DIY Baby Room Decor

Hello, friends.  I have a special delivery today...a quick and easy DIY Baby room decor item, perfect for a baby's room. It can also double as a gift wrap decor that can then later be used in the nursery.

Here's what you'll need to get started:

• Embroidery Hoop
• 12x12 patterned paper
• die cut embellishments
• Stickers
• Liquid adhesive or glue dots
• foam squares
• sewing machine

The first thing you'll do is cut a circle just a bit larger than the inside of the embroidery hoop.  I simply took the hoop apart and traced along the outside. Once cut, attach to the back of the hoop. Trust me, this is the easiest route and also helps add dimension to the project.

Next, choose a few die cuts to make a banner.

Stitch them together using a sewing machine.

Position them across the top of the hoop.  Adhere the edges to the hoop.  Add foam dots to the back of the die cuts that are in the middle of the hoop.

Lastly, add the babies name to the open area of the hoop and embellish around the name as well as around the hoop to your liking. Now you have the perfect DIY baby room decor for your sweet bundle of joy!

Supplies:
Lullaby Baby Boy Quotes Patterned Paper (733496)
Lullaby Baby Boy Accent Stickers (733511)Lullaby Baby Boy Ephemera (733515)
Lullaby Baby Boy / American Crafts Maggie Chipboard Letter Stickers (733513)

Hugs & Kisses DIY Valentine's Day Home Decor

Happy day before Valentine's Day, friends!  I wanted to share a quick and easy DIY home decor you can whip up tonight for the big day tomorrow.

 I spotted this wonderful Heart shaped corkboard in the dollar spot at one of my most favorite places in the world and I snatched it up right away.  I wish I had grabbed more because I love it so!  Anyway, it was the inspiration I needed to celebrate my greatest loves! I printed a 2.5"x3" photo of my hubby and me and then two 2"x3" photos of our girls but what could I do to decorate this heart shaped corkboard that would help keep the shape of the heart? I figured it's all about the curves here so a few dimensional flowers would do the trick.

 Creating the flowers is actually pretty quick and easy.  I cut different shapes of squares and then cut them in a spiral, like you see in the top right and bottom of the photo above.  I kept some with a straight edge and others with a scallop.

While my glue gun was heating, I starting rolling the spiral around a pencil, starting with the outside edge.  Then, pulling the pencil away, I tightened it and shaped the flower to my liking and sealed it all together by applying hot glue to that round base.

How cute is this heart corkboard?  I created some additional flowers using my Silhouette CAMEO and a few cut files I had purchased.

  I decided to put clusters of flowers in a triangle because you know, decorating rules.

  Lastly, add photos and embellishments! Hang for all your special people to see. Supplies: My Funny Valentine Patterned Paper - Pretty in Pink (733326) My Funny Valentine Candy Dots Patterned Paper (733327) My Funny Valentine XOXO Patterned Paper (733325) My Funny Valentine Donut Sprinkles Patterned Paper (733330) My Funny Valentine Puffy Stickers Icons and Words (733278) My Funny Valentine Glitter Sticker Hearts (733287) My Funny Valentine Stickers - Icons and Accents (733322) My Funny Valentine Ephemera Cardstock Die Cuts (733273)

Fill Your Heart with Love

Hello LOVELY Pebbles friends! Heather Leopard is here to share a LOVE filled scrapbooking layout using the My Funny Valentine collection.

This girl of mine fills my heart with all kinds of sweetness so I thought it was only appropriate to express that in a layout.  This layout combines a free cut file, fussy cutting and lots and lots of fun embellishments.  I've included a tutorial on how to re-create this fun page.

Supplies:

• 2 pieces white cardstock
• 3 patterned papers
• Small embellishments
• Free Love Cut File by Heather Leopard
• Silhouette CAMEO
• pencil
• Sewing machine (optional)

Cut the heart out of white cardstock. This will be your overlay.  Place the overlay over the 2nd piece of white cardstock and lightly trace the inside of the heart so you have a guide for placing your embellishments.

Start filling your heart with embellishments.  You may have to move them around a bit so just lightly add them to the inside of the heart you drew.

