Check out this ultra-cool breast cancer awareness ribbon that I stumbled upon in a storefront window in NYC on Sunday.  It was in the window of C.O. Bigelow Chemists near Washington Square (which is where Occupy Wall Street is happening.  I stumbled upon that, too.  Question…why don’t women shave their underarms?  I would take them seriously if they did, and maybe Wall Street would, too.  Just sayin’.)  I digress!  Forget the underarms; let’s get back to breasts.

It’s a gigantic pink ribbon made entirely from paper.  Nifty, huh?  This huge ribbon has inspired me to make so many things! 

Have you seen any interesting breast cancer awareness tributes?  Please share a link in the comment section below.  I have to admit, this giant ribbon is by far my favorite.

It is so easy to make your own gift bags!  You will want to get started right away (so you’ll be ready for the holidays) and add this to your list of addictions.  They are so fun and there are no limits to how creative you can be with your designs.

I made matching gift bags for the baby shower gifts that I made (HERE).  The bags were as much of a hit as the scrapbooks.

Supplies:

Plain paper bag, any size, any color

Scraps of designer paper, any size, any color

Tags

Ribbon

Anywhere Glue Stick

All you need to do is measure the coordinating paper, cut to fit the bag, and glue!  Told you it was easy…

It’s a “green” project, too.  You are recycling paper bags and using your scraps.  Put this in the category of “no guilt” crafts!

Last week I received an e-vite to a surprise baby shower for not one, but two, new moms.  Can I tell you how excited I was to have a reason to make not one, but two, scrapbooks???!!!  I’ll ignore the fact that the invitation didn’t arrive by snail mail.  I was too tickled to care about that!

I found these great chipboard scrapbooks on clearance for …get this… 33 cents each.  Yep, that’s right.  Only 33 cents each!  How could I not buy them all? 

The only problem I had with these books was that I didn’t like the fact that they only had one hole.  I don’t know why.  For some reason I just thought they looked tacky with just one hole.

Enter the Crop-a-Dial. 

Having a Crop-a-Dial on-hand meant that I could go from a tacky and boring chipboard book, to this:

… and this:

The first thing I did was make 6″ x 6″ scrapbook pages.  To adhere the scrapbook pages to the chipboard, I used another necessity, the Anywhere Glue Stick.

This is by far the best glue stick I have ever used.  (When my girls were in elementary school, I would buy these glue sticks for their school supplies.)   I love the “Anywhere Glue Stick” for several reasons.  First, the glue is shaped like a rectangle.  No big deal, you say?  Well, having a glue stick with right-angles is better than using a round glue stick because you can add the glue “anywhere,” (hence the name,) particularly in the corners of the project.  The other reason I like this glue is because it is affordable…only $3.95 for TWO.  Finally, and most importantly, this glue stick really works.  Not only does it work to adhere cardstock to chipboard, but I have also used it to adhere paper to composition books and clipboards. 

Okay, back to the scrapbooks.  When you cover each piece of chipboard with the scrapbook page, ignore the hole that is already punched in the chipboard piece.  Just cover it over with the paper.

Once you are done, use the Crop-a-Dial to punch new holes wherever you would like to.  Notice the white arrows in the photo below…

I also made a front and back cover for the book.  To do this, I cut two pieces of chipboard (that I already had) 1/2″ bigger than the album pages.  I lined up the holes and used the Crop-a-Dial once again to punch the holes where I wanted them.

Here’s a look at the inside pages.  Notice that I decorated the inside of the front and back covers, too.

I used rings to hold the book together.  Make sure you add a fun variety of ribbon to the rings.  It’s a great way to use those small pieces of scrap ribbon that you felt too guilty to throw away.

I think each scrapbook cost about $2.50 to make.  The most important thing about the books is that the ladies loved them.  Neither of the ladies are scrapbookers, so they were both thrilled to have a place to begin.

I was asked to prepare supplies to make holiday cards for our troops.  The requirements were specific.  The organization that collects and mails the cards asked that the cards be made on plain 8-1/2″ x 11″ copy paper folded into quarters.

About ninety youth from our church  assembled to make and write sentiments inside more than 1,000 cards.  This posed an exciting challenge when it came to the pre-planning.  The cards needed to be simple enough and easy enough for everyone, yet still show that a lot of thought and time and effort went into each one.  No sloppy, hurried work allowed!

I have to admit…it is much easier to create a complicated card than it is to create a simple card.  I looked at each sample card that I came up with and could see that each one had so much more potential.  However, I kept reminding myself of the purpose of the task at hand.  I didn’t need to create the most gorgeous cards, I needed to create the most appropriate and heartfelt cards.  I wanted the troops to smile when they opened each one. 

Luckily, Michael’s had a sale on all of their holiday-themed foam stickers.  I combined the stickers with some easy stamping and came up with twelve different cards.  I wanted to make sure that the youth didn’t get bored.  Variety is the spice of life!

I placed each card and its supplies inside of a deep-dish disposable lasagna pan.  All of the supplies, including paper, pens, stickers, ink, rubber stamps, and samples were in each pan.

We put a lasagna pan on each table.  It was fun to see how each group tackled the job of making so many cards.  Some groups worked in an assembly-line fashion, some groups were really slow, some were really fast, but all of the groups had a great time.  They collected granola bars and hot chocolate, too.  The event was a success!

After all of their hard work making the cards, the youth had a cookie-decorating contest.  Don’t these giant chocolate chip cookies look delicious?

Supplies:

2 packages of copy paper (500 sheets each)

Foam stickers

Christmas stamps (in English and Spanish)

Ink

Deep-dish disposable lasagna pans (use the plastic lids to collect the back of the peel-off stickers)

Pens

I finished the invitations for the upcoming birthday bash in honor of my dad and his twin brother’s 75th birthday.  It really is quite challenging to combine creativity with age-appropriateness.  Birthday party invitations usually call for balloons and confetti and fun stuff like that.  However, those things really didn’t seem to fit.  This is what I came up with.  It is really easy to make.  Take a look:

I used drywall tape to break up the plain blue background.  I’m telling you, every papercrafter needs to have drywall tape on-hand.

They have lived on opposite sides of the country pretty much all of their lives, so there really aren’t many pictures of just the two of them together.  I thought this baby picture was cute, no? 

I love this denim ribbon by Stampin’ Up!  I wish I could buy/make denim-looking paper.  (Hmmm…does anyone know how?)

Be sure to cover the brad fasteners with a piece of cardstock to make sure your finished product is nice and clean-looking.