A little bird told me...

Hey all!

Whoa - where does the time go!?!?  It's been 11 days since my last post (how can I let that happen!) and I've been just busy as ever!

I have done a bit of crafting here and there, and I do have projects to share, but it's all to be posted later on, so I had nothing to share... until today! Last night, I finally managed to make a card, my first ever tag card! I've seen so many pretty ones online, and I wanted to try it out! I used a tag from SVG Cuts Tags Galore SVG Collection, but they's also many tags here as well. All you have to do is to attach two tags side by side and weld it together.

This whole card was inspired by Unity's one of a kind stamp set (Melody Ross - her art work is beautiful!).  The feel of the set is vintage and cute, and was shouting out October Afternoon to me.  Have I told you that I LOVE LOVE LOVE October Afternoon?  I have pretty much all their paper lines, and I can't even use them because it's so pretty and I want to keep them just the way they are! I had to force myself to cut these up! lol...

So, I used my 5 & Dime papers (except for the paper inside the card is from Rocket Age), my crinkle ribbons and cotton lace, my Papertrey Ink Chai ink, wooden spool, twine... all sorts of things that seem to fit the style.

And so, here's the card!



I thought that it would be really cute to use the bird, but use it under a layer - in this case, behind a window. In case you're looking for windows to use on your cards, this SVG Cuts file is perfect (Townhouse Windows SVG Collection). It has 6 different types so you can always find a perfect one to use for your card! (Mine is the first one in that set)



My fave part of this card is of course the curtain rod - made of wooden spool and dowel covered with lace.



I've also been into paper piercing the stamps. (Yes, I do have Copics, and I am STILL planning on using them, but this gives it a clean and simple look to the appearance of the stamp.)





The button that you see here is my custom made button from Epiphany Crafts using Round 25 button.

...and inside the card is this prettiest sentiment. I kept the inside simple, to allow space to write a message on the card. It never makes sense to me when  I buy a card and it's so busy inside, and I don't know where to write my message... or worse yet, I RECEIVE one of these cards with busy inside and     you have to go looking for a sender's name... squished into a corner...Does that make sense? Personally I like cards that have more than just a name... (I got the perfect branch from the Strawberry Lane SVG Collection!)



Anyway, that's it for you today!
Thanks for stopping by!

This site is under construction...

Well... no.  Not really.  Just thought that it was a cute name to give my latest project.

So, I was inspired.  This new kit that SVG Cuts just released is darn too adorable, and made me wanna play with it.  I knew that this was up my son's alley and I HAD to show it to him.   Of course, his reaction was "I wanna have this!" He loves yellow.. anything yellow, so another A HA moment for Thienly... make him one of construction trucks....  Well, the easiest one that I was able to think of was a dump truck.  I'm not attempting to make a bull dozer, or not going anywhere close to a crane truck.

Thus, late last night.. (the usual crafting time for me)... I was making a toy for my 5 yr old son... and kept telling myself what a cool mommy I am... even though I'm yawning and my bed was calling out my name.  I wanted to surprise him in the morning, and I wanted him to be excited about it just like when he saw Mary's version of the truck.

Anyway, here it is!



Cute, isn't it? Clear windows, jewel brads for lights, it was all too fun to make!



Isn't that the cutest dirt you ever saw? I actually wanted to take some rubber mulch from our playground for photos, and my son insisted that that would get it dirty and he didn't want that. So... paper dirt it was! I cut little pieces of paper and scrunched it all up... I must've done couple hundred of these. Here, you can see my labor of love upclose :)



So... you're asking... does this dump truck can actually dump? Yes! The original file had a open box at the base of the truck... I closed up the box, and added another box on top! I had the PERFECT washi tape (black stripe) so I used that to connect the box to the truck.  Whoa! I'm hearing that you wanna try this? Well... I've designed these parts, and you can simply download them to add to your kit! (see below)

See my dump truck unloading...



Whoa - that's a whole lot of dirt!



You know another cool thing about this? The door on one side opens! This one, I just had to cut manually out by hand, but my son loved it! He now wants me to make a paper construction guy to put inside! What have I got myself into? lol...



... and of course, I had to insert a black paper folded into a 'seat' inside.

