DIY Rounded Squares Every Day Card

Materials:

• The Paper Studio value pack ivory notecard/envelope 4″x5.5″ [Michaels]
• White card stock
• Recollections Basic Bold 12″x12″ paper pad [Michaels]
• Martha Stewart corner rounder
• Elmer’s Craft Bond Tacky Glue 4 fl oz
• glue stick, scissors, ruler

OrganizationLove Pro Tips:

• I cut 1.5″ squares and then used a corner rounder punch to round 2 corners.
• I didn’t put all the shapes the same direction, rather kept the ones on the left facing one way and the ones on the right facing the opposite way.
• Because the colorful paper was just paper, not card stock, I glued (using glue stick) it to plain white card stock (I had plenty of that) to keep it sturdy and also make it pop out from the card just a little.
• Gluing it to card stock after cutting the square made things much easier when I punched it through the corner rounder! Trust me – I tried both ways, the paper alone didn’t want to punch.
• I used the liquid glue to glue the card stock/paper combo to the card paper.
• I made a rainbow design just for fun. You could use coordinating colors or black and white – I might try those later!

Caption Ideas:

Really could be anything – I’ll use it for an every day card, so something like:

• Thinking of you
• Just because
• Sending love

Inspired by:

https://lvstmpn.wordpress.com/2012/08/07/ccrew0812df-kindness/

• Saw the above on Pinterest, giving me the idea to use a corner rounder on squares. Thanks for the inspiration!
• If my post inspires you, and you blog about it, I ask that you credit me!

Want it?

• This card is available for purchase on my etsy store:

https://www.etsy.com/listing/254910921/popsicle-just-because-card-for-anyone

First dance lyrics and photo: DIY Valentine’s Day Project

For Valentine’s Day, how about a special homemade project for your sweetie?

IMPORTANT FIRST STEP: Create a new Word document and go to Page Setup to change the paper size to 8″ x 10″. This way, it will fit in a regular 8″ x 10″ frame.

Next, I found the lyrics to the song my husband and I call “our song” – the one we to which we danced our first dance at our wedding. (“Back at One” by Brian McKnight is ours.) I copied and pasted the lyrics into the 8″ x 10″ Word document and took out all the line breaks. Instead of line breaks, I added 3 spaces between the words where line breaks would have occurred.

I also used the “Insert -> Picture -> From File” function to insert a photo of us in our first dance at our wedding.

I justified the text and put it in a font I like. I bolded the chorus every time it occurred. I also checked the lyrics to make sure they were what I remembered … sometimes those sites get it wrong!

I made the font and picture the biggest sizes I could without making the document go over a page. I experimented with moving around the picture a little to make the lyrics to the left of the photo appear as normal as possible. Justifying the text can make it look funny at times (as you can see in a few lines below where the words are super spaced out!)

Then at the bottom I added our names and the date of our wedding.

Printed it out on card stock (trimmed to 8″ x 10″) and it is ready for a frame!

Happy Valentine’s Day! If you have a significant other, would you make something for him or her as a gift?

DIY Birthday Display Craft

Before we get too far into 2015, I have got to share a craft I made to enjoy year round.

I had a small family, but I married into a huge one! I now have 11 nieces and nephews, as well as 7 siblings-in-law.

Something else you should know about me is how much I treasure birthdays. I think they are fantastic and deserve to be celebrated by children and adults alike. I love to celebrate with the birthday people by mailing cards and making phone calls. I have birthdays on my calendars, including as a recurring event on my iCal (those recurring events – so helpful!) but I wanted to treasure them by putting them on display in a whole different way.

I chose a color of background card stock for each month, and a coordinating pen and marker color. I used a different color of background paper for almost each month, and tried to make the color scheme correspond with a big holiday in the month. October is black and orange due to Halloween falling in October, for example. I made the squares 3.5″ and then cut out the white (with small colored flecks – reminded me of birthday cake) paper slightly smaller with decorative scissors.

The months are written in cursive in a color. Down the left side, in numerical order, are the days where birthdays lie. The birthday person’s name is written in black to stand out, and lastly the year they were born (so I can always figure out how old they are, and for adults, if a milestone birthday is approaching!)

I also included anniversaries with a heart next to the last name of the couple. The heart is dark enough that it makes it easy to differentiate from birthdays. And yes – I observe the anniversary of our proposal and the day we started dating as well. (Actually, these are on the chart mostly because it helps me remember the years these things happened!)

I used my hole punch to make a hole above the month name and threaded some gold string through, double/triple tying a knot to create a circle. They hang on a giant pushpin pushed into the bulletin board near my front door. When a month is over, like January is, I just move it to the back by taking the entire pushpin out and slipping the passed month over the point and all!

This is also handy because the kids in the family are too young for Facebook birthday reminders! 

Do you love birthdays too? Let me know in the comments how you remember your family members’ birthdays!