Pre-Chanukah Projects… Day 4
Okay, so what's on your menu? Ours grows and changes each year but a couple of things are staples for the party day. Oh, we're having a party. Did I tell you that yet? Yes we are. So I've got lots to do people! And one of the things on my list is the MENU. So anyhoo, we always make potato latkes because my hubby grew up Ashkenazi and well, its just not Chanukah without latkes! I keep trying to just toss some hashbrowns from a box in the oven, but he just won't go for it. Okay, fine. But he did NOT grow up with sufganiyot (not sure why unless his grandma just didn't like jelly donuts). I found a recipe for those several years ago using biscuit dough (!!!) so those are EASY and QUICK and oh so very yummy! This year, I am also going to make bimuelos, which are a Sephardic Jewish tradition and in english, that means HONEY PUFFS. All I had to do was say the word HONEY and my hubby decided this was a good addition to our arsenal of Chanukah yummies. I keep telling him we're Sephardic despite his Eastern European ancestors. We love ALL Sephardic foods. Go figure.
But now I'm going to tell you a secret. My recipes are a disaster. They are all on different pieces of paper, small, large, printed from the internet, ugh. Makes me a bit nutty thinking about it and every year, I have to dig through the pile to find the Sufganiyot recipe and I lost and found the bimuelo recipe THREE times before I decided to solve the problem, once and for all. I created a Chanukah recipe book AND I included blank pages so it can grow later! AND I made all of it into templates for YOU to download as well! So here goes nothin' baby! And um, if you ask really nicely, I will do another one for Passover because God only knows where my chocolate matzah recipe has run off to.
So first, you need recipe cards. But I have issues with recipe cards. They're usually not large enough and without a picture, I don't know what I'm cooking. So... my cards each take up a whole letter size piece of paper, with room for a 4x6 photo at the bottom and all your recipe info at the top. I tried to give you plenty of lines for ingredients, although I KNOW the instructions section might be a bit small. Hopefully, these will work for you. So, after you download the free recipe cards, print however many copies you want. There is a left and a right, so you can put these back to back inside page protectors. I highly recommend the page protectors because this will be in the kitchen, after all. So print them and slip them in the page protectors. If you really don't have enough room on the card for all the directions, you could finish on the back of the card and then pull it out and turn it over while you're cooking. The inside of your Chanukah recipe book is ready for your recipes.
Please, do not right click and save this image. Its small for the web and will absolutely NOT give you a nice print for your book. Please DOWNLOAD HERE to get a full size image for your project!
Now, the outside of your recipe book is really up to you. I made mine with a digital kit that is coming out in my store next week and if you PAY ATTENTION, you can get the entire kit for free. You just won't know how to do it until the first night-ish of Chanukah so you have to keep coming back to my blog.
Anyhoo, I printed a paper from my new kit. I have a 12x12 printer so I printed it full size. If you don't have a large format printer, just print it on letter paper and use that to decorate whatever you want to decorate. I printed mine on smooth white cardstock, 2 copies - one for the front cover and one for the back cover. I adhered those on chipboard to make my covers a bit more sturdy. I then printed 2 copies of a second paper from the same kit and adhered those to the insides of the front and back covers.
I am a big believer in using up your stash. Really. So I dug through my alphas and found the insides of the Tattered Angels Natures Beauty Chipboard Alpha (the outside is gorgeous butterflies) to add the word Recipes. I used Adirondack Color Wash in Denim and Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist in Blue Skies to "paint" them. I adhered them with Zip Dry Paper Glue. I didn't have enough of the letters to spell Chanukah (not enough H's and no A's left in my stash at all) so I used Photoshop to print the letters in a cursive print on one of my kit digital papers, printed it on white cardstock and then cut it out. If you have a Cricut or similar, you could print the paper and use your diecutter to do this. I don't have one anymore so I made do with handcutting. I added a few more little embellishments and now I'm supposed to show you my recipe book. Guess what? It got ruined by a glass of raspberry crystal lite which honestly, did not belong anywhere near my craft room. Sigh. I'm sorry, you will just have to trust me. It was cute. And the good thing is, I have the recipe cards so I can make it again. I would love to see yours!
I hope you're enjoying all my Chanukah preparedness posts, please leave me some comments so I know someone is reading! And really, PAY ATTENTION... there's a good chance you're going to get a freebie next week!
For ANOTHER Chanukah idea (or Christmas because I made two versions), check out my post at Scrap N'Art today. Holiday music can be annoying, or it can be wonderful. The best way to make sure your holiday music is exactly what you want it to be, is to make your own playlist and then pop it on a CD to listen to wherever you go. Okay, you IPOD people, I know it could be even easier than that, but in my car, I need a CD, so there. And of course, you should make the CD as cute as possible to bring extra happy holiday cheer to yourself and your loved ones. Check these out!
Pre-Chanukah Projects… Day 1
So, Chanukah starts in just 8 days and are you ready? I am going to spend the next 8 days posting projects and ideas for you to get ready for your Chanukah celebrations. THEN, on the first day of Chanukah, I have a really great promotion starting in my digital store. So stay tuned for 16 days of Chanukah on this blog, mixed in with some other stuff too, LOL!