Speaking of construction sites, you need some signs and pylons. The signs were made just using octagon and rounded triangle from the basic shapes in my software, but the pylons were made from the party hat in this kit. It was just perfect as the sides that flip out was used to adhere to the rounded square base. (This rounded square base is also in the download.) The party hat was cut at 2.730" wide.



So, to make this - I used the new kit: Ryan's Play Date SVG Kit and Jonathan's Bears SVG Collection. I made the truck the recommended size in the PDF, and the tires came from the second kit under the 'Construction Bear' file. The tires were cut at 3.00" (cut 2) and cut a smaller yellow circle and embossed it with Clockworks Cuttlebug folder.

The parts that you'll need to make this is found in this download - Dump Truck Parts.

When you first open the file, ungroup.  The first one should be cut at 2.853" wide by 3.718" high. This is the part needed to cover the open truck of the original file.

The second one is the actual 'dump' box and you'll find that one side will be longer than the rest. Score it at 0.5" and 0.75" from the end which will hang over the truck front. This should be cut at 5.476" wide by 5.307" high.

The last that you'll see there is for the base of the pylons. (Pylon dimensions noted above)

Okay, sorry to make my post long.. but just had to give you more inspiration going back to my past 'construction' ideas...

Here's a party hat that I had made last year... here's the blog post to that project.



...and here's a construction party invite idea, and the post can be found here.



Anyway, hope you enjoyed seeing my little truck. If you ever make one, I'd love to see it...

So... to end this off... guess what my son said. He asked me next to make him a garbage truck. GAHHH!!!

Every inch of you...

Happy Weekend! Hope that you're enjoying this terrific weekend.

Just thought that I'd share a quick card that I whipped up really REALLY late last night... I think that I was wired.  My hubby went to bed at 11pm... and think that I wasted an hour just browsing things online... then, I decided to be productive and make a quick card.

I pulled out my fave Unity stamps again and decided to focus on Simple Stories stamps.  I been liking a lot of their images that have been coming out and realized that I have a few sets that I can probably pull something off.  So, here it is - using 4 different sets.



It's on a simple side, (thus Simple Stories) but if you realize... each of these rulers were stamped separately and connected together.



I stamped them on 3 different sheets from Echo Park's Note to Self papers and cut them out. (Do you like these papers??  You can get them here and with coupon: modpaperie - get additional 20% off!)





Aren't these Unity stamps cute? They are:
Sweet Paper Pals Itty Bitty
Love Every Inch Itty Bitty
generations
year.o.graphy calendar

So, that's my card for today!

Vintage Carnival Ferris Wheel - SVG Cuts DT project.

Hello all! Thanks for all the amazing comments today on the SVG Cuts FB wall! Usually I have my posts ready to go and post it here when the project get posted on SVG Cuts blog, but this time, I was a little slacker! lol... and today was incredibly hectic and stressful day I didn't get a chance to edit my photos til now.

Anyway, yes, I had an A-HA moment.  Purse + Wheel = Ferris Wheel.  All of a sudden. It came to me.  I had to make this right away and I was so excited about it.  I love feeling excited about my project.  Having this enthusiasm for my idea sitting inside my little brain makes it so much easier to bring it to life.

So yeah, here's my project.



Ooooh, isn't it so fun? I've been wanting to make a whole carnival outta paper and this is step number one for me. The roller coaster thing is a challenge though - how would I possibly do that? Okay, let's put aside that worry for now.

Well, here's more pics. I just LLLOVVE burlap right now. So much that I would even consider getting them for my walls! I love the natural look of it, the color and the texture it adds! If you haven't used burlap - you've got to get them! Like NOW! :) You'll be so glad you did.



Of course I had to add my lovely Epiphany Crafts Round 14 epoxies here... makes it all pretty! I love how it fit that 25 cents perfectly inside that circle. So fun!



I love these ticket strips and I've been so excited since Mary created them. I finally got to use them! and those lovely flowers from Happy Birthday to You SVG Kit always adds so much to my projects :)



This is what each of the 'cars' look like... this is the perfect place to add some jelly beans or candies... (just make sure that you balance them - if one side is heavier than another, it'll be weird). Oh, and putting 'Little People' from Fisher Price would be too cute for a kid's carnival birthday.



