Desktop Calendar 2010

A friend asked me to make her some 2010 calendars. Looking through my stuff, I found some spiral stand-up photo albums that had 12 pages! Perfect! I found a 2010 daily planner that had a tiny calendar for each month. I copied it onto my printer and then enlarged it 200%, then cut out each month. I made up 12 different 4 x 6 pages to insert into each sleeve, using the calendars I printed. Finally, I unscrewed the spiral ring holding it together and removed the cover. I decorated the cover, re punched new holes and then screwed the spiral ring back onto the calendar, holding all of the pages together. I really liked how they turned out. Easy project that allows lots of room for creativity! Enjoy!

Pinkalicious Plaques

Another friend of mine, has two little girls. One of them loves pink as much as I do. I offered to make her a name plaque to put in her room. I called it Pinkalicous! Her other daughter wanted a clock with puppies on it. I started decorating the pink plaque, and then realized that I put the wrong name on it! It was too cute and I couldn't bear thinking of taking it apart, so I left it and made another one with the right name on it. I made the puppy clock a little later. The papers I used in both projects were from DCWV. The pink one was from a kitchen collection and the puppy one was from the dog collection. I used stickles to add some extra bling to each project. I absolutely love stickles. I've made a special box to hold all of my stickles and on the inside of the lid I have a sample of each color of stickle I have. Now I need to make an inventory sheet, so I know which ones I need to buy! I seem to use pink, black diamond and icicle the most. I also love Sakura glaze pens! They give the illusion of embossing, without the effort! I usually use the black and clear glaze pens the most. What is your favorite embellishment?

Altered Clock

I love to change my decorations with each season or holiday. I enjoy altering clocks to go along with my decor. A friend of mine asked me to make her a Rooster Clock. I had plenty of clocks, but I was stumped as to what to do for the Rooster. My parents recently sold the house I grew up in (sniff-sniff) to my dismay. They bought a new house that they absolutely love. I'm happy for them (sigh). The kitchen had a rooster decor when they bought the house. We went over there on Halloween, and I took some pictures of their wallpaper and framed pictures. I came home and printed them out on my printer, but they color was way off and the pics didn't look right. I consider myself an artist, and took about an hour to color and detail one of the photos. It turned out pretty good! I wanted to copy my new "art," but my printer was out of ink! The colors must have been low, that's why the pictures were so off in the coloring. I carefully cut out the rooster and the grass he stood in, and mounted him on top of a checkered tablecloth paper I had. I really liked how it turned out. When I get some time, I will remake the other poor copies of the rooster that I made. Enjoy!

Altered Tins

I absolutely love to recycle something old and turn it into something new and fun. I have taken old spice racks, painted them, added some BLING, and used them to store stickles or mini ribbon rounds.

Many moons ago, my son came home from Kindergarten and was just dying to get a Pikachu Pokemon card. That started an elaborate collection at our house. We had to "Catch Them All!" I learned the names of the pokemon and their evolutions, we have boxes of cards in English and Japanese. We've collected books, magnets, Burger King Toys, games, watches. We have had the Pokemon craze for a long time. I really enjoyed playing Pokemon with them too. As my son grew, so did his thirst for another game, so we learned how to play Yu-Gi-Oh, Magic, and World of Warcraft trading card games. We would spend a Saturday afternoon at the mall, or at Ron's to play in tournaments and we even travelled to Seattle to play in tournaments. Pokemon is still my favorite though. Now he and his brothers are into the online game of World of Warcraft. They spend hours a day playing online. They now have land parties in the basement. Their friends come over and bring their computers. We link up all the computers downstairs and they just play and play. I sure miss playing pokemon, I'm afraid to start WOW online. It is too easy to become addicted. This past weekend they were taking on another WOW team online and I kinda felt left out, I wanted to play too, but I don't know how...yet....

So, what does that have to do with scrapbooking? EVERYTHING! Of course I've painted Pokemon on their bedroom walls, scrapped their Pokemon parties, collected tons of Pokemon cards, decorated a giant jar to "catch" all their pokemon toys, and altered tins to hold their precious decks. I'm on a few scrapbooking groups online, and have found some other scrappers with kids into Pokemon. This last week I worked on making tins for their kids. I hope that they enjoy this activity with their kids as much as I have.

Supplies: Red, white and black paper; Black and yellow stickles; a tin (I prefer round ones, shaped like the poke balls); paper cutter; modge podge and foam brush; round punches 1" and 1 3/4"; red, black and white ribbon (optional); pokemon stickers (optional); black alphabets (optional)

Directions:
1) Lay your tin on top of a red or white piece of paper. I line it up halfway up the front of the tin and then fold it up (so I can cut 2 at once). Repeat for the other color. Cut them out.
2) Cut 1" strips of black paper (one for each side of the tin)
3) Punch out 2 different sized circles from white paper. Layer the white circles on top of each other.
4) Lay the red semi-circle on the top of the front of the tin and glue into place. Repeat on the back side of the tin.
5) Lay the white semi-circle on the bottom of the front of the tin and glue into place. Repeat on the back of the tin.
6) Lay the black 1" strip across the seam, joining the red and white semi-cirlces. Glue into place. Repeat on the back of the tin.
7) Lay the layered circles in the middle of the black strip and glue down. Repeat on the back of the tin.
8) Measure the width of the tin, and cut more black paper in that width. Glue around the outside of the tin. If you are using a tin with a latch, before gluing, gently press the paper around the handles, to make yourself a cutting guide, so that the paper will go around the handles easily.
9) Use ribbon, stickles, stickers, and/or alphabet letters to embellish your tin.
10) Fill it with Pokemon toys or cards, to give to a pokemon fan!