A door no more . . .

This post has absolutely nothing to do with card making but rather with DIY.  I wanted to share it. About two weeks ago we went to Walmart and I bought a magazine that had this idea in it and I asked DH if he could make one for me? He said he could but we would have to find an old solid wood door to make it out of.  On our way home we stopped at a thrift store and I found my door -- it is solid wood, really worn, and has a porcelain door knob with a metal plate behind it. Perfect for what I wanted built but we decided to buy a second door for DH to work on first. Having no pattern he had to figure this all out on his own and I must say he did a great job!

Yesterday we went to the Scrap Exchange in Durham -- where I bought these two Stampin Up punches for $2.00 each:

After we left the Scrap Exchange we headed over to the ReUse Warehouse nearby. This is a warehouse that is filled with house parts --- when they demolish the older homes this place buys anything they can sell to home owners looking for items with character. Real wood floors, wooden fireplace surrounds, claw foot bath tubs, kitchen cabinets, staircase parts, windows, doors, lights, tiles, hardware, etc.. Every time you go there you find something different. You leave with your new found items and all new ideas...

We went over to the aisle with all the doors and it was not long before we found this door and it was perfect --

This is a solid wood door and it was painted blue. I liked the colour as it gives the finished item a different look being a colour rather than cream or white. I must say it certainly did not take DH long to figure this all out and so he began -- first he lightly sanded the door, front and back, and then he cut the door apart so he would have three pieces. Once that was done he began his assembly. He wanted to use left over oak flooring from the floors he put in our house so he was able to put some oak scraps on his project. This is what the door looked like after he made some cuts:

Using the scrap oak flooring he made the seat for the bench:

He also put left over oak pieces on the arms of the bench:

This photo shows a side of the bench that he cut off the door:

This door did not have any hardware on it so it did not come with a door knob. DH has a box of glass door knobs so he put one of those on the door with a circle metal plate under it. He patched holes in the door from previous hardware. He also added molding to the top of the bench to finish it off:

When it was all built he then put poly on the oak arms and the bench seat. Here is his finished bench ready for use or if someone wants to paint it or whatever. It would be perfect in an entryway or a guest room or in a mudroom:

A HUGE thank you to DH for building this so quickly and for doing a great job with it. He is selling this one but his next bench will be ours to keep. Now my job is to sew a quilted pillow to sit on the bench he makes for us.  See below:

Here is a photo of the original door I bought for this door/bench and DH finished it this week. It is now in a bedroom and I am currently working on a shabby chic pillow for it -- roses and such in pinks with greens:

I put a pillow on the bench for the photo but I am making a larger pillow for it. So happy hubby made the changes I wanted --- bigger arm rests, molding at the top with a top piece across the door top, as well as cutting a deeper cut on the bottom of the bench back and sides. After I sew my pillow I will have to find something to hang on the porcelain door knob. Will try to remember to post a photo of it with the new pillow. This is a perfect size for a bench seat in a bedroom to sit and read or put your shoes on and such. A BIG thanks to DH for making this for me from a magazine photo only!! :0)

Also --

I wanted something to hang my purses on in the closet so DH cut a piece of wood and attached four different glass door knobs from his stash to hang the purse handles on. All I have to do is paint or stain the wood. This would be perfect to hang by an entry door or in a bathroom for towels. Happy to have the purses hanging and not laying on a shelf or in a bin. It is much easier to take a purse off the holder and change it out. Another thanks to DH for this holder! TFL

Love Valentine Card

Recently picked up the MFT (My Favorite Things) Stitched Heart Grid die set for Valentine cards. This is a two piece die set -- one die marks the stitching on your piece and then you cut out the hearts with the second die:

For this card I cut and scored the #110 weight white card stock from Mikes with the score line at the top of the card. Using hearts printed card stock from Hobby Lobby I cut a piece for the card front. Put the hearts card stock onto the white card stock base using the ATG. Set this aside.

Cut a piece of Mikes red card stock to the size I wanted for the card front. Cut a piece of white/GP card stock for the front piece that I would be putting the hearts on. Using painters tape I taped the stitched line die onto the white/GP piece. Ran this through the die cutting machine. Removed the tape and the die:

For my card I used four colours of card stock for my hearts. I cut those all out and then used one of the scrap coloured card stocks that I cut the heart die out of as the pattern to keep the hearts straight and level over the stitched lines. Used painters tape to keep that in place:

With that in place I used a glue pen on the stitched lines as I went along and put the hearts into the scrap piece. Did one heart at a time. With all the hearts in place I pressed down on the hearts to be sure the glue pen would adhere to them and set it aside for a few minutes. Once that was dried I carefully lifted off the coloured die cut piece off the hearts.