I made the back even pretty, too - made a 'stopper', but made them with flowers!



If you are considering making this, this is not the prettiest of all photos - my ferris wheel kinda got crushed by the time I took this pic, but it'll give you an idea of how the 'stoppers' and 'spacers' go...



So, to make this, I had to create my own 'ferris wheel base' out of Simple Shapes Library on my Ecal software and lucky you - it's available to download it all ready and made as an SVG! You can download it on the SVG Cuts blog post under dimensions. Here's what it looks like:



Okay, ready to see something ugly? Well, for those of you that think that I whip up things in the first try, that's always not the case. Here, I was playing with the idea of ferris wheel and attached 4 'cars' just to see what it looks like. I sent this off to Leo and Mary and the rest of the design team where I got the 'go' to actually try it out.



Ugly, isn't it? The 'cars' were too big, so I sized that down a bit...

Then, I grabbed these papers that I had them for a while... thinking that it'll work just perfect for this.  Was I wront! I thought that I was making my final project... until I put it together and egh. These were totally not my colors. So blah. No contrast. Just wasn't me.



Then I was blessed with the new paper line from Echo Park Graceful collection and that just worked like magic. It got the ball rolling again....

Anyway, to make this - these are the collections you'll need:

September Afternoon SVG Collection (the big wheel comes from here)
Sunny Weekend Purses SVG Kit (Julisa's Purse is the 'cars' on the wheel)
Doilies SVG Collection
Everyday Cards SVG Kit (pennants)
Party on Elm Street SVG Kit (ticket strips)
Happy Birthday SVG Kit (lovely flower)

... and head on over to the blog to get the actual files, dimensions and instructions to how to make this!

Anyway, this post is kinda getting long...  thanks for stopping by and oh, I just finished my NEXT project for SVG Cuts - so I can't wait to share that one as well!

Have a great day everyone!

The Birthday Book - Epiphany Crafts DT Project.

Hey all! I'm back today with another project for Epiphany Crafts.

This week over on their blog - we were to create anything using Die Cuts With A View (DCWV) papers. I chose on a Celebrations stack because it had variety of papers in there that seemed like fun to work with. It had journaling tags, borders, lots of graphics and fun colors.

Pretty much what you'll see on my project is all hand cut - and tried to make use of this stack to full extent. The only thing that I've cut out on cutting machine is the rosette, the stars and the scalloped cover. Otherwise, yup - all the graphics you'll see is EVERYTHING that you get from this Celebrations stack. I added in an occasional twine and washi tape.

Anyway, here's my project!



 It's a Birthday Book! I made a little keepsake album where you can write in all your memories of your special day! I was thrilled to make this book after I saw all the keepsake tags in this stack. So this rosette that you see here is a file I got from here, and embellished it with circle/stars, and tickets from the stack. The ribbons that you see here are actual ribbon graphics that I cut out from the papers. Yeah, so easy! I also used the EC Pennant 25 to add some dimensional ribbons. Oh, and I also added a couple of beads for fun, from Blue Moon beads.



Instead of a regular little book, I decided to make it into an accordion album that opens up! When you open up the book cover, this is what you see! (I kept the album closed by adding in a little circle with an eyelet where I can twist the twine around it)



...and when you pull the pages out - this is what it looks like:



Fun, isn't it? And now, you'll see each of the pages upclose and personal! Lucky you!



You'll see that I've added an Epiphany Crafts shape on each of the pages! I used Epiphany Crafts Shape Studio Round 14, Star 25, Pennant 25 and Oval 25.







So you like? Wanna make something like this? To make the album:

1. Cut 3 pieces of cardstock/patterned paper 12" wide by 5" high.
2. Score each of those strips into thirds, marking a line at 4" and 8" wide.
3. Fold each strip so that it looks like "Z" when viewed from the top.
4. Glue one panel of one sheet to another panel of another sheet. Connect all three sheets. This forms the 'accordion'
5. Cut another sheet 11.5" wide by 5.25" high (I added scalloped edge to one end).
6. Score at 3", 3 3/8", 7.5" and 7 7/8" wide (If you have a decorative edge, mark from that end). Fold to form a book.
7. Adhere the 'accordion' inside the book.
8. Make a decorative embellishment for the front. I made a rosette and decorated it. Adhere to the book.

