Mother's day gift - a stationery set

Here's what going to my Mom this MD! When I saw this wood purse at Michaels I immediately wanted to do something with it; it looked so cute. Then I was looking around and found some videos by ChicnScratch on Youtube for post-it holders and notepad covers. So I thought that I could combine all the ideas into one project.

Initially I painted the whole purse but I didn't like the final look so then I covered it with this beautiful paper from DCWV. It's not apparent in the photo but the paper has some glitter here and there which looks very beautiful! After covering with the paper, I then did 2-3 coats of Mod Podge (Satin, Hardcoat). It's water-resistant and it dries up to give a nice satin finish.

The video on post-it holder was for square coasters but I could only find these round ones at M's and I liked them. Covered them with DP and sanded the sides to get an even border. When I used to see people mention about sanding, I never realized the difference it would make; but when I did it myself I could see that it makes it so even!

The notepad has a magnet at the back so that it can put on the fridge. I used notepads similar to this. Covered them with DP. Another thing that I didn't know about was that you can easily cut a magnetic strip with your regular scissors. When I bought it I wasn't sure and asked the people at M's and they weren't sure either but it cuts very smoothly! I used ProMag Magnetic Strip Tape.

Both the things fit into the purse, for clarity purposes I photographed them outside the purse.

• Paper: DCWV Pocket full of posies with glitter
• Mod Podge, Tacky glue
• Turquoise acrylic paint
• Round coaster, post-its, notepad, magnetic strip

Sentiments/Word stamps

Does anyone feel lost in the world of sentiment/word stamps? I do. With the ever increasing number of stamp companies, there's a deluge of choices. The stamp companies are growing just like the disk meter on your Gmail account! So I decided to list down all the various sentiments/word stamp sets that I know, how complete they are and what's their effect on the wallet. It would be a lot of help if you know some stamp set and I haven't listed it here.

Hope this survey would be helpful to all those out there who're trying to decide which sentiment set to pick! Your suggestions and comments are most welcome.

Sentiments Sets

1. Mixed Messages by Papertrey Ink (PTI)
2. Many Sentiments by Flourishes
3. All Occassions by Little Paper Shop
4. Essential sentiments by My Favorite Things (MFT)
5. Sassy Sayings by My Favorite Things (MFT)
6. Things Hanna Would Say by Hanna Stamps
7. Sketched Sentiments by Lizzie Anne Designs
8. Celebration Sayings by Lizzie Anne Designs
9. Simply Sentiments by Lizzie Anne Designs
10. Ordinary Greetings (Pg 22) by The Angel Company (TAC)
11. Tag Tidbits by TAC
12. Trendy Greetings (Pg 63)by TAC
13. Chicken Scratch by TAC
14. Mini Sentiments by Purple Onion Designs
15. Hand Written by My Sentiments Exactly

Words Sets

1. Paper Tray by Papertrey Ink
2. Flourished Words by Flourishes
3. Just Words II by Lizzie Anne Designs
4. Sentiments I (Pg 44) by Impression Obsession
5. Sentiments II (Pg 44) by Impression Obsession
6. Never Loss 4 Words by Kitchen Sink

Below is a comparison table. To me, for a sentiment stamp set to be complete it should at least have the words Birthday (BD), Anniversary (AN), Congratulations (CO), Thank You (TY), Get Well (GW), Sympathy (SY) and Baby (BB). Or if it's a greetings stamp then it should've appropriate stamps for the above occasions. So the table has one column for each of these. A cell contains "Y" if the set contains that word, otherwise it's empty. Then comes flexibility if it's a word set then flexibility is determined by the accent words like Happy, For, On your, etc. If it's a greetings set then by the presence of more than one greeting for a given occasion. The third column is for price. This column contains:

• $ - if the set costs between $10-$15 (included).
• $$ - for $15-$20 ($15 excluded)
• $$$ - anything greater than $20

The sets are listed in the same order as they are listed above.

