Get your paint on! Practical Scrappers magnetic board project!

Our challenge this week over at Frosted Designs was to create a project using acrylic paint. What fun! I love getting my paint on - particularly when my six year old daughter isn't there to "help" me! LOL!

Here's a pretty cute and relatively easy holiday gift idea.

I picked up a magnetic sign from Target's dollar spot a few months back - not because I liked the sign particularly, but because I thought I'd one day, eventually, alter it.

I used the Perfect Day papers from CTMH, as well as CTMH Just Blooms, Create-A-Shade Pearl Paint, CTMH Rub-Ons, a little bling & Stampin' Up Chocolate Chip Ribbon. I love how it turned out!

I painted one of the huge Just Blooms flowers with the pearl paint, then ink distressed another in matching ink and painted over that, too. I thought about making it as a gift, but it's another of those projects that I'm not sure I'll part with.

Lots of layouts!

My goal for the scrapbook weekend was to catch up on some of Andrew's baby album. He turns 10 this year, so I figured I should get the ball rolling if I want his album done by the time he graduates from high school!

I used a lot of old pictures, making me miss my chunky monkey baby of a boy, but I also used a lot of old papers and stickers that I've had almost as long as he's been alive. It made me feel so happy to finally be using some of my excessive stash.

Silly Little Mess uses some alpha stickers that I got forever ago at Target - I think that they're ColorBok. You could tell they were really old because I had to re-glue all of the letters to actually have them stick to my page. The dimensional stickers are from Sandylion - also from a long time ago. The pictures of that silly little boy? He wasn't even three yet.

I don't scrapbook in chronological order, so this next page is just from last Christmas. Here Andrew's on the slopes with his uncles. Cardstock, stamps, inks & rub-ons are Close To My Heart. The patterned paper is from My Mind's Eye - and I've only had it for 1 year!

I think this is my best layout from my scrap weekend. I could not even guess where the papers came from, but they were double-sided and I've had them for ages. I added some fancy-dancy little star brads from Stampin' Up and the title is in alpha stickers from Doodlebug Designs - both recent purchases.

I also tried doing a few pages of the sweet girls in my life:

Here's my Sophia - girl getting all grown up. We got her ears pierced (finally) right before last Thanksgiving. The lady who pierced her ears was a little crazy and convinced that Soph was only 3 (she was actually 5) and kept telling me that I was going to scar her for life. That should have been a red flag, right? No, I'm stubborn and made her go ahead and pierce my baby's ears. On the first ear, she got her rubber glove pierced too, and had to remove the whole earring and re-insert it into the new hole after she removed her glove as my daughter's accessory. The second ear, the gun got stuck on the earring as it went into Soph's ear, and it took some wrestling to get it off. Poor girl. But through it all, Soph didn't cry or so much as whimper. She was so brave!

This page uses Close To My Heart patterned papers, ribbon, stamps, ink & flower, cardstock & brads from Stampin' Up, photo corners by Martha Stewart and sparkles from Wal-Mart. The crown & title are from the Cricut Storybook collection.

I don't know about you, but sometimes I'm most creative in the middle of the night. That's where this page came from of my beautiful little niece, Kaelee. Everything here minus the buttons and pen are Close To My Heart. The die-cuts are from last November's Dazzling Die-Cut campaign. I ripped the bottom of the "T" - it was late, after all, but hid it with a flower so it's all good.

More fun old pictures! Here's Sophia and her uncle (no joke), my youngest sibling Max from a few years ago. Little Max is such a gentleman! Papers are from the Life Delights line from Close To My Heart. I cut out the big flowers from one of the patterned pieces to add as embellishments. The white flowers are also Close To My Heart. Photo corners are Martha Stewart and rhinestone swirls and flower centers are from Wal-Mart.

This last layout uses more stuff from my stash. Here Andrew is enjoying his new bike that he got for his fourth birthday.

By the way, all of the very limited journaling you see on these pages are done with the Bic Mark-It permanent pens. They are ultra-fine point, acid free and come in TONS of colors. I've heard them called the poor girl's Copics. My kind of pens!

Snowman Soup

Here's another fun gift idea.

Since it's Thanksgiving and all, some of you may have some of the glass jars that gravy come in. I ran mine through a sanitizing wash with my dishwasher, then filled with bulk hot chocolate mix and mini marshmallows.

I painted the lid with CTMH's Create-A-Shade Pearl Paint, covered the edges in fine glitter, and added a big CTMH snowflake rub on and bling to the top once it was done.

For the front, I used CTMH's All Decked Out to make the snowman and added two brads for buttons. I attached the little guy with strong double-stick tape adhesive that I picked up at Wally World. though you can't see it, I added some of the snowflake swirlies from the stamp set along the top and bottom edge of the jar using Cotton White StazOn. The ribbon is some that I picked up on super-cheap clearance a few months ago at Target. I also added some bling as snowflakes to tie in the decorations on the lid.

More Clear Items!

I'm on a big clear kick lately. (Not that you could tell, right?)

Here are some gift tags that I made with re-used packaging from something or another, plus CTMH rub-ons, the Aspen cTMHpapers and stamps.

My favorite is the giraffe - he's so stinkin cute!