Top 10 Posts of 2012

Happy New Year's Eve to you all!! I hope you had a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year! I'm celebrating today by sharing my top 10 posts of 2012 (according to Google Analytics). Thank you all for making this a wonderful year for Taking Time to Create! I had a little party with every comment and seeing my page views increase over the past few months. It was even a little exciting (at first anyway) to have spammers commenting, because that meant that someone or something was finding my little blog. 

I hope you'll continue to join me in 2013!

Number 10: Crochet Rippled Scarf

Number 9: Egg Carton Scavenger Hunt

Number 8: Crochet Striped Tote

Number 7: Paper Animal Finger Puppets

Number 6: Magnetic Pin Jar

Number 5: Kindle Cases

Number 4: Gift Card Holder

Number 3: How to Add An Instagram Feed in Blogger

Number 2: Handmade Gift Bags

And the Number 1 Post!

Patchwork Headboard Tutorial

2 Types of Artwork {For FREE!}

 

Welcome to the latest post in the seemingly never ending project that has become my master bedroom! (Some of the other projects including The Patchwork Headboard are here, here and here). It's almost finished. I can't wait! 

I am trying to spend as little as possible to finish the room, and what's better than FREE? Nothing, right? 

Let's start with the watercolor paintings.

Oh, isn't that kid cute?!? I may be a little biased....

I'm sure you've seen these watercolor portraits from Grow Creative floating around. They're so cute, and as it turns out, super easy to do. Be sure to listen to her tip about picking the right picture, though. I started out with 4 different pictures of my little guy, but the others turned out looking a little too much like kids from another planet for my liking. No problem! I just did the same picture in four different colors.

How to do it for free? 

• Recycle some old frames. You can leave them as is or paint them like I did. Mine were originally black.
• You don't need fancy watercolor paints. I used some that were from a kids' art set I got when I was in high school a few (ok, over ten-yikes!) years ago. 
• I used some drawing/sketch paper I've had forever too. 

And now for the second type of artwork which involves one of my favorite things...paper! I have a slight paper obsession, so gathering supplies for this project was no problem for me. I was first inspired by this project from Creative Passage, and then this one from Simply Living inspired me to make it into a smaller version.

To make this project: 

• Cut square pieces of plywood and paint them white (or whatever color you'd like). I happen to have a few 8x8 inch squares leftover from the Patchwork Headboard, so I used those and some white paint I had sitting around.
• Cut out lots and lots of petals/leaves to create your art. I tried to use the same shape as the version from Simply Living.
• Create your pattern and use Mod Podge to fasten the pieces onto the wood. Seal them all with a coat of Mod Podge.
• Oh, but how will we hang them? This is the BEST part of the whole thing. Pop can tabs! Check out the post from Practically Functional to see how to do this. It's genius!

And there you have it! Two simple and FREE artwork projects.

Questions? Please feel free to leave a comment or send me an email. I love hearing from you!

I'm linking at these great parties:
Mondays: Sweet Sharing Monday *  The Girl Creative * Destination: Cutesy Monday * What's In The Gunny Sack *  Made by you Monday*Make It Yourself Monday*Mop It Up Mondays*Make The Scene Monday*Make It Pretty Monday*
Tuesdays: Riverton Housewives Roundup *  Show Me What You Got * Tuesday Time Out  * Tasteful Tuesdays * Too Cute Tuesday*Tuesday's Treasures*Crafty Tuesday* Trendy Tuesday
Wednesdays: Super Link Party * Show & Share * {Wow Me} Wednesday *From Dream To Reality*Create & Share*What I Whipped Up Wednesday*What We Wore & Made Wednesday*The Creative Spark Wednesdays* Milk & Cuddles*Made By Me Wednesdays*Adorned From Above*
Thursday: Pin'Inspirational Thursday * Recipe Roundup *A Crafty Soiriee * Creative Thursday *Taylor House Thursday*Transformation Thursday*Hookin Up With HoH*Creative Juice Thursday*Live Laugh Linky Thursday* Link Party Thursday*Taking A Time Out Thursday*Eat Make Grow*
Fridays: Delicately Constructed Fridays * Flaunt It Friday * Financial Friday Link Up  *Friday Fun Party* Friday Flair*Pity Party*Frugal Friday*Friday Favorites*Weekend Craft Soiree*Weekend Warmth*One Creative Weekend
Saturdays: Strut Your Stuff Saturday * Once Upon A Weekend * Sharing Saturday * Dare To Share Saturday * Craft, Create and Inspire * A Pinteresting Party*Serenity Saturday
Sundays: Nifty Thrifty Sunday * It's Overflowing Sunday Party  * Cooking & Crafts Party

Related articles

• Patchwork Headboard {Tutorial}
• Braided Curtain Tie Backs
• Blended Ombre Walls

Chalkboard Birthday Plants

You've probably seen similar plant pots around, but I thought I'd create some for my sister's birthday. I picked up a few pots and started a little herb garden for her. I wanted to have a way to show her what the plants were, and since I used chalkboard paint, she'll be able to use them for other plants in the future.

 Since my pots were already painted different colors, I just taped the off and then painted the chalkboard paint. Super simple.

 And to add a little color, I made a few pinwheels for the pots. Cute!

I'm having a blast at these lovely linking parties. 

Technique Tuesday {One Sheet Wonders}

Card #9

Have you heard of a card sketch? It's basically a layout or blueprint for a card. You can use whatever papers you want, but it gives you the layout, shapes, and basic sizes for the pieces of paper you use. It's a good way to try something different. 


