Happy Memorial Day!

Happy Memorial Day!

As you celebrate this holiday with your friends and family, please remember those who have given their lives for us to be the country we are today. Also remember our living veterans and men and women in active duty.

And I will see you Wednesday for the kick off of the 1000 blog follower party!

Mod Podged Shelves

Mod Podged Shelves

This is a project I have wanted to do for a long time. I've been itching to Mod Podge something, anything for quite some time now, and I finally found the perfect piece of furniture for it! The funny thing is I've had these shelves since I was a teenager! Why didn't I think to do this before?

Believe it or not, these shelves have traveled with me from living at my parents house, to college, to married life. I've always found a need for them, and they've always been there for me.

Ummm, really been there for me. As in used and abused.

Seriously, you can barely even tell anymore that they are white. They're so grimey and chipped.

Its time they had a renewed life!

Enter the spray paint (Krylon's Ocean Blue) and some fabulous remnant fabric I found at Hobby Lobby. The color scheme goes perfectly with my craft space makeover (you can read more about the massive craft space overhaul here). And I can't wait to share with you what I'm going to be using these shelves for! But that is a post for another day...

In the meantime, I can barely believe that these are the same shelves

that I've had for so many years.

Aren't they fabulous?  :)

Social Saturday - Jungle Card

This Social Saturday I want to share a fabulous card that a fellow blogger friend sent me before Baby #2 came along.

Isn't it a stunner? It matches our jungle theme in the baby room, too, so I have plans to incorporate it into the decor somehow. (Yes, I'm still decorating the baby room even though the little guy will be 2 months old today!)

This lovely was sent to me from the very talented Sandy Ang from Sandy's Space.

Sandy has guest posted for me a couple of times in the past. First in January where she wowed us with a perpetual calendar design and, second, during my bloggy maternity leave when she showed us how to make a cute card in the shape of a t-shirt (a post you might want to go check out again now as its a perfect idea for Father's Day!).

So thank you, Sandy! I'm sure you'll be back to The Scrap Shoppe again!  :)


And happy Memorial Day weekend, everyone!

Paper Flowers & Tutorials

Originally posted on November 11, 2009
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I'm blogging about paper flowers today because I came across these stunning flowers shown on the wreath above by Bo Bunny design team member Tonya Dirk. Aren't they gorgeous?? She hasn't posted the wreath on her blog as of yet, but you can find it on the Bo Bunny blog.

I asked Bo Bunny if Tonya might have a tutorial for making these flowers and was directed to Juliana Michaels' (also a Bo Bunny design team member) blog where she made similar flowers in a smaller size. Juliana, in turn, refers to yet another blog with a tutorial (its number 9 below).

So that got me scouring the web for other paper flowers. You'll see that I found quite a few!

All of the flowers shown below are made out of paper and come with tutorials on how to make them.

1. Spiral Flower from Dozi Design
2. Newspaper Flowers from Balzer Designs
3. Paper Peonies by Lisa Yuen with detailed instructions on the Mel Stampz blog
4. Crumpled Roses by Nicole Aspinall


5. Paper Flower Bouquet from the Etsy Texas Crafter Team
6. Scalloped Stamped Flowers from Amy Solovay
7. Catalog Flowers from gettothe.com
8. Loop Flowers found at ACherryOnTop.com
9. Paper Rose by Suzanne Woolcott


10. Flowers from Scraps by Gabriela Delworth
11. Paper Flowers on Stampin' Up demonstator Valerie Schreyer's blog


12. Stamped Flowers from Beth at Sunflowers and Dragonflies
13. Wet Cardstock Flower from Mel Stampz
14. Rose Video from aNeMoNe Paper Flowers
15. Round Distressed Flower from Jen at Sugared Songbird
16. Coffee Filter Roses on Calamity Kim's blog adapted from MommyMakesRoses.com


And of course I found this fantastic list of (73 and counting) Hot Crafty Flowers tutorials from Mel Stampz towards the end of my searching. The list looks promising so I'll have to find some time later to go over it!

Update: I am now listed as #15 on Mel's 100+ Hot Crafty Flowers template and tutorials. ;)

Guest Posting at Positively Splendid

Just a quick note to say I'm visiting my gal, Amy, today to share a yummy summer recipe!



You will want to visit. Its perfect for the upcoming holiday weekend!

Printing Photos Outside the Box

Originally posted on October 18, 2009
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I thought today I would show you an alternative way to print your photos for your scrapbook layouts. I do this occasionally to mix things up a bit and to truly show off what I think is a really fun picture.


I printed this picture on my son on a piece of white cardstock from my printer. You can just as easily print the picture on 8 x 10 photo paper, but the cardstock is less expensive and looks just as well.

I cut away the background so that he is the sole focus of the photo. (I cut the cardstock with an X-acto knife with a swivel head, but you could just as easily use a pair of micro-tip scissors.)

Here are a few other techniques I used on this layout...

I used a blue Zig marker to add faux stitching to the white foam letters and blue ink on the edges of the blue chipboard letters to help give them some dimension.


I stitched on some green yarn as the stems of my flowers. I alternated between stickers and buttons with ribbon as the tops of my flowers. I also added some sticker leaves to the stems.


I folded the entire edge of the orange cardstock, but since it already looked distressed I didn't bother to ink it. I also used two pieces of felt rik rak in two of the corners to act as photo frames.

Custom Wall Art

Originally posted October 11, 2009
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Let me start off by saying, I cannot paint! Whatever gene is required for painting anything artistic, I am lacking it. But I wanted some custom wall art for my living room, so I grabbed some supplies and made myself a canvas!


These are some of the supplies I stocked myself with for this project. A variety of paint from colors found in my living room, stencils, a mounted piece of canvas, and an assortment of foam brushes.


