setting | Make It from Your Heart

This post was written by the talented Megan Hoeppner, who is the editor-in-chief for Scrapbook & Cards Today magazine, the weekly blogger and photographer for Gardner Village (a local shopping center), a writer for Brick Canvas (a local wellness center at Thanksgiving Point), a teacher for Creating Keepsakes Events, and contributor to Studio 5, a local lifestyle program in Utah. Give her some love in the comments, folks! 🙂

We have condensed the original blog post for brevity. To read the original, visit Megan’s blog.

This year I received a box of goodies from Close To My Heart, including a gorgeous assortment of paper offering a full spectrum of color, so I set to making paper chains.

Once complete, I threaded them on a yardstick, which I hung above my table. My paper rainbow makes a nice St. Patrick’s Day decor element and also a fun photo backdrop for this year’s pics.

Since I was feeling lucky and had some pretty new Close To My Heart products on hand to play with, I continued to set the stage with some table fun.

First, I covered my kitchen table in kraft packing paper. Then I set to decorating. I framed each spot at the table using Close To My Heart’s gold shimmer trim and stamped our names using their My Acrylix® Framework Alphabet stamp set.

Wanting our decorated table to serve two purposes—fun and memory keeping—I drew rainbows across each taped “place mat” so we could write what we feel lucky to have. I loved helping Maggie make her list. What a doll she is!

Time for the fun! I gave Mags some colored pencils and let her color her rainbow in.

I used Close To My Heart cardstock in three shades of green (Willow, Emerald, and Sweet Leaf) to create a little pop on my table. First, I cut cardstock hearts in small, medium, and large sizes, and folded the smaller two sizes in half to create a center crease.

I then stitched along the crease to create the pieces of my clover. I pieced three heart stacks together to create a shamrock. A little stamping along the hand-drawn stem, and I was ready to welcome the luck o’ the Irish.

I used the My Acrylix® Some Kinda Wonderful—Scrapbooking stamp set from Close To My Heart to create the #lucky tag.

I love the end result. I will definitely snap pics to save it in my scrapbook.

Since our sweet Lulu is too young to create a rainbow, she stamped a clover with her bitty thumb.

Time to add our St. Patrick’s Day treats to make the table time complete.

Oh, and I’ve found another way to use the 3-D clovers when our table is cleared. I’ll send a little luck on to others. I used the same Close To My Heart #lucky stamp, masking the outer frame around it.

I stitched a vellum bag on the inside, creating a pocket for some chocolate coins.

Speaking of gold coins, I created a few four leaf clover bowls from cardstock to hold my coins and other sweet treats.

To create these, I first cut larger paper hearts, cut a slit, pulled the heart onto itself, and stapled it in place to create each clover petal.

I then used a scrap of cardstock as a base and glued the petals in place.

Once all four petals were in place, my clover dish was ready for its pot o’ gold!

All in all, it was a fun crafternoon, making rainbows in our home. I look forward to pulling these pieces out year after year to make March a little more fun for my girls.