Categories
Earth Day eCraft

California Girl

“California Girls”

Well East coast girls are hip
I really dig those styles they wear
And the Southern girls with the way they talk
They knock me out when I’m down there

The Mid-West farmer’s daughters really make you feel alright
And the Northern girls with the way they kiss
They keep their boyfriends warm at night

I wish they all could be California
I wish they all could be California
I wish they all could be California girls

The West coast has the sunshine
And the girls all get so tanned
I dig a french bikini on Hawaii island
Dolls by a palm tree in the sand

I been all around this great big world
And I seen all kinds of girls
Yeah, but I couldn’t wait to get back in the states
Back to the cutest girls in the world

I wish they all could be California
I wish they all could be California
I wish they all could be California girls
-Beach Boys

In celebration of Earth Day, today’s project is proudly brought to you by Classic Beach Boys, Scraps and (almost) Trash! Doesn’t that sound like fun?!?!? Almost as good as Mom’s goulash, Mmmmmmm. LOL

My daughter has been close to the ocean her entire life and moving from California to Texas hasn’t stopped her from hitting the beach and collecting seashells. So when she brought home another bag full of them, I wanted to find a fun way for her to display them and wouldn’t cause her teen nose to turn up at it.



Here’s a close up of the fish in the back of the can… Not only are the fish adhered to the outside of the can; they’re also adhered to the inside front and inside back of the can too. My new Xyron 5” Creative Station and 1.5” Create a Sticker made my life SO much easier on this project! Curved surfaces aren’t the easiest to work with and since the can is clear, I didn’t want people to see the adhesive when turning the can around to check out all the shells. My Xyron was perfect for job! Even the fish were easier to manage after turning them into stickers.

The sea animals came from Lettering Delights and were cut from scraps of plain cardstock and then colored with watercolor pencils. The ‘paint can’ originally held Easter stickers for egg coloring and ended up being perfect for this project.

On the top of the can I added the date and location of where the shells were found and this also helped cover up the product label underneath. I needed an easy cover after using lots of elbow grease scrubbing off the label that was on the front of the can!

As a final touch, I added a picture of my daughter that was taken while she was collecting seashells. Its currently hanging on the side of the can with the handle going through the hole that I punched…

I think it turned out very cute…but more importantly, my daughter thinks it did too! 🙂

Categories
eCraft Paper Crafting Party Decor

Testing 1, 2… Testing…

“The Lazy Song”

Today I don’t feel like doing anything
I just wanna lay in my bed
Don’t feel like picking up my phone
So leave a message at the tone
‘Cause today I swear I’m not doing anything.
-Bruno Mars

I don’t have to finish the lyrics for you guys to know the rest of this song 😉 But I do have a question for all of you…How many of you can relate to ‘The Lazy Song’ when it comes to your eCraft?

With Easter coming up this Sunday I scoured the internet looking for cute things that I could whip up for a little egg coloring party for my daughter and her friends. I wanted something simple, but still bright and cheery and something that would add a little bit of whimsy since the party was for a bunch of teenage girls.

I gotta hand it to Martha Stewart, the woman is awesome! Her site is pretty awesome too…BUT if that woman thinks I’m going to trace a pattern on paper and then cut that shape out, she is seriously loopy!

Its not that I’m lazy, I just prefer to be efficient 🙂 So to save myself time and some precious sanity, I let Mischief do the work for me! lol See, its all about being efficient; delegating… things rolling downhill. *snickers* You get my drift. And even better when they turn out super cute! These Daffodil cups are easy – cut out your favorite flower a bunch of times, buy some mini baking cups, adhere them to the paper. I double layered the cups and used photo squares to adhere them which made assembly even faster!

And because no party is complete without goodie bags; I made the girls goodie bags and filled them with trinkets that would be useful while they decorated eggs. Once again I put my delegating skills to work and had Mischief create the tags for me.

She also made the ears for the Bunny Surprise balls; another craft I stumbled upon while cruising through Martha’s site… they’re cute – but don’t let that fool you! Those things were not as easy you think, especially when they’re taking longer then you thought they would and you keep dropping them and watching them roll across the room!

Now that you had a chance to think about my question, let me explain what I mean about being ‘lazy’ with your eCraft.

Those are the papers I used to cut out my daffodils. See how nice and clean those cuts are? I love clean cuts and I’ll bet you do to!



These are the other two papers I used to make my daffodils… Aren’t they pretty? I’d hate to mess up a bunch of that paper trying to get clean cuts.

How many of you noticed these cuts? Those are my test cuts; the first setting wasn’t right and you can see that the octagon didn’t cut cleanly. So I did another test cut and that setting was perfect. See, I used 3 different sets of papers to make my daffodils and even though 2 of them felt like they were the same weight, they weren’t.

Recollections paper cut great for me on a pressure setting of 2, the American Crafts paper was set to 4 and the Paper Studio paper was set to 3. Now this isn’t the first time I’ve cut with those brands and yet I still did test cuts. Why? Because its a new day. And I know that weather conditions in my area change daily and if mine change, I’m sure they change where these papers are manufactured too.

Michief is a phenomenal machine, but we’re partners. I depend on her to cut beautiful designs and she depends on me to make sure I’ve set her up for success. And that means running test cuts every time I use her…even if I’m pretty dialed in to what setting I’ll need depending on the paper I chose.