Used a dollar stamp from Mikes and red ink and stamped "love" below the hearts. Put this piece onto the red card stock piece using the ATG. Put this piece onto the white card stock base using pop dots. Added clear Wink of Stella to the "love" greeting. Pinched the hearts together so they give the card front some dimension. This photo shows the sparkle from the Wink of Stella on the greeting:

:
Easy die set to use for this card. As usual the MFT dies cut nicely. Just finished another card using this die set:

For this card I used a "love" die and cut that out of red foil card stock. Used a glue pen to put this onto the die cut piece. Also cut out a red foil heart and added that to the bottom of the die cut hearts. To be able to use the word die on the bottom of this white panel piece I measured the word die and cut my white panel a little longer than the first card I had made. Easy card to put together. The foiled card stock added some shine to the front of the card. TFL

Pink Valentine Treat Bags

Just finished decorating the front of pink paper gift bags from the dollar store for the gals at work. Was not sure what to decorate the front of the pink bags with until I saw these napkins also from the dollar store:

Once this napkin is opened up it can be used to decorate four of the gift bags:

I opened the napkin and cut it into four panel pieces using scissors. Once that was done I peeled off the white backing on the napkin pieces. Using GladWrap, (not the "microwaveable" type), I adhered each napkin section to a piece of white/GP card stock cut a little larger than the napkin piece using an iron. Once cooled I put the napkin piece onto the flat gift bag and decided to trim it to the size I wanted for the bag fronts. Trimmed them all to size using the trimmer and I then sponged the edges of these pieces using red ink. Here is a photo of one of the gift bag fronts:

I cut white paper doilies from Mikes in half and put a half doily at the top and bottom of the napkin panel piece. The stacked pink and red glittered hearts at the bottom of the napkin panel are also from the dollar store. I stacked the glittered hearts using glue dots and put them at the bottom of the napkin panel piece using tear and tape.

For the bow at the top of the napkin panel piece I used red card stock from Mikes and cut out a gift bow using the Stampin Up Gift Bow steel ruled die. Added a small heart to the center of the bow using red glittered card stock and a heart punch by Marvy. Put this heart onto the bow using a glue dot.

The greeting "Happy Valentine's Day" is a older stamp from the dollar bin at Mikes. Used red ink for that and a circle punch to punch that out. Used a larger circle punch for the red card stock circle behind the greeting piece. Put this greeting onto the napkin panel piece using large glue dots. Here is another bag and for this one I used a red paper doily from Mikes:

Made five of these gift bags and am now working on finishing the candy treat holders I will put inside the bags.  TFL

Birthday and Bundle

Just bought the February die bundle release from  www.ourdailybreaddesigns.com and here that is:

As does many online stores ODB has a "free gift" if your order total reaches their required purchase. Here is my "free gift" -- a small die and stamp set:

Using Stampin Up Pool Party card stock I cut out the gable box die from the bundle set. This die set cuts nicely and it has a nice design on the front, back, and sides of the gable box:

The above photo shows the very top of the gable box is also die cut with the design that is on the rest of the gable box.

Used a clear window sheet and measured and cut a front, back, and two side pieces for the inside of the box. Put the clear pieces on the inside using red sticky tape. Assembled the box and put white paper shred from the dollar store and mini candy bars.

Here is the birthday card I made to go with the gable box:

White card stock base is 110# card stock from Mikes, again used the Pool Party SU card stock. The embossed front piece is white/GP. Used the SU Confetti embossing folder and embossed the front piece. Used a sponge and put Pool Party ink over the embossed design:

Sponged with a lighter touch from the center to the edges -- made a banner piece for the "Celebrate" die. The balloons are also a die set from OBD and I sponged the edges of those. Used a thin bow die and cut the bows from silver foil card stock:

Very nice quality of their dies and certainly a good deal buying their pre-order die bundle. TFL

Inside Out Valentine Treat Holder

To begin with I recently saw a video by Dawn Griffith on Youtube for an easy Valentine Treat Holder:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ma-CbBYD3a8

Her video is easy to follow and she explains two different ways to make her treat holder using two different sizes of card stocks. Here is a photo of the treat holders I made using her pattern and tips:

I used the same card stock she suggested -- the new 6" x 6" paper pad "Sending Love" by Stampin Up. This paper pad has many patterns for Valentine's Day but remember many of the patterns are directional so be sure the front or back of your holder does not have the patterned paper upside down. Dawn suggests buying the 3" x 6" Gusseted Cellophane bags from Stampin Up. Their bags are sold in a set of 25 bags for $4.50, plus tax and shipping/handling. That can total over $12.00. I did not want to pay that amount of money for 25 bags..

