Rolled Paper Monogram Project

Close To My HeartChipboard, F, Grateful Heart, Initial, letter, Monogram Letters, papercraft, Papercrafting, Rolling Paper 6 Comments

From nurseries and dorm rooms to wedding gifts and everyday gifts, or even your own photo gallery, a rolled paper monogram is a fun way to personalize any given space. For today’s tutorial, we paired one of our chipboard monograms with the beautiful Grateful Heart paper collection.

Step One: What are you making and in what colors?

The very first thing to do is to figure out what you want to spell out, if not just a monogram, and in what color motif. For color coordination made easy, stick within one of our paper collections where the papers and accessories are purposefully designed using the same color palette. If you’re looking to mix things up—say you have some older papers from previous collections that you want to combine with some of your newer stash—the new Love of Color book is a great place to look for color combination ideas.

Step Two: Gathering your supplies.

For this project, other than paper and chipboard letters (and some basics like a ruler, paper trimmer, and hot glue gun), you will need a small dowel pin to wrap your paper around. The larger the dowel, the larger the paper rolls will be. As you are choosing a size, consider that tight rolls are not only harder to achieve but will also create smaller straws, meaning you will need more paper to cover your letter(s). In our example F, we achieved those tight rolls you see using a 3/16″ dowel. It took a total of 40 straws to cover the entire letter.

Step Three: Cutting your paper.

To know what size to cut your paper, measure the width of the letter(s) you are covering and then add 1/8″. Our F has three different widths at three different points. The long side is 2 3/8″, so those papers were cut 2½” wide. The top rung is 4 7/8″ wide, so those papers were cut 5″ wide. And the pieces for the bottom rung were cut at 4¾” because the letter itself measures 4 5/8″ wide. You don’t need very much paper to roll, lengthwise, so be conservative and stick around 2″. Our final pieces measure 2½” x 2″, 5″ x 2″, and 4¾” x 2″. A little tip for when you are cutting your paper, think about the pattern orientation. Make sure that when it’s time to roll your paper the pattern will face in the direction you want it to.

Step 4: Rolling your Paper.

We’re up to the fun part! Grab your pieces of paper and roll away, one by one. Start by wrapping your paper around the dowel and then, while holding the ends with your fingers, rolling it into a straw. If you are using a small dowel, you will want to have a misting pen handy. When the roll is too tight you run the risk of cracking the paper and exposing the white core. If you see this happening, and it’s not the look you are going for, lightly (lightly!) mist your paper with a little bit of water to give it some flexibility.

Rolled Paper Monogram #ctmh #closetomyheart #ctmhgratefulheart #fall #autumn #monogram #papercraft #rolledpaper

When you get to the end of your roll, secure the paper in place with hot glue. Hold it for a few seconds as it bonds and then carefully remove the dowel.

Repeat until all of your paper is rolled into a bunch of colorful gorgeous straws.

Step 5: Attaching your rolled paper.

With a hot glue gun, attach each of your rolled paper straws, one at a time, starting at the top and work your way down.

Your straws don’t have to be perfectly rolled or exactly the same size for the end product to still look awesome. Take a look at this side view of our perfectly imperfect F.

Have we got your creative juices flowing with this one? We’d love to hear your ideas in the comments below!

Recipe

Monogram F
X7237B Grateful Heart Paper Packet, X6027 White Daisy Cardstock, X6002 Espresso Cardstock, Z3238 Gold Glitter Paper, X7237C Grateful Heart Complements, Z3418 Chipboard Monogram—F, Z3386 Thin Cuts—Block Alphabet, 3/16″ Dowel, Hot Glue Gun

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November 6, 2018Inspiration

31 Memories to Capture This December

Close To My Heart 2 Comments

From photos to journaling and everything in between, it’s no secret that at Close To My Heart we love and value all things to do with memory keeping. One approach that is especially popular this type of year is the photo-a-day method, where you take a photo every day based on a specific prompt for that day. With all of the magical moments that inevitably happen around the holidays, December is a perfect time to take on this style!

