Large Accordion Paper Flowers

Yesterday I shared with you the decorations for my daughters Scrapbooking themed birthday party. Today, I wanted to share with you a tutorial for creating those large accordion paper flowers. To make one 12 inch flower you'll need 2 pieces of 12x12 patterned paper, a glue gun , some adhesive , a paper trimmer , and a Scor-Pal .

1.  cut 2 pieces of 12x12 paper in half so I had 4 pieces of paper measuring 6x12
2. score all 4 pieces of paper at 1 inch
3. accordion fold all 4 pieces of paper
4. attach all 4 pieces of paper end to end to create a long strip
5. attach the ends of the strip to create a circle
6. push the circle down in the center and hold it tightly
7. use a hot glue gun to adhere a piece of scrap paper to the back side of the flower to hold it all together

These large accordion paper flowers are so easy and fun to create. I can't wait to see what you will create with them.

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 (This post contains affiliate links, by purchasing items through these links you will not pay more for any of the items I will just receive a small percentage of the sale. These affiliate links help to keep my blog running and to support my family.)

Scrapbooking Tutorial

When I first saw Shimelle's line from American Crafts my jaw dropped when I saw the amount of patterned paper that was in the collection. There was a TON! When I was asked to create some projects for her blog I knew I wanted to focus on patterned paper. You all know that I adore patterned paper and I use it on nearly everything I create. I decided to focus on using smaller bits of paper; specifically small strips of paper. For all of the projects I created the strips were smaller than 1 1/2 inches. On Shimelle's blog today I have 5 ideas for using strips of patterned paper and I'm sharing one additional idea for strips of patterned paper here.

On this layout I put my border punches to work. I used most of my border collection to work. I just punched away on a bunch of strips, different widths and different lengths. I then adhered them to the background paper. I ruffled the edges a bit so the strips were not laying flat against the page.

I added my title at the bottom and journaling at the top.

The journaling on the layout talks about how sad my niece is when we drop her siblings/cousins off at school. As you can see she's devastated. Even though we've been doing this routine for weeks now she still cries at every drop-off.
Now, you need to hop on over to Shimelle's blog and check out the other 5 projects I created with strips of patterned paper.

Paper Crafter's Library: Scrapbooking Projects as Home Decor

Happy Monday to you! I'm so excited to show you the full reveal of the projects that I created for the Paper Crafter's Library. I've known for a few months that this feature was coming up and I spent a lot of time trying to decide what I would like to feature on their blog. I finally decided that I would like to share a set of layouts and a couple of different ways to display them.
I love creating layouts to display in my home. I created these three layouts of my kiddos to display in my living room. Displaying layouts in addition to or instead of framed photos is so much more personal. It not only tells the story of the photo but it also shows my passion for memory keeping and love for my hobby. The display doesn't have to be fancy, one way to display them just uses plain small clothes pins and a string. 

I love the idea of being able to switch layouts out as I create them. When I take these down I will replace them with newer projects.

The second option is displaying them clipped to a clipboard with the clipboard either hanging on the wall or on an easel.

 

Baseball
Supplies Used:
Patterned Paper: Crate Paper, Chipboard: Crate Paper, Letter Stickers: American Crafts, Enamel Dots: My Minds Eye, Die Cuts: Crate Paper, Flair: Studio Calico, Date Stamp: American Crafts, Adhesive: American Crafts, Shipping Tag: Office Supply, Sewing Machine: Singer, Thread: Coats & Clark, Stapler: American Crafts, Wood Veneer: Crate Paper, Cardstock: American Crafts, Pen: American Crafts, Ink: Clearsnap

 

This clipboard sits on an easel in my living room. I change out the projects that I display there often.

Third Grade
Supplies Used:
Patterned Paper: Crate Paper, Die Cuts: Crate Paper, Gems: Crate Paper, Stapler: American Crafts, Letter Stickers: American Crafts, Die Cut Machine: Silhouette, Digitial Die Cut File: Lori Whitlock, Adhesive: American Crafts, Sewing Machine: Singer, Thread: Coats & Clark, Enamel Dots: My Minds Eye, Vellum: Crate Paper, Shipping Tag: Office Supply, Flair: Panda Eight Designs, Metallic Paper: Chickaniddy Crafts, Gems: Crate Paper, Pen: American Crafts

His Little Bike

Supplies Used:

Patterned Paper: Crate Paper, Wood Veneer: Crate Paper, Chipboard: Crate Paper, Die Cuts: Crate Paper, Stapler: American Crafts, Washi Tape: My Minds Eye, Date Stamp: American Crafts, Enamel Dots: My Minds Eye, Letter Stickers Studio Calico, Acrylic Letters: Crate Paper, Font: Lori Whitlock Perfect Type, Sewing Machine: Singer, Thread: Coats & Clark, Adhesive: American Crafts, Flair: Studio Calico

Do you display projects in your home or do your projects go directly into albums? Or if you're like me do most of your projects go into very large stacks until there's no more room to stack them and then you finally spend an entire day organizing and putting projects into albums? ;)

Summer Bucket List Mini Album

Good Morning and Happy Thursday! After a very busy Wednesday I'm happy to be spending the day at home with my littles, cleaning, cooking, creating, and sneaking in a few minutes for a few snuggles and reading some stories. 
We're planning a nice quiet Summer; we'll be spending lots of time at home. Home with my little family is my favorite place to be.
Over Memorial Day weekend I created this mini album to document some of the things that the kiddos put on their Summer Bucket Lists. 

I let them each choose 10 things that cost little or no money and then when we have a lazy day at home we'll check a few of the items off of their lists and take some photos. 

I let them look at this list from thecraftingchicks.com


By the end of the summer they'll have an album completed with summer activities. 

I left lots of room for journaling because I want the kids to do the journaling. Now that most of them are old enough to write or even draw. I love hearing their side of the story.

I can't wait to read all the stories that will be in this little book. We don't do anything elaborate or fancy for Summer Vacation but we have a lot of fun and spend lots of time as a family.
What's your favorite family Summer activity?

Baby Boy and Baby Girl Card Sets

How good are you at gift giving? I'm not that good, especially when it comes to baby gifts. I never have a card on hand and I hate paying for a card. So, I decided I would make a bunch of baby cards some for baby boys and some for baby girls.

I created all of these cards with the My Baby collection from Imaginisce. This collection is divided into two sections one section with shades of blue and one section with shades of pink.

Let's start with the baby boy cards:

These cards are super simple. I just mixed and matched the pre made elements from the collection.

And here are the baby girl cards...

Now, next time I need a baby gift I have a card ready to go.

Thanks for stopping by today!