Okay, you ready? Project #1 is gift tags. You've seen them all over the internet for Christmas and sometimes it's easy to adapt a project for Chanukah. Sometimes its not. So I'm just gonna do them for you and hopefully give you some inspiration to make your own custom Chanukah tags. Here we go. Our daughter gets a gift each night of Chanukah. Some are big, some are small (I mean, really small, folks) but I wrap each of them and she loves opening them and has learned that it doesn't really matter what it is, its the thought behind it. This year, I am wrapping all of her gifts in plain white paper, adding blue raffia and these tags.
These were super simple to make so here's the tutorial.
Supplies needed:
- Claudine Hellmuth Sticky-back Canvas (or you can alter this, I talk about options below).
- Jewish themed stamps
- Number stamps, I used the Close To My Heart Precious Alphabet
- Martha Stewart glue pad, Versamark, or other watermarking/embossing stamp pad
- Martha Stewart micro glitter, or other micro glitter
- Tim Holtz Distress Embossing Powder, I used Walnut Stain
- Eyelets, I used Close To My Heart eyelets in Copper.
- Crop-a-dile, heat gun, scissors, pencil
- One small piece of chipboard or a tag-shaped diecut
1. I created a tag template out of cardstock. I don't have a diecut in this shape (and have now realized how badly I want one). I cut a rectangle 3" X 1.5". I then cut the corners on a 1/2" angle. Voila! Tag template. I will save this for future use in a little basket I have on my desk of little miscellaneous shapes, cuts, etc.
2. I turned my sheet of sticky-back canvas over so I was looking at the white paper backing. I traced the tag 8 times in a row. I then lined up the tag and did a second row upside down right underneath the first row, bottoms touching. I should have taken a picture, I'm sorry, I'm new at tutorials. This allowed me to cut out the shape and FOLD it back to back. If you don't have any sticky-back canvas, you could do this project using any canvas or even cardstock. I like the look and feel of the canvas but I certainly adore textured cardstock as well.
3. Cut out the shapes, keeping two tags together. Remove the backing and fold in half. This gives you a canvas tag, front and back. If you cut them all out individually because I suck at explaining myself, that's okay! Just attach them back to back. Your 16 tags should now be 8 tags, with canvas fronts and backs.
4. Stamp a jewish stamp on the tag using your glue pad. Sprinkle the micro glitter over the glue and tap the extra off. Voila! Shiny, sparkly jewish stuff on your tag! LOL. Wait a few minutes for the glue to dry.
5. Stamp your number stamp, using your glue pad, in an open space on your tag. It can overlap the glitter stamp a bit, might look nicer that way. Sprinkle the distress embossing powder over the stamp and tap the extra off. Use your heat gun to set the embossing powder. If you have never used the distress embossing powder before, it will not get shiny like regular embossing powder. It stays rough and old looking. I love it and use it a LOT. If you like shiny, use a shiny embossing powder. This is your project! Let your canvas cool off for just a minute.
6. Use the crop-a-dile or a hole punch to punch a hole in your tag and set an eyelet.
Your tags are done and ready to add to your gifts! Hope you enjoyed this project and I would love to see your own gift tags! Link me up!
Tuesday Tutorials – Digital Shadowing
So for those of you who are not into digital scrapbooking, this post is going to be a bit dull. Tuesdays are going to be my tutorial days and honestly, I don't have that much I'm good at, except accounting, selling real estate, and digi-scrapping. Oh, and reading. And editing, but I shouldn't add that one because as soon as I do, you'll find a typo in a blog post.
So anyhoo - one of the most important elements on a digi-scrapping page is not an element at all. Its a farce. A fake-out. Its the shadow. Everything needs to have a shadow or your page looks flat. And flat does not look real. So here's an example of a simple layout. Forget, for now, how gorgeous my daughter looks with her new haircut, and how beautifully her hair blends with this orange background. That's not important for the lesson, LOL.
Now, you can tell that things are layered, because they cover each other up, but they still look flat. Let's add some dimension. Some items are "heavier" than others, in real life, and therefore, create bigger shadows. So the shadow from a piece of flat paper is less than the shadow from a piece of chipboard, like my journaling tag. So I'm going to add shadows that are relative to the items. I'm also going to add shadows that make sense related to color. In other words, the chipboard sitting on top of orange paper will have a different shadow than chipboard sitting on top of green paper. The shadow itself will have an orange hue, or some shade of dark orange leaning towards brown, rather than dark green leaning towards black. Depending on your software, this may or may not be very simple to pull off, but check yours out and see if you can edit the color of the shadow. If you can, click in your color box, click on the background behind the item, then choose a darker shade of that same color.
Can you see the difference? Do you see how the chipboard now REALLY looks like its on top of the photo? And that button is really chunky sitting on top of everything else? You really do have to play with your shadows and customize them for your layouts to pop.
I hope this gave you some new ideas and has you hunting around in your software for shadow options. I would love to hear, and SEE, what you do with this new info! Have a terrific Tuesday!
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