Blog Badges

After being away from blogging for alittle while and looking at new blogs, I noticed that people are using "blog badges". These badges are click-able little pictures/photo’s that lead to different websites. For instance, the founder of CTMH uses a blog badge that once clicked leads to her personal scrapbooking blog. I’m always looking for new ways to make my blog look fresh and new, so I just learned how to make a blog badge and wanted to share the instructions with you. If you have any questions, please let me know.

For an example, look at my main website at and you’ll see several blog badges on the right column of my blog.

Step One: Choose a picture that you want to use for your blog badge. The size that I found that works best for a blog badge is 128 pixels x 128 pixels and should be saved in .jpg format.

Step Two: Set-up a Photobucket account. Its free and easy to use. I used Photobucket because the code that you need is easily accessible after you’ve saved your picture to their site.

Step Three: After you’ve saved your photo to the Photobucket website, click on the image and look for a screen that looks like the one below. Copy/paste the “HTML Code” into a Word document (so you can manipulate it).

Step Four: Replace the purple text with the web address you want your button to link to. (The pic is blurry but click on it and it will show up clearer.)

Step Five: From this point, copy and paste your new html code that you've edited in Word into wherever you want your blog badge to go. I use blogger.com for my website. So, in blogger.com, go to where you can edit the page elements of your website. Click on “add a gadget” and choose HTML/JavaScript as show in the picture below.

Click on the blue plus sign and in the next pop-up window, copy and paste the html code into the box. Click save. And voile, you’ve just created a blog badge!! Have fun!

Mini Fold-Out Album Video

Enjoy!!

Mini Fold-Out Album

Here are some pictures of the final album. Again, my apologies that my camera ran out of memory. I used sticker letters, flowers and some sparkles to decorate the front of the album. The only thing non-CTMH is the red chiffon ribbon and chipboard. I picked the ribbon up at Michael's in their discounted section. And the chipboard is from Aaron Brothers.




Following are the supplies and measurements for cutting the papers for your own album.

3 –8 ½" x 8 ½" cardstock (whatever solid color you like)
2 –4 ½" x 4 ½" cardboard / chipboard (for cover)
2 –5 ½" x 5 ½" background and texture paper (for cover)
10 - 4" x 4" pictures (all cut diagonally, except for 2)
8 –4" x 4" patterned paper (4 of two different patterns)
1 –30" ribbon of your choice
Adhesives - I used tombow adhesive

I'll post the video above. Have fun creating your own fun and pretty mini fold-out album.

Video - How to Make a Bag out of an Envelope

Enjoy!!! Please see blog entry below for further instructions.

Make 10 Cards Using a Level 1 Paper Pack

I tend to make cards more than I scrapbook. Close To My Heart sells Level 1 kits that are meant to be used for scrapbooking. And Level 2 kits for either scrapbooking or making cards or any other projects. The other day I was thinking...there's got to be a way for me to use this Level 1 kit to make cards. And jackpot-bonanza, I figured out how to make 10 cards using the Evensong Level 1 kit. (Note: I noticed that not all Level 1 kits have the same preprinted papers in them, so these cards will vary from paper pack to paper pack.) FYI...the Level 1 kits come with two sheets of stickers, so you can easily use these stickers to embellish your cards. So, grab your Evensong Level 1 paper pack and any coordinating stamp set you have and let's get started...

Pictured here is the Evensong Level 1 paper pack and December Word Puzzle Stamp Set that I used to make 10 holiday cards. I only used a few of the pre-printed and solid colored papers. There's still plenty of paper left in the pack to use for scrapbook layouts.




Using the piece of pre-printed paper as shown below, cut it into 3 strips. Then flip it over and cut a 1" strip, removing the Close To My Heart logo. Keep the cut off 1" strips to use later. This will generate 3 cards, sized 4" x 5 1/2". Fold these in half to make top folding or side folding cards.


Cut 3 - 4" x 3 1/4" pieces of cranberry cardstock and 3 - 3 3/4" x 3" pieces of colonial white cardstock. This will form pieces to use for stamping sentiments onto the front of the three cards that you just cut.


Using the 1" strips that you cut off, add them to the bottom/sides of each of the three cards, alternating colors and then use ribbon and the stickease to embellish these cards.



Next, take the pre-printed paper (partly shown below). Cut off the green strip at the top of the paper. Then score the paper in half. Cut at 4" increments to get 3 cards, sized 4" x 4 1/2".


Cut 3 - 3" x 3 1/2" pieces of colonial white cardstock for stamping sentiments for these 3 cards.


Use the pre-printed paper as shown below. Feed it into your paper trimmer. And cut off 4". Then turn the paper and cut at increments of 4". Score and fold in half to make 3 cards, sized 4" x 4".


Cut 3 - 3 1/4" x 4" pieces of cranberry cardstock and 3 - 3 3/4" x 3" pieces of colonial white cardstock. This will form pieces to use for stamping sentiments onto the front of the three cards that you just cut.


To make the 10th card, cut a piece of cranberry cardstock to make a card sized 5 1/4" x 4 1/2". Then, cut a piece of green leaf printed paper, sized 5" x 4 1/4" and adhere to the cranberry cardstock front.

Using a leftover piece of striped printed paper which should be 1" x 4", adhere to the card front.

Cut a piece of colonial white cardstock, sized 3 1/4" x 3 1/4" and stamp a sentiment onto that. To further decorate, I used a big flower sticker and completely covered it with liquid glass to make it "puffy" and adhered it to the card front.

Here is a picture of all 10 cards. Other supplies that I used include: December Word Puzzle Stamp Set, Cranberry and Topiary stamp pads, sponges for softening the edges, liquid glass to give the appearance of "puffiness" on the stickers, 1/4" white ribbon, clear sparkles and circle window charms.

If you have any questions on these instruction, please email me. Enjoy and have fun!!!

How To Make a Bow

At a recent Team Meeting, one of the consultants, Kristina Baldwin, provided us with a make-n-take. It was a bow made out of a 6"x12" piece of printed paper. With her permission, I'm including the directions here. These bows are made by cutting 1" strips at certain sizes using leftover printed paper that you might consider as scraps. Thanks Kristina for this awesome project!!

To begin, you will need a piece of printed paper (preferably with a print on both sides of the paper). The paper size should be 6" x 12". You will be using this entire piece of paper, so be sure to cut the paper exactly as specified below.


You will want to turn your paper into your paper trimmer and cut 8 - 1" x 6" strips. After making these cuts, your paper should be 4" x 6".


Turn your 4" x 6" piece of printed paper and cut 1 strip - 1" x 4"


Your printed paper should be 4" x 5" now. Turn your printed paper one more time and make 4 - 1" x 5" strips.

The bow is going to be have 3 layers plus the center loop. Line your pieces up as shown below. The shortest piece (1" x 4") is going to be the loop that sits on top in the center of your bow. So, once you figure out what side of the paper that you want showing on your loop, this will determine how to alternate the rest of your strips.

See example below. The loop is the light side. The bottom grouping is dark (4- 1" x 5") will be the first level. The middle grouping is light (4 - 1" x 6") which is the middle level. And the top grouping is dark (4 - 1" x 6") which will be the bottom level.

Next you'll want to use your favorite adhesive and apply it to the bottom portion (1 strip of adhesive across the very bottom is sufficient) of each strip.

Then, you'll take each strip and form the following shape. Overlap the bottoms of each strip as shown. Be sure to keep your groupings of 4 together.

Take each group of 4 and form a plus, connecting the center of the 4 pieces with a brad. Use a paper piercer or tip of a sharp pair of scissors to make a hole for the brad.

Do this for the next two groupings to form 3 layers as shown below. Pile each layer upon the other using a double sided thick tape or a thick "pop dot". Then top with the looped strip.

Side note: My mom made some bows using some new holiday paper that I bought. It was alittle difficult to cut the paper from the roll but after that, it was quite easy to make the bows as the paper was very easy to cut into strips and adhere to each other. Instead of brads, she just used adhesive. This is awesome because now I can have bows match the wrapping paper!!

Making a Bag out of an Envelope

You can make a bag out of any sized envelope (pretty much...Too small and you could end up with a very tiny bag, so I would use a standard sized letter envelope and anything larger than that).


Using the "scoring" blade on your cutter, make a score line on 3 sides of the envelope, evenly spaced. So, if you score at the 1" mark, score the other 2 sides at the 1" mark as well.


Next, you will want to score the bottom corner. Once you've scored the three sides, you'll end up with little square scoring marks in two of the corners. At these corners, make a diagnal score mark as shown here.

Next, you will want to cut the non-scored edge and this will form the opening / top of your bag. Please note...if your envelope has a flap, you will want to seal this flap before beginning. If it has a flap at the end of it where you will want the opening, just cut off the flap. Here you will see that my envelope had a flap that I sealed, so in turn, I cut a little bit of the opening / top to form the opening of my bag.

This is the fun part...stamping or embellishing your envelope. Stamp before you make any creases as it helps the stamped images come out much clearer and cleaner.

After stamping, fold all of your score lines. Flip the envelope over and fold on the score lines again. Then stick your hand into the envelope and with your other hand, push the bottom crease inwards towards your fingers that are inside the bag. This will make the bag bottom flat.

As you push in the bottom of the bag, it will cause the corners to sort of form themselves as shown.

Add a glue dot to the corner and fold it towards the center of the bag bottom.

Next, fold the side of the envelope inwards as shown to form the sides of the bag.

I next scored the opening of the bag (about 1") to make it fold down easier.

Punched two holes on top of the fold.

And then inserted a ribbon to tie the bag closed.