Home Made Gifts

Mini Album

By Beatriz G.

Mini Album:
1- Cut 4 4"x 6"pieces of chipboard round the edges,
2- Add patterned paper, inside and out of album, punch holes and tie together
3- Embellish the cover with tin, lace, chipboard snowflake, brad, crochet flower and buttons

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Little People Gift Set

By: Grace T

Little People activity tin:

I got the idea for this project because I scored the "people" die cut set at the closing sale of my lss. I used party it up papers (mostly scraps from my other project) and just run them through the die cut machine, layering the pieces for more interest. I laminated them with contact paper and adhered a small strip of magnet on the back. Since my kids will use this during church time, I wanted it to be sturdy for tough kids. LOLI also covered the tin but this time with the Sunny Days papers (I just love that line!)Another thing I love about this project is that it's so thin and compact which can be taken anywhere.

Hot Chocolate To Go

By Jenyfur P

It is soooo cold today! When I woke up this morning, it said 47 degrees...HERE.... in California! I know most of you have much colder weather, but you have to understand.... it hardly ever gets this cold. lol

Today's project bring us warmth on a cold day. Our very talented Jen, made this adorable Hot Chocolate gift. Just add water and enjoy :)

Sometimes it's the simple gifts that mean the most. A thoughtful "Stay cozy this winter" can warm the heart!

~H

News + new project = Dec 8th

Santa Frame

By: Angie H

Instructions:

1. Cover basic frame with flocked Santa hat patterned paper.

2. Accessorize with epoxy stickers, die cuts, and various santa-themed embellishments.

3. Add photo with Santa and display for the holidays or give to the grandparents!

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In the news for GCD

This week there are a few give aways you should know about.

1) 2 sketches 4 you

They are having a Christmas celebration and we are sponsoring the gift.Here are two lovely cards their DT made

Kathy

Sankari

2) Here at GCD- we are also giving away the Christmas Sleigh collection and you have until Friday to leave a comment for it.

3) At my personal blog... Heidi Sonboul... I'm also doing a give away with GCD products and you have until next monday to leave a comment

Needless to say, there are lots of fun give aways... for everyone to enter! WOOT!_________________________________________________________

Product Tester: Heidi Mattessich

Heidi's bio:

My name is Heidi. I live in Rancho Palos Verdes, CA which is on the coast between the South Bay Beaches (Manhattan, Hermosa and Redondo) and Long Beach. I am a married Mom of 3 beautiful girls (ages 2, 5 and 7). About 9 years ago we received a scrapbook for our wedding. This inspired me to create my own scrapbook of our honeymoon. That was when my love of scrapbooking started. My passion really took off upon the birth of my 1st daughter and has been growing since then. Now I find some way to incorporate scrapbooking into every day. I subscribe to some magazines, follow many blogs, maintain my own site and either work on or plan my own projects daily.

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Back in October our guest designer NANCY HOLLEY, created this adorable card. Do you remember it?

Lucky us... She has provided a video for us, on how to make it

Thanks Angie, Heidi and Nancy for making this a fun post!

~H

Welcome December's Guest Design artist

Good Morning
It's raining here in California and lol I had to walk Bradley to school in it... with one umbrella and all 3 of us under it! About half way there, I gave it to the boys to share and I walked in the rain. Oh the things we do for our kid-os.

The count down continues, but for today we are going to welcome our December Guest Design Artist. Please Welcome...


Gina Hanson

My name is Gina Hanson, I live in South Eastern Washington with my husband Joe, we just celebrated out 16th Wedding Anniversary. I am a SAHM to our two children, Kaitie (14) and Jakob (10). I discovered this amazing hobby almost thirteen years ago when my daughter was just about two years old. My sister dragged me to a party and ever since then I've been hooked, although my style has most certainly evolved from the days of heart and star shaped photos! I'm so thankful that I found this amazing hobby, I'm able to hold onto memories and special moments that would otherwise soon become packed in a box and stored in a corner.



Over the past few years, I have been lucky enough to have had numerous layouts, cards and projects published in scrapbooking magazines and idea books. I also have a passion for photography and very rarely can be found without my camera. I enjoy capturing our everyday life through my lens. I've always had a hard time defining my style, it seems to be whatever the mood of what layout I'm working on and of course the products. I try not to limit myself to one particular style nor could I describe it with just one word. It's always evolving, some layouts are simple and others are more complex. Clean and simple with a "kick" does ring a bell though! :)


Welcome Gina! We are so excited to have you with us this month :) aren't her card beautiful?!

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This weeks Give away:
One pad of our Christmas Sleigh Collection


Pattern paper, Cardstock & Lace paper


All this month our girls have been working with this collection and have created many amazing projects that I can't wait to share!
Leave a comment and on Friday (Dec. 11th) I will pick one lucky winner to receive this same fun collection :)

Happy Monday everyone
~H

Setting the table

At Christmas time, I love getting together with family and eating a nice dinner. I'm so excited to share Lori's ideas, for setting the perfect Christmas table!

