday Nails (these things are not related)

The thing about making a ton of holiday gifts is that my craft table becomes overrun with scraps of paper, material and all the little tiny things that get trimmed off a project. I usually have scads of these little things all over the frakking place which means the usable space on my craft table keeps shrinking and shrinking as I work.

Factoid about me: I hate throwing things away that I know can be useful. Also, if you recall I have a tight budget when it comes to crafting (my husband says it's not a necessity, go figure?).

Paper and fabric scraps get chucked into containers, and boxes and baggies and, you get the point. One of my destash projects is making ATC's (I like to swap them on swap-bot.com). As with many of my projects I tend to start and stop because of the myriad of interruptions that can happen at any given moment around here. So I prep the actual cards in bunches, clear up all my scraps and then keep those handy for when I have a spare moment to whip some up.

Here's how I prep and destash for ATC's:

1. Cut my base cards from heavy card stock, standard ATC card size is 3.5 x 2.5
2. Cut all my larger scraps of paper into backgrounds, same size
3. Gather a bunch of strips and squares to make collaged backgrounds.

4. Adhere backgrounds to bases with a gluestick and make a few backgrounds with the strips.

5. Turn over and trim all the edges so they are the correct size

TIP: ATC traders and collectors are pretty particular about sizing! Make sure that if you are making ATC's for trade that you get them to exactly 3.5 x 2.5 or as close as possible. Most collectors use trading card sheet protectors to store their trades, you want to make sure that your cards will fit into their collection.

6. I like to sew up the edges of my collaged bases to ensure the pieces stay put. If you choose to collage and NOT sew, make sure you are using a tough glue that will really hold on tight!
7. Now I have a stash of bases I can use to create ATC's whenever the mood strikes me and they take up 1/2 the room the scraps did, giving me more work space.

For more information on ATC's check out THIS, for more info on trading ATC's check out THIS.

PS: My nails are super freaking cute right now! I love the new Salon Effects for Christmas! I got mine at Rite Aid, but I think you can pick them up at WalMart too...

Handmade Holidays: Scrapbooks

The holiday crafting is in full swing 'round these parts. What are you making? Where did you get your inspiration? I will be adding some new tutorials and printables over the next few weeks that I have been working on so stay tuned for those.

Holy mess batman, the really embarrassing part is that its pretty much looked like this for weeks...

 The first gift on my list is a 12 x 12 scrapbook. When I make scrapbooks for myself I usually only make one page at a time and I base everything off the photos themselves. Making scrapbooks for others is a whole different process, which I thought I would share with you, because I'm cool like that.

As you know I am typically very organized, like most other human adults I have way to much to do, and my brain is like a sieve. Scrapbooking is usually the one time I forget the planning, I stop thinking and just go with the flow. I don't usually care if the pages go together, I like my pages to have character. When I'm making a book for someone else though I like to plan ahead so everything matches, most people find scrapbooks more aesthetically pleasing that way. 

Here's my process for gift books:

1) Find all my background pages and put them into the scrapbook in the page protectors in the exact order I want them to be. 2) Grab all the journal blocks and flat embellishments and split them up evenly throughout the book by placing them in page protectors.

3) Go through my stash and grab ribbon, stickers, coordinating papers, and other embellishments that match what I am working with. 4) Cut photo mats, for gifts I usually stick with 6.5 x 4.5 which works perfectly for 4 x 6 photos. TIP: When cutting photo mats always cut the larger measurement first, this gets you the most amount of mats possible from a single piece of paper. (you could also buy pre-cut mat stacks, the best are from DCWV because they are already made for 4 x 6 photos).

Once you have all that done you can whip your pages out pretty fast. I try to use the same format for each page so that it goes fast, looks good. The tricky part about making pages for other people's photos is that you will never know what colors will be in those photos and you want to have a finished product that will actually be used. There are a few ways that you can work around that, 1. you can use all black and white that way any colors will match the papers or 2. you can choose a theme that will most likely match the photos they are putting into it. This album is for christmas, so I am using black, white, red and green for the basic colors and I chose 1 paper stack (with all coordinating papers) to pull the rest of the album together. This way all the pages will look good together but it won't look to busy, no matter what photos people use.

