It's a Fabulous Start to the School Year!

As a teacher, I love a nice desk set just like anyone else. Over summer, I decided to pull this cute little set together using the Fabulous Collection.

I started with a Moleskine book. My favorites are the graph paper Cahier Journals. They make just the perfect, small notebook that I can use for meeting notes. They are also really easy to decorate. In this case, I used my Xyron Creative Station to add adhesive to the Fabulous Six 12x12 paper, then used a craft knife to cut around the cover. Liquid glue would also work well.

I added some interest with some die cut pieces from the 12x12 papers, an Authentic Life Card and some of the stickers from the collection. Each of the edges were inked with Distress Ink to create some interest. To keep the journal closed, I added a cute binder clip.

I couldn't resist adding a few pencils into the mix and created this sweet little pencil holder. I just folded the Fabulous Five paper so that the back was slightly longer than the pencils, leaving the front slightly wider than the back. Then I folded over the flaps and glued them in the back.

To finish off the pencil holder, I added a sweet polka dot heart and a matching polka dot bow.

The last little piece to the set is a bright, buttoned tag. I couldn't resist layering the Details cardstock stickers to a punched tag. Then added the ribbon, and sewed on the button to keep it in place.

I hope that this inspires you to break out your collections for more than just cards and layouts.

Supplies Used:

Authentique Fabulous Collection: Two, Five, Six, Eight, Twelve, Authentic Life Cards, Details stickers, alpha stickers (older collection)

Other Supplies: Moleskine Cahier, ribbons (May Arts), button, kraft paper, binder clip & pencils (Target), Distress Ink (Antique Linen)

Pin It

AUTHENTIQUE PAPER: Lucky Us Home Decor (Tutorial Linked)

Today on the Authentique Blog, I am sharing a tutorial using the Lucky Collection, my Xyron 9" Creative Station, and Silhouette Cameo. A special shoutout to Michelle Buck for her amazing photography of the girls in 2013.

Make sure that you stop on by the Authentique Blog and check out how to make your own home decor! Pin It

Creating Gift Bags with Xyron!

Good morning! I wanted to share with you a fun tutorial on making gift bags using a few of my favorite Xyron products, the Xyron Double Sided Tape, Xyron 1.5" Sticker Maker and the Xyron 3" Sticker Maker. I absolutely adore my Xyron 9" Creative Station, but my purple, sparkly X will forever hold a special place in my heart. I really love the Double Sided Tape, the 1.5" Sticker Maker and my 3" Sticker Maker, because I can toss them in a bag and go crafting with them easily. I love portable, but effective products.

 

 

I started with paper from a giant roll of kraft paper that I bought a few years ago. In short, you are going to wrap a box as if it was a present, but only on one side. To keep everything clean, I used the Xyron Double-Sided Tape. This makes all of your seams beautiful and crisp. Place your box on the paper (even an inside out paper bag will work!), tape one edge before you fold the paper over the box. Make sure that you only tape the paper to the paper (the box will come out when you are done).

Once the paper essentially makes a tube around the box, crease all of the edges. This will make your bag look more professional when you slip the box out. Then fold the edges in, and use your Double-Sided Tape to tape the bottom of the bag shut.

Here's how the box looks while it's in the bag.

Once you take out the box, you can re-crease the edges of the bag, to make it look more professional if you want. Then, cut off the bag to get the desired height. To reinforce the top of the bag, I folded the top edge down into the bag, and sealed it with more of the Double-Sided Tape.

To reinforce the bottom of the bag, take some scratch cardstock, cut it to the size of the bag, and use your Xyron 3" Sticker Maker to attach it to the inside.

I then took the top of the bag and punched holes in it with the Teresa Collins Chipboard Punch.

And then strung the bag with some leftover ribbon pieces.

For decoration, I took some pieces of paper that had previously been die cut from another project, and ran those through my Xyron 1.5" Sticker Maker and the Xyron 3" Sticker Maker. Doing so turned those fun die cuts into stickers that I simply adhered to the bag.

Using my Xyron products turned those fun die cuts into stickers that I simply adhered to the bag.

I even made a fun little tag to match! (See my die cut storage using the Xyron 9" Laminate Magnet Refill! Here's the link for that tutorial!

Doesn't this just make the cutest bag? And you can totally use up some of those scraps that you have lying around!

I made a second bag, and let my little girl play with some old chipboard pieces that weren't sticky anymore. My solution, run those cute die cuts through the Xyron 1.5" Sticker Maker and the Xyron 3" Sticker Maker. Now something that could have been tossed out is usable once again. 

These little bags make great bags for birthday presents or small gifts. Plus, because you can use any box, you can size your bag to your present.

Products Used: 

Xyron Double Sided Tape, Xyron 1.5" Sticker Maker, Xyron 3" Sticker Maker, Xyron Laminate Magnet Refill,  kraft paper, Authentique Lucky Collection, Basic Grey chipboard

Pin It

Stamp Organization Using Xyron Laminate Magnet Refills

I have to say that one of my late night obsessions is watching stamp videos from Jennifer McQuire and Kristina Werner. They have some amazing technique videos, and I love watching their projects come together. One of my goals for next year is to get myself a bit more organized so that I'm not trying to look for the products that I want for my projects. This includes stamp organization. I grabbed most of my inspiration from Jennifer McQuire's stamp organization post HERE. She has an amazing system that works for my growing collections of clear stamps and manual dies.

I followed Jennifer McQuire's whole system (minus the fridge container... I used a basket instead) for her stamp storage. However, the floating metal dies were driving me nuts. So I pulled out my Xyron 9" Creative Station and tossed in the Laminate Magnet Refill.

To start, I cut down some cardstock to fit in the envelopes and fit the dies that I wanted to store. It really doesn't matter what color or style, you won't see this anyway.

Run those through your Xyron Creative Station, then cut the edges down to the size of the paper.

Place your metal dies on the magnet side of the sheet, and place inside your envelopes as if they were the clear stamps. For my stamps with matching dies, I placed the dies on the back of the envelope.

This even works with the leftover strips and smaller die sets.

I will admit, that once I did this, I realized that I could have saved a few steps by just running and entire sheet of 8.5x11" cardstock through my Xyron using the Laminate Magnet Refill. I then, would have cut that into sized pieces as I went. Hope this helps keep your matching dies more organized!

Products Used:
Xyron 9" Creative Station, Xyron Laminate Magnet Refill, Target Room Essentials Branch Weave Small Bin, Avery Elle Stamp and Die Storage Pockets, Brother P-Touch Label Maker, white cardstock Pin It

December Pocket Pages Kit and Covered Christmas Notebook using Xyron Products

For thirty days, the Xyron Design Team is creating and sharing various tutorials focused on the holidays. Today, I have two projects: my December Pocket Pages kit that I created to document the holiday season, and a Christmas notebook that I can use to keep myself organized throughout the season. Make sure that you keep checking back on the Xyron Facebook page daily for more inspiration.

To start today's post, I want to share my December Pocket Pages kit that I created. I love all of those fantastic kits that are all around, but really wanted to create my own. I had a few pieces of amazing Christmas paper from the Gossamer Blue Get Happy line, and a great mini kit from Paper Issues.  

The kit is pretty basic. I really wanted to have something that I could take with  me, so kept everything fairly easy to work with and portable. If we do something great over the holiday, I wanted to be able to write about it in the moment. This means that I also kept my Xyron products portable as well. The Iris 12x12 Portable Project Case was a great holder for everything. From my Xyron items, I included  my Xyron Mega Runner, Xyron Double-Sided High Tack Tape, Xyron 3" Sticker Maker, and Xyron Wedge Shaped Glue Stick. 

I also found some great things in the Target $1 Spot that I could add to my kit. I LOVE the gold!

 And some fun, bright papers!

So to make this fun cover, I pulled out my Xyron 9" Creative Station and got to work. The thing that I really love about Xyron products, is that because the adhesives are edge-to-edge, they completely cover vellum, without seeing any of the adhesive. So that gorgeous gold vellum is in perfect condition.

I manual die cut the circles, then ran those through my Xyron 9" Creative Station.

Then I stacked those and adhered them to the Simple Stories 8x6 Sn@p Binder. 

To add some interest, I then took the die cut from the Merry Memories Limited Edition Swag Bag and ran that through my Xyron 3" Sticker Maker. This way, it wouldn't peel off of the cover.

Those $1 Spot stickers aren't the greatest sticking stickers, so I took a strip of Xyron Double-Sided High Tack Tape and placed it on a piece of striped paper. Then I adhered the stickers to the Xyron Double-Sided High Tack Tape, and cut it out and adhered it to the cover with some more Xyron Double-Sided High Tack Tape.

Add a quick die cut, some Thickers and a red nose (Liquid Pearls) on the reindeer, and there's my cover!

And of course it needed a title, so to make sure that the little title stuck in place, I made sure that it wouldn't move or shift by adding some Xyron Double-Sided High Tack Tape to the back of the die cut.

I also wanted to share my fun way to keep organized throughout the Christmas season. I love small Moleskine cahiers, as they have enough pages for a larger event, but not too much that I don't use most of the pages. Plus, if I see something I really like, I can always sketch something out.

These are super easy and quick to cover and decorate. I started by running a piece of paper through my Xyron 9" Creative Station. Once that was sticky, I adhered it to the journal, making sure that it would still open easily and lay flat.

Once it was positioned correctly, I trimmed the edges with a kraft knife. If you overcut, just scrape the knife around the edges to rough them up and hide any imperfections.