To help you fully embrace this memory keeping method, we’ve had a beautiful 6″ x 8″ pocket-scrapbooking album designed especially for the upcoming season. With room for photos and journaling on every page, The Days of December album is specifically designed to capture each day of the month, from the first through the thirty-first.

Our goal with this album is to take the work out of memory keeping so that you are completely prepared to enjoy the memory making part of the season. In addition to providing instructions to create the entire album (check out all of the completed layouts here), we thought we could help you fill its pages as well! Here are 31 prompts we’ve come up with to inspire your journaling and photography this December.

Use these prompts in order, one per day, or switch them up to make the list work for you! Whatever you do, enjoy the moments, make your memories, and then look back on them in a beautiful album time and time again.

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November 1, 2018Celebrate, Community

Fund Your Fun, Plus a Giveaway!

Close To My Heartbenefits, business, Celebrate, CMTH Cash, consultant, creative sessions, creativity, extra cash, friendship, Fund Your Fun, giveaway, moments, New Consultant Kit, november, preserve, relationships 151 Comments

We show you how to celebrate relationships through discovering your creativity,
to preserve and share the moments that matter most.

This is what it’s all about at Close To My Heart. We believe that preserving and sharing the moments that mean the most to you is so important, and with Close To My Heart, you can do that in creative ways you’ll treasure and look at over and over again.

If you love scrapbooking, cardmaking, and papercrafting as much as we do, November is the perfect time to become a Close To My Heart Consultant with the Fund Your Fun special. You can join us as a Consultant and take advantage of extra CTMH Cash to spend on products of your choice. That means when you sign up during November you’ll get the same amount of CTMH Cash as the cost of your New Consultant Kit, and you can use that CTMH Cash to purchase your choice of products like paper packets, cardstock, stamp sets, stamp pads, and more! Plus, you enjoy all these other great benefits:

Discount on your favorite memory keeping products
Be your own boss
Set your own schedule
Build lifelong friendships
Attend events for business training, product training, creative sessions, and more
Make money doing what you love!

The group of ladies in the page below is creating with brand-new product at our North American Convention last June. Can you imagine getting to see and use new product before any one else?

Consultants not only have an amazing business opportunity and get early access to new products, they belong to the Close To My Heart family. This is a special group of people that supports and encourages you however you decide to use your Close To My Heart business, whether it’s to fund your own crafting fun or to reach other goals. Either way, you can have “fun with friends” while you create and celebrate the memories and relationships that matter the most to you.

To help you scrapbook your favorite crafting moments with friends, we are giving away FIVE Solid Classroom Alphabet stamp sets! You will love using this large alphabet stamp set in your scrapbooking, just like we did in the Raspberry title on this page. Enter in today’s giveaway by following these two steps. First, make sure you are a subscriber to the Make It From Your Heart blog. If not, just click on the blue “Subscribe to list” button in the sidebar. Second, leave a comment below telling us either what you love about your Close To My Heart Consultant, or what you love about BEING a Consultant! You have until noon (MST) tomorrow, November 2, to enter.

The Fund Your Fun special lasts only through the month of November. Just click here to become a Consultant and start your Close To My Heart journey!

Recipes:

12″ x 12″ Fun with Friends Page
B1638 My Acrylix^® Modern Typewriter Alphabet Stamp Set, E1042 My Acrylix^® Outline Classroom Alphabet Stamp Set, E1043 My Acrylix^® Solid Classroom Alphabet Stamp Set, X7238B Oh What Fun Paper Packet, X6007 Lagoon Cardstock, X6027 White Daisy Cardstock, Z3271 Archival Black Exclusive Inks™ Stamp Pad, Z2812 Raspberry Exclusive Inks™ Stamp Pad, Z4304 Loose Sequins—Silver, Z4222 Hello Pumpkin Shapes, Z4216 Raspberry Baker’s Twine, Sewing Machine

