This is one of the reasons I ADORE this site!  Jen is just a planning genius, isn’t she?   I share her love of list-making and this year I’ve given myself a head start by creating a hybrid year planner.  I call mine ‘My Creative Life Book’, in the hopes that these plans and goals that I commit to pen and paper will inspire me throughout the year.

For my planner I’ve used Jen’s Weekly Planner 2012  digital kit, a few of her fab organising freebies as well as a few supplies (I like to keep my hybrid projects quick an easy and ultimately STRESS FREE!).

Here’s what I used:

• Jen’s Weekly Planner 2012 Kit, available at Design House Digital. These files are editable pdfs that you can alter to suit your own needs (as I’ve done).
• Free files available here at TPG Blog: Perpetual Birthday Calendar & 2 Week Schedule
•  One sheet of Jen’s Stella & Rose Patterned Cardstock (for my cover)_.
• My Binding machine (I bought a super cheap one from my local stationery store).
• A piece of recylced card for my back cover.
• Paper for printing (I used that best quality I could find).
• Some lined paper to add for my journaling and random lists (you can never have too many lists!).

This is an easy-peasy project.  Simply decide what forms will work for you, print them out and bind using the binding of your choice.  Alternatively, simply use a ring binder!

And there you have it – a creative start to what is certain to be a creative year!

Happy New Year Hugs to you  all!

I tried to give myself a break this year and not beat myself up about doing everything that I wanted to, and one of those things that did not get done was our Christmas card. We just never had a good time to get pictures done, and ended up having my friend Gennifer take them on the fly. There was still time to get them printed and sent, but with our travel schedule, it did just not work out… so our card this year is an e-card delivered via my blog, facebook, and email. So really we are just super “green” right? So in lieu of a card in the mail, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

The decorating mostly got done – I couldn’t slack on this since its our first year in the house and I was excited to see how my existing decorations fit the new house. I still need a bit of filler since the house is so much bigger than our apartment, but I can pick some of that up on clearance on Monday! Here are a few snapshots that I took of our decorations this year:

(the iphone 4s takes THE BEST night-time christmas tree photos)

I saw the ruffled tree skirt tutorial that was floating around pinterest. I got everything ready and started to glue all of those ruffles, but only made it a few inches and decided it would be MUCH MUCH easier to just sew the ruffles on (actually my mom was visiting and she sewed them on for me – which is why this is even finished BEFORE Christmas). And trust me, if you do this, SEW the dang ruffles on, you will save your fingers and yourself from going crazy.

I totally need two more cream stockings from pottery barn! And extra points for anyone who spots the baby!

One other exciting thing that happened this week was that our back splash tile went in the kitchen! It looks amazing and I’ll share it very soon!

I hope you all have a wonderful and relaxing holiday weekend!

The Gertie “Girly” Stamps from My Mind’s Eye Stella and Rose Collection reminded me so much of Grandma’s Heirlooms.
I searched the internet for inspiration and found many stunning displays of doilies that could easily be transformed in a card format.
(simply click on the inspiration image to be taken to the source sight)
Each card features the stamping technique, heat embossing.

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Let’s start with a bit of sparkle. Doilies, Diamonds and Pearls.
Perfect for a congratulatory wedding or engagement card.

In addition to the white embossed doilies, I added a fancy sentiment that was heat embossed in silver and a few small pearls as accents.

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Moving from the glitz and glam to the comfort of home. Doilies and Woodgrain.

Woodgrain dry embossed card stock provides a base for the many layers of heat embossed doilies, like they were scattered on top of a table.

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And finally, doilies bring an extra special touch to holiday decorating. Doilies. Snow. A touch of blue.

This card features the “resist” technique in addition to the plain heat embossing.

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There are so many opportunities for this one beautiful stamp set! I now have a good start to a card set to give as a Christmas or Birthday gift.

I’m thinking that my Grandmother might like these…
Thanks, and I’ll catch you later. ~ Karen, The Bald Dragonfly

TA DA! My fireplace is almost done being decorated. I stayed up way too late last night getting my eclectic halloween banner finished.  I do have a few things still left to do – the chalkboard will have a creepy recipe or saying on it, and the burlap frame will have some sort of art pined to it, but really it’s ALMOST done, and it looks fantastic. I am so happy with how it’s turned out.

If you would like a detailed step-by-step tutorial on the banner, visit my halloween banner tutorial blog post at Design House Digital. I didn’t want it to get too wordy over there so I saved a few things for my blog. First thing was that I used burlap ribbon for the base-layer. I took this bolt of ribbon that I had (bought it clearance from Ballard designs last year for like $6), and basically hand pleated and fed it through my machine in a very sloppy manner. I wanted the whole thing to look spooky and unkempt.

