Baking cabinet redo

This fabulous change was inspired by.....wait for it...... this pin on Pinterest. I know, no one is surprised. All of my best projects seem to come from an inspiration found on Pinterest. And I'm ok with that. I love Pinterest. I love access to all those amazingly talented and intelligent people who come up with all these great ideas. Keep up the good work people.

What you see above is my baking cabinet after I had my son cut some 1 inch square trim to fit just inside the border of the inside of my cabinet doors. I sanded and painted the trim with chalk board paint. I first determined where I wanted them mounted so that they would be right below the shelf when the door was closed. I mounted the trim to the doors using Gorilla Glue, swiped from hubby's tool box. Then I marked out the locations for my cup hooks and pierced a small guide hole with a pick or awl or some sort of pointy object out of my hubby's tools. I contemplated, just for a moment, using my piercing tool. Then scrubbed that idea because I didn't want to risk breaking or dulling it. No such concerns for hubby's tool. ;)

When I was this far done, I was happy with the organization I had gained, but it seemed bland. I wanted more punch. 

So, after a few moments of hemming and hawing, I decided to go all the way. In for a penny, in for a pound as they say. Plus my hubby working out of town made my decision a little easier. I subscribe to the principle that it is easier to ask for forgiveness than permission. I say permission only because he is a painter by trade, so if he was home he would have all kinds of concerns and probably much input also, about my ability to complete this project up to his snuff.

I did, in my humble opinion, a very thorough job of masking off both cabinet doors. I also lightly sanded the finish off of the inside of the door, the part I want to paint. (Later hubby was very glad to hear that I had remembered this step. Score one for me.)

First coat. I must admit I was nervous.

Second and third coats added following the instructions on the bottle. NOT! Sheesh, I read the instructions after I have rushed into coats two and three. I was supposed to let them cure for one hour between coats and on the second coat I was supposed to paint in a horizontal direction. I didn't do any of this. Oops. Thankfully it still turned out ok. Ssshhhh, don't tell my hubby, I don't want to lose my atta girl point I earned on the sanding step.

This is it, all finished. I love it. I haven't written on it yet because it says to let it cure for 24 hours before rubbing chalk all over it and wiping it off. Then it is ready for use and reuse. This direction I decided to follow. *face palm*

It definitely has punch now. I love the hook for holding my recipe card. 

Who am I kidding? I love the whole thing. I keep opening the doors just to stand and admire how organized and sharp they look. Now I need to replace all my old blue Tupperware lids with the new black ones. Now that would look really sharp!

Find inspiration everywhere! Go... Create something fun & fabulous. Enjoy!

Mindless Two Skein Cowl

I was so thrilled when I found this scarf pattern. It is so quick to crochet and it makes that beautiful scallop edge during the crochet rows. It's not an edge you do afterwards. Genius. I had bought a bunch of yarn online during an awesome JoAnn's sale, so I will be busy for a while.

I am loving the cowls right now. So of course I made this scarf into a cowl too. They are so easy and comfortable to wear this way.

This yarn is Wooleez worsted weight yarn. I used two skeins. Her pattern says one skein but it would have been too short to make into a cowl so I went with two. I also did 29 stitches for each row instead of her recommended 19, because I thought I wanted the finished scarf wider than 5 inches. In hind sight it is a bit bulky when doubled around the neck and 19 probably would have been perfect. But that's the joy of yarn and an easy pattern. I can quickly re-crochet it with the 19 stitches if I want to. And I think I want to, it will give it a longer drape and it wont hug up quite so tight to my neck. It will be more comfortable to wear, I believe.


Find inspiration everywhere! Go... Create something fun & fabulous. Enjoy!

Expanding gift box

This fun little gift box was inspired by a Pinterest pin, which linked back to an awesome tutorial on the Scor-Pal website. Now me being the lazy person I am, and not wanting to hand cut this out each time I wanted to create a little gift box, I made a .cut file on my trusty Cricut using the Design Studio software I love so much and using George Basic Shapes and also CTMH Art Philosophy for the fancy upper flap shapes. 

All of the stamped images are from CTMH stamp set Tea Time. 

I used DCWV patterned paper and stamped the images in CTMH Lagoon ink.

Here you get a glimpse of all of the liner pieces I added on the .cut file. No manual cutting for me. 

Here is the interior with the sides expanded out partially. It's a really cool design, and the tutorial made it so easy for me to recreate it. 

Here it is holding some yummy tea bags as a small gift for a friend who loves her tea. Six tea bags fit beautifully.

This is the base piece after it is cut out on the Cricut. I show it here to illustrate the score lines. 

Rotate it and score again.

Now snip as shown above, being sure to snip along the correct sides as shown, so that the fancy tops will be able to expand out when the box is assembled. I also discovered it is much easier to stamp all the layers and then adhere them to the base piece while it is flat, before you have glued the sides together and such.

I am happy to share this .cut file with you, if you would like to make these gift boxes for yourself. Keep in mind I work in Design Studio so the only file I have is a .cut file. I have no desire to learn all those other programs and do not personally know how to or even if there is a way to convert this to other formats. Leave your email address in the comments section for this post and I will send out the .cut file to you. 

Find inspiration everywhere! Go... Create something fun & fabulous. Enjoy! 

