Valentine's Day Paper Bag Album Layouts

Lisa and I had a blast getting together last week and making about a dozen of these love and Valentine's Day themed mini albums for our MadAboutScraps shop.  I am personally going to use one for preschool Valentines Day Party photos.  Kamille might also give one to her preschool teacher as a Valentine's Day Gift. 

 I made a pocket by cutting the mats in half on a diagonal.  I used gems to make it look like it is attached with brads.

 I layered up some prima flowers for dimension and used a large brad for the center.

 I love to embellish my tags with some simple stickers. 

Instead of using ribbons for the pull-out pocket pages, I used stickers to create a tab.

Calendar Tutorial Roundup

I thought that it would be a fun idea for New Year's Day to put together this roundup of cute calendars you can make yourself. 

Nancy Morgan over at Paper Smiles made this adorable desk calendar tutorial.  I just love this.  This idea would really make a nice addition to your Christmas Cards.  You could even use a photo instead of the stamping.  For all of my sewers out there, you could use charm squares instead of the card stock for the accent papers.  How cute would that be.  By the way, you should really check out the Paper Smiles blog if you love papercrafting.   It is loaded with great ideas.

Catherine Cote at CeeCee's Creations made this great mini calendar tutorial.  Everyone knows how much I love minis.  This would really make a fun little project to tuck into stockings for next year or a great teacher gift.  Plus, I am seeing a scrap box project here that might help me get rid of all of those tiny scraps of card stock I am currently hoarding ;).   

Kelly over at AllThingsMadebyKelly made this totally fun little desk calender tutorial.  I especially love that she used recycled materials to create it. This would really be a fun teen project.  Just add some cheap stickers and they could really glam it up.  I'm also thinking that you could put a scrapbooked photo mat into to front of the cover so that it could be a little photo frame after the year is over. 

Angela Fehr from Scraps From My Table made up a tutorial for one of my personal favorite calendar projects, the cookie sheet calendar.  I have probably made about 20 of these.  None of them have looked as nice as hers and I made them a little differently (I used my xeron magnetic cartridge to make magnets). 

Naptime Crafts made this really sweet countdown calendar for Halloween.  I think that the same idea could be applied to any holiday or birthday.  Click here to check out the countdown calendar tutorial.

Christmas Mini Paper Bag Album Tutorial

Now that Christmas is over with, it is time to start organizing all of those Christmas photos.  I thought that I would share one of these adorable little mini paper bag albums Lisa and I made up.  We used black bags - $2.99 at Michael's over buy the wrapping paper.  You fold 2 or 3 bags in 1/2 and then stitch down the middle with your sewing machine.  You can also punch holes and hand stitch it together or tie it together with ribbons. 

 We decorated each page with a little photo mat cut from card stock. 

 Then we clipped in various little embellishments.  I really like variety so there are stickers, titles, and die cuts in this mini album.

 For the pull out pocket pages, we stapled a die cut onto a square of card stock.  It makes the book look bigger and fuller. 

 For a final touch, I wanted a more vintage feel than ribbon.  I got 3 different colors of raffia and tied that around the spine instead of ribbon.  These make really nice stocking stuffers or little thank you gifts for after Christmas.

Some Fun Party Hats

New Year's always makes me think of party hats.  Plus, everyone who knows me knows I LOVE hats, esp mini hats.  So, here are some great party hats for many occassions.

This first set of hats is from Girl Inspired.  This is by far one of the cutest blogs I have come across.  Mostly owing to her great choices in fabrics. 

Kamille would die for these Olivia inspired party hats from SweetMintStudios.

This Cookie Monster hat from BabyBoydBlog is SOOO cute.

Some Fun Little Winter Sewing Tutorials

Ruffles and Stuff posted this totally cute sewing tutorial for a scarf applique t-shirt dress.  I would probably make a couple of changes - like maybe using some cute charm pack for the scarf and possibly doing the dress in a darker color t-shirt because Kamille trashes white within minutes.  But, it is so cute.  I will be making one. 

Happy Together put together this little scrunchy scarf sewing tutorial - it's more of a how to than a step-by-step photo tutorial of how to scrunch up scarves.  Basically, you stitch with elastic thread in the bobbin of your machine.  She used a straight stitch down the scarf, but when I did this before, I did a zigzag across the scarf.  Try different patterns to see what you like.  Anyway, this is a great project to remake scarves you may already have.  Another nice thing about this concept is that it really shortens the scarf.  So, you could take an adult scarf and make it shorter for a child. 


Look Ma, No Patterns came up with the great little tutorial on a simple muff pattern.  I do like a nice old school muff.  It is especially nice for holiday portraits.  Plus, these are very simple to sew.  She uses fleece, but you could easily sub faux fur or upcycle an old real fur coat you make have in the closet. 

Free Caramel Corn Tutorial

See Margueritaville Caramel Corn and 1000's of others - or share your own on Cut Out + Keep

Inspired by an Autumn Day

'Autumn Warmth' by c1h8r9is

Celebrate the warm colors of fall.

GATHER TOGETHER Aut... bekahjennings $28.00	Boutique Pumpkin Pa... LullabyLamb $28.50	Harvest Gold Leaves... sunflowerexpre... $25.50	Fall Time Charm Bra... juicejuice $30.00
Fall leaves hair bo... BeesBowtique $6.50	Fall Orange and Yel... ArtfullySew $8.00	Fall Chocolate Mix ... happydessertti... $6.00	woodland harvest co... cardinalhouse $29.00
Ginger Orange Gift ... SatinandBirch $10.00	September Special -... Raceytay $35.00	Autumn is magic - P... movezerb $8.90	24 Fall Sugar Leave... sweetpetalbake... $28.80
Pick 3 - Crochet Co... Sweetbriers $10.50	Colorblocked in Cha... CamilleStar $59.00	Fall Harvest Dress ... sarahandjane $50.00	Autumn Celebration ... PhoenixFinery $15.00

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Turn on the oven and bake a batch of these awesome fall cookies. They also give directions for these adorable felted pumpkins.

Check out the free tutorial for fall leaf cookies on Country Living.

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That's it! I'm getting these kids bundled up and going out for a fall leaf hunt as soon as I'm done here!!!!

This free tutorial for how to make roses from maple leaves is amazing and totally free! Life doesn't get much richer than this!

Thanks haha.nu!

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Here's a really easy and fun fall pumpkin free tutorial from Make and Takes.

This is a great site full of tons of useful ideas! Head on over and check it out!!

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Here's another way to honor the beautiful colors of fall.

Head on over to Build/Make/Craft/Bake to get this free tutorial on how to make leaf prints.

How fun!

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Check out this fall paper bag scrapbook album.

What a fun way to house all of those new/old memories of autumn!

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Happy Crafting!!