Our Favorite things

Welcome to the Our Favorite Things Blog Candy Extravaganza! You should have just come from  Dena's blog. If you are just joining the hop and want to start from the beginning, please start at Dena's blog  Dena.This is going to be an amazing event!  Many of you are familiar with Oprah Winfrey's famous "Favorite Things" show where audience members walk away with an array of fabulous gifts.  It was always so fun to see how excited the audience members got with each giveaway.  Well, if you've always wished you could sit in the audience of one of those show tapings, we have the next best thing for you!

Each participant in this hop is going to share a favorite of hers.  It could be a craft-related item or a non-craft related item.  In addition to that, each blogger is giving away blog candy!  This means you have a chance to win at every stop!

Each blogger has her own rules for winning her blog candy, so please be sure to read the rules on each blog for a chance to win.

Without further ado, here is the project I created for this hop:

  I have become a "regular" in my kitchen. Sounds funny, but growing up, I had NO desire to cook. It always seemed like a CHORE, what a dirty word! LOL! Anyway...In the past 12 months, I have really become creative in the kitchen. So much so, I started my own little candy business. So, I thought, for this hop, I should make an altered notebook and turn it into a Recipe Book, something you can hand down to your kids or just compile a bunch of recipes (hand-written or clipped from newspapers or off the internet) and give to a friend. (Someone like a 1st time parent, newly single, college student, or even just your average friend who doesn't know how to cook other than from a box.)


Below are the majority of the items I used for this project. I added a couple after taking this picture.

• Standard notebook
• One 12 x 12" sheet of printed paper and a coordinating plain piece of cardstock. My sheets both came from DCWV's "Prints for the Year Ultimate Stack" that I found at Michael's on clearance.
• Tim Holtz's Distress ink pad in "Tea Dye" and "Black Soot", as well as the blending tool
• McGill's large tab punch (2 1/4" wide)
• ProvoCraft's "Happy Haunting's" cartridge using the Vampire font in 0.75"
• Sparkle Glitter pens by MultiCraft Imports to line each letter
• Martha Stewart writing pen in "Sepia"
• Scotch brand Scrapbooker's 2-way glue
• Mini glue dots (to apply the vellum)

Cut the printed sheet in half. Line up the edge of the paper to the outside edge of the notebook. Make sure to line up images so as to not cut off too many faces. Adhere.  Repeat on back cover. Once you've got the cover sheets glued in place, THEN trim off the excess. (I learned this the hard way.)  Decide how wide you want your spine cover to be and make sure it overlaps the printed paper slightly.  Use your trimmer. (I can't give you measurements on this as it seems each notebooks varies ever so slightly.  This one measured out to be 3.25" x 9.75". Ink up the edge of the spine cover.  Mold the spine cover to the notebook itself, BEFORE adhering, this helps a lot!  Apply glue to spine COVER and then carefully align to the spine of the notebook. Make sure to line up the edges of the paper (front and back) at both the top & bottom of the notebook, this makes it look more clean.  Also, flatten the spine against your work-space to make sure that their are no unnecessary gaps.

Using the Cricut Expression, cut out your letters.  I used the same plain card stock. However, since this was too close to the printed paper, I inked the letters in "Tea Dye" and "Black Soot". It was still a little too similar, so I adhered the letters to the vellum to give some contrast without taking away from the cute paper. To show where the vellum ended, I added the faux stitching lines with the Sepia pen. Adhere the vellum sheet to the notebook with mini glue dots. I placed one at each corner of the vellum and then placed more randomly behind the letters to help ensure it would stay. (I had already rounded the 2 corners by this point.) Ink up the edges of the notebook with "Tea Dye".  The letters write out: "Monster Chow".

 Using the gold sparkle glitter pen, I edged the letters and filled in the "drippings" to add that extra something.   I also took random glitter gel pens on hand and colored in the eyes of the monsters.  Using "Blush-R20" Copic marker I added cheeks to one monster and to the empty heart of another.

For my blog candy, the winner will receive this altered notebook.  I have already cut 7 of the large tabs out for you to fill in and adhere where you want.  To enter to win this fun notebook, please leave a comment below with a way to reach you (ie. email).  I will choose a winner on Tuesday, March 6th. I will announce here on my blog the winner's name and I will also message the winner.  I will then ship out this notebook to him/her.

Thank you so much for stopping by! I hope you enjoyed what I shared with you today. Please be sure to hop on over to Ashley's  blog (insert link to blog stop that follows yours on the hop) to see what she has to share with you and for more blog candy fun! Happy hopping and good luck to you!
 
Below is the entire blog hop lineup in case you lose your way:
 

Dena - http://missdjones.blogspot.com/

Lisa L.- http://craftylam.blogspot.com

Ashley - http://theglamoroussideofscrapping.blogspot.com

Jennifer - http://craftycardgallery.blogspot.com

Paula D. http://scrapyourworld1.blogspot.com

Cely - http://hawaiipaperparty.blogspot.com

Jamie - http://scrapqueen141.blogspot.com/

Ellen - http://cardmonkey-business.blogspot.com/

Shannon -http://my-o-scrappin.blogspot.com

Liz -http://decadeofscrap.blogspot.com

Wendy -http://gilbyscraftster.blogspot.com

Robin - http://scrapandchat.blogspot.com

 Ashley W.--http://proudusmcwife415.blogspot.com