The Perfect Table

By: Lori R

I ended up creating a whole place setting. The plate is sitting on a piece of the scalloped paper. To create a "place mat" I layered the clear sheet over the patterned paper and cut around the edges. The napkin holder is one of the die cuts from the Christmas Sleigh collection. I also added buttons around the charger plate to add texture and more color.

I choose to use 1 1/4 inch squares, to create these trees and the trees are sprinkled with dazzling diamonds. The squares were pinched in the middle and glued on at the tip, to the tree. It's the same technique as the "tissue paper school projects", we made back in the 2nd grade :)

The trees are arranged on a piece of the scalloped paper from the Christmas Sleigh collection, on a crystal cake plate. I placed a wreath around the bottom of the cake plate to jazz up the ensemble.

I embellished with a bird, a few small flower, and a ribbon.

Then to finish the Christmas winter look, I hung snowflakes from the middle of the table (adding a focal point).

Heidi's Thoughts:
Do you do a big Christmas Dinner? Are you planning on setting your tables with decorations, matching this season? We'd love to see pictures. Feel free to share here.
~H

Winner and a count down

The winner of the Scarlet lime collection is:

Rbarakat said...
What I'm excited about December is everyone will be home for the holidays!!! NO school, errands appointments, good food,music and fellowship!Ummm fabulous lo's ladies! WHo wouldn't love a little scarlet lime!!!
December 2, 2009 12:22 PM

Congrats girl! Send me your info at hsonboul@gcdstudios.com Subject line "Scarlet lime kit"

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Christmas Countdown

By Grace Tolman

Images were removed for publication in the Scrapbook trends Holiday 2010 issue. Keep a look out for it :)

When I was given the assignment to make a countdown calendar I was a little bit scared. I've never made a countdown calendar before and with all the cute and fun ways this idea has been done before, I didn't have any others that would be fresh and exciting. But after browsing through my favorite stores I got the idea to make a countdown bucket.

I got the bucket from the dollar spot at Target, then I headed to my local dollar store where I purchased the Popsicle sticks, moss and flower foam. I cut out the many wonderful pattern papers from our Christmas collection into circles, matted them with the designs' coordinating solid colors and cut it out with a scallop scissors. I added colors and designs to the bucket with some GCD studios ribbon and white gross grain ribbon. I love that GCD studios ribbon are self adhesive. It took out the work on me trying to get that adhered to the bucket. I also added a journaling block (also from the collection) as my title block and placed that in the middle of the bucket.
I added glittered numbers from the collection, as well as a red one from a separate glitter alpha pack. When I did my research on advent calendars and countdown projects, I found that most of them were about storing little presents and in most cases, candies in each number. While that idea seems fun, I didn't want my children to equate Christmas too much with the candies and gifts as opposed to Christmas being the season for giving and serving.


So I picked 12 things that we can do to show our love for our family and opportunities we can give service to our friends. Below are the 12 things I picked for us to do....

12. Make cookies to give to our friends
11. Send out our Christmas cards to family and friends
10. Write our letters to Santa
9. Pick a movie to watch together and eat some popcorn too.
8. Make ornaments to add to our Christmas tree
7. Go through out toys and see which ones we can donate to our local Goodwill.
6. Call our cousins out of state to wish them a Merry Christmas
5. Bring Cookies to our friends' house.
4. Visit our temple and see the Christmas lights displayed.
3. Pass out Christmas cards and cookies to our neighbors
2. Sing some Christmas carols.
1. Read the nativity story from the Bible.



To add these things to each of my numbered sticks, I printed my list on cardstock, trimmed it and wrapped it around each stick, then tied an embroidery floss around it. I love that this project was both easy and meaningful to me. I can't wait for my family and I to start feeling the meaning of this Holiday while we do our Christmas countdown.

Heidi's thoughts:
Isn't this just adorable??! This whole project is under $10 to make and it would be fun to make with little ones.
Starting on the 16th of Dec... we start the count down. We hope you find the time to make this or something close to it ;)
Thanks GRACE!
~H

You gotta love a give set

First up... today is the last day to enter in the Scarlet Lime Give Away... so hurry if you haven't :) and now...

Christmas Gift Set

By Krista R.

I decorated a wooden CD box with the Patterned Paper to hold all of my little gifts. It's nice because the recipient of the gift can use the CD holder for many different ideas.

This picture shows a card and a Ghiradelli Chocolate bar all wrapped up-because who doesn't love Chocolate???

