A Stand Alone Flip Chart for a School Project

After spending so much time at the ItsyBitsy store I am more convinced than ever that it is the ideal destination for any craft project. The store has such a wide variety of craft supplies perfect for school projects in particular, like buttons, sequins glitter, foam, felt, chipboard, handmade papers, clay, embellishments, pipe cleaners, pom poms, hay, husk, shredded paper, different types of paints and a whole lot of glues! So when my son needed me to make a project for his school, I decided to put something together using only supplies from ItsyBitsy.

 

Here's my son's chart. It's actually a flip chart with an inbuilt stand for easy demonstration. The stand folds down flat so that when the speech is over, it can be carried home without any trouble. The picture  above left shows the chart when closed and the picture on the right shows how it looks when it is open.  

Here's a view from the side so that you can see how it stands - much like a desktop calendar except much larger. The entire chart measures 12" by 19". For the cover of the book I used Sizzix Word Play die to cut out my son's name and section. I used the same die in a different way on the title page. This time I cut some circles using the Framelits circle die. Then I cut each alphabet on this circle which actually created the letter but as a negative. I glued this on to some coordinating scallop circles and voila my title was ready!

The subject of my son's chart is 'How much is too much' with relation to gadgets so I took a lot of printouts and to display how they have evolved, I used the Spellbinders You are Here Die. This one is full of hand pointers and arrows, perfect to indicate such developments. 

The picture above shows how the flip chart folds flat. It's quite ingenious actually. Hopefully I can reuse this base for all my son's presentations in the future.

One more thing I would like to draw your attention to is the binding at the top. You don't really need to go to a binder store to get your albums bound. All you need is a one hole punch and a ruler. This way you can punch all your holes yourself and run the binding wire through it. I'm adding a couple of pictures below to show you what I mean which I found from this site.

Do you rely on ItsyBitsy to make your school projects? We'd love to see. Leave a comment with a link to your project and we'll be sure to drop by!

Supplies Used

Share the Love - Letter Box - Guest Post by ArtsyCraftsyMom

Hey There! I am sharing a great family activity for one of my MOST favorite Months - February!  It is the season of Love. In our house, celebrating Love its not restricted to just Valentine's Day but is a family affair for the whole year. Its an opportunity to appreciate those who love us and to spread the Joy & love to the people who care for us. It can extend to random strangers too. This activity is a great opportunity to teach your kids to be loving and caring towards others. 

You'll first need Glitter papers in various colours. We love Pink & Red and used a Heart Punch to cut out Heart shapes. If you don't have a punch you can use a scissor too. 

Assemble your little love notes - Icecream / craft sticks. Write small tasks that give ideas to share some joy in this world. Use a black marker (point tip) to write your messages at the back of the sticks. You can write any message you wish.. 

Turn the icecream sticks upside down. Using double sided tape Stick the heart cutouts on the top. You can embellish with more hearts or stickers. 

 We twisted red & pink Pipe cleaners around the stick. and our little notes were ready. 

We now needed a mail box to place our little heart shaped notes. I used a 12x12 cardstock in nice pastel colours and cut out a 4 inch strip from the paper. 

I then folded the larger piece into a mailbox shape and stapled it in place. 

 Use the 4 inch paper at the bottom and fold at the other end to close one open end. 

Voila! your little mailbox is ready to hold your messages inside.. Ask your child to pick up one note every week and share the love! 

If  this interests you, you can also hop on over to my Pinterest board that has a list of all my projects. What do you think of this craft? Love it ? Hate it? I would love to hear from you. 

Shruti Bhat is a Software Quality Analyst by profession who mostly exercises her left brain during the day at work and her right brain takes over at home. She loves crafting with her 7 year old daughter and blogs at ArtsyCraftsyMom.com. She can be reached at @ArtsyCraftsyMom on Twitter, Facebook & Pinterest

Gifts for the Wedding Cake Box

Last week I posted a blog post on a Wedding Cake Gift Box which was the inspiration for our current challenge - Say it With Roses. The idea was that each tier of box would be a space to include a gift of some sort. As promised, here are the handmade crafty gifts I have made for the inside of the box. For all three I have stuck with the theme of roses, continued the same colour scheme of black, white and red and made it as romantic as possible. 

The first gift, which is for the base tier of the cake, is a mini album measuring 5.5" by 5.5" (the base tier is 6"6"). Containing 7 double sided pages, it is intended to be a space for a couple to preserve their most treasured memories. For the cover I added red rose die cuts which were black on the wedding cake box. I topped it with a 5.5" doily and added a die cut from the Tim Holtz Hanging Sign die. The title 'US' was put together using chipboard embellishments from the DCWV Immortal Love Chipboard Embellishments Pack. It's really awesome because it is packed with thematic embellishments, perfect for just this kind of project. I rimmed the edge of the title with black pearls and the edge of the album with white before adding some bows and roses at the sides right where the holes were punched.

