Couple of cute kid projects

I always love looking through Stampin' Up!'s Idea Book and Catalog(s) over and over. I have the past 7 or 8 catalogs, and I still enjoy going back to the old one's to get ideas if I'm drawing a blank on my own. There have been two projects recently in the catalogs that I have been dying to try, and this week I finally got around to making the projects myself.

The first project is in the current catalog. It is a 3-D project - a way for you to "spice up" a photo in a frame. I just bought a frame I liked at Target, then cut my own cardstock to match the size of the frame. I had to resize my photo a little bit - but that of course is the great thing about digital photos, it is so easy to resize and print a new one! Anyway, I love how this frame turned out, especially with the adorable photo of my son playing in one of the fountains at our local botanical garden's children's park. NOTE: for the placement of the letters on this one, I just took my chances of free-handing the stamps. If you want to be sure your letters are straight though (like for the next project), you can use the Stamp-a-ma-jig.

Frame Supplies:
ABC Lower and Prehistoric Pals stamp sets
Chocolate Chip, Old Olive, Garden Green, Pacific Point, Tangerine Tango, and Riding Hood Red Classic Stampin' Pads
Whisper White card stock
Paper Snips
SNAIL and Stampin' Dimensionals
store bought frame

The second project was in two or three IB&C ago. It was on the page with the ABC alphabet sets, and was one of the main reasons I bought all the ABC sets. I've been wanting to make these flashcards for quite some time. My husband and I are going away in a couple of days for our 10 year anniversary (we're going to Paris and London!) and the grandparents are watching our kids. I thought the flashcards would be a great gift for them to have when we leave for our trip.

I used our 2008-2009 in-colors as my card stock and ink colors for the flashcards. I decided to only use the Pink Pirouette for the wheel color because it is such a light color and I thought it might get lost in the brightness of the other colors if I tried to mix it in with the letters. Also, I didn't use it as a card stock base, just an accent color, because, honestly, I need more Pink Pirouette card stock! :-) I'm also saving my Baja Breeze card stock because that is my favorite color and I know it is going to be retired next month (watch out for a post tomorrow about the retiring stamp sets and accessories). Anyway, once I got the hang of making these, they went relatively quickly. This is a great project to make with your kids too - especially if you have older kids who want to help make the flashcards for their younger siblings. NOTE: it is a good idea to use a darker ink color (like Chocolate Chip) on the imaging sheets of the Stamp-a-ma-jig, even if that isn't the color you are going to use on your actual project.

Flashcard supplies:
ABC Upper, ABC Lower, and ABC Images stamp sets
My ABCs Stampin' Around Wheel
Whisper White, Riding Hood Red, Tangerine Tango, Kiwi Kiss, and Pacific Point card stock
Tangerine Tango and Pink Pirouette textured card stock
Chocolate Chip, Pink Pirouette, Riding Hood Red, Tangerine Tango, Kiwi Kiss, Baja Breeze, and Pacific Point Classic Stampin' Pads
Kiwi Kiss 5/8" Striped Grosgrain Ribbon
Stamp-a-ma-jig
1-1/4" Square Punch
1" Circle Punch
Tag Corner Punch
Crop-a-Dial
Wheel Guide
Stampin' Around Wheel Handle
SNAIL and Stampin' Dimensionals