This picture shows a mini gift card set wrapped up in a glassine bag that I also decorated. I thought the recipient of this gift might be able to use these cards as Christmas thank you's

This picture shows a Christmas candle that I decorated along with some bath fizzies that I placed into a glassine bag that I decorated to coordinate with everything else. I thought this would make a really cute gift for a teacher, a friendly co worker, or a friendly neighbor

Hold onto those gift cards Ladies...

1st... Don't foget to enter our Scarlet Lime Give Away :)

2nd... Over at Amber's blog she is hosting a GCD give away until tomorrow.
Make sure you check it out!

3rd... Todays post:

Our DT has been hard at work this past 3 week, creating fun new ideas. If you are a "gift card giver" for Christmas... then we have the perfect idea for you!

Gift Card Box
By Nancy Doren

I’m always looking for a thoughtful way to give gift cards. This box can be used as a present to the whole family... fill it with one gift card for each family member, or with a variety of gift cards picked out for one special person!

1)

Measure your box and cut two lengths of 12” cardstock to a slightly smaller height. For example, my box is 4” long, so I cut my cardstock strips 3 ½” high.

2)

Score your cardstock at intervals slightly smaller than the width of the box. For example, my box is 3” wide, so I scored my cardstock at 2 ½” intervals. Fold in a mountain/valley pattern. Adhere the last panel of one piece to the first panel of the other piece, so you have one very long strip of folded cardstock.

3)
Cut and adhere patterned paper into one long strip the same length as your cardstock strip. Sew patterned paper together down the middle.


4)
Next, sew the patterned paper strip to the cardstock strip at each fold.

5)

Using foam tape, adhere the first panel of the cardstock strip to the bottom of the box.
6)
Adhere the last panel of the cardstock strip to the inside of the box lid.

7)

Embellish the box as desired and fill with gift cards!

Supplies:

GCD Studios Christmas Sleigh paper, Christmas Sleigh Transparency, Lustrous Limes epoxy sticker. Other: paper mache box, cardstock, felt flower.

Isn't this the BEST idea???!!! This could be a fun idea for personalized stationary and pens :)Thanks Nancy!

~H

News+Give Away+Daily Project=Dec 2nd

News + Give Away:

This month over at The Scarlet Lime Kit Club, you can find our new Artsy Urban collection among the papers and embellishments.

I spoke to Christy and she gladly gave us one of her kits for a GIVE AWAY this week!

Wasn't that so nice of her?! AND isn't this kit GORGEOUS!

Here are two layout by her contributing December Team.
Valerie Salmon:
Emeline Seet:

How can you win this lovely kit? easy...just

1. You must be a blog follower to qualify (our google follower group over to the left)
2. Leave a comment between now and Sunday Dec 7th...
3. Subject: "what I'm excited about this December is..."
4. and one lucky girl at random will be picked

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Dec 2nd project:

Christmas is all about...

Christ, family, food, gifts, giving and CHRISTMAS CARDS!

Just about everyone sends out a "family Christmas card"... with a sweet family photo tucked inside. Why do we do this??? It's a fun update of our family...right?!

Most of the time "we scrappers", scrap Christmas morning photos and being with family & friend, but we often forget to scrap about our "Christmas card photos".

Tips:

1. This year take the time to scrap your Christmas card photos.
2. Tell the story behind it.
3. Was it an easy photo to come by?
4. or a hard photo to come by?
5. Did you match every ones clothes?

It's these little moments that are easy forgotten and should be documented.

Layouts by Brenda H

Hello December!

We at GCD Studios are so EXCITED about this next 25 days! The days will be filled with fun ideas from myself and our DT gals. Today, we start by decorating our doors:

Christmas Wreath

(featuring GCD Studios Christmas Sleigh Collection)
By Lynn Ghahary

Supplies:

· GCD Studios Christmas Sleigh Collection
· Various buttons, jewels, etc
· Cricut Expression
· Accent Essentials Cartridge (or template and scissors)
· Various circle punches
· 14” Foam Floral Ring
· T-Pins/Dressmaker’s Pins
· Dimensional Adhesive
· Glue Gun (or other strong adhesive)

Instructions:

NOTE: I used my Cricut Expression and Accent Essentials Cartridge to cut various size poinsettias ranging from 1.5” up to 4” large. Each poinsettia consists of two layers of which the bottom layer is ½ inch larger than the top layer. If you are using the template provided to cut your flowers you will need to adjust the size accordingly.

1. Cut poinsettia layers using the Accent Essentials Cartridge (or template) along with 3 circles in the same pattern. Circles should be large enough to cover the center portion of each flower layer.

2. Turn bottom layer over and adhere punched circle as shown.

3. Pinch edges of petals upwards and add dimensional adhesive to center.

4. Follow steps 1-3 for top layer and adhere to bottom layer as shown.

5. Pin flowers to foam wreath and cover pin head with additional punched circle.
Continue to fill in with various size flowers in different patterns until wreath looks full. Hot glue buttons and/or other gems to flower centers once your wreath is complete.