Here's a collage of some of the pages of the album. I used a lot of items from the same Immortal Love Chipboard Embellishment stack - like the hearts, the tags, the letters and the text. I also added paper from the Immortal Love stack which totally complied with my colour scheme.

Here's a look at the album inside the base tier of the cake. It fits in perfectly and I love how it is perfectly complemented by the colours and design of wedding cake box. 

For the next tier which is 4" by 4" I decided to make a little photo frame packed with roses much like the wedding cake box itself. Only this time I made the roses black just to mix things up a bit. The frame is all made with chipboard and the roses with punch paper. To know how I made the roses, do watch this tutorial.

Here's a look at the frame sitting inside the 2nd tier of the cake box. Once again a really perfect fit and matching the rest of the gift set nicely!

For the top tier of the cake, I really was at a loss. It was just 2" by 2" and what could I possible make for something that small. Fortunately ItsyBitsy is PACKED with fabulous options and I found a Blue Moon locket pendant that was just perfect for this tier. It was a lovely dark grey gun metal colour which seemed to compliment my dramatic theme. To show it off properly, I added a red die cut from the Cuttlebug Vintage die. The locket is even more romantic because it opens and contains a space to add two photographs.

How do you like my Wedding Cake Gift Set! Would love to hear your thoughts and views!!

 Supplies Used

Winners of the ItsyBitsy Picture Bingo Challenge

It's time to announce the winners and finalists of the ItsyBitsy Picture Bingo Challenge. This time we asked you to create something based on a Bingo Grid and we were totally floored by the creations that you came up with. It was particularly hard narrowing down the toppers but we finally managed to do it and here they are!

The Top 3 in no particular order who will each receive a voucher worth Rs. 500 from ItsyBitsy are:

Nupur for this fabulous set filled with flowers, distressing, stamping and die cutting.



Daksha for this adorable and elaborate centre side step card with awesome muted tones.









Kavitha for this magical book box card filled with pretty elements, finishes and die cuts!



Now it's time for the 6 finalists who will each be receiving a badge from ItsyBitsy for their awesome work!

Deepti for this Clean and Simple sweet card

Hussena for this altered heart box with gorgeous hand made flowers

Indira for this super clever and cute apron card!

Jaya (Crafty JC) for this adorable little creation with beautiful stamping.

Kripa for this fabulous layout filled with mixed media and detailing.

Sharada for this heart easel card, very original and very interesting.

Congratulations to all the winners and finalists. Please write in to info@itsybitsy.in to claim your badges and gift vouchers. Looking forward to seeing your entries for our Say it with Roses Challenge!

Later folks!

A Distressed Window Card With Ranger Crackle Paint

ItsyBitsy recently launched a fabulous new range of Ranger products. There's Glossy Accents, Distress Inks and my new favourite - Crackle Paint. This product is fantastic. Available in a variety of colours, it allows you to create fabulous aged finishes to your project without having to do much distressing yourself. When I ordered my Peeled Paint Crackle Paint, the first thing I wanted to try out was a window card inspired by this card. Even the techniques I tried out were outlined in this fabulous post!

To create my card I took a piece of white card stock and covered the entire facade with Peeled Paint Crackle Paint. I left it to air dry and once it was done, the paint had dried into an interesting cracked finish. Then using my We R Memory Keepers Piercing Tool I scraped out brick lines. As I scraped the base white card emerged creating quite authentic looking brick lines. After all the scraping was done I sanded off all the excess bits of paint and paper with my We R Memory Keepers Sweetheart Distressing tool. I used the blade edge of the same tool to distress the edges and create the peeled paper effect. This completed my brick wall background.

The window itself is cut out of white card stock and to create that vintage window look, I used the Ranger Crackle Paint but this time I tried to make the brush as dry as possible. Then I just brushed it across the white window. The colour spread in an uneven untidy manner that made the window look about 20 years old! How cool is that!

Now this may be all going over your head so I figured I would share a video tutorial of how I made this card. So look out for that coming very soon.

When my card was done I proudly showed it to my husband and this comic from Bitstrips perfectly conveys his reaction! Arghh!! The pitfalls of creativity!

Supplies Used:

The ItsyBitsy Say it with Roses Challenge

It's Valentines Day folks!! So first off let me wish all our wonderful fans, friends and readers a very Happy Valentines Day!!! Here in India it's kind of a non-festival but it's certainly a reason to craft!! So here I am presenting my Valentines Day creation which coincides with our latest challenge - the ItsyBitsy Say it with Roses challenge.

The theme is pretty straight forward. All you have to do is create a project which contains at least one rose. It can be a 3d rose, a rose stamp, a rose picture, a rose die cut - anything as long as it is a rose. And to inspire you along the way, I made a 3 tiered cake gift box that contains 3D roses and rose die cuts. Here's a look at it!

