I wanted to share with you the gift that I made for all of my Stamper’s Club members.  My club started again last month and our next meeting is on Friday this week.  Then Saturday I’ll be getting ready for Easter and Sunday I’ll have over 30 people here for our Easter Lunch and Egg Hunt.  I am trying to come up with a fun “Egg Hunt” for the teenagers – which is what most of the kids are now.  Only my niece and nephew are little and enjoy the actual egg hunt the rest have grown up so much I think I made them hunt eggs last year.  Although they do still like the candy.  Sorry – I wandered off topic – back to my project……

I decorated a 12×12 Craft Keeper for everyone.  Each one is personalized with their name and I’ll use it to put in all of their supplies for our meeting each month.  Here is a picture of the one I made for myself.

To create the names I used a sheet of Chocolate Chip Decor Elements – yes you can buy them in sheets in various colors – and cut the letters on my Big Shot Die Cut Machine.  I used the Stampin’ Up! Alphabet Simple Letters dies to cut each name and then applied them to the Craft Keeper with the Decor Elements Applicator.

To decorate around the names I used the For All You Do stamp set and White StazOn Ink.  For the top I used my Crop-a-Dile to punch holes along the flap and then ran a piece of Bashful Blue Grosgrain ribbon in and out of the holes.

Next I tried my hand at making fabric flowers.  I picked up this fabric – 3 different patterns at the fabric store – it had Chocolate Chip as the base so of course I liked it!  I used the Big Shot Die Cut machine to cut the fabric – the die that I used is the Scallop Circle #2 die and I used the smaller flower that is on it.  For each flower you need 5 scallop circles.  I know many people are making lots of flowers and things with fabric and the Big Shot and I’m not exactly sure how everyone else is making their flowers – but since I didn’t have one of the flower dies I used this scallop circle and this is how I made it look like it had flower petals.

The bottom layer is just the scallop circle – that was my base to sew everything else on to.  Then I took each scallop circle and folded it in half (wrong sides together) and then folded it in half again so I ended up with a quarter of the scallop circle and 4 layers.  Then I sewed the tip so it would stay together and then sewed that to my scallop circle base.  I did that 4 times and then sewed a button in the center to cover up all of my sewing in the middle.  I didn’t cut the layers apart but I guess you could and it would give a little bit of a different look.  If they aren’t cut the folds give the flower some fluff.  I did mix up the prints so not all the petals have the same fabric print on them.

To finish off the craft keeper I used glue dots to add a piece of 12×12 Designer Series Paper inside.  Then it is always pretty and whatever is inside will be behind the paper.  I hope everyone liked these.

Just a quick bird update – still no bluebird eggs but I do see them around the yard and going into the house every day.  I did check my House #1 this morning and someone has started a nest in there – I’m not sure who – I did see a Tufted Titmouse go in there a few days ago but it could also be the Chick-a-Dees – they used that house last year.

Have a nice day – we are having some great Spring Weather and it should be really nice here on Sunday – which is good because I use my screened porch and deck for extra tables and chair on Easter.