I came across something pretty cool that involves card sketches on Splitcoaststampers a couple years ago. This was before I had discovered Pinterest, so I printed it off, put it in my idea binder...and forgot about it. I found it again this weekend and finally gave it a try. It was a great way to get several cards started. It is a template to cut out accent pieces for a total of 12 cards all from one piece of paper...some call these a "one sheet wonder".

Card #3

I tried and tried to find the original source for you to download on Splitcoaststampers and using Google but couldn't find it for anything! I decided to try Bing and found it in about 30 seconds. Seriously? I've never been a huge fan of Bing, but this experience may make me have to rethink that.


Enough rambling...you can find the original template and examples to download here. They are Word documents, so I can't show you the images here. :-( You can find a lot of these "one sheet wonders" on Splitcoaststampers, and I even found a few on Pinterest (though I didn't find the actual templates on Pinterest-just example cards).

Card #4

The template is for an 8.5x11 piece of paper, so I cut down a 12x12 piece. Then I was able to use the scraps to go with the other pieces I cut according to the template. According to the template, you can make 12 card, but I ended up combining some of the pieces and made 10. Two aren't pictured here though. I was photographing the cards outside in the wind and didn't get a good picture of one and I'm not sure what happened to the other one! :-(


NOW...if you were able to get through all my ramblings, here are the rest of the cards! The above cards are also below with a little detail about how they were made. You may have noticed above that the cards are numbered. The numbers correspond to the numbering in the original. I flipped all my cards to they were portrait. There were portrait and landscape cards in the original.

Card #8

 Card #8 is self explanatory. It's nice to put your layering pieces at an angle sometimes to create a little more interest.

Card #6

 I used a scallop punch and flower punches on card #6

Card #1

 I used a sponge to add color to the edges of card #1. Just ink up the sponge with your stamp ink. Also, the leaves of the flower are stamped directly onto the card and the flower is layered on top of them to create a little dimension.

Card #10,11,12

 The flowers on card #10,11,12 were stenciled using the leftover paper from punching out the flowers on card #6. I just held the paper in place and used my inked up sponge again like with the edges of card #1.

Card #5

I used the scalloped punch again for card #5.

Card #9

I used twine instead of ribbon on card #9, so I wrapped it around the paper several times to make it look a little thicker.

Card #3

 The edges on the background piece were torn to create the effect in card #3. If your card has a white "core" it looks best, but it works great with any paper.

Card #4

Card #4 is pretty self explanatory. Those "stripes" are just paper scrapes, but they look a little like ribbon.

I'm having a blast at these lovely linking parties.

DIY Easter Egg Grass

Does that plastic Easter egg grass drive you crazy? I don't have too much experience with it since my little guy is so little, but I remember my mom not being a huge fan, so I figured I'd make an alternative.

I cut strips of paper about 1/2 an inch wide and then used my paper crimper (I think I've seen them at Hobby Lobby) to crimp the pieces of paper. That's it. Simple.

Here's a few things I've got planned for my little guy's basket. We're keeping it simple this year.

• The basket is a bucket with a shovel (he loves shovels)
• Crayons and animal coloring pages
• Toy bugs
• Sidewalk chalk (he's a little young but this is something I plan to do with him)
• Bath toys
• A book with stories about Jesus.

What are you putting in your little ones' Easter basket? I'd love for you to leave a comment with your ideas. 

I'm having a blast at these lovely linking parties. 

Paper Animal Finger Puppets

I've been trying to come up with some ideas for egg fillers other than candy. One of the ideas I found was finger puppets. A lot of the ones I found were made of felt, but I wanted to make mine from paper. What can I say? I have A LOT of paper, so I wanted to use some of it up.

Here's the basic instructions. I used tacky glue.

• Punch two circles from the same color (The sheep was actually one white circle and one gray scalloped circle).
• Cut ears and glue in between the two circles.
• Glue the "googly" eyes in place.
• Glue the "snout" in place if appropriate.
• Draw the face and details with a fine Sharpie 
• Create the pouch for the finger from a scrap of paper. I cut the paper into a strip, wrapped it around my finger to get the right size, folded the top over, and then glued the whole thing to the back of the puppet. I wanted the top to be closed so my little guy could use them without them falling down on his finger.

Pretty cute!

They all fit great into the Easter eggs too. :-)

Here's a great post with non-candy egg filler ideas or for more Easter ideas you can check out my Easter's A Hoppin' board on Pinterest.

I'm having a blast at these lovely linking parties. 

Handmade Gift Bags

I needed a gift bag yesterday and remembered seeing these newspaper gift bags at How About Orange. What a great idea! I whipped one up real quick but used scrapbook paper instead of newspaper. 


I won't give you a full tutorial since there already is one, but here's how I used scrapbook paper instead of newspaper.


In the tutorial you're supposed to cute a rectangle that's 15.5 inches wide by 8.25 inches tall. Since my paper was 12x12 inches I needed to make it a little wider. Here's how:

• Cut two pieces of paper 8.25 inches tall. One will be 12 inches wide and the other should be 4 inches wide.
• Score the smaller piece vertically 1/2 an inch over from the edge.
• I followed the instructions for scoring and folding the larger piece and applied it to both pieces before I attached them together, so i could use my scoring tool (it can only accommodate a 12 inch piece of paper)
• Fold the section of the smaller piece you scored first. Put lots of glue on that folded area and attach the smaller piece the the larger piece to create one big piece.
• Follow the rest of the directions in the tutorial to complete the bag.

I turned out pretty cute, and I think that it will be fairly quick to make the next time since I've got creating a larger piece of paper figured out. It's a great use for some of that paper I can't seem to stop myself from buying. :-)

Pin It

I'm having a blast at these lovely linking parties.