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October 30, 2018Celebrate, Create

The Tooth Fairy’s Other Job (with Free Matchbox Template)

Close To My HeartBone Folder, Embellishing Thread, gift box, Halloween, matchbox, Oh What Fun, Seasons Mix-in, template, Tooth Fairy Leave a comment

We all have a pretty good grasp on what the Tooth Fairy’s primary job entails. A child loses a tooth, leaves it under their pillow at night, and then, while the child is soundly asleep, the Tooth Fairy magically appears to collect the tooth and replaces it with a prize. But, she can do so much more!

Being in the tooth business, one of the Tooth Fairy’s other jobs is to help us keep our teeth sparkly and clean. To do this, the Tooth Fairy not only will trade prizes for lost teeth, but also for candies and treats. If your little ones are planning on doing some trick-or-treating this week, considering leaving some of their stash out at the end of the night for the local Tooth Fairy. Depending on her mood, who knows what prizes she will leave behind?! (An inside source has let us in on a little secret, too—the bigger the stash the better—so don’t be stingy! 🙂 )

Now, here’s a note for the local Tooth Fairies reading this. We understand that sometimes prizes get overlooked or even lost before children get the chance to find them. We’ve got an easy solution for you. Place your prize in a decorative matchbox, and make sure to leave a note!

This little box is approximately 2″ x 1½” x ½”. Download the PDF template below and use it to make your very own!

Download Template.

Here are some basic instructions, which are also printed on the downloadable PDF file, along with a few additional photos.

1. Print and hand trim template

2. Trace template on cardstock and patterned paper
Tip: Use cardstock for the drawer and patterned paper for the accent and outer case.

3. Cut along solid lines; score and fold along dotted lines
Tip: Create score lines with a straight edge and a bone folder.

4. Fold the insides of the inside drawer in on themselves while tucking the tabs into the folds of the shorter siders
Tip: Attach the sides with adhesive to keep them in place.

5. Attach inside accent paper

6. Fold case and attach where it overlaps
Tip: Wrap it around the drawer before attaching to ensure a good fit.

7. Embellish as desired

If you are not in the tooth collecting business, this little box can certainly come in handy for all sorts of occasions. From Halloween to Christmas, birthdays to everyday treats—you just never know when you’ll need a cute little box for a small gift!

Recipe:

Tooth Fairy Matchbox
C1730 My Acrylix^® Just a Little Something Stamp Set, X7238B Oh What Fun Paper Packet, X9000 Seasons Mix-in Paper Packet, X5994 Ballerina Cardstock, X5990 Carolina Cardstock, Z2812 Raspberry Exclusive Inks™ Stamp Pad, Z4213 Silver Embellishing Thread, Z4304 Loose Sequins—Silver, Z2060 Thin 3-D Foam Tape, Z2089 Glue Dots^® Micro Dots

3″ x 3″ Tooth Fairy Note
C1730 My Acrylix^® Just a Little Something Stamp Set, X7235B Boutique Paper Packet, X5994 Ballerina Cardstock, X5990 Carolina Cardstock, X6027 White Daisy Cardstock, Z6505 Carolina Exclusive Inks™ Stamp Pad, Z4213 Silver Embellishing Thread, Z4304 Loose Sequins—Silver, Z2089 Glue Dots^® Micro Dots

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October 25, 2018Community, Create

Halloween Slime Kits with Shaker Window!

Close To My Heartchildren's party, Halloween, Hello Pumpkin, kid's party, shaker window, slime kits, themed party, Thin Cuts 15 Comments

We are so excited to have the talented Amy Robison as a guest blogger today! Not only is she a contributing artist for Silhouette, but is also somewhat of an expert at designing children’s themed parties, gifts, and crafts. Don’t take our word for it, see for yourself!