To give you an idea of the size, here are the dimensions. The bottom tier is 6" wide by 6" long and 3" tall. The second tier is 4" by 4" by 2.5" tall and the top tier is 2" by 2" by 2" tall. I created this gift box as an innovative way to present gifts to a loved one on Valentines Day or a Wedding anniversary. When presented the recipient will wonder if it is a real wedding cake and then as they explore they will find a nest of boxes concealed within containing different gifts. And being the craft-obsessed person that I am, of course these gifts are going to be crafty as well and will be featured in my next post. 

 

Here's how the gift box works. First of all, all the tiers are stand alone boxes that have been glued together. The decorated exterior for each tier is actually the lid of each box. One you raise it, you have access to the box below. I embellished the lid and glued on the flowers ensuring that the lid would be free to open and close when required. So the flowers aren't glued to the tier below, they are glued to the edge of the lid. Since all the tiers are glued together, when you open the bottom most tier, you literally lift the entire cake along with it.

As for the detailing, this was an extremely laborious project. Firstly I  had to make about 52 roses to cover all the edges. Each rose has been created using the Swirly Rose Die and some red punch paper. To see how I used to the die to make the roses, watch this tutorial. Next the box was all white and to give that pretty black rose design, I used the Couture Creation Rose Die and some black punch paper. Then I glued the die cuts all over the white box. I covered everything with a layer of Mod Podge that not only gave a gleamy satin finish but also sealed all the die cuts in place. Finally I added a rim of pearls to each layer. Can't resist those pearls!!

Rules of the challenge:

1. Your entry can be anything hand made as long as incorporates a rose somewhere in the creation.
2. Entries can be submitted until 10th March 2014.
3. Entries will be open to audience vote from 11th to 14th March 2014
4. Following this, the top 3 and finalists will be selected after combining both audience feedback and judges feedback.
5. In order to submit your entry, click on the inlinkz button provided at the end of this post, add your image and link to your blog post containing the submission. There is a single category for all types of hand made creations.
6. If you do not have a blog, please create an album on any online photo gallery like Facebook, Picasa etc, ensure the settings are public and link it up as detailed in point 5. 
7. Each participant can submit a maximum of 3 entries.
8. Submitting old projects is not permitted. All submissions have to be created after 14th Feb 2014
9. In your blog post, create a link back to this page - The ItsyBitsy Say it With Roses Challenge.
10. Entries are welcome from all over the world however if you are one of the top 3, we can only ship your prize to an Indian address.
11. We will select the top 3 entries all of whom will receive vouchers worth Rs. 500 redeemable online at www.itsybitsy.in.
12. In addition 6 finalists  will be selected all of whom will receive a badge to display on their blog.
13. The top 3 will also be invited to send in guest post for the ItsyBitsy Blog in February / March 2014.

Right that's it from me! Hope this challenge intrigues as much as it did me and looking forward to seeing your entries!

Supplies Used

Submissions for the ItsyBitsy Say it with Roses Challenge

Non Traditional Masculine Valentines Day Cards

Valentines Day is just around the corner and the Craft Blogosphere is full of hearts, pinks, reds and flowers which are the commonly accepted symbols and colours of the day. That said, if I give my husband a card full of these, he will cringe in disgust. So my blog today is about non-traditional Valentines Day cards - for men. And of course the fabulous range of craft supplies at ItsyBitsy came in really handy for it!

My first card is inspired by this creation I found on Pinterest. I love the sentiment which reads 'For my Significant Otter' - isn't it hilarious! I quickly retrieved the ItsyBitsy Cute Animals Stamp set from my stash and was delighted to get to work. I created some windows using the ItsyBitsy square die and added a top layer in pattern paper from the DCWV Nursery Baby stack. Then inside the window I added 2 stamped otters each cut out as stand alone pieces. I am thrilled with the result! Here's a look inside the card. 

For my next card I again drew inspiration from a card I found online. The minute I saw it I knew which stamp to use and which embossing folder to use as well. The ItsyBitsy Cute Animals Stamp has this fabulous sheep with fantastic swirls which perfectly complements the ItsyBitsy swirls embossing folder. The hearts are cut from the ItsyBitsy framelits hearts die and the sentiment reads I Love EWE... of course my brother read it and said 'I love eeeiiuuuu???

My third card is the most masculine of the lot. Again inspired from a card I found online over here, I was able to use the same stamp set and combined it with some fabulous pattern paper from the DCWV Heirloom stack. Isn't the pattern perfect? Almost like the scales on a reptile!! I distressed the white bits with Walnut Stain distress ink to create a kind of safari feel to the project. 

Here's a closeup of the sentiment and the crocodile. I cut out the letters using the Sizzix Doodle with Dazzle die. Isn't it fun!

How do you like my non-traditional Valentines Day cards? Which do you like best! For me, the otter one grabs me, would love to hear your views!

Supplies Used: