How Your Garden Grows - MFT August Blog Hop

Can you feel it? The energy's been building up all week and finally it's here! My Favorite Things' August release Hop and Shop is NOW!!! You've either stumbled across the Blog Hop or gotten here from Kerry's blog. If you just stumbled across the hop, you really should head on over to Kim's blog (that's the beginning, where she'll tell you all about the entire release), or you'll miss a lot of goodness along the way. I'm just sayin'...

I might have mentioned on the first day of teasers that I love the new Stephanie Fizer set called How Your Garden Grows. No, I *really* love this set. You might suspect that I'm all about flowers and you'd be right, so you know I'm all over this set :) AND the new digi paper that matches it. AND the new flower and leaf dies that match them both! Be still my heart! There are SO many possibilities with this set, paper, and dies that my brain is just swirling with ideas--I can't wait to show you three of them right now!

First, a very simple, but I think cute, application for one of the paper patterns. I wish I could take credit for the idea, but I saw this while blurfing a while back--it's a necklace!

So simple--and inexpensive to boot. Take a large metal washer (found at the hardware store), glue some paper on it and after it dries cover it with Crystal Effects or the like. Then hang it from ribbon or cord and voila'! This pattern is small enough to show up well on this scale and it's such a great summery pattern that it will go with lots of things!

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Next, I decided to see how the flower images would do stamped on a canvas tote bag. This was also an inexpensive project--I found a package of three bags for just a few dollars and I already had everything else on hand. I think this would make a cute gift by itself or as packaging for another gift. Doncha think?

I used a variety of colors of Ranger Distress Inks for the stamping. After I stamped and let the ink dry, I heat set it, then I sewed buttons on for the flower centers and added some die cut felt clouds and a sun with a button center. (The button in the center of the sun really *is* in the center--the bag is sagging so it looks off-center.) I stitched the die cuts on after attaching them with a bit of Stitch Witchery so they wouldn't move in the process. I thought about adding die cut grass, but was concerned that felt might wear along the bottom too much so I just did some random stitching for the grass. These are the Die-namics dies I used for this project.

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And finally, I made a useful and decorative item for my Girl Cave.

I found this photo file box at Michael's for $1 several months ago and I've been using it to help me keep track of all my stamping commitments. We get our MFT stamps ahead of time so I was putting them in envelopes marked with the day they were to be used for teasers, etc. I also know my challenge team plans ahead of time and was just keeping a list in the box. While that *worked* to keep everything in the same place, it was a little cumbersome and not very elegant ;-)

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So I decided to pretty it up and make it more user friendly in the process and here's the end result. I'd been thinking about how I wanted to do this box for some time. My room is painted a light salmon color so when I saw these new digi papers I knew they would be perfect to use on the box.

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Since you get four copies of the paper on one sheet of 8.5" x 11" paper when printed, I ended up with seams after I covered the box.

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To hide them and the bottom margins, I used stamped flower stems (stamped and cut out) and flower, clouds, grass, and sun die cuts. In addition to the dies pictured above, I used these Die-namics dies on this project.

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Here's the front of the box. You know I love me some little scenes, don't you ;-)


Don't you just love that sentiment!? Isn't it PERFECT for this project? I took the label holder off the original box and reused it to hold the sentiment, which is from the What a Day set.

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Now, on to the inside of the box. I got some heavy weight file dividers at the office supply store and cut them to size.


For the month dividers, I covered them with patterned paper and made tabs with oval Nestabilities. Then I stamped the months, which are from the Make the Date set. For the day dividers, I punched out paper and card stock and stamped the numbers, also from Make the Date. Finally I stamped the days, from What a Day, all over the dividers. Actually, I attached all of the days to a large acrylic block and stamped them all at one time.

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And here's my box in use. I have room for some alterables in the back for some upcoming project ideas and for embellishments that I think will work with those projects in the front. Hopefully this will help keep me from forgetting the ideas ;-)

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All patterned paper used on this box, including the grass, is from the How Does Your Garden Grow digi paper. The white card stock is MFT Whip Cream (temporarily out of stock), the blue card stock, that just about perfectly matches the blue dividers, is MFT Berrylicous, the salmon buttons are from the Chocolate Kiss collection and the yellow buttons are from the Spring Collection. And, of course, the girl image was stamped on a Perfect Paper Panel (also temporarily out of stock), colored with Copic markers and paper pieced, and cut out.

Thanks so much for stopping by! Sorry this was long, but I had so much to show you and I am so excited about this collection. It's just SO versatile and you need to know that, LOL!!

So, I'm the end of the line, but don't forget that one of the DT members has some blog candy to give away. We're not tellin' who it is, so to have the best chance of winning it, it would be a good idea to comment on every DT member's blog. I'm just sayin' ;-) And don't forget to SHOP!

~Supplies for the Necklace~
Stamps: none
Paper: How Does Your Garden Grow digi paper (MFT)
Ink: none
Accessories/tools: Two-way glue pen, Crystal Effects, craft knife, ribbon, metal washer

~Supplies for the Tote Bag~
Stamps: How Your Garden Grows (MFT)
Paper: none
Ink: Assorted Distress Inks (Ranger)
Accessories/tools: buttons (stash); Cuttlebug (Provocraft); Clouds and Sunshine Die-namics dies, felt (MFT); sewing machine; canvas tote bag; Stitch Witchery

~Supplies for the File Box~
Stamps: How Does Your Garden Grow, Make the Date, What a Day (MFT)
Paper: Whip Cream, Berrylicious card stock, How Does Your Garden Grow digi patterned paper, Perfect Paper Panel (MFT); Ruby Red (SU!)
Ink: Memento Rich Cocoa, Bamboo Leaf
Accessories/tools: Cuttlebug (Provocraft); Flowers and Leaves, Fresh Cut Grass, Clouds, and Sunshine Die-namics dies, buttons (MFT); Pearle cotton (craft store)