Beachy Scrapbook for Teen

Isn't life funny the way it works out?  One of my blog friends mentioned the other day she was helping out with an auction to help her local women's center purchase an ultrasound machine. This sounded pretty important to me and I had just uncovered a gender neutral baby scrapbook I had finished and never gifted/sold. I shipped it out to her to be a help to the auction - I figure every penny is one step closer!

Then, I visited my brother and sister-in-law this week for dinner one night.  Before I left, my SIL gave me this bag filled with stickers, paper and a scrapbook.  Her teen niece had bought all these supplies and never used them, so she asked my SIL to pass along to me if I would use them.  SCORE! Of course I don't turn down all this free scrapbook stuff! But as I went through it at home, I could easily see what she had wanted to do - make a beach themed scrapbook.

I haven't scrapped in a while (quite a while!!), but since I was home sick the next day anyway, I put together a beachy scrapbook that I'm going to send back to her.  There is a ton of stuff left over for me to use and I know starting your first scrapbook can be intimidating sometimes.  This will give her a place for the tons of beach photos I know she has (because I see them on instagram! haha).

There are most of the pages.  I hope they are teenish enough to catch her attention!  I do miss scrapbooking but became a bit overwhelmed with all the supplies and such.  And I have the attention span of a rabid squirrel so I'll move on to something else pretty quickly (lately it's been quilting and sewing).  

Isn't that funny?  I've been out of scrapbooking for ages and I get several reminders back to back like that.  It's like a secret message that I'm missing or something. :) 

Well, there you go - a beachy themed scrapbook for teens - enjoy!

Toddler Friendly Gift Tags

I don't know about ya'll, but to me it seems those who want to be most involved in all the excitement of holidays are also the ones who can't read yet.  Our toddlers.  They want to be part of giving out the gifts and watching people open them, but when you can't read the gift tags, it makes it a little difficult. Yes, you could have an adult crouched down at the tree on Christmas morning handing out gifts and telling them who to deliver them to, OR you could take this idea and run with it.

Toddler Friendly Gift Tags

I love it! This is the second time I've done it, but the first time I was much more fru-fru about it.  I found cute tie-on tags and printed everyone's pictures out and glued them to the tags so they looked framed.  This Christmas was total chaos and the cuteness didn't happen.  

But guess what.  The toddlers still knew who to give the gift to without the fru fru tags.  Yup.  So fire up the computer, pull up some photos, print, cut and tape to the gifts (I printed on plain copy paper).  Now ALL your family can get involved in the gift-giving excitement while you prop your feet up in the recliner. :) 

Enjoy!

{Tutorial} Buttons & Burlap Heart

My weekend project to help decorate my house for Valentine's Day! Very simple, quick, and cute idea for those of you with tons of buttons lying about the house.  Let's dive in and I'll tell you how to make your own!

What you need:

--Burlap Canvas - I purchase a two-pack of flat 8" x 8" burlap canvas board at Hobby Lobby for $5. This however, means it can't be hung unless you glue a ribbon hanger on it, so I'm using an easel.
--Paper to draw a template heart
--Scissors to cut out the template
--Pencil to trace on the canvas
--Buttons. I used tons of red and pink together. Old and new, too.
--Hot glue (I used high temp, but it did singe my fingers a bit!)

Since my canvas was 8x8, I used a sheet of 8x8 paper, folded in half, to make a heart template that would fit well in the middle of my canvas.  Cut it out, make sure you love it and then trace it in the center of your canvas very lightly.  I just eye-balled the center but you can get OCD and measure if you need to do so.

Thankfully, I had sorted out pink and red buttons from my piles, but Sweet Niece #2 helped mix them all back up... but get your buttons together and get an idea of what works by laying it out first on your canvas.  I promptly messed up my layout as I was gluing, but it still came out ok.   Then, grab those buttons with the tabs on the back because they fit in all the bare cracks well and start gluing a second layer.  If you see burlap peeking through, glue more buttons on top.

It really takes NO time at all to finish this! And hot glue dries so fast, it's set and ready to decorate your house as soon as you are done! I watched TV and glued like nuts and finished in about an hour. Not bad for such a cute project.

Hope you enjoy! If you try it, send me a pic, I'd love to see! B_covington (at) yahoo.com  Thanks ya'll!

DIY Gift Ideas

Ya'll know I started this blog as a play to show my scrapbooks for my Etsy company, Pressed Clovers.  But then I started doing other crafty things and putting pics up here, so it's turned into a crafty blog. 

When I started thinking of ideas for homemade gifts, I realized I had quite a few tutorials or ideas already posted on this website! Here are a few reminders and links to things I've posted in the past.

1)  The Christmas Scrapbook.  I make my mom one for her birthday on January 4th and print dozens of photos from Christmas for her to put into it immediately.  This way she hasn't forgotten any of the details and can have it ready for the next holiday season.  Don't forget to include the double sided stickers for the photos! (more photos in the link). Basically, each page has a place for a photo and is already decorated. All she needs to do is put in the pictures and write her memories.

2)  Photo Flower Pots.  While I made these for Mother's Day, I think it would be nice for Christmas, too. There are still flowers in the winter!  This isn't difficult at all and is completely personalized.  Print pictures on plain white copy paper and mod podge them to your flower pot. Easy Peasy!

3)  Monogram is all the rage! Many of us have tons of buttons laying about - buttons in jars, buttons in drawers, or in my case, buttons from a yard sale.  Tons of buttons. A quick run to my local craft store for a burlap canvas and some hot glue can turn buttons into beautiful monograms. Loved this gift idea! So quick, can finish it in an hour. 

4)  Teenagers! What about them? I wondered the same thing. Which started another one of my traditions - a scrapbook for my preteen niece.  With her, however, I buy lots of fun teenagerish stickers for to her decorate the book herself. I provided the book and basic layouts, tons of printed photos which all included her, and the double sided tape squares. She really impresses me with her creative ideas! This year, I'm giving her all the supplies pre-cut (mats for the photos and decorative strips of paper and tape, and stickers, of course) and letting her design the actual pages!

5) Toddler Artwork  This is my most favorite DIY project I've done to date.  Having my baby niece participate by "painting" four canvases and then I hand lettered the word LOVE on top. This is currently hanging in my bedroom.  Not keen on something that large? How about a small canvas or cardstock even, let them add a little paint and you add a monogram with a sticker!  Make it your own creation! :)

6) Baby on the Way.  New mothers or mothers-to-be... even grandmothers! love having these premade scrapbooks for the newborns most stellar moments.  The delivery day, the first day home, the first bath, baby sleeping - this provides a place for all those photos and will become a gift to the baby one day.  While baby boy is featured, just think pink for a girl.


I hope some of these ideas may inspire you to try a handmade gift this Christmas or into the New Year. Share your ideas with me, I'd love to hear them!

One More Fru Fru Pumpkin

It took me long enough to find the perfect pumpkin to make a Fru Fru Pumpkin for my house, but I finally saw it in a bin at the grocery store.  Huge fat pumpkins, so cute and so cheap! I fished around until I found the cutest of the "patch" and here it is.

I used the same materials as the pumpkin for my office (see it here) but added the cream lace.  I love the combo of burlap and lace, raffia and leaves, the blues and oranges - I  LOVE AUTUMN! And so there you have it.  My fru fru pumpkin for the year.  I regret I didn't do this on a fake pumpkin to have it for several years because I do love this combo of materials. *sigh*

Sooooo... what are you doing to decorate for Autumn?? Wanna share? I'd love to see!

The 2014 Fru Fru Pumpkin Reveal!

Each year, I make a "Fru Fru" pumpkin for the office and when it's time to send it on its way, I undecorate it and toss it into the back of the flower bed.  Finally, it took root and came back this year! So exciting!

Let me catch you up on the progression of this pumpkin - the plant (which for the longest time we had NO idea what was growing in this flower bed), then the pumpkin started showing up but was dangling outside of the flower bed!! We moved it into the bed and it really ripened quickly.  The bottom two pics were taken with 24 hours of each other. 

So back to the fru fru pumpkin - I hit Hobby Lobby last night (man, I love that store) and picked out what I wanted to do this year. And I'm in love with it. It cost considerably more than the dollar store finds I usually use in making these pumpkins, but it was SO WORTH IT when you see the difference. (By the way, I did a post earlier all about making Fru Fru Pumpkins, feel free to check it out for other ideas!)

TA DA!! I love the chevron and the blue/orange/burgundy combo.  The rustic colors and burlap just bring the look up a few notches compared to the dollar store glitter ribbon I've been using.  