In the past I have ordered treat bags and clear envelopes from:

www.clearbags.com

I ordered item #GB6 which is 100 of their 3" x 6 1/2" cellophane bags. With tax, shipping/handling, I paid $10.40 for my order. I ordered these these bags on Jan 26th and they were delivered on the 28th. My Stampin Up orders always take a week or so to get to me so having these bags delivered so fast was a nice surprise.

Also for my holders I used a different greeting stamp than Dawn did. Mine is a garage sale stamp I picked up for 50 cents and it is by Hero Arts. All my treat holders have that greeting on them. I used the Real Red ink from Stampin Up but there was a problem -- I have two different Stampin Up Real Red ink pads. One is the linen ink pad and the other is their new foam style ink pad. Problem is both ink pads, in the same colour, stamp in different shades of reds:

For these holders the foam pad on the bottom was a better red for the printed papers I used. I stamped all my greetings onto white/GP card stock using the foam Real Red ink pad. Used the 1 3/4" circle punch and punched out the greetings. Using a 2" circle punch I punched circles from white and red glittered card stocks. Put the greetings onto the glittered card stock circles using double sided tape and TomBow glue. Set all of those aside to dry. Once dried I used the multiple hearts punch from M Stewart and punched out hearts from the red and white glittered card stocks. Here is a photo of that punch;

Using mini glue dots I put the smaller hearts on the greeting pieces. I used large glue dots and put the greeting pieces onto the treat holders above the circle windows.

Cut my printed card stock as Dawn instructed. Used the 1 3/4" circle punch for the windows on the front of the holders. Used the 1 3/4" circle punch and then punched over that with a 2" circle punch to make all the glittered circle frames over the windows. Used the TomBow glue to put the rings over the treat holder windows. Set those aside to dry. Using a small Marvy heart punch I punched out hearts from the glittered card stocks and put those hearts on the treat holder front to the side of the window using glue dots.

Since my cellophane bags are 1/2" longer from ClearBags than the Stampin Up bags I trimmed off 1/2" off the tops of my bags using sharp scissors. I used large glue dots and put my greeting circle above my circle window. Dawn has her greeting pieces and decorative pieces on the outside of her bags but I wanted my greeting on the inside of the cellophane bags so I put the greeting pieces on the front of my holders first. I filled my bags with 6 pieces of candy, slid in the front/back treat holder piece and I stapled the bag shut at the top as she suggests. These treat holders can lay down or be free standing. Here are some more photos of these holders:

Thanks to Dawn for an easy treat holder and for the new way to use cellophane bags -- on the outside of the holder rather than on the inside of the card stock treat holder. These went together very quickly and are as simple as Dawn shows in her video. TFL

She had me at "Hello" . . .

She had me at "Hello" but lost me with the how - to's . . . .  I had recently seen a cute Valentine treat box from France Martin "Frenchie Stamps" on Youtube -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Snx04Ln7Dm4

I will say I am old enough to share that the calculator we used in school was the pencil... No Texas Instrument calculators.... I know my "tables", fractions, and the like. . . .   Who would have known way back then I was prepping for card making ???  haha.... Here is a photo of my version of Frenchie Stamps Window Sheet Slider Box:

She totally lost me with all her measurements and off to her blog I went and the printed version was not much better. I thank Frenchie for sharing this too cute Valentine treat holder using chocolate candy hearts. In her video she used Hershey chocolate candy hearts but I had already bought the smaller Dove chocolate candy hearts so that is what I used. I still made the treat holder the same size she made hers and the smaller hearts fit in the box.

To begin with --- in her video she uses the Stampin Up score board. I do have one that I had picked up used but my "go to" score board is the one from M Stewart. Once I figured out measurements for my holder I made two of them -- one using the Stampin Up score board and one using the score board from M Stewart. My measurements work fine for both treat holders using the two different score boards.

Since I had to figure things out myself I decided to use my white/GP card stock to make up my samples until I was able to get the right measurements before I used my double sided card stock for my treat box. For the actual box that holds the candies I used some of the measurements she has printed on her blog. Once I knew these score measurements would work I then used my double sided Valentine printed card stock by BoBunny and cut the piece I needed for the box cutting a piece of card stock 6 1/4" by 3 1/2". With the 6 1/4" edge at the top of the score board I scored this piece at 1/2", 1", 5 1/4", and 5 3/4". Turned this with 3 1/2" edge at the top of the score board and scored that at 1/2", 1", 2 1/2", and 3".Using the bone folder I creased all my scored lines well. Using scissors as she instructs on her video I cut the corners of my box -- this is what that looks like with corners trimmed away:

I do not use liquid glue to put boxes/treat holders together. Instead I use tear tape. To begin assembly of the box I used a glue dot on all four corner tabs and folded them in. Then used the tear tape for the ends and sides of my box:

Before I had put the tear tape on the box sides I folded it up and I ended up "shaving" a hair off the edges of the long sides of my box with the trimmer so the sides had a sharper shape if that makes sense.

