For the stand, cut a strip of paper 10″ x 1 1/2″.  Score at 1/2″, 4″, and 7 1/2″.  Fold into a triangle shape and adhere the bottom flaps together to complete the stand.  Stamp the stitched, shaped border and add to it any of the fun autumn icons in the set.  I added the oak leaf, pumpkin, and acorn.  (The little leaves make great confetti filler pieces too!)

Have some spare ribbon around?  Make these super easy coordinating napkin rings!  Takes 6 1/2″ of ribbon per napkin ring.  Just stamp the diamond border:

Stamp the stitched arglye diamond:

Overlap ends about 6″ and glue with Fabric-Tac fabric glue.  Let dry, and use for napkin rings.

I even made a pumpkin pie this weekend so I’d have the perfect “prop” to photograph it with.  Unfortunately when I went to grab the last 2 pieces to take photos with, this is what I found:

Happy Crafting,

Erin

It’s fairly easy to do.  I’ll show you how!

Just cut an 8 1/2″ x 11″ piece of patterned paper in half so you’ve got an 4 1/4″ x 11″ piece.  Fold in both edges towards the center making a gate folded card.

Add your roof onto the card.  Here’s the template for you!  Just print and trace to make your roof.   (I also included with the template the bushes and the inside sentiment if you don’t want to print your own!)

Fold the roof flap and attach the roof to the back of the card:

Finish up the front by adding a door and bushes and a scalloped edge to your roof:

Now finish off the inside of the card and you’re done.

For the inside I printed the sentiment to go on one side, made an empty space in the middle for writing your own message, and then used some 3L Scrapbook Adhesives white photo corners to hold the gift card.

On one I attached a little flower, and on the other I stamped and pieced a vase from the Furnishing Fun set.

Happy Crafting!

Erin

Hope you have a fantastic weekend and don’t forget to let your heart soar!

In case you were wondering, yes, those are ALL brads!

But don’t worry I’ve made things easy for you!  Here’s the layout I did in Illustrator!  Just print it here and you’re ready to go!

I have lots of brads, and for some reason I had a TON of brass colored brads, which is weird because I think it’s safe to say I NEVER use brass colored brads on my projects!  I wondered if I could maybe, just maybe, make them any color I wanted.  Copic markers didn’t work too well, but you know what did?

How about some 99¢ nail polish!  It worked fantastic!  And for some reason the cheap nail polish comes in some great colors, including candy corn colors!  Let’s paint!

The easiest way I found to paint those little brads was to put them all into a block of craft foam.  (You don’t even have to unwrap the block from it’s plastic wrap.  Why have foam pieces all over the place if you don’t have to?)

Aren’t they cute all lined up waiting to dry?  Imagine all the colors you could make those little brass brads!  (I’ll be on the lookout now for brads in not so popular colors on clearance!)

While it’s drying, print your candy corn template and use this paper piercing tool:

I promise this paper piercer will make your job a whole lot easier!  I also use it to set my brads.  (I’ll show you how in a sec!)

Poke holes in your template directly on top of your little colored circles and add your brads.  (I set my template on top of the foam so it was easy to punch the holes in it.)  I found it easiest and faster to put in about 10 brads then turn it over and set them all at once.

To use your paper piercer to set your brads on back  just do this:

1. Use the tip of your paper piercer to start separating the brad back.

2. What it looks like after step 1.

3. Use the other end of the paper piercer to finish off setting the brad.

Keep going until you’re finished.  Honestly, setting all the brads didn’t take as long as I thought it would!

Happy Crafting!

Erin

To prepare your fabric for printing you’ll need to take a piece of freezer paper and fabric and cut them slightly larger than 8 ½” x 11″.  Iron the fabric to the paper.  (Make sure the paper is ironed with the shiny side touching the fabric.)  Trim the paper to exactly 8 ½” x 11″ to fit in your printer.  Get your photo ready to print, and print as you would on paper.  (Note, this is not permanent.  This method is best used for projects like cards, paper crafts, or wall hangings.  Things that won’t get washed or come close to lots of water.)

Trim and mount your photo.  If you want frayed edges, go ahead and fray them!

Super easy!  Want to use my photo of the Eiffel Tower?  You can download it here.

Chocolate Surprise Cookies

2 ½ cups all-purpose flour

¾ cup unsweetened cocoa (I used the Special Dark Cocoa.)

1 tsp baking soda

1 cup sugar

1 cup firmly packed brown sugar

1 cup butter, softened

2 tsp vanilla

2 eggs

1 cup chopped pecans

48 Rolo Caramel candies

1 Tb sugar

In small bowl, combine flour, cocoa and baking soda; blend well.  In large bowl, beat 1 cup sugar, brown sugar and butter until light and fluffy.  Add vanilla and eggs; beat well.  Add flour mixture; blend well.  Stir in ½ cup pecans.

Heat oven to 375F.  For each cookie, with floured hands shape about 1 tablespoon dough around 1 caramel candy, covering completely.  (I usually make a cookie dough ball, make a thumbprint in the middle, then place the Rolo where my thumb was, and wrap the dough around to close it up completely.  If it’s a little too sticky to handle, try refrigerating it for about 20-30 minutes.)

