Friday Freebie - Mother’s Day goodies

Today’s freebies are some lovely goodies made for Mother’s Day. All these freebies are very versatile and would be great for other themes too.

Nicole at Sugarplum Paperie always makes beautiful kits and generous freebies. You can get her Mother’s Love freebie kit here. While you’re there be sure to get these cool word art frames too.

MGLscraps also has a wonderful Mother’s Love kit that coordinates with Nicole’s freebie.

Over at the Shutterfly blog they have some fun Momtourage papers and a quickpage designed by Emily Powers, of We Are Storytellers. Kitty Chen, who is also a designer at We Are Storytellers created these Momtourage elements to download too.

Happy Friday!! XOOXO ~ MamaSheg

Ribbon ring review & RAK

I’ve been looking for the ideal way to store my ribbon and have finally found a solution that works!! Here’s my review of the Ribbon Ring.

What I’ve done in the past
I’ve tried the cute approach of using wood bobbins and storing the ribbon in jars. This was not practical, nor could I see all the ribbons easily. And it was just a pain to get in and out of the jars. It looks pretty. This option seems best if you don’t really want to use your ribbon. I also tried the Pull-ez. I didn’t buy one, rather I opted for trying to make one myself. I didn’t like having to smash all the ribbons down to add more and sometimes they came out of the holes. The whole thing was really messy. I even tried wrapping the ribbon around cards, but the ribbon would get wrinkled and I then would have to iron it.

Ribbon Ring to the rescue
Simple, practical, and pretty. You hang your ribbon on little plastic {pull-through} tags and put the tags on a metal ring! I purchased the 60 ribbon tag bundle and 3″ metal rings from Ribbon Ring and absolutely love it!! This was more than plenty to clean up my mess of ribbon. I was able to thread small scraps and really long pieces of ribbon, up to 5 yards on a tag. They recommend you cut your ribbon into 1 yard lengths and use the inventory dots as an indicator that you have more of the ribbon. But I didn’t use the inventory dots as the tags hold a lot and you can put more than one piece of ribbon on a tag. I love how the ribbons look just hanging there, a nice rainbow of inspiration. I can easily grab all my ribbons and thumb through looking for what I need. The pull-through tags are high-quality and the plastic is flexible yet sturdy. Good stuff!

How I use it
I sorted and hung my ribbon by color. For each color group I used a 1″ ring. After I had all my ribbon sorted I put all of the 1″ rings onto the big 3″ ring. Having everything sorted by color makes it so quick to just grab the particular color{s} I need. I can lay the ribbons onto my project looking for the ones that look best without having to take them off the tags. It’s so efficient and organized, I love it!! The ribbon also doesn’t get bent and wrinkly. It’s also very portable, I can easily toss a couple rings into my crop bag and the ribbons stay in place on the tags.

I love it!!
I highly recommend the Ribbon Ring. Simple, practical, pretty, and affordable! The starter set is just under $10. To clean up my mess was only $20 and I still have a bunch of tags left for when I buy more ribbon. And now that I’m organized, I see that I’m lacking in the area of green ribbon, LOL.

*** Win a Ribbon Ring starter set ***
Guess what….I have a brand new Ribbon Ring Starter Set to give-away! All you have to do is leave a comment on this post to be entered. The winner will receive one 2″ metal ring, 30 ribbon tags and 15 inventory dots!! I’ll draw a winner next Wednesday, May 21st. Please only one comment per person, open to US & Canadian shipping addresses.

What’s coming up…

Hi there my friends! Just wanted to give you a heads-up on a few things I’m working on.

• A product review that I’m very excited about!!

• An awesome give-away for all you organization and ribbon fans…you won’t want to miss this one! I’ll be posting the RAK tomorrow.

Craft projects and a kitty appt

• I’m making a mini {Girls of the World} album for my niece. You can get the free download of these cute images here, at Allison’s website. The picture shows my colored images, the download is black and white so you can color them in.
• I’m also making an altered box to hold Nika’s hair clips. Hoping to finish this soon; will post pics when it’s done.
• I’m off to take this guy in for his yearly checkup and shots.

XOOXO ~ Cathy

Cute altered soup cans

I searched around for altered soup cans and found some cute examples. I’ll give this project another try! Check these out…

Over at the Splitcoast Stampers gallery, nitestamper posted an awesome altered soup can.

The Wetcanvas forum has a really cool example, made by Inkfulthinking.

At the Easy Craft Projects website there is a free downloadable PDF on how to make your own altered soup can by Anna Louise Bowkis.

The Imagination Project blog has some really cute altered soup can lids. I think this is a really clever idea for making page embellishments.

Here’s a fun altered soup can by Cindy at the Reflections blog.

Show & Tell - Altered soup can

I made this altered soup can and it didn’t turn out very well. I think I’ll name this my spastic-mess altered soup can! It started out really cute and when I put modge podge over it everything got all messy and junked up. The base paper got all gooey and my fingers stuck to parts of it, and then there were torn paper patches from where my fingers were stuck. I was about to toss it and instead went and whined about it to my honey. I hand cut all the flowers and was feeling really bummed that I ruined it. Later this afternoon I decided to try and fix it. I made some of my sea-urchin funky flowers to hide the torn paper patches and also glued on some more stuff.