To start decorating the book, I cut a strip of paper, ran it through my Xyron 3" Sticker Maker, and attached it to the book. 

To add some decoration, and again play with some non-traditional papers, I ran a die cut and a piece of glassine envelope through my Xyron 9" Creative Station. Just like the vellum, the glassine can be difficult to work with as most other adhesives you would notice. 

Once that was attached to the book, I tied it off with some Lawn Fawn (Lawn Trimmings-Gold Sparkle Single Cord) and stamped a sentiment using the Catslife Press stamp (1185B). 

Thank you for stopping by to see today's tutorial. Make sure that you check out all of the Xyron's Design Team member's blogs (links are to your right), and the Xyron Facebook page regularly this season to see all 30 Days of Holiday!

Supplies Used:

December Pocket Pages Kit

Xyron 9" Creative Station, Xyron Mega Runner, Xyron Double-Sided High Tack Tape, Xyron 3" Sticker Maker, We R Memory Keepers Nesting Circles Die Set, Memento Tuxedo Black Ink, Target $1 Spot (tags, striped tags, mini gold alphas), American Crafts (Shimelle-Haynes, Daiquiri gold Thickers), Elle's Studio (Good Cheer paper), Crate Paper (Notes and Things-So Simple; Maggie Holmes-Openbook), My Mind's Eye (Necessities-Metallic Stripe), Gossamer Blue (Get Happy papers and envelopes), Liquid Pearls (Rouge), Catslife Press stamp (1185B), Paper Issues (Merry Memories Limited Edition Swag Bag), Iris 12x12 Portable Project Case, Simple Stories 8x6 Sn@p Binder

Covered Christmas Notebook

Xyron 9" Creative Station, Crate Paper-Sleigh Ride (papers and chipboard), glassine envelope, Catslife Press stamp (1185B), Lawn Fawn (Lawn Trimmings-Gold Sparkle Single Cord), Moleskine cahier

Pin It

Xyron's 30 Days of Holiday: Decorative Wrapped Frames

For thirty days, the Xyron Design Team is creating and sharing various tutorials focused on the holidays. Today, I am sharing how you can change up your current decor to be more festive with minimum cost. Make sure that you keep checking back on the Xyron Facebook page daily for more inspiration.

I have some amazing art, but not all of it is the right color for my Christmas decor. This is a take on the "present wrapped frames" that many people do around the holidays. I started by taking my framed picture, and tracing the edges in pencil onto some kraft wrapping paper that I have.

I then found the center of the rectangle, and lightly penciled in a triangle. This will become my "tree".

I then die cut various sizes of Christmas paper. For this project, all of my papers are from Authentique's Believe Collection. To maintain the tree idea, I used predominately green patterns.

I then used my Silhouette Cameo to cut a large sentiment, which I then ran through my Xyron 9" Creative Station.

I really wanted some sparkle on this project, so lightly adhered a few of the smaller circles to some scratch paper using my Xyron Mega Runner, by tapping the Mega Runner onto your circle instead of dragging it. This way, only a tiny bit of adhesive sticks to the backs of the circles. Then I used some Versamark Ink and Tim Holtz embossing powder in Super Fine Gold to create ornaments.

To finish off each of the circles, and the sentiment, I inked the edges using ImagineCrafts Inks (Bamboo Leaves, London Fog, Pistachio).

Once all of the pieces were inked, I ran all of the larger circles through my Xyron 9" Creative Station. 

Then, I started adding all of the circles, keeping them within the edges of the triangle I had drawn earlier.

To add more detail, I die cut some small red circles and ran those (and the embossed gold circles) through my Xyron 1.5" Sticker Maker.

Then I attached all of the small pieces, filling in the gaps with red buttons of various sizes.

Once the piece was complete, I wrapped the frame up as if it was a present, leaving the back open so I could hang it to the wall. Instead of using wrapping paper tape on the artwork, I used Xyron Double-Sided High Tack Tape so that the seams were hidden.

When the entire piece was wrapped, I used a Uni-ball Signo White pen to add some faux stitching around the edges.

Isn't this just a fun piece to have hanging?!?! I especially love the large sentiment.

Thank you for stopping by to see today's tutorial. Make sure that you check out all of the Xyron's Design Team member's blogs (links are to your right), and the Xyron Facebook page regularly this season to see all 30 Days of Holiday!

Supplies Used:

Xyron 9" Creative Station, Xyron 1.5" Sticker Maker, Xyron Mega Runner, Xyron Double-Sided High Tack Tape, Silhouette Cameo, Authentique Believe Collection, We R Memory Keepers Nesting Circles Die Set, Tim Holtz Embossing Powder (Super Fine Gold), ImagineCrafts Inks (Versamark, Bamboo Leaves, London Fog, Pistachio), random buttons, Uniball Signo white pen, kraft wrapping paper, framed picture from my living room

Pin It