Once you've filled your heart, secure everything down and erase any pencil marks you can still see.  These will be covered up but we want to avoid any dark marks from peeking through.

Next, cut the L, V, and E. Adhere them to the page and stitch down the center of them.  Also, stitch around the heart to your liking.

Add a few layers to frame your photo.  I used different sized squares and even cut a frame  to tuck behind the photo.

Lastly, add embellishments and mist splatter to the page.  I used fussy cut flowers, puffy stickers and sequins for my around the page embellishments. So there you have it...a love filled layout, literally and figuratively!

Supplies:
My Funny Valentine Patterned Paper - Pretty in Pink (733326)
My Funny Valentine Candy Dots Patterned Paper (733327)
My Funny Valentine Scattered Hearts Patterned Paper (733331)
My Funny Valentine Happy Valentines Patterned Paper (733328)
My Funny Valentine Puffy Stickers Icons and Words (733278)
My Funny Valentine Glitter Sticker Hearts (733287)
My Funny Valentine Stickers - Icons and Accents (733322)
My Funny Valentine Ephemera Cardstock Die Cuts (733273)Fun in the Sun Enamel Dots
American Crafts White Cardstock (AM710-81)

Let it Snow! | Snowflake Garland Cut File

I hope you're staying nice and warm wherever you are!  My family and I just made it back from a winter ski break. It snowed quit a bit while we were skiing and my youngest daughter kept singing "Let it snow". My girls wanted to bring snow home with us but since it will melt here in Texas, I decided to make some DIY snowflake decor with the song we heard sang on repeat.

This project is really fun and easy to create with just a few supplies.  I keep this white frame up in my house year-round and just switch it up throughout the seasons.  It's versatile enough to match almost any decor so it's my go-to when creating something fun for the house.

To create this you'll need the following supplies:

• white cardstock
• background patterned paper
• snowflakes punch or cut file - you can download the one I created HERE
• garland and faux pom poms - also included in the cut file above
• alphabet letters
• glue dots
• liquid adhesive
• paper trimmer

Once you've punched or cut everything out. you literally just have to assemble everything. Easy peasy!

I knew this would have to be multi-dimensional since the alphabet wouldn't fit behind the frame. At first, I was going to adhere the garland and the snowflakes to the background paper and place all of that behind the glass but it really flattened everything out a bit too much so the only thing I have behind the glass is the patterned paper. Once the paper was in position I added the garland and snowflakes, moving them around to ensure I had enough space for the sentiment. Once I liked how everything was positioned, I adhered them to the glass using glue dots. The circle "pom-poms" were adhered with liquid adhesive.

Next, it was time to add the alphabet Thickers to fill in the empty spaces!

So there you have it, a reminder of our day on the slopes with my youngest singing at the top of her lungs and a nice reminder that Winter is upon us as we are snuggled warm inside the house.

Pebbles Supplies:

Holly Jolly Holiday Village patterned paper (33169)

Warm & Cozy Alphabet Thickers Rose Gold Foil (733390)

American Crafts White Textured Cardstock (AM710-81)

Sticky Thumb Raised Adhesive Dots (ST340276)

Snow Wonderful

Hi everyone.  Heather Leopard is here doing what I love most...playing with background cut files! This one in particular is the Nordic Background. I used my Scrapbook Circle Everyday Stories December kit and a few snowflake embellishments from Hip Kit Club I borrowed from my friend, Majken.

I altered this cut file just a tad, removing the x's that are part of the cut file so that I could hand stitch them instead.  Then I enlarged it to cover the entire page, removing the lower portion since that was going to be covered by patterned paper. Let me walk you through how I did this...

First, I separated the cut file elements and removed the x's. leaving only the snowflakes and diamonds.  Then, I traced the outline of one of the snowflakes and offset it just slightly, making it a tad bit larger than the background cut.

Then I cut the outline of the snowflakes out of different patterned papers and....

adhered them randomly behind some of the snowflakes to the back of the large cut file. Then I hand stitched the x's back into place.

I didn't have enough variety of the blue-ish patterned paper so I pieces of packaging for the back of the letters.

That's just my way of using cut files (like Nordic Background) to make unique layouts.