Hey! Amy Robison here! I’m so excited to share a fun party I created this week with the Shaker Windows & Confetti Thin Cuts, loose sequins, and Hello Pumpkin collection. If you follow me on Instagram stories then you already know that I am obsessed with the shaker windows after trying them out this week. I want to use them on everything! I already have a million ideas for Christmas. I’m getting a little ahead of myself, so I’ll calm down and focus on the party I’m sharing today— a slime making party. If you’re like me, then you hate this slime craze that has been going on for a few years. (It’s the worst!) Who started this? haha! My kids still love it though, so I decided that I just have to embrace it occasionally. Plus, how perfect is it for a Halloween party?

I started out by designing a few characters I could use with the shaker windows that would be festive for the holiday. I’m loving their simplicity and how they turned out. Once they were all designed, I added the shaker windows to each one. If you haven’t used the shaker windows before, I included a simple tutorial. They are a piece of cake and you’ll absolutely love them!

Shake Window Tutorial

Step 1: Remove the outer foam ring leaving the middle square foam adhesive to use for other projects. (Such a genius design so all that empty space isn’t wasted.)

Step 2: Place the foam shaker window ring on your project. It is very sticky, so you know it will stay right where you put it!

Step 3: Fill with sequins, glitter, sprinkles or any other fun media. This loose sequins mix is so beautiful! I can’t get enough of it, and it’s available in gold too!

Step 4: Remove the protective paper on the ring to reveal the adhesive.

Step 5: Peel the protective film off of the acetate circle. Use washy tape to help peel it off. This was a little tip I learned from the Close to my Heart creative team. Such a huge help!

Step 6: Place the acetate sheet on top. Press down to make sure everything is sealed in place.

Step 7: Using the Shaker Window Thin Cuts, cut out the finishing border in your choice of coordinating paper.

Step 8: Glue the border on top to finish.

Step 9: I taped a sucker stick to the back so that I could place them in my kits. These would be cute in gift baskets, too, as a tag to the recipient.

Once I finished all the shaker window characters, I gathered the supplies for the slime kits. I used the Hello Pumpkin collection to wrap and embellish the supplies and containers to make them look more cohesive and “pretty” everything up a bit.

Each kit has everything needed to make slime including fun sequins to mix inside to make it extra special. I love making each guest feel important and special. My guests are usually small children and I love the look on their faces when they see what is waiting on the table just for them. It’s the best and keeps me doing all these crazy parties.

Have you used the shaker windows before? Hopefully I have sparked some ideas of fun new ways you can use them in your next project.

Thank you Amy for all of your creative ideas! Please show our new friend some love in the comments below!

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October 23, 2018Celebrate, Community, Memory Keeping

Sharing the Memory Keeping Vision

Close To My Heartanimals, anniversary, beaver, campaign, canada, celebration, crawdad, crawfish, December, duck, fish, hockey, ice hockey, kits, maple syrup, moose, november, October, outdoor, pond hockey, promo, sale, The Great Outdoors, True North, workshop 1 Comment

We love October at Close To My Heart, not only because of the beautiful weather changes and the fun holidays it contains, but also because it is the month that we celebrate our Canadian friends and our shared vision.

It was in October of 2003 that excited new Close To My Heart Consultants began holding the first-ever Canadian Home Gatherings where the art of memory keeping was shared and taught.

To celebrate this momentous 15-year anniversary with all of our cardmaking and scrapbooking friends, we’ve designed not one, but TWO exclusive stamp sets and workshop kits!

True North Stamp Set #ctmh #closetomyheart #TrueNorth #hockey #icehockey #curling #Canada #Canadian #celebrateCanada #maplesyrup #figureskating #iceskating

My Acrylix® True North

The Great Outdoors #ctmh #closetomyheart #thegreatoutdoors #scrapbooking #cardmaking #wildanimals #wild #wilderness #moose #fish #bear #duck #beaver #crawfish #crawdad #proudlyCanadian

My Acrylix® The Great Outdoors

As you can see, both stamp sets illustrate a few of our favorite Canadianisms, but are so versatile that you don’t have to be Canadian to like them!

