Project Homemade Christmas Presents: Personalized Notepads

The grandmas in our life have been warned to stay away from today's posts. Today's Project Handmade Christmas Presents 2012 is for them.

This is a little homemade gift that any grandparent will love. I mean, what grandparent wouldn't love something plastered with the sweet angelic faces of their grandchildren?

I wanted a personalized gift to give the grandmas and I decided I wanted to create a personalized notepad using a photo of my Little Men.

I am dividing the how-to for creating this notepad into two tutorials. This is part 1. Part 2 is HERE.

Today I am going to share how to make the picture layout for the notepad in PicMonkey.

Update 12/18/12

Since writing this tutorial PicMonkey has started charging a Royale fee for 

many of its upgraded features. Several of the features I used to make this notepad 

are now only available if you upgrade to the Royale. The good news is

 the fee is pretty minimal and the fun of the Royale options equal 

never-ending creating. Also, a lot of their features are still free to use without the upgrade.

The first thing you will need is a blank canvas. It is a great idea to have a blank canvas on hand for any number of projects. Making a blank canvas is super easy.

First go to PicMonkey. Click on Edit a Photo. Open any photo.

Next you will want to go to the sticker option on the side, which is the three shapes.

You will click on the Geometric option. Click on the rectangle. It will appear in the middle of your photo. You will have the option to change the color. Change the color to FFFFF, which is white.

Stretch the white rectangle over the entire photo, so that you cannot see the original photo.

Merge the layers together by clicking on the merge button at the top of the screen. Once you merge the layers the new image will be the blank white canvas.

Save as a blank canvas.

Now that you have a blank canvas you can use it for just about anything. But today we are going to use it to make our notepad page.

With the blank page open, you will want to go back to the sticker option. Then click on the "Your Own". That allows you to import your own photo as a sticker.

Once you have chosen your photo, you need to move it and stretch it to go across the bottom of the canvas.

I wanted my photo to be smaller, so I cheated and opened another rectangle sticker.

I changed the color to match the white of the background.

Then I stretched it over the top of the photo to make the writing part of the pad larger and the photo smaller.

The next part is how I make the border. There may be an easier way, but this is how I figured out how to make the border I wanted.

I started by again going to the geometric sticker option. I used the rectangle.

First I changed the color to 77777, which is a delightful gray. Then I stretched the rectangle out stopping just before the edge leaving a little bit of white on the top and sides. I left enough white on the bottom to write the name above the photo.

Then I opened another rectangle and changed it to white.

Next, stretch out the white rectangle leaving enough gray to make the border on the top and sides. Stretch it over the bottom so that there is no gray on the bottom.

It will look like this:

Now for the fun details.

On the very bottom is a snowflake, click on that and theme options will come up. Choose Winterland.

Under Winterland, go to Garniture.

I chose the scrolly thing (yup that is what I am calling it) on the very right bottom. I changed it to the same gray as the border.

I shrank down the scroll to fit just under the border on one side. Then to duplicate the scroll, I simply right clicked on the image and chose to duplicate it.

Then I flipped the image horizontally and put it on the other side.

Once the scrolls are in place it is time to personalize it. If you click on the P, all of the text options will come up. I chose the EcuyerDAX, but you could choose whatever font you want.

I chose the font, changed the size and then made it the same gray.

Place the name centered between the scrolls.

All done. Now just save.

With the notepad paper image completed we are one step closer to a homemade personalized notepad.

Come back tomorrow for the tutorial on putting together this handmade notepad.

Sharing here: Craft-O-Maniac, C.R.A.F.T., Sugar Bee, Today's Creative Blog,
Funky Polka Dot Giraffe

Project Handmade Christmas Presents: Felt Food

Here is another installment of Project Handmade Christmas Presents 2012.

Last year for our niece I made a little apron and a set of felt cookies. Word on the street is that she loves, loves them and plays with them often.

So when we drew her name again this Christmas, I figured it would be grand to make her some more felt food.

I had some awesome plans. I can get carried away with plans for felt food. Making felt food is addicting and fun. In light of our house of illness, I kiboshed the kitchen full of food I had planned on making, and I kept it simple, making something for each meal.

Felt is easy and fun to work with. You don't need to finish the edges. You often don't even need to pin pieces together. You can make felt food as simple or as detailed as you have time for.

Felt food is the perfect toy for an imagination that likes to cook. All but Oldest still really enjoy playing with it  in our house. In fact, they were a little bummed that this was leaving our house. I made everything better by promising to make them some of the pretzels (their new favorite).

If you have a felt food lover in your house, this set is really quite easy to sew. Especially the breakfast and dinner patterns.

I have put together a very basic how-to.

What you will need:

felt in all the food colors ( you should need less than a 1/4 yard, but I always have felt on hand)
2 1/2"x16" strip of color for crust (not included in pattern)
batting or stuffing
coordinating thread
Breakfast of Champions pattern
Brown Bag Lunch pattern
Gimme a Slice pattern 1 and pattern 2

I am going to show the basics with the pancakes from my Breakfast of Champions, a felt food pattern I shared years ago. Your pancakes will look a little different because I did it without the pattern. However, the pattern will give you the shape. ALSO, this how-to is different then the original. It is a little simplified.