A couple last tips:
- I always make sure to leave the journaling spaces flat. When I make my own albums I usually write my journaling and then pop it up with pop dots, it would make it more difficult for the recipients of the book to write their memories if the journaling wasn't flat on the page.
- Leaving a little bit of white space can't hurt, that way if there is memorabilia that go along with the pictures people can stick it there (ticket stubs, programs, whatever...)
- Cut a 4 x 6 piece of paper to put on your mats when gluing down elements that will go on your photo mats, this way you are sure that the recipient can get their photo under the element (see above the bracket, I only glued around where the photo will go so they can slide the side of the photo underneath)

is anyone making scrapbooks? Any tips to share?

Biscuits two ways: Pizza Bumps and Monkey Bread

Dear Ready Made Biscuit,

Thank you for being versatile and delicious

Love, Me

Have I told you yet that I am a terrible cook?

I am, I have the wonderful ability to be able to burn things, under-cook or overcook them, and I do not like touching raw meat. It's slimy, and gross.

I'm 100 % certain I have explained my issue with patience, namely that I have none. Saturday afternoon when I want to be napping and instead I have kids jumping all over me (in the sweltering muggy gross heat) I REALLY don't want to be cooking. 

The kids always win, so I needed something fast , but fun and easy.

Enter the Ready Made Biscuit.

With a little 3YO help I whipped up Pizza Bumps (for snack) and Monkey Bread (for after dinner) in about 20 minutes flat. Nom nom nom...

Pizza Bumps:

1 ready to bake biscuit tube, shredded cheese, some pepperoni chunks.

Place the biscuit in the bottom of a standard muffin pan (ungreased), sprinkle with cheese and dot with pepperoni, bake according to biscuit directions until golden brown.

Monkey Bread:

1 ready to bake biscuit tube, 1 mini loaf pan, a bit of brown sugar and regular sugar mixed up, a few hunks of butter.

Break the biscuits up in to chunks to cover the bottom of the mini loaf pan, sprinkle some butter chunks (small) over the top (about 3 or 4) and some of the sugar mixture. Add more biscuit chunks and some more butter. Bake according to biscuit directions until golden brown.

It kind of pulls apart like a McDonalds cinnamon melt, only without the frosting, or cinnamon, although.... that sounds like a good idea to try!

Factoid about me: I stress bake

and you get to see things like this:

How much do you LOVE that chipped nail polish I'm rocking? I know, I'm pretty awesome (and now I feel awkward for not taking it off, but as the title suggests I was a little stressed)

I am in love with all things single serve right now. Anything to help us eat healthier (I'm thinking portion control here). No one can tell me apple pie is not healthy for you, especially when made from scratch and has a cute star shape on top.

Let's get on with the details shall we?
I had planned on making some sweet pies in a jar, I saw a cool tutorial somewhere for them (via a pinterest picture I think), but when I went looking for the tutorial I couldn't find it. I tried sans tutorial and it didn't quite work out, so this is what I ended up doing...

Large cupcake/muffin tin
Homemade Pie crust (from Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook circa 1975, yes it contained LARD)
Canned filling

The reason I chose canned filling for this was because I was too lazy to cook the filling separately before baking the pies and with the crusts being so small I knew that would cook long before homemade filling would. To cut down on artificial sugar content you can substitute plain fruit canned in water or you can make the filling from scratch and bake it separately before filling your crusts.

The crusts had to be handmade because I wanted to make a flaky crust but I wanted to push it into the muffin tin so it was a little thicker on the bottom and sides. I'm sure you could use the frozen kind but my brain was telling me that was not going to be as yummy. If anyone tries this please leave me a comment and let me know how it turns out.

Once I filled half the muffin tin (this was the trial batch) I filled the cups with a few apples each, being careful to cut them down so they fit into the pocket of the crust without overflowing.