This is last year's pumpkin with all items coming from the dollar store.  So this in total (not including the hot glue and stick pins) cost about $8-9 and will last several months. It will carry you through the entire fall season.  

I also did one a little tamer last year, still using dollar store items.  I bought a dish towel at the dollar store and ripped it into strips, fraying the edges for a more rustic look.  The fabric was too floppy on its on, so I used wide packaging tape along the back of one strip to form the bow shape.  I really liked this one, too. 

For today, I'm enjoying our new pumpkin in blue.  :)  AND I have enough decor left over to do another one for my house and I can't WAIT! We even have another pumpkin in our flower bed, so I may get two pumpkins for free! :)  If so, I'll show you how that one turns out, too. 

Ya'll have a lovely hump day! Thanks for joining me in my crazy fru fru pumpkin excitement!

{Tutorial} Pinned It Did It - LOVE Canvas + Toddler Art

I have finally finished this project that I've been working on for a while now.  Here is a former post where I was in the middle of it - and it includes the inspiration pin where I got the initial idea.  I cannot possibly tell you how much I LOVE this artwork! It's so special to me and makes me glow every time I see it. I'd call that a serious #success!

Let's start from the beginning of the project and you can see how easy it is for you to do with your own toddler. :)

WHAT YOU NEED: 
4 cheap canvases - I used 8 x 10 that came in 2-pks
4 cheap acrylic paints (you can really use whatever number you'd like)
small paint brushes for the lettering
computer/printer to print letters
Scissors to cut letters out
pencil to trace letters onto canvas
1 enthusiastic toddler

As I tell you how I did it, I'll give you advice on what I'd do different.  The inspiration photo had the word LOVE taped out on one large canvas.  I wanted four individual ones AND I wanted more definition in the font than tape would allow, so I decided to come back after the toddler painting and paint on my letters.

I let Sweet Niece #2, who is barely 2-years-old, enjoy finger painting the canvases.  She would call out which color she'd want and I'd squeeze it directly on a canvas and she'd smear like crazy.  What happened, however, is she over smeared and I have large patches of brown/grey.  I think if I did a redo, I'd leave out the orange OR only use one color per canvas.  It didn't really matter to me, though, she had fun and it still turned out cute.

I pulled this picture above into a photo editing program to see what it would look like with letters painted on top, to get an idea of fonts and colors.  This is what I ended up with to work from:

Using this as a guide, I found a font that was very similar and printed single letters that would fit in the 8 x 10 canvas.  I cut them out and traced them very lightly onto the canvas.  Thankfully, I have smaller brushes and was able to do a decent job of keeping everything neat while painting the letters (see photos at the end for the actual letters on canvas.  Remember the one above is typed on with a computer program).  As I was doing this, I kept thinking Cricut letters would probably work just as well. I did measure the distance from the top of the canvas to keep everything even. I eyeballed to get them centered from the sides.

I used the original four colors of acrylic paint and thought by adding black, I could achieve this slightly darker color that would stand out from the background.  THAT DID NOT WORK.  Every time I would end up with a grey color that blocked all the pretty color out... not good. Like a Grey Pink, Grey Green - not a darker version of the original color.

This looks like DUSTY ROSE, not my favorite color! 

See what I mean about the grey colors in this pink and the green above it? It didn't really darken it like I was thinking it would do.  So instead I used a base that was darker than the original, then added some of the original color to it - like hunter green and added the lime color to it.  That seemed to work out perfectly!  In the photo below, I used the top green, and the bottom three colors of blue, pink/red, and orange.

By making them several shades darker than the background, you could really see the letters.  This pink below wasn't quite dark enough - I ended up going back over it with the darker pink/red and I liked it much better.

Original pink 

Darker pink  Don't you think it looks better?

So here are the side-by-side views.  The left I typed onto of the photo just to get an idea of what it would look like.  The right I painted on after tracing the letters to the canvas.  Not bad! 

And here is the finished product on my wall in my bedroom! LLLLLOOOOOVVVVEEEE it!!! Having my baby sweet niece's artwork as the background makes this so precious to me.  I think I may do another smaller version of this for Christmas gifts this year... what do you think?

I hope you'll try it and please share with me! You can email me at b_covington@yahoo.com. I'd love to see your own masterpiece! :)