Handmade Easter Swap Goodies

Update 3/31/09: While reading today's Procrastinator Crafter's post I found out about a new monthly blog party all about my favorite crafting material: mod podge! So I had to add this post to it, since the first two projects both involve using it! Thanks to Xazmin for hosting, she made fun letter blocks that I really like. I love how she added wooden letters to the front. I was going to just mod podge on die cut letters to the ones I want to make but I think the wooden letters are a lot more fun! To see my two sided sign and frame please scroll down about half way.

My Easter swap partner Noelle has gotten her package so now I can reveal what I sent her! See all the great stuff she sent me, here. She was a quick little bunny and sent hers out lickity split. Unfortuately for her, her partner couldn't get it all together until the very last day it was due to be shipped out! Good thing she's patient! That's most of the stuff all wrapped up and ready to go, I also added one more package for her and two parcels I sent for her boys, which are hidden here and are propping up the package wrapped in patterned tissue paper.

I put together a little basket for her in a fun spring sea foam green color and adorned it with a big fluffy bow. I love big bows! I'm sure it got all crushed in the shipping process. Noelle, I hope you could fluff it up again! I put some little goodies like holiday towels, a bunny themed magnetic note pad and sticky notes, chocolate bunnies, teal egg ornament, two Easter stamps, and a bag of candy in it. I also gave her a hanging SPRING sign that I purchased.

She's getting married soon, so I also took this opportunity to slip in a little bachelorette party type gift since I won't be able to celebrate the end of her single days with her in person. I found a fun spring colored hanging travel toiletries keeper and put some great smelling lip gloss in it along with my very favorite decadent body lotions in one of our favorite scents, lemon. I thought these would be fun to bring along on her honeymoon.

So that's the stuff I purchased for her, you can check her pictures of it on her blog. Now on to what I made her!
Part of the swap rules was to make your partner something, so I made Noelle this fun sign. It was very easy; I even managed to find the perfect blank sign at the dollar store! I just painted it, decoupaged my paper to it and then my center title oval. I used a short cut premade title sticker and done.
But I can never leave well enough alone so at the last possible second I decided the backside looked boring and could be used as another sign, two uses out of one thing and less to store! So I added more decoupaged paper to the backside and coordinating stickers for the sentiment and to decorate it. Some of the stickers are glittery and flocked so I didn't go over them with more mod podge decoupage glue. I gave her another spring sign but it looks totally different so I thought this wasn't really duplicating things too much.
I also made her a decoupaged frame that I covered in a spring themed paper, paper flowers with pink brad centers, sheer ribbon, and spring tag. I painted the edges to give it a finished look. I made little stitched picture for her too.
Here is a detail picture of it. I used rub ons to spell out spring the flower shaped brads, stitched the grass, stems, leaves, and message "had sprung" underneath. The message says "Spring Has Sprung" but I think the pink stitched letter are hard to see in the picture; they are clearer in person. I hope she really likes it cause it took me a lot longer than I thought it would and I kinda wanted to keep it for myself when I was done! Brad had to remind me that I can make myself another.

I have a confession to make, I made a real oops on the frame. I wasn't paying attention while I was making it, as to where the holes for the little stick thing you use to help prop up the frame on the backside were. I attached the paper in the opposite direction that I was supposed to, there isn't a hole for the stick on the bottom, luckily the frame stands up on it's own or I'd have had to start all over.
The last thing I made Noelle was a 6x6 inch mini scrapbook with twenty pages. I used a precut scalloped circle and die cut the letters with my Sizzix Sidekick machine for the front cover. I love making these little books and used my ultra quick method for putting it together. All you need is three pieces of cardstock and four pieces of patterned paper that coordinate with each other, I picked ones that matched the scrapbook's cover and some embellishements.
Minimal photo cropping is required, except for the first and last pages, on each of those there is a spot for a 4x4 photo. These are also the only pages I used 1x1 inch squares of the patterned paper.
On each of the filler pages I use a variation of these layouts. I use two pieces of patterned paper cut to 2x4 and two pieces cut to 2x2. Then I just move the order and placement of each around on each page. You can place one 4x6 photo on each side of the double page spread without cropping on top of the green cardstock or cut a .25 inches from each side of the photo, center on top of the green, and end up with a small green photo mat around your picture. I used a variety of flower themed embellishments such as the paper flower with button center shown above.

I am planning on putting together a quickie tutorial because I forgot to take enough pictures of the layout variations before I sent it along to Noelle. I'll add the pictures to it too so you can see how nicely it turns out. I know a picture really helps and it might look a little boring as is, but trust me they do turn out looking very cute and don't take a ton of time to put together.

I'll try to get the tutorials for yesterday's paper bag scrapbook and today's mini book together this week, depends on how much scrapbooking time I get!