Set	BD	AN	CO	TY	GW	SY	BB	Flexible	Price
S1	Y	Y		Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	$
S2	Y			Y	Y				$
S3	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y		Y	$$
S4			Y	Y		Y			$$
S5	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y			Y	$$
S6	Y			Y				Y	$$
S7	Y		Y	Y	Y				$$
S8	Y		Y						$$
S9	Y		Y	Y	Y		Y		$$
S10	Y		Y	Y	Y	Y			$
S11	Y		Y	Y				Y	$
S12	Y	Y		Y	Y				$$
S13	Y			Y					$
S14	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y		Y	Y	$$
S15	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y				$$
W1	Y			Y	Y	Y		Y	$
W2	Y	Y	Y	Y		Y	Y	Y	$
W3	Y		Y			Y			$$
W4	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	$$
W5	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	$$
W6	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	$$$

Conclusion:

1. The Sentiments I and II by Impression Obsession seem to be the most complete and versatile word set (and cheap). "Never Loss 4 Words" is also as good just that it's a little expensive.
   
2. After that we've "Flourished Words", "Mini Sentiments" and "All Occassions".

Mother's Day Card

It's been a long break. A whole lot of "busy-ness" with a dash of "lazyness" led to no posts :(. And then this project took quite some time for me to create - I wanted to find the right verse, the right font, print it and so on and so forth. A made this "little book" for Mother's Day. You can find the template here and the discussion here. Each page has a line of a poem. A sample is below:

I wanted to wait till Mother's day to post this but I was so excited about this project. It came about just I'd imagined, then this was my first with the Nestabilities and a first the "Jolies Fleur" stamp set and to top it all how can a girl go on without loads of praises for her work :). So here I am!

I printed the verses on the computer in a page-friendly manner. Cut them using a trimmer, dry embossed a border using the scoring blade of a trimmer and decorated each page with some images.

• Stamp: Lizzie Anne Design's Jolies Fleur
• Prismacolor pencils and OMS
• Gold pen, nestabilities.
  

More milk cartons, this time with instructions

So if you're a regular @ my blog, you must've seen that I made a milk carton box just a few days ago. I was so happy with my success that I decided to make more! Actually, next monday we've a festival as part of which I want to give the kids in my neighbourhood some small gift and so I decided to make these for them. Since the last time I made them I figured that I really didn't need to score some of the lines so this time I made my own template of course based on Beate's @ "fresh and fun".

Materials used:

• Wasau white exact index
• PP - again a $1 find!
• Ribbon - this too was a $1 for 5 yards @ Michaels!!
• Double sided tape

They're very simple to make:

1. Download my template here (it is meant for an A4 or 8.5 X 11 inch paper). The template is quite self-explanatory.
2. Cut along the solid lines and score along the dashed line (---). For scoring the angled lines, I used a ruler.
3. Glue the "TAB" to the other end and the bottom flaps together. I used the double sided tape.
4. If you want to cover it with DP/PP like I did, I think it's better to do it before you start the glueing-together process. Rest of the decorations can be done when the box is ready.

Cards for Cancer Survivors

I made these cards for cancer survivors participating in "American Cancer Society Relay for Life " and will be sending them to emmesmom @ SCS who is collecting cards for these participants. If you would like to be a part of it, you can read more about it here. There are 15 totally! The closeup photo that I took was before I added the sentiment. Since I'd make 15 of them I kept it simple. The sentiment was printed on the computer and the inside of the card too. I need to figure out a way to avoid the ugly corners when using a scallop scissors for cutting a polygon. Anybody has any secret recipes for it that they would like to share? Sure it'll cease to be a secret once you share it with me :)

• Wasau white paper, 140 lb
• PP: that's a dollar find! 10 for a $1 and I love them!
• Daisy punch
• Colored scraps of CS
• Computer printed sentiment

"You Cheer Me Up" award!

I'm really late in posting this...Malieta gave the "You cheer me up"award!! How nice of her :). It cheered me up!! So I'm going to give it to a few other blogger friends who's blogs never fail to bring a smile to my face. They are (in no particular order):

• Nicola @ My Paper World.
• Debby @ A Scrapjourney.
• Tejal @ ~Creating new expressions.
• Dawn @ All Pink Girl
• Marlou @ Scrapping with love