I can’t decide if it’s just ugly, strangely inspiring, or just waiting to be tossed. I’ll think I will let it hangout for a bit, see if it grows on me…or maybe grows something. I’d love to hear your thoughts. I made a poll so you can share your opinion. The poll doesn’t work in the blog readers, please click here if you want to add your vote.

Don’t worry, I have no way of knowing who votes. Be honest, I can take it. XOOXO

Friday Freebie {bonus} - build a bloom

My friend Beth just sent me this freebie find and it’s so awesome!! The {build a bloom} kit by Christina Renee Designs is packed with tons of goodness. This freebie kit comes with 17 flowers, 9 stamped stems, 7 leaves, paper, 12×12 frame and a stamped overlay! It’s absolutely beautiful, I love it.

Get the Friday Freebie *This download is hosted on 4shared. Be sure to wait for the file to upload when you get to the site, and then you can download it.

Want more Christina Renee Designs? She is having a store sale, everything is 30-50% off until May 11th! You can also find more of her fabulous freebies here.

Friday Freebie - ScrapDreamie Tutorials

There were a lot of places that offered online classes and tutorials for NSD. I found a ton of really cute and fun projects. One place that has really inspiring ideas is ScrapDreamie. Below are links to the tutorials they put together for NSD. I just love their designs and projects, so cute!!

All of these tutorials have PDF downloads with great photos and tips for the projects.

• Fun {sisters} layout
• 3D ATC
• Freestanding layout
• Sewing on layouts
• Paint your own background
• Recycling & reusing found objects
• Mini album

Check out my previous posts for more NSD classes from Two Peas and this class from Creating Keepsakes.

Have a fun and crafty weekend!! XOOXO ~ MamaSheg

Show & Tell - Alki Beach layout

I just finished this page for the local scrap-a-latte club. This is my favorite layout I’ve done so far…funky flowers, bling and my two favorite people. I’m really liking the look of silhouettes right now and love how this photo looks with the filter effect. I played around with photo filters using Color Efex Pro.

I love how the funky sea urchin-like flowers {not sure what to call them} came out. I used some of my repurposed coke can and coffee sleeve die cut pieces to create them. You can see my previous posts on creating these here and here. To make these funky embellishments I used a die cut flower and curled up the edges with a bamboo skewer. Once I had the sea urchin-look, I cut up a sticker to make the circle center and adhered with a foam dot. The large black flower has a piece of used sandpaper layered in there, punched with a scallop hand punch. The smallest flower has a coffee sleeve die cut circle underneath. It was fun playing around with different things to make these little creations. I like how different they look and also the dimension they add to the page.

Products used

• Patterned Paper {Little Yellow Bicycle}
• Patterned Paper for small flower {My Minds Eye}
• Cardstock {DCWV}
• Gemstones {Paper Studio}
• Adhesive {Scrapbook Adhesive & Ultimate Glue}
• Foam Dots {3M}
• Alphabet Stickers {Basic Grey}
• Eyelets {Crop-A-Dile}
• Die Cuts {Sizzix}
• Scallop punch for large black flower {Stampin Up!}
• Photo Filter {Color Efex Pro}

Two Peas NSD classes

Two Peas had a whole bunch of fun online classes for NSD. Below are links to the classes. There are project sheets you can download that have great step-by-step photos and instructions, some have templates too. Lots of good tutorials!

• Perfect Paper Accents - Shannon Tidwell & KI Memories {great accent ideas}
• Artsy Paper Scene - Loretta Grayson {**love this one**}
• Things I Love About Spring - Layle Koncar & Scenic Route {2 page 12×12 layout}
• Scrap Green - Tia Bennett {paper making and other fun ideas}
• Paper Piecing: sk8ter boy - Kelli Crowe {wonderful how-to…I’m a fan of this technique}
• Mother’s Day Card - Heidi Grace & Fiskars {pretty card and easy to make}
• Cutting Shaped Edges - Sharon Laakkonen & Prima Marketing {love this one!!}
• Celebrating Mothers in May - Joanna Bolick, Joy Uzarraga and Maria Grace Abuzman {good photo tips for taking pics and touching them up}
• Digital Labels - Cherie Mask {make your own custom journaling labels}
• Handmade Paper Mini-Book (Scrap Green, Part 2) - Tia Bennett {Tia’s projects are always so unique and cute, love it!!}
• Customizing Photoshop Elements 6.0 For The Digital Scrapbooker - Patty Debowski & The Digital Scrapbook Teacher {good stuff}
• It Must Be - Maria Kress & Sassafras Lass {adorable 12×12 layout}
• Hybrid Scrapbooking: Cards - Rhonna Farrer {great tutorial}
• Beginner Digital Scrapbooking - Erica Hernandez {excellent for anyone interested in digital/hybrid}

CK past/present/future class

For NSD Creating Keepsakes did a really neat online class. The projects is for a past/present/future album. It’s really creative and such a cool idea. I really like how they presented the class with video instruction and made the project manageable by breaking it down into sections. They provide several files to help you complete the project too. Check out the project in the video below and click here to see the complete class with all the information on how to make this wonderful album.