The True North workshop kit comes with materials to make two 2-page scrapbook layouts, one stand-alone scrapbook page, and four cards. Follow the instructions to create the artwork exactly as seen here or use the included tips and techniques to change them up and make them all your own. (There is no wrong way to use these tools if they are preserving your memories!)

True North Workshop #ctmh #closetomyheart #TrueNorth #TrueNorthWorkshop #CelebrateCanada #Canada #hockey #icechockey

True North Workshop #ctmh #closetomyheart #TrueNorth #TrueNorthWorkshop #CelebrateCanada #Canada #hockey #icechockey #pondhockey #skates

True North Workshop #ctmh #closetomyheart #TrueNorth #TrueNorthWorkshop #CelebrateCanada #Canada #fall #autumn #scrapbooking #scrapbook

True North Workshop #ctmh #closetomyheart #TrueNorth #TrueNorthWorkshop #CelebrateCanada #Canada #hockey #icehockey #pondhockey #skates

True North Workshop #ctmh #closetomyheart #TrueNorth #TrueNorthWorkshop #CelebrateCanada #Canada #IheartCanada #TrueNorthStrong&Free

True North Workshop #ctmh #closetomyheart #TrueNorth #TrueNorthWorkshop #CelebrateCanada #Canada #fall #autumn #maplesyrup #syrup #cardmaking

True North Workshop #ctmh #closetomyheart #TrueNorth #TrueNorthWorkshop #CelebrateCanada #Canada #hockey #icehockey #pondhockey

True North Workshop #ctmh #closetomyheart #TrueNorth #TrueNorthWorkshop #CelebrateCanada #Canada #fall #autumn #cardmaking

True North Workshop #ctmh #closetomyheart #TrueNorth #TrueNorthWorkshop #CelebrateCanada #Canada #maplesyrup #cardmaking

Are you the outdoorsy, camping, hunting, fishing, wilderness type? Perhaps you are the “memory keeper” of someone who is. Either way, the Great Outdoors stamp set and workshop were designed exactly with you in mind!

The beautiful, intricate details used to create each of the animal designs as well as the deliberate compass and arrow are a must have in any adventurous spirit’s crafting collection!

The Great Outdoors #ctmh #closetomyheart #thegreatoutdoors #scrapbooking #cardmaking #wildanimals #wild #wilderness #moose #fish #bear #duck

Celebrate this joyful Canadian anniversary with us and share the true art of memory keeping with those around you!

If you need help getting started, find a consultant in your area by visiting our website, clicking on the What We Do tab and selecting Find a Consultant.

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October 18, 2018Create, Memory Keeping

Scrapbooking the Music Performer

Close To My Heartcricut, Design Space, guitar, instrument, music, performer, piano, template 11 Comments

How many of you know a budding musician and have been to a recital recently? These moments, as they are growing and developing their talents, are just as important to document as when they have arrived and are performing in front of large audiences and in great venues. It takes a lot of little important notes to create the final masterpiece, each just as essential as the last and the next one to come. With these special musical moments of life in mind, we came up with a few ideas that can be used to preserve them in an album, in a frame, or to present as a gift.

First, we have a piano.

There is so much good stuff happening on this page, starting with the quote. A quote that great deserves some special treatment, so we pieced it together using a variety of elements to create a beautiful title for the page. Every other embellishment was carefully chosen to create a harmonious design. Make sure you click on the picture above to get a good look at every one of this page’s delightful details.

Now, let’s take a closer look at those piano keys together.

To replicate this look you need just a handful of things: White Daisy cardstock cut into 4¼” x 1″ rectangles for the white keys, black shimmer trim in 3″ strips for the black keys, thin 3-D foam tape to mount the black shimmer trim (the entire length of each strip), and a grey watercolor pencil to create a shadow in between the white keys (the White Daisy rectangles). The white keys are separated by a little bit less than 1/8″ to allow just enough room to lightly color in a shadow with a watercolor pencil. Can you think of anyone who would love a page like this?