You can use glue dots under your candies to keep them in place but since I have four smaller Dove candy hearts in my box I did not need the glue dots as the candies stay in place. With the actual box completed and filled with candies, I set that aside.

Now for the window sheet slider cover. I had to make this from scratch and after my second try what I changed worked. Using my junk trimmer, (the one I use to cut plastic and other non card stock materials), I cut a piece of window sheet 4 3/4" by 4 3/8". With the 4 3/4" edge at the top of the score board I scored it at: 1/2", 2 1/8", 2 5/8", and 4 1/4".  I used a piece of the tear tape and put that across my 1/2" side -- unlike Frenchie the only scored line I used my bone folder on at first was the 1/2" scored line where my tear tape was. Here is a photo to show the tape on that edge but the photo is not great -- I have ceiling lights in my craft room and they reflect a lot on the clear window sheets but here that photo is:

I removed the paper strip from my tear tape and folded up the other edge of this clear sheet holder to close my window sheet sleeve for my box. Once the two edges were adhered together I used the bone folder and creased my scored lines on the clear sheet. Once all scored lines were creased the window sheet sleeve began to look like it should. Again here is a photo of the window sheet sleeve over my treat box:

This window sheet sleeve easily slides over the treat box. To decorate my treat box top I used a piece of red ribbon from the stash -- it was the ribbon that was tied on a pajama set for Christmas. I tied that around my closed box and tied a bow. Trimmed off the ends using scissors. Put a glue dot under the bow to keep it in place on the slider sheet box cover. My glittered red heart is from a bag of glittered hearts at the dollar store. I used a smaller heart punch and I punched out a smaller heart using red foil card stock and put the foil heart on the red glittered heart:

The two hearts were put on the window sheet sleeve using a glue dot.

This is a simple box with a window sheet sleeve for a cover. I thank Frenchie for sharing her idea for a new Valentine Treat Holder and a new way to use window sheets. ** See below

** Decided I would make another of the Window Sheet Slider boxes to see if the Hershey Nugget candies would fit and they do:

And with the window slider sleeve sliding off the box for opening:

Since the Hershey nugget candies are higher than the Dove hearts I was not sure if the window sheet slider top would fit over them but it does. The box also holds four of the Hershey candies so I put in two solid chocolate and two chocolate with almond nuggets. Wrapped them with card stock from Mikes. Again with this holder I used a glittered foam heart from the dollar store with a red foil card stock heart on top of that on the window sheet sleeve. . I put the hearts on the box top using glue dots. Tied a red ribbon bow around the box and added a glue dot behind that.  TFL

Pillow Box Punch Board Pocket

Had seen the video from Papercrafter45 on Youtube using the WeRMemoryKeepers Pillow Box Punch Board:

The video is easy to follow and no sound so be sure to have paper and pen in hand when watching it so you can write down measurements and tips. Here is the link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cI8hYfI2el0

Here are two of the Pillow Box Punch Board Pockets I made:

They hold a Fun Size candy bar. I used glittered foam hearts from the dollar store for the hearts on my treat holders:

For the greeting I used the Stampin Up Teeny Tiny Wishes stamp set and the Stampin Up Classic Label punch:

I also used double sided card stock for my holders. So another cute treat holder and a good use for the Pillow Box Punch Board other than just a Pillow Box in different sizes. Thanks to Papercraft45 for sharing their idea and video. TFL

Many Thanks Thank You Card

Made a few holiday thank you cards. Cut and scored the card stock bases. Set those aside.

For the solid white card stock for the card front I cut that 4" x 5 1/4". The stenciled piece measures 3 3/4" x 5". I used a stencil from the stash and stenciled it onto the smaller white piece using distressed inks. Once all the stenciled pieces were complete I used a stamp from the Gina K Designs stamp set Lots of Lines and stamped that onto the stenciled piece using the MISTI and Memento black ink. With the stamping done I used the ATG and put the stenciled piece onto the solid white/GP piece. Cut a piece of ribbon wider than the card front and put that across the card front using double sided tape on the back of the stenciled piece. Using the ATG I put the stenciled piece onto the card stock base.

With the card assembled I cut a small piece of ribbon and tied that over the ribbon piece into a knot. Secured that using a clear glue dot. Added three sequins to each card front. Here is a photo of other cards I made using different inks:

Easy card to put together and the sequins add just a little sparkle and shine to the card front. TFL