Once I had a bunch of it pleated, I hung it on my mantle to make sure it was a good length.

Once I was happy with the length and draping, I cut it to size and then started building my flags.

You can read a bit more about that process on the Design House Digital blog. But basically I used my new Vintage Findings Halloween digital papers, printed them out and made some super cute flags using the printed out papers, plus some doilies, ribbons, and My Mind’s Eye brads. I did take some pictures about the process of staining the doilies, but I’ll post about that later next week.

What I wanted to share with all my readers is an awesome free download of the .SVG files (cutting files for digital cutters) for the banner shapes and the letters for this project (If you don’t have a cutter that will cut SVG files, I’ve also included a template that you can print out and use to cut your shapes by hand).

Click image below to being downloading zip file.

Click on the image above to download a PDF and SVG version of my printable banner project . The downloadable files in this article (and across my entire site) are free for personal use only. If you would like to blog about this free download, please accompany and images from my site with a credit and link back to this article. As a courtesy please do not link directly to a downloadable file but rather to this page.

]]> http://www.theprojectgirl.com/2011/10/01/halloween-decorations-part-1-free-svg-files/feed/ 12 http://www.theprojectgirl.com/2011/09/19/welcome-the-project-girls-our-new-site-contributors/ http://www.theprojectgirl.com/2011/09/19/welcome-the-project-girls-our-new-site-contributors/#comments Mon, 19 Sep 2011 13:52:32 +0000 Jen Allyson http://www.theprojectgirl.com/?p=2369 First of all, I want to thank all the awesome crafty ladies who sent me entries for the new contributor team. I was in awe all the great talent and creativity! I was originally planning on bringing on 4 contributors, but I could not help myself and I did the best I could to narrow it down to 7! Oh my!! I guess we’re going to be having fun and getting A LOT of inspiration. For those of you who did not make it, I’m so sorry!! I wish I could have all of you on the team! All of the entries were so great and it really was hard to narrow it down… even to 7.  So without further ado, here are the new creative contributors (I totally stole these photos from their blogs. hehe.)!

Nicole from Farmgirl Chaos

Alicia from Love Life and Celebrate

Karen from The Bald Dragonfly

Melody from The Sunflower Crafter

Angie Hinksman

Deena from That I Would Be Good

Candi from My Welchy

That’s seriously a good lookin bunch right there!! But they don’t get paid for their looks… okay they don’t getting paid at all… but if their creative projects and articles are half as cute as they are, we’ll have a lot of fun inspiration from these project girls.

Welcome to the team girls! I can’t wait to be see what you create!

So I finally got a hold of all my new My Mind’s Eye releases. I actually laid everything out and took a bunch of photos, but that’s a whole other post! Just looking and touching it made me really really want to play with it. So I rearranged some stuff and made some time to just get my hands dirty. First I had to unpack all my craft supplies. As I was doing that I found these three 5×6 pieces of foam core board and it got me thinking of what I could do with them.

I knew I wanted to play with all my pink goodies… if you could see how gorgeous they are, you would want to play with them too!

To make my Home Sweet Home wall hanging, I used pretty much all of the Lost & Found 2 Blush set not including the titles, and definitely including the 6×6 paper pack. I did cut some of the 6×6 papers on my cricut. For the Home Sweet Home lettering I used the Freak Show font (with SCAL) to cut it on my cricut. For the Bracket shape, I made a quick .SVG File that you can download for free.

The first thing I did was cut and mount this glittered dance paper on my foam core:

Then I used this Creamy Brown chalk ink to make the edges look a little edged.

So then I just played around with all the supplies and made these cute rectangles:

To get the striped ribbon to have those pleats, I just cut a strip of card stock a little more narrow than the ribbon, and ran the glue runner over it. Then I adhered the ribbon, and toward the end, I just made 3 loops. Then I ran the whole thing through my sewing machine – looped side first with a contrasting ribbon.

Then to put the brad on, I just took my crop-a-dile and punched a hole through the whole thing and dropped in the brad.

The other fun thing I did with this rectangle was use the coordinating stamps to stamp that cute but still subtle banner.

With this crocheted ribbon, I gathered it with my sewing machine with my very technical method of shoving it through the sewing machine quicker than it can feed itself.

One of the fun things I did with this rectangle was take the pearl swirls and cut them up to fit the bottom of the rectangle instead of using them as a full set. It worked so well and was a super easy way of customizing the pearls.

When all that was done, I glued the rectangles to a wide ribbon and looped it at the top, and hung it in my guest room (which so does not look like a guest room at all!). Yay for baby steps to decorate the house.

