My New Tote Bag

Santa Clara Scrapbook Expo is in a couple weeks!  I'm getting excited mostly because it's so much fun spending time there with my besties shopping, laughing, scrapbooking, laughing, people watching, laughing some more, and enjoying a beverage (or two or three).  The key word is definitely laughing!

Speaking of shopping, I came across this project tote bag in the Art section at Hobby Lobby the other day.  The color caught my eye so I checked it out, wanted it, then decided that the last thing I needed was another tote bag and hung it back up on the display hook.  I then continued browsing through the rest of the store and twice went back to look at the tote.  It was only $9.99 and I had my trusty 40% off coupon, it was made of sturdy plastic and large enough to hold 12x12 papers, had a couple of pockets inside, and so I decided "what the heck".  It was a good deal price-wise and, next thing I knew, the tote was mine.

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After looking at this tote at home for a couple days, I thought maybe I should do something to it to make it more "pretty" and more "me".  Hmmm....what to do, what to do???  While thinking about it, I looked up in my office and there was my inspiration ... the vinyl wording on one of my office walls and Voila! ... My Scrapbook Garden.  Of course!  This should obviously be included somehow on my new tote bag!

I wanted something a little humorous on it and here is my finished product.  I think it turned out pretty cool and it will definitely be something no one else has LOL!

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My Sizzix Eclips does such a beautiful job cutting vinyl, especially on the really, really small lines of the fancy font I used (Aquarelle).  I used Arial Black for the bolder font. I'm not going to lie - transferring the vinyl onto the tote bag was a little tricky due to all the little swirls and skinny lines in the Aquarelle font, but it was worth all the time and patience it took.  I'm really happy with the end result!

So now when I'm at Expo in a couple weeks, I'll be sporting my very own personalized tote bag containing all the stuff I'll most likely be buying that I totally don't need and will be adding to my "stash" in my scrap room.  But it will all be safe and sound in this sturdy tote and there will definitely be no mistaking whose bag it is!

Until next time, Happy Scrapping!

Banner Weekend

Hope everyone had a safe and sane Fourth of July!  I actually spent some time in my scraproom making a special request for a past customer...a banner for a baby shower.  She provided the paper supplies to be used for this banner and, I have to say, that actually presented a challenge for me.  I was having a hard time wrapping my head around the color combinations, but once I finally figured out the sequence of paper layers and adding a couple of my own papers to the mix, the banner actually turned out pretty darned adorable (if I say so myself).  Here is how the finished project turned out:

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Originally I had not thought about putting the letters on a rosette, but once I was assembling the whole thing the letters just seemed like they were not "popping" and needed a little pizazz.  Since I had not used one of her patterned papers at all, I thought 'why not' and cut 1-1/2" strips, scored them at every 1/2" and started folding and gluing the rosettes together.  Again, something just wasn't right, so I decided to add a 3-1/2" circle made from the gold glitter paper to the back of each rosette and Voila! - it magically all came together...I was finally a happy scrapper. 

My customer had also provided some really nice white tulle to use, but since I used her gold glitter Coredinations paper as the base of the banner, the white tulle just didn't look right to me.  I had some gold shimmer tulle in my stash, so I tried it (since she gave me total creative control) and liked how it looked much better (and my shoulder quit twitching LOL!).  I used white and pink ribbons from my supplies to pull in those colors from the papers.  Also, since this banner is for a baby girl shower, I just couldn't resist adding a little bling on top of each ribbon knot.  Such a simple little touch that, to me, added a lot.

Hope you enjoyed seeing my little weekend project.  Oh, BTW, the font I used for the letters is a free one I got off the Internet called Coney Island and the svg file I used to make the banner is from the Banners Collection I purchased from Little Scraps of Heaven and you can check it out here:

http://www.littlescrapsofheavendesigns.com/item_339/Banners-Collection.htm

Thanks for looking....and Happy Scrapping!