Our second example is a guitar.

We really like this page because with just a few minor edits you can easily transform the guitar into a ukulele, violin, viola, cello, or base (electric or stand up). Like with the previous page, make sure you click on the top image to zoom in and take a good close look at all of the intricate details that make up the page as a whole.

To build our instruments, one of our talented artists created the base shape for the guitar by melding together basic shapes in Cricut Design Space™, and the rest of the shapes were designed to fit it.

Assemble your instrument and then add the details: “frets” made from silver shimmer trim, silver embellishing thread “strings”, and silver glitter gems and glue dots to create the “tuning pegs” at the top.

Music Performance #ctmh #closetomyheart #ctmhgreatfulheart #music #performance #musician #piano #guitar #acoustic

Tuning Pegs

Frets and Strings

Bridge

No matter where you are in your life story (or song 🙂 ), we bet you can think of at least one concert, performance, teacher, or musician that you have fond memories of, and we most certainly aren’t just referring to the well-known, famous kind. For these musical moments of life, take a page from one of our scrapbooks or come up with one all your own. Just don’t forget the importance of the road leading you and your musician to your final masterpiece. Recognize the people who are helping you through and preserve every cherished note along the way.

Recipes:

12″ x 12″ Life Without Music Would Be Flat Page
E1041 My Acrylix® Brushed Letters Stamp Set, B1638 My Acrylix® Modern Typewriter Stamp Set, E1035 My Acrylix® Bistro Script Stamp Set, D1797 My Acrylix® Watercolor Impressions Stamp Set, X7236B Hello Pumpkin Paper Packet, X6028 Black Cardstock, X6007 Lagoon Cardstock, X6009 Linen Cardstock, X6027 White Daisy Cardstock, Z2895 Lagoon Exclusive Inks™ Stamp Pad, Z2825 Mink Exclusive Inks™ Stamp Pad, Z6510 Nectarine Exclusive Inks™ Stamp Pad, Z2807 Willow Exclusive Inks™ Stamp Pad, X7236C Hello Pumpkin Complements, Z4304 Loose Sequins—Silver, Z3314 Black & White Dots, Z1809 Black Shimmer Trim, Z4242 Watercolor Pencils, Z3224 Waterbrush—Small Round, Z1979 Marvy® Uchida® LePen™ Journaling Pen

12″ x 12″ You Are Hip Page
E1041 My Acrylix® Brushed Letters Stamp Set, D1797 My Acrylix® Watercolor Impressions Stamp Set, A1224 My Acrylix® Just the Way You Are Stamp Set, C1729 My Acrylix® Ugly Sweater Stamp Set, X7237B Grateful Heart Paper Packet, X7235B Boutique Paper Packet, X5999 Charcoal Cardstock, X6009 Linen Cardstock, X6027 White Daisy Cardstock, X6010 Mink Cardstock, X7237C Grateful Heart Complements, Z4305 Thin Cuts—Fancy Tags, Z3318 Thin Cuts—Basic Circles, Z4304 Loose Sequins—Silver, Z4191 Silver Glitter Gems, Z1799 Silver Shimmer Trim, Z4221 Mink Twine, Z4214 Hello Pumpkin Washi Tape, Z4213 Silver Embellishing Thread, Z1979 Marvy® Uchida® LePen™ Journaling Pen, Z2060 Thin 3-D Foam Tape, Die-cutting Machine, Sewing Machine

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October 16, 2018Celebrate, Create

A Christmas Advent Calendar to Make Now

Close To My Heartadvent calendar, calendar, christmas, Countdown, cricut, papercraft, Papercrafting, Season of Joy 1 Comment

It’s not too early to begin planning for the holidays! To get your Christmas season off to a delightful start, we’ve created an advent calendar papercrafting project using images from our new Cricut^® collection, Season of Joy.Make an advent calendar just like this one for your home, office, or wherever your crafting takes you, using this advent calendar workshop guide and our Cricut Design Space™ project files included right in the instructions! In this guide, we walk you through each step of the process to make sure you successfully complete this beautiful project just in time for the holidays.