That's it! Easy! Hope you give this album a try! It makes a fun little gift, too! Thanks for stopping by! Have a superbly crafty day!

Head on over to their blog - they are giving away AMAZING package of  Epiphany Crafts and DCWV/Moon Beads goodness!

In the direction of your dreams.

Hello!!!

Well, yesterday, I've decided to call it a free play day for me and created a card using more of my Unity Stamp Company stash!  I love these stamps so much, I think that I need them all! lol... No, seriously, the artwork in these are amazing, and makes it so fun to work with!  After this, I'm getting down to my next SVG Cuts project and gonna get it done, which I can't wait to share as well!

I'm just loving the variety of projects that I've been working on...  loving the modern style of course, a bit of vintage touch, a 3D project here and there, a card every so often, and now, I'm actually attempting to sew a bit! lol...

Anyway, today is a card and made it a little vintage-y.  I used Distrezz-it-all to roughen up the edges, and used Papertrey Ink Vintage Touch Dye inks.



Don't you just love this quote? It's just simply beautiful! and so inspiring!



In the corner here, I used washi tape, and I also just curled up the edges a bit to make it a little worn. This washi tape, I got it from an Etsy store - Le Box Boutique - and they sell washi tape by the foot! Clever, isn't it?





Oh, and another exciting purchase is the fiber strip that runs on the bottom of the card. It's also from Le Box Boutique and it's natural sinamay! (Which I don't know what it means! lol...)



Unity Stamp Company products used:
All About the Journey (quote, arrow and plane)
Travel Notes (map, ticket)
Sweet & Sour Soup (stamp)
Worn Grid (background)

Okay, that's it! I'm off to work on my big project now!

Oh, speaking of vintage - have you purchased your weekly dose of SVG Cuts? Mary has done it again with her amazing Attic Treasures SVG Kit.  There's the curio box (which I just LOVE) and another 3D book, a scrapbook page, and cards. Make sure you get them while it's the free gift of the week! (with purchase of $9.98 or more and coupon code: FREEGIFT)




Okay, TTYL!

Felt iPhone case - Epiphany Crafts DT project.

Happy Monday!

I just had quite the stressful morning over here... nothing major, but just one little thing over another, and was almost late to pick my son up from preschool! AND... on top of that, I swear - I had this post all written up and ready to go - and it's all gone!

Anyway, here I go - I'm back to share another project for Epiphany Crafts again with you all!

This week, we are to make anything Easter or Spring related accessories.  The first thing that I thought of making was hair pin/clip... (and I even bought clips for it, and changed my mind...), and then it went to brooch, and then little purse... anyway, I scrapped all my ideas because I decided to make an iPhone case!

I had these beautiful scrumptious felts from Papertrey Ink sitting inside my drawers for almost couple of years now, and waiting to be used.  There was never a perfect occasion to use them, and when I wanted to - because the felt size is pretty small, it just wasn't big enough.

So, here's my lovely case that I made:



Okay, you see this little hand stitching?  This is a big, BIG DEAL to me.  You will not catch me stitching a button or anything close to that.  I just simply cannot stitch.  I HAD to stitch my hubby's buttons on his jacket a week ago, and felt so proud... only until he pointed out to me that I had sewn it right through his pocket and can't use the pocket anymore... Oops! I have yet to fix that! lol...

Here are up-close pics of my case. I used Epiphany Crafts Shape Studio Round 14 with Vintage Setting from Tea Room to make a sun!



I also used Epiphany Crafts Button Studio Flower 20 to make flowers, of course!



I used zig zag scissors to cut felt to make grass. The big pieces of felt measures 3.25" wide by 5.25" high and are blanket-stitched together. I left 0.5" opening from the sides as well, to allow easy use of the case.



Anyway, that's it! Hope that you enjoyed my little project today, and for further inspiration on more accessories, go visit Epiphany Crafts blog for projects from my fellow design team members.