The first thing you will do is cut out all the pieces.

Then you will sew from top to bottom.

By that I mean, you always sew the top items on and then work your way down. So for the pancake, it is sewing the butter on to the syrup. Then sewing the syrup onto one pancake piece.

With the pizza it would be, the toppings onto the cheese, then the cheese onto the sauce, then the sauce onto the crust.

For the pancake and pizza, you will sew together the front and back pieces by layering the top and bottom right sides together. Then you will add a circle of batting to the top of your stack.

You will sew around the outside leaving a 2 inch opening for turning the pancake (pizza) out. Make sure the batting lays flat. Then hand sew the opening closed. Pancake done!

To make the lunch pieces, the meat, cheese, lettuce, and pretzels it is a simple matter of layering the pieces on top and sewing around the outsides. Now turning or stuffing.

The lettuce and pretzels have some sewing details, like the leaf ridge pattern on the lettuce.

Or the holes in the pretzels.

The most difficult item to make was the bread.

You pin the 1 1/2" crust strips to the outside of two pieces of bread.

You sew the ends of the strip together at the bottom. Then you attach the crust to the one piece by sewing all the way around the outside. Repeat on the other piece.

Then you take the two extra bread pieces and, right sides facing, pin the piece onto the crust edge not attached to the other bread piece.

Like so.

Sew around to attach, leaving a 1-2 inch opening to turn. Then turn out. Stuff it with batting. Then hand sew the opening closed. Bread all done.

So there ya have it, a breakfast option, a lunch option, and a dinner option.

 Hope your little chefs enjoy!

Project Handmade Christmas Presents: Child's Wallet

At Christmas time I like to make a handful of gifts. Nothing too major.

One year I thought, "Hey why don't I make all the gifts!"

Hahahaha...that idea was quickly put to rest. There is absolutely no way that is going to happen ever. However, I realized I could simply pick a couple of people to make presents for.

Last year I shared a couple of handmade Christmas present ideas with you in my Project Handmade Christmas Presents.

I had so much fun last year that I decided to give it another go this year.

So welcome to the tutorial for the first Handmade Christmas Present of 2012.

A handmade child's wallet.

My Little Men love wallets...well let's face it they love what is inside the wallet.

They love having a place to put their own small amount of cash. They also love having a place to slip a gift card, or even a pretend credit card. Middle even likes slipping in a business card or two. Yeah he is legit like that.

In our family we do a cousins gift exchange every year. Two of the cousins we need to get a gift for are two cute little boys 4 and 2. I thought that making them a wallet all their own and then loading it with ones would be fun gift.

The wallets came together quickly (that is after I worked out the kinks and turned on my brain). I was able to make the wallets out of fabric scraps. I didn't have to go to the fabric store for a single thing...for which Hubby is grateful. I am lethal at the fabric store.

I really like how they turned out and I am excited to stuff them with cash and send them to these adorable boys.

Do you have a tiny money bags in your life?

I am pretty sure they would like a wallet all their own.

Here is a quick and easy how-to for this little wallet.

You will need:

2 pieces for outside and inside (can be same or different patterns), measuring 7 1/2" by 4 1/2".
1 piece of stabilizer, measuring 7 1/2" by 4 1/2" (I used a piece of white felt)
1 piece for long inside pocket, measuring 7 1/2" by 3 3/4"
2 pieces for small inside pockets, measuring, 3 3/4" by 2 3/4"
fabric strip for inside biased tape, measuring 2" by 15"
fabric strip for outside biased tape, measuring 2" by 26"
velcro, cut into 2" strip
thread

I used two different fabrics for this wallet.

The inside pocket matched the yellow for the inside. Then I used a coordinating print for the little inside pockets.

I used the yellow for the biased tape for the outside of the wallet and the print for the inside pockets.

To start, make your biased tape (or you can always just buy biased tape).

For the inside pockets you will need two strips measuring 3 3/4" and one measuring 7 1/2".

Pin the smaller strips to an outside edge of each smaller pocket.

Sew them in place.

I did this next step out of order on the pirate wallet so I am showing you with the batman wallet.

Face the pockets with biased edges by each other. Place and sew in the velcro 1" in from the raw edge.

Pretend that you see velcro from now on...

Pin the small pockets to the longer pocket. Base stitch the smaller pockets to the longer pockets by sewing with a long length along the top and bottom raw edge.

Next take the longer biased tape and pin in place along one of the raw edges.

Sew in place with a normal stitch length.

Then pin the completed pocket piece to the inside fabric piece. Base stitch the two pieces together.

Now you are going to layer the pieces together. Place the outside piece print side down, making sure the top of the print is at the top.

Layer the stabilizer piece on top of the upside down print piece. Then layer the inside pocket piece, right side up, on top of the stabilizer.

Baste everything together on the outside edges.

Now prepare the biased tape for the outside.

Pin the biased tape in place around the edges.

When the edges meet, fold over one of the edges and pin in place.

Your wallet should look like this all pin-arrific.

Stitch it all in place.

Now the whole wallet is put together and finished.

So cute.

Before you wrap it up and send it off, slip some cash or a gift card inside.

A present perfect for any tiny money bags!

Stay tuned for other handmade gift ideas.