I also settled on a photo to use for the canvas. The original was taken by Lotus Blossom Photography. I did some editing to get the size and coloring I wanted. You can see that I made the red door we're sitting in front of more prominent without making it the main focus of the photograph.


To get the two-toned effect on this butterfly I stenciled it first with one color, let it dry, then stenciled the wings again very lightly with a second lighter color.
And see the corner of the photograph on the canvas? See that little black brad? Two brads in each corner of the top of the photo are all that are holding it to the canvas so that I can change it later as my family grows.


I used a large wall rub-on I found at my local craft store that says "Family" and rubbed it directly onto the painted canvas. I also used a rubber stamp and black ink to dress up some twill ribbon that I attached to the canvas with some brads.


And here is the finished setting. I'm pretty happy with it! Not only is it custom made to exactly what I want, but it was much cheaper than buying a generic finished canvas.

What do you think?

Chic Pincushion

I've got a super simple and chic project for you today!

Its the Chic Pincushion!

I took a cute little picture frame I found a while back at Michael's for only a dollar or two...

And took a scrap of fabric and some batting and made a pincushion!

I love it! It almost inspires me to sew... Almost. ;)

Social Saturday - Family Fun

You may or may not have noticed but since the beginning of the year (minus the maternity leave) I started posting personal things about the goings on in my world on Saturdays. I've finally decided on a name for it!

Social Saturdays!

So welcome to the FIRST official Social Saturday. I hope this helps you get to know the girl behind the blog a little better and get a glimpse of my life.  ;)

And because no post is good without pictures...

My little man is still completely in love with his little brother (7 wks old now!).

He's constantly bestowing hugs and kisses on his little friend and always in the most gentle way. He's recently started requesting to hold the baby.

We took our first family trip to the zoo last weekend. Little man was super excited to show his baby brother all of the animals.

This weekend I may be car shopping! I'm not super excited about it. I don't like shopping around for new vehicles, and I adore the vehicle I have now. BUT, its a 2-door and, well, not so compatible for carting around 2 boys. I was able to make it work when I only had the one. I'm even contemplating a vehicle with 3rd row seating! Just in case. ;)

Me and my fabulous car in 2007

So what do you mamas of multiples drive? I have to tell you, I am SO not a minivan kind of girl. I'm looking for a SUV. Decent gas mileage, good cargo space, adequately attractive...

Please share!

Staining Wood with Distress Ink

Originally posted on September 20, 2009

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Need to stain some wood for a quick project, but don't have any wood stain on hand? Or maybe you just don't want to buy all that stain for one little project. No problem! Just use distress ink from your scrapbook stash!


You definitely want to test your inks on a scrap piece of wood before attempting to stain your project. I used a paint stirrer which is free from most hardware stores.


Be sure to label each ink spot so you can refer to it for later projects.



I needed to stain this wooden "dream" sign that I picked up at my local craft store. I wanted it to match the already stained picture frame (the cute photo of my son yawning is courtesy of the uber fabulous Lotus Blossom Photography). It just so happened that *Vintage Photo* distress ink was an exact match! I used my sponge dauber to ink the entire surface and sides and a q-tip to get in the nooks and crannies.


Not completely satisfied with the outcome? You can always add a second coat to make the stained look darker!

I wouldn't recommend trying to stain anything as large as a piece of furniture. Save those projects for some real wood stain!


You can also use your distress ink to touch up scratches on your furniture. Be sure you have your pre-stained piece of scrap wood handy to match the stain colors.

I hope you enjoyed these tips!

Let's Recycle! Altered Peanut Can

Originally posted on August 21, 2009

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If you're looking to make a new project, instead of heading to the store just have a look around your house for inspiration! There are so many things we throw away on a daily basis that can be saved and altered into something fun and new.

Today I'm going to show you how I altered a peanut can and made it into a mini album.

The first thing you need to do with any recycled object that you plan to use in a craft project is clean it. I washed the inside of my peanut can really well and took the label off of the outside of the can and made sure there was no leftover residue from the label adhesive. We want to start with a smooth surface!


I wrapped the can with two different green patterned papers (any adhesive will work here, but I used a thin layer of Mod Podge), added some green ribbon to cover the seam between the papers (use Glue Dots or run your ribbon through a Xyron machine to attach it to the papers), and started decorating.


I cut some various-sized circles out of the same patterned paper I used to cover the can. I crumpled them and layered them. I also cut some of the green ribbon to look like leaves and stuck it between the layers. I then used my Crop-A-Dile to punch a hole through each set of flowers and leaves and used a small green brad to connect them. I used glue dots to attach the flowers to the can.


I stamped my Heidi Swapp *love* stamp with some green ink on some white cardstock and cut it out with my X-acto knife. I then ran the word through my Xyron sticker maker to attach it to the can.


I cut more circles, all of the same size this time, crumpled them, added leaves made out of ribbon and layered all of this to make a large flower to go on the top of my can.


Surprise! Take the lid off of the can and a mini accordian album comes out (attached to the lid of the can).

I cut more circles to use as the pages of my mini album. I'll explain the pieces of paper I used to connect the circles to each other in just a minute.




Adhering paper to a flexible lid can be a little tricky, as I found out. I started out thinking glue stick, but once the glue tried it became rigid, same with Mod Podge. I ended up attaching the paper with a few glue dots just around the edges of the paper every inch or so. Worked like a dream!


To attach the circles to each other and create the accordian album, I cut 2 rectangles of paper, scored the middle of each one, and adhered one on each side of the circle pages. Voilà! An accordian album!


I think for my next recycled project I may try to do something with this bubble gum jar. I love the shape of it! I'm thinking a toy container for my son or maybe something for my scrap desk like a ribbon holder maybe... We'll have to see!