First, you cut all of the pieces on your Cricut^® machine using the Design Space project files provided. Then, you assemble the outer and inner boxes. This part is pretty repetitive with lots of folding and gluing for all 25 outer boxes and 25 inner boxes. That means during this step you can break out some Christmas music or a favorite holiday movie to have in the background as you work. Next, you stamp the paper embellishments using the My Acrylix^® Snug Backgrounds stamp set, for a little extra color and texture. Then, attach your paper embellishments to each box. Finish off the project with some clear sparkles and a New England Ivy burlap ribbon bow on top. And there you have it! A calendar counting down to one of the most celebrated times of the year, measuring 16½” tall (not including the bow) with a 14″ wide base.

There are a few places where you will need to pay closer attention, especially when you’re using Design Space to cut and score your paper and cardstock. These tips are noted in the instructions, but we wanted to point them out again so you can keep them in mind as you’re creating your calendar.

We’ve made one project file to cut the outer boxes in New England Ivy cardsock. Design Space will display an alert that the project is larger than 11.5″ in height and requires a larger mat, like you see below. Click “OK” and cut the outer boxes using the cardstock on your 12″ x 12″ mat. It will cut close to the edges of your paper, but this way you only use 12 sheets of cardstock with two boxes on each sheet.

You might wonder why the Outer Boxes project file only cuts 24 boxes. It is not a mistake! You will still end up cutting 25 outer boxes, promise. The 25^th box, however, is cut from the Advent Calendar – Boxes and Embellishments (New England Ivy) project file. This way just saves you some paper. 🙂

There are individual project files to cut the paper embellishments for the box fronts and the last few inner boxes. They look something like this one below that uses the Candy Apple cardstock. Notice that some of the numbers are backwards. This lets you cut with the light side of the cardstock facing up, and then you flip the numbers over to use the dark side of the cardstock on the box fronts.

Cut all your paper, put everything together, and add some embellishments, and you’ll have a lovely home décor piece to accent your holiday. After you’ve finished your own advent calendar, all you need to do is fill each box with a special treat for every day leading up to Christmas. There are many, many ways you can fill the boxes. Here are just a few ideas:

Candy or chocolate (of-course!)
Activity ideas (like going to see Christmas lights, making hot chocolate, or reading a Christmas book)
Christmas ornaments
Little girl “pretties” (hair accessories, nail polish, lip balm)
Small toys (Lego^® figures, cars, marbles)
Ideas for random acts of kindness
Scripture verses

So, what do you think? Are you ready to make your own advent calendar? To keep things easy, we put together a bundle of all the paper and cardstock you will need to cut this project (click here). You will also need a few additional items, including the Cricut^® Season of Joy collection and the My Acrylix^® Snug Backgrounds stamp set. For a complete list of additional required and optional products needed, as well as step-by-step instructions, make sure you download or print the Advent Calendar Workshop guide, here.

Do you know how you will be filling your advent calendar this year? Let’s share ideas in the comments below!

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October 11, 2018Create, Memory Keeping

Tips for Trimming Photos

Close To My Heartphoto trimmer, photos, pictures, Short Story, Story by Stacy, story telling, trimming 7 Comments

Any time you scrapbook, what’s one thing you almost always have to do? Trim your photos! We’d guess you usually have a stack of photos that you have to cut and crop to fit on your layouts. This is also true in our newest Story by Stacy™ workshop kit, Short Story, where you work with a large group of photos to create a 6″ x 6″ album. What makes Short Story special is the approach it takes for creating a visual story with your photos. Using this workshop kit, you learn how to trust your own intuition and take some of the decision-making out of how to use your photos. The secret is … trimming your photos FIRST!

Before you create a page or a layout, you’re going to trim your photos. This might seem a little strange or even feel uncomfortable, but it’s so worth it in the process. Here’s how it works. You take your stack of photos and start trimming off the pieces that aren’t necessary. When you’re working with a stack of 4″ x 6″ photos, the photo trimmer is the perfect tool to help you. Trimming your photos before making pages will help you create visual impact in your album, and it keeps the focus of your album on the elements of your photos that are the most meaningful to you.

We know it’s hard to try to trim and resize photos BEFORE you know what your layout looks like, but that’s part of what makes this process so exciting and a great reboot for your creativity. Try these tips to get started.

Begin by trimming just a little bit, then trim a little more.

If the thought of taking several inches off a photo is too much, baby steps are a great way to start. Try removing just a small piece off one side and then the other. Take a look at what you have left, and BEFORE you move on to your next photo, try to trim just a little bit more.

Trim to focus on the most important part of the photo.

If the photo, for example, is of your kids playing together, think about what the most important part of that photo actually is. Do you have to see all the background, or is the point of the photo that they are enjoying being together? You can trim parts of people’s legs or arms, too. Don’t feel like you need to keep the entire person in the photo. Maybe there is someone you don’t know on the edge of the photo. It’s not necessary to keep them, either. Get rid of all the extra things that can distract from the focus of the photo.

Trim some of the landscape out of the photo.

You don’t need several inches of water, grass, or sky. These things can usually always be trimmed.

Trim your photos into sizes that are easy to use on a 6″ x 6″ page.

When you’re working with Short Short, try to trim your photos into sizes that fit nicely together on a 6″ x 6″ page. Use sizes like 3″ x 4″, 2″ x 6″, or 2″ and 3″ squares. This makes it just a little bit easier when you assemble your pages. If you are scrapbooking in a different format, you can apply this same concept. Consider how much space you have to work with and how many photos you’d like on the page. Then trim away!

Not every single photo needs to be trimmed!

You could have two or three photos that you really love in their original 4″ x 6″ size. That’s perfectly okay! This is your album and your story. Keep in mind, the more photos you trim, the more photos you can include in your album. For a Short Story album, just remember if you leave every photo in the normal 4″ x 6″ size, you won’t be able to fit many on the 6″ x 6″ pages.

Now that you have some ideas for getting started, here are a couple examples for you of how the concept of trimming your photos first works.

We trimmed these two photos using some of the tips we’ve given you. In these examples, strangers in the background or the car they are sitting in isn’t really the most important part of the photo. Plus, as you can see in the layout below, we already had one photo that showed more of the car. It wasn’t necessary to have two photos with the same car. What makes these photos interesting and special are those facial expressions.

By trimming photos, we were able to combine five photos on this one Short Story layout. Using this process takes some of the time and energy out of deciding how to resize photos and how to attach them to your pages. With the Short Story workshop kit, you will use your trimmed photos to create one page at a time, adding as many photos as you can to each page. Then you’ll pull it all together with patterned paper and embellishments.

If you haven’t tried the Short Story workshop kit yet, check out our Visual Storytelling with Short Story blog post for more details about this new Story by Stacy™ product. Then, grab a friend, and give this workshop kit a try! Whether you are scrapbooking your story with Short Story, an Everyday Life™ album, or a 12″ x 12″ page, these tips can help you focus on what’s important in the photos you take and the memories they represent. Do you have tips for trimming photos? We’d love to hear them in the comments below!

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Begin by trimming just a little bit, then trim a little more.

Trim to focus on the most important part of the photo.

Trim some of the landscape out of the photo.

Trim your photos into sizes that are easy to use on a 6″ x 6″ page.

Not every single photo needs to be trimmed!

Share this:

We show you how to celebrate relationships through discovering your creativity,
to preserve and share the moments that matter most.