Tale of the Multi-Tasking, Craft-and-Design-Loving, Mother-of-Two, Singaporean-Living-in-US, Corporate-Working Mom Named Grace Hester

Sewing Hoop Craft Ideas

Started a Pinterest Board with Sewing Hoop Craft Ideas,

Enjoy!

Garage Sale Finds

The girls and I love to go garage sale hunting. We are not avid hunters but would stop at a garage sale if a sign indicates there is one nearby. These were our finds this weekend,

• The sewing hoops will be used for sewing hoop craft projects.

• The wooden caddy is perfect for holding bedside story books for the girls.  I will probably just paint it white.

• The $0.25 Tangle toy and Toy Camera were picked out by the girls.  The Viewmaster was picked out by me and I have already started looking for film reels online.  It creates such a feeling of nostalgia.  I never owned one but remember playing with my cousin's whenever we visited their home.

Do you like going garage-sale-shopping?  What are some of your gem finds?

First Day First Grader

 
Digital Kit:  Coming Home by Fei-Fei at oscraps

Journaling:

excited about:
new supplies and hello kitty backpack
nervous about:
not making any new friends



The Twinery and Scor-Pal Blog Hop - Chinese Lantern

It's an exciting week for The Twinery who is turning 1!

 

Thanks for joining me here for the 1st Anniversary Celebration blog hop with The Twinery & Scor-pal.

 

 
If you came here by way of

Julie Koerber's blog,

you are on the right track.  If not, make sure you start at the beginning over at The Twinery's blog because there are terrific prizes for those who complete the hop by commenting on each blog.  You'll have five days to enjoy this hop, so relax and have fun!

Today The Twinery has teamed up with Scor-pal for an amazing line up of projects that will show you the wonderful things you can create!  From boxes and bags to cards and 3D projects the creativity by these two teams is sure to please.

I have been meaning to try out an updated approach to the chinese lantern I used to watch my mom make using red packets.  I cut out my own squares out of cardstock and used the Scor-Pal to create the four-folds per square that I needed. 

 

The tool really helped make that step so easy and my scor-lines were crisp and all evenly spaced with little measuring needed.  Then I used The Twinery's baker's twine to hang through the top.

 

I only made one so far and am studying my "prototype" to see how I can improve on it.  For instance, to reduce the gap between each square, I may score the paper a little more inwards.  Ultimately, I want to use larger pieces of paper to end up with larger lanterns and hang them from the ceiling in either of my girls' rooms.  I also want to add a baker's twine tassle below it. :o)  Loads to improve on!

Well, I'm so glad you stopped by!  Please make sure you leave a comment on this post because there are terrific prizes for those who leave comments on each designer's blogs! 

 
The deadline for commenting is 11:59pm EST, Friday, August 19th.  Your next stop on the hop is:

Gini Cagle!

Free Printable Tags - Three Uses

 
A few days ago, we celebrated with The Twinery on their launch of three new colors and I shared three sets of printable tags for you to enjoy.  Today, I am highlighting three uses for these tags so you can explore using them for your own projects.

First up, there's the most obvious function - as a gift tag,

 

Use one or multiple tags to spell a message.  Or adhere photos in the back for an even more personalized message to the recipient.

 

You can also print out the letters and colors you'd like and string them together to form a banner.

 

I also designed these to work for the 8.5 X 11 page dividers for baseball card sizes that is o-so-popular right now in the scrapbooking world.

Here are some other uses for these free tags,

1)  Monogrammed Bookplates

In addition to the monogrammed tags, print strips of names and adhere right below the tag on the inside of a book.

2)  Monogrammed Cards

Cut the tags and adhere onto matching colored folded or note cards for the cover.  If using a folded card, tie a matching baker's twine from The Twinery into the fold for a nice touch.

3)  Monogrammed Shadowbox Craft

Adhere the initial(s) or a word with double-sided foam squares against a matching background cardstock and frame it in a shadowbox or printer's tray for a personalized decoration.

I would love to see what other uses you find for them.  Please do share them with us on The Twinery Flickr Group and/or leave me a link to your blog post!  The Twinery Design Team has been known to visit a few blog posts here and there. ;o)  AND I'd love to share your project on my Pinterest board filled with fresh project ideas using baker's twine!

Using Foreign Newspapers to Wrap Gifts (via DesignMom)

image for The Black Dog Store

Cool and co-friendly idea from DesignMom about using foreign newspapers to wrap gifts. Ba-rilliant!

New Colors from The Twinery! Denim, Buttercream, and Stone

 
The Twinery Design Team is super-stoked to announce that The Twinery has added THREE new colors to their already-varied spectrum of colors!  All of us have been super-excited about sharing this news and could not wait to start incorporating these twine into our projects.

As a celebration of the new colors, I designed printable tags (hi-res) for letters A - Z in all three colors so YOU can start using them with these new colors as well! 

Print these out, trim them, round the corners (it's like minding your Ps and Qs of my humble paper crafting world), punch a role and thread the twine through.  Now you'll always have monogrammed gift tags to match with the recipient's name.  Hope you like it!

 
Denim A-I   |  Denim J-R  |  Denim S-Z

Buttercream A-I   |  Buttercream J-R  |  Buttercream S-Z

Stone A-I   |  Stone J-R  |  Stone S-Z

The new colors are available today (Monday, August 1) through The Twinery website - and the best part of all - all of their spools will be available for only $12 each in celebration of the new colors' release!  BA-NA-NAS!  Or should I say BUT-TER-CREAM. (Sorry couldn't resist. *wink*)

Updated 8/8:  Stop on by this post to see three uses for these tags.