Top Ten of 2016 | Blog Hop

Hi everyone.  I hope you are all ready for the New Year but before we go there, I'm participating in a Top Ten Blog Hop with an amazing group of ladies.  You are sure to be inspired with all sorts of amazing ideas AND I hear there's several opportunities to WIN PRIZES along the way.

I'm giving away two $10 gift certificates to Paper Issues.  Read more about it at the end of my post.

Without further ado, here's a few of my fave layouts from the year.  I chose to limit it to all layouts but you can see more of my favorite projects here and on Instagram.

Love You More

Shine Bright My Love

So Many Reasons to be Happy

Wild & Free

Summer Adventure + Tutorial

Play + Free Cut File

Hello Sweet Girl

Ballerina Girl

Grateful Heart + Free Cut File

Embrace Life

I hope you are enjoying this hop and that you are soaking up all sorts of inspiration!  

GIVEAWAYS

I'm giving away two $10 gift certificates to Paper Issues.  Here's how to enter:

• Giveaway #1: Follow me on Instagram @heatherleopard and leave a comment on the Top Ten Post. Tag a friend in the comments for bonus entries - 1 per friend you tag. You have until December 31, 2016 at midnight CST to enter.
• Giveaway #2: Follow me here on my blog and leave a comment on this post. You have until December 31, 2016 at midnight CST to enter.

Now, it's time to visit a sweet, talented friend of mine, Rebecca Keppel.

DIY Mini Christmas Pinatas

Ho, ho, ho and Merry Christmas..  I'm so excited to show you these mini Christmas pinatas I whipped up.

 I created these for us to just have around the house as part of my Christmas decor but as I was making them, I couldn't resist the urge to fill them with candy.  I'm giving it only a few days before I break down and give them to the girls as a nice little treat.

Supplies:

• cardstock (I suggest matching to the main color of the patterned paper you choose) 
• patterned paper - NOTE: Please see the supply list at the bottom of this post for actual patterned papers used. I substituted 2 of the papers shown above. 
• paper trimmer (to cut the paper strips) 
• fringe scissors or regular scissors to make the fringe 
• shaped box cut files (I searched high and low for 3D pinata files with little success so my simple solution was to use Christmas shaped box files) 
• adhesive 
• sticky dots 

 Let's whip up a few DIY mini Christmas pinatas. First, the Christmas tree.....

1.  First, fold the cut out shape into the box form. Put them together to form the box.  You may chose to fill them with treat prior to putting them together.

2. Cut 1" strips of Christmas tree patterned paper.  Then cut small fringe from the bottom up leaving approximately 1/4" uncut at the top.

3. Wrap the fringe around the tree.  You may have to cut at the sides to keep your lines straight but you can't tell once you put it all together. Add sequin or enamel dots as decorations.

Next is the ornament...  

I used a circular box cut file and then modified it to create the topper for the ornament.

Create your box by adhering the ends of the paper strip together.  Adhere one side of the ornament to the circle. Next, fill the ornament with any treats or leave it empty if it's for home decor like me. Then adhere the other side of the ornament.

 
  Cut your paper strips into fringe as per step 2 above.

I added the fringe around the sides first and then I decided to add a circle underneath the fringe so that the red ornament would not show through the fringe.

I added fringe layers on top and then embellished with sequins. I added a coordinating pattern as the ornament topper.

 And last but not least, the candy cane...

I found a cute candy cane shaped box in the Silhouette store and made a couple of cuts.

Then it was just a matter of rolling the bottom portion into a tube and adhering it.  The top part was a bit tricky because you had to roll it while also adhering it at the right angle but it worked out good in the end, once it was covered in fringe.

Fill it with treats or leave empty like I did since it's part of my home decor.

So there you have it, folks. The most adorable DIY mini Christmas pinatas I've ever made and yes, these are the first mini Christmas pinatas I've ever made.

Supplies:
HOLLY JOLLY OH DEAR PATTERN PAPER 
HOLLY JOLLY HAPPY HOLIDAYS PATTERN PAPER 
HOLLY JOLLY GINGERBREAD PATTERN PAPER
HOLLY JOLLY EPHEMERA 
American Crafts Textured Cardstock 12"x12" - Leaf 
American Crafts Textured Cardstock 12"x12" - Crimson