Mini pocket page book

I saved this mini book inspiration here on Pinterest. The Pinterest link opens to a wonderful tutorial by the original creator here. Her blog is in German but if you are surfing on Google than it should translate for you easy as pie. Her pictures and tutorial were super easy to follow. I still did not feel like cutting all these pieces by hand, so I created a .cut file on my Cricut using Design Studio and George Basic Shapes cartridge. It came together pretty easy. 

So here it is untied and upper flap open.

Flip cover down one and these are the first two photo mount areas you see.

One more flip and it is fully open now. 

Each flip also has a flap and a pocket and inside the pocket is a tag to pull out that can hold two more photos. All in all this book holds thirteen 2.5 x 2.5 inch photos or journaling areas. Closed and tied the mini album measures 3 x 3 x .5 inches. A great little brag book for giving.

The base of my mini album is made with SU! black cardstock. The yellow is also SU! cardstock, not sure which color anymore, could be something discontinued now. SU! cardstock if my favorite for projects like this where I want a very sturdy base, it has great weight and strength. The patterned paper is from a Hobby Lobby paper stack. Gorgeous monochromatic patterns, beautiful quality and colors. The beautiful silk ribbon is from Reasonable Ribbon club.

As with all of my Cricut Design Studio creations, I will share the .cut file with you if you would like to recreate this for yourself. Please leave your email address in the comment section below and I will email the .cut file out to you. 

Find inspiration everywhere! Go... Create something fun & fabulous. Enjoy! 

Washi tape banner thank you cards

I had a lot of wonderful people to thank for helping me celebrate my birthday to its fullest. I was able to use my favorite Washi tape and a bunch of card bases I had picked up on clearance from Joanns and coordinating bakers twine to assembly line produce these cards while still being able to personalize them a little for each person. 

I am sure you are shocked to find out that these card designs were inspired by this card on Pinterest. Sweet and simple and using many items from my collection of crafting supplies. Perfect. The sentiment is from Papertrey Ink and the little heart is punched from SU! heart trio punch.

Find inspiration everywhere! Go... Create something fun & fabulous. Enjoy! 

Pinterest inspired cards

Once again I saw a card today on Pinterest here, that instantly had me inspired. I used bits and pieces that were already on my desk area to create both of these cards. The CTMH Glitter Gems and the ribbon from recent Reasonable Ribbon club packs are the only new things I used. Even the black flowers above where left over from a prior card project where I was attempting to use the negative space, but kept these flowers knowing that I would find a use for them. I was right. 

I still had little bits of this polka dot papers left from my Disney themed altered magnet board project. They were perfect for punching the smallest flowers from the SU! Boho Blossom punch. The green leaves are the largest flower from that punch and I just cut the flower into parts and glued them to the flowers. The sentiment on this card is a long retired CTMH stamp, but I thought it was perfect for this bright and playful card. 

Find inspiration everywhere! Go... Create something fun & fabulous. Enjoy! 

Martha Stewart paper tape cards

I have recently noticed several cute card ideas using this Martha Stewart paper tape. I ordered it on Amazon right away, and it just came in the mail. I couldn't wait to get to create with it. I had read the reviews so I was ready for the differences from my loved washi tape. It is thicker and waxier for sure, but it is gorgeous and the colors and patterns are what I fell in love with.

This first card was inspired by this graphic card design, created by Kristina Werner. She does amazing card video tutorials and has broadened my craft ideas and caused many a late night online shopping frenzies for me. I love how different my card looks from hers. The design is the same but the change of color and patterns makes such a difference.

This card is inspired by this wonderful card, designed following card sketch FTL239 at Clean and Simple Stamping Blog. Her first card made with the sketch, she states she used washi tape on scrap paper and punched out with different circle punches. That got my gears to turning and I had to make one with my new paper tape. I love how it turned out. 

The sentiments are from Joann's dollar bins, they are stamped in CTMH Holiday red and the cardstock is the same color. The green polka dot is a scrap that was laying on my work desk from a prior project, but I believe it to be from a DCWV stack. 

Find inspiration everywhere! Go... Create something fun & fabulous. Enjoy!

Pinterest inspired tea cup cards

Another series of cards all inspired from beautiful finds on Pinterest. This first purple stack of tea cups was inspired by this darling card. As you see I switched up the feel from Christmasy to girly. I used CTMH inks in Amethyst, Hydrangea, Petal and Gypsy on CTMH A Sip stamp set. Also adding a little SU! sentiment punched out using the SU! tiny tag punch.

This card is a very close approximation of this card. I stuck with the Kraft, Red and Ivory color scheme because I really like it. I just substituted my tea cup stamp set from CTMH and used Cranberry, Desert Sand and Grey Flannel inks.

This is my favorite, I copied the layout from this card. As you see I changed up colors and size and everything else, but the general design I was true to. This one I also used a CTMH color inspiration I had found here. I thought that was pretty awesome, made my life much easier not trying to pick out colors. 

Here's a detail shot so you could see the Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist in Pearl. Added a very feminine and elegant detail to the card. I'm really happy to finally use my CTMH A Sip stamp set, I really like all of these cards. Such variety from one $6ish priced stamp set. 

Find inspiration everywhere! Go... Create something fun & fabulous. Enjoy!