In small bowl, combine remaining ½ cup pecans and 1 tablespoon sugar.  Press top of each ball into pecan mixture and place on an ungreased cookie sheet.  Bake at 375F for 7-10 minutes or until set and slightly cracked.  Cook 2 minutes; remove from cookie sheets and cool completely on a wire rack.  Enjoy!  (If all that chocolate, caramel, and pecans aren’t enough for you, you can melt some vanilla chips and drizzle that on top too.  But they’re pretty darn good without it!)

To any average Joe, they look just like Chocolate Crinkle cookies, but when you bite in you’ll find a delicious caramel filling!

(This recipe comes from here:  Pillsbury: Best of the Bake-Off Cookbook.  It’s fabulous!)

They are so good, that if I didn’t give some away, I’d probably go into a chocolate induced coma so I made a little box and gave some away.

Have a great weekend everyone!

I went with something a little more fall feeling this time around.  I had a scrap of red vinyl in my scrap bag and stamped a pattern on that.  I really like how it turned out!

Want to make one?  It’s easy:

Use pinking shears to cut a 1″ strip of the vinyl.  This gives it a nice zig-zag edge.  Stamp directly onto the vinyl with a permanent ink.  I used the Memories Dye Ink pad in White with one of the border stamps from Build A Border.

Adhere the vinyl onto the notebook and trim the edges.  (I used the Crafty Power Tape from 3L Scrapbook Adhesives!  That stuff sticks to ANYTHING!!)  Add a little bling to your stamped image.

Put your sketchbook in your purse/clutch/bag and you’re ready to go!  These would make great little party favors or gifts too!

I love how they only take a very small amount of fabric (or ribbon!) so raid your scraps and see what you’ve got!  You can also use ribbon you’ve got lying around too!  (Here’s a little tip for you:  If you want to make a custom color of ribbon, try coloring a white or ivory ribbon with your Copic marker.  It’s permanent and you can make it any color you want to match a project or outfit!)

What you’ll need:

8″ x 1″ pieces of fabric strips (or ribbon)

Ring blank

Hot glue gun

Velcro

Coordinating beads

Tacky Glue

Take your ribbon and fold the end in half, then in half again.  This makes a nice little strip to make into a flower.  Lightly coil and wrap about 1/2″, then glue to the side of your coil.  Continue coiling and gluing until you have the size you want.  Even with the 8″ I found that I stopped with about 1″ – 1 1/2″ left.  When you’re about finished coiling, wrap the remainder underneath your finished flower and glue.

Now if you want, use some of Aleene’s Tacky glue to add a few beads to the flower center.  Just add a drop or two of the glue and place your coordinating beads right on.  When it’s dry, glue half of the velcro to your flower, and the other half to your ring blank.

Now make as many flowers as you want and when you change up outfits, just pull off one flower and stick on another one!

Don’t want to make a ring?  Try making a larger strip that’s about 10″-12″ x 1 1/2″ and making a brooch or an embellished napkin ring.  Need earrings?  Try a smaller strip instead.

Remember how I said that you could make your own with Copic markers?  Here’s how I did it:

Start out with a 8″ length of ribbon.

Color it.  I used two similar colors of my Copic markers to do it.  Don’t worry if it looks streaked at first, while it’s drying, the color runs some and I’ve never ended up with them being streaky!  Follow the directions above to make your flower.

Here’s a flower embellishment I made for a card.  I just stamped the Branch from the Boughs set, then added my flower embellishments.

Happy Crafting!

(I used this tutorial as a basis for mine, but made some adjustments as I saw fit.)

I used the following sets to make this card: Starburst shape from Outside The Box, Thinking of You sentiment from Furnishing Fun.

Just stamp the starburst using a few different colors of coordinating ink and top off the center with some coordinating colors of Stickles.  Stamp the sentiment and make a border with some stickle dots.  Adhere it with some foam dots and you’re finished!  (I LOVE making my own background patterns with the stamps!)

Here’s a question for you:  What types of crafts do you like to do for the fall?  Any big plans for crafting all your gifts this year?  I have a few home decor projects planned, and I’d better get started on my gift making if I want to do them all this year!

Inside this little house folder is an entire packet of information to welcome your new neighbor!  It’s got 5 illustrated pages of information that you can customize to your specific town or city!  There’s places to put your local grocery stores, favorite craft stores and places for important information such as the nearest hospital, closest library, and trash day!  You don’t need any specific software to type in your custom text, just Adobe Reader (which is free).

Love Copics?  Want to color your own?  I also have a B&W version!  (This is also a great one to get your children involved with!  Just print and have them color to their hearts content!)

You can find the downloads in the shop.  The fully colored and illustrated one is here and the B&W version is here.  The project sheets are $5 each.  You can use them as many different times as you’d like and save so once you take the time to fill it out once, it’s ready for the next neighbor as well!  Happy Crafting!