* Doily – these are super huge right now and I think the trend is just starting, keep your eye out for a lot more doily prints, doily dresses, doily cakes, it goes on and on. I just need to have a daughter stat and paint a giant doily on her wall!

* Chevron/zigzag - chevrons have been trending for awhile now, and right now they are EVERYWHERE. I still see a lot of life in this trend though because they are so classic and clean. However I am trying to refrain from buying anything too expensive with chevrons because I’m sure in a year or two I’ll be sick of them.  But if I could find a giant chevron fabric to reupholster my victorian sofa, I totally would, I’m sure it would be in style forever!

Bold Stripe – Cabana stripe, awning stripe whatever you want to call it, bold stripes are IN. Its like a chevron without the kitch. Loving it painted on furniture, floors, walls etc.

Hexagon – I have been obsessed with hexagons for quite some time now. When I attended Quilt Market a few months ago I saw lots of hexagon quilts and other hexagon inspired fabric projects. I especially love this appliqued pillow (shown below) This is fabulous and I’m going to have to make my own for the family room. It’s totally on my list.

Geometrics – Geometrics in general are trending. I love so many fabrics that are geometric, but it seams like they are all “designer” fabrics that cost $150/yard. Boo. But if you’re savvy you can find some affordable geometric fabrics from Dwell Studios and a few others. Just make sure they don’t look 70′s and you’re good to go.

Fois Bois / Wood Grain – It seems like wood grain is super popular but not in the same volume as chevrons. Probably because it’s harder to re-create. I still adore everything I see that has the wood grain pattern, and I hope it stays on trend for quite awhile longer.

Diamonds – I have seen a lot of diamond tile backsplashes latey, I think this is an upcoming trend, so keep your eye out for a lot of diamonds, and diamonds that kind of look like chevrons but aren’t chevrons.

Cane/Rattan/Weave/Bamboo – Although these types of patterns have always been big in professional interior design, they are now just starting to trend among normal folk (those of us who don’t pay $150/yard for fabric). I have seen ceilings and walls painted with the rattan pattern as well as lots of curtains. I think we will see a lot of pattern off-shoots inspired by this style

As far as trends that are waning, I’m sad to say that after a very long run, Paisley is declining in popularity. I have been a huge fan of paisley for the last 10 years and It just doesn’t interest me anymore. With the onset of a lot of these more clean, modern, and traditional prints, paisley will soon be retired until we decide we like it again.

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]]> http://www.theprojectgirl.com/2011/08/17/trends-in-pattern/feed/ 1 http://www.theprojectgirl.com/2011/02/10/etsy-finds-baby-edition/ http://www.theprojectgirl.com/2011/02/10/etsy-finds-baby-edition/#comments Thu, 10 Feb 2011 20:28:05 +0000 Jen Allyson http://www.theprojectgirl.com/?p=1673 It is true, I have baby on the brain these days! My Etsy favorites have changed from cute jewelry, headbands, and purses to baby booties and stuffed animals. I thought I would share some of the adorable handmade items for baby. Keep up the great work Etsy friends! Links are at the bottom.Knit Hat • Personalized Necklace • Letterpress Thank You Cards • Wool Whale • Air Balloon Mobile • Yellow Teddy Bear • Teal Elephant • Cloud Pillow • Grey Booties • Owl Pillow • Onesie with Argyle Tie • Yellow-striped Baby Legs •

So without further ado… I LOVE cards. I think they are the perfect simple and quick craft. I subscribe to this cute little blog called Note To Self (isn’t that the cutest name??). Lindsay’s cards are adorable but not over-done. She has a great knack for balancing designs and elements but still keeping it simple and sweet.  I’m super inspired by her work, so I’ll share a few quick images with you. Check Note To Self out when you have a chance!

How can you do wrong with a big red bow???

And this one is made with MY Fine & Dandy line from MME. Love the flower!I love anything made with Kraft paper. Add some black and butterflies and you’ve got awesomeness.

I love these Christmas trees. I wonder if she cut them by hand? I definitely see an SVG cut file in my future… good thing Christmas is still a long way off!

Thanks Lindsay for all your beautiful inspiration! I hope the rest of you feel inspired to make some cards, or at least do something crafty today!

If you have a craft blog and are interested in being featured on The Project Girl, please send me a link to your blog by clicking on the “contact” button at the top of the page.

Here are some photos from that night. I don’t have a wide photo of the whole “party table” but you get the idea!

Food and fun and prizes were had by all! It was such a great party, I can’t wait for next year! The straws, cupcake papers and striped bags are all from Fort & Field.