I rolled the remaining dough into a THICK sheet and cut some stars out with sugar cookie cutters to top with.  The best part about doing a shaped top is that I didn't have to cut any vents for the filling.

No, i do not own a rolling pin, these cups work perfect because they are not tapered, plus, POM is SO delicious.

The bumpy looking one is supposed to be an X from a valentine set for XOXO cookies but I lost the O and it really looks like a wonky plus sign once cooked anyway. The shape was a little too bulky for the top and didn't leave much room for venting. I think a heart my work also, but I lost that one too...

I baked these on the top rack, on 350 for about 13 minutes or until the crusts on top were flaky and golden brown.

Excuse me while I drool for a while... I think I might try some mini crumb cakes or cobbler next.
What did you do this weekend?

This post linked to

Anatomy of a Rock Star Birthday Party Part 1: Creating Backstage Passes

We finally finished our backstage passes for Autumn's Big Bash.

YES, I am fully aware the party is in 3 days, I am a bit of a procrastinator (ie. invitations the night before she needed to give them out). In the next few days we will be crafting up a few more things, so stay tuned.

This is the one we printed for her party guests:

Since we created them as a .jpg file we could add them to a word document to print them 4 up on the page and get them any size we wanted. If you want to use our design, click the one below you will be taken to the BLANK version (it doesn't have the word bubbles). I WILL be posting our other creations for you to add to this if you want to create a whole party.

If you have never used Picnik before NOW IS THE TIME. It's free, easy and fun. I created the background using a mix of Picnik, Paint and Word (2007 version). Instructions on making this background from scratch (so you can add your own photo instead of using mine) are HERE. It was a drawn out process, if you have Photoshop (which I currently do not on my laptop), you could probably whip this up a lot easier. The instructions are easy to follow but it took us about an hour to get all the pieces together.

What to do (using Picnik):
1. Save the .jpg file to your desktop and open Picnik.
2. Upload the photo and click the 'create' button
3. Choose 'Add Text' from the tool bar along the top
4. Add the date of your party in the white space and whatever other words you want
5. Choose 'Save and Share', save the updated file to your desktop
6. Arrange, print and then have your child sign the white space at the top (unless you added their name using Picnik earlier)
7. You can laminate them and punch holes to add a ribbon or lanyard, or if you want to get really fancy you can get some badge holders at Staples or Walmart to slide them in.

Now if you are an impatient crafter like me, you can always just print them as is and write the date in. Done and done.

Virtual Reality

So there were SOOOOO many pictures of this project I am trying something new, making collage sections to explain my process. I will also be offering custom albums on my Etsy shop.

From top left: I drew my template on scrap paper and then used tracing paper to get the image onto the chipboard. For this project I used Creative Imaginations medium weight chipboard for this project because I had to cut it by hand and I didn't want to hurt myself :) Next I used my awesome scissors to cut out the shapes from the cardstock and enough paper birds to cover both sides of the chipboard and create 4 inner pages that are double sided too. Using spray adhesive I added the paper to the cardstock, then I sanded all the edges.

For this prototype I used Basic Grey Lemonade line, BG paper is so thick it's perfect when you want to create mini album pages. Once I put the bird pages together (fronts and backs) I sewed up the edges to give it extra stability and make it super cute!

I find that when making mini albums they are more likely to stand the test of time when the holes are protected by eyelets, so I dug out the Crop-a-Dile. I LOVE THIS TOOL.

Once the basic bird was finished it was time to grab my journaling and photos. For this album I knew ahead of time that I would be using tweets and twitpics (I did have to fill in some photos from Facebook). The whole point was to add some of my virtual life into my real life. I copy and pasted some January Tweets and photos into a blank document and printed them out, being VERY careful to get the date and timestamp copied too! I wanted to track when the tweets were sent too.

Here are the inside pages, I added the tweets, and the pics (after inking them with the same pretty green as the album). I started to add embellishments and some hand journaling too. These photos are about 3/4 done, I was losing light so I wanted to get the photos done, I will update tomorrow with photos of the final embellishments (feathers!!!!!).