5 More "Love Inspired" Ideas

There have been so many gems of inspiration coming from the stores that I picked 5 more easy ideas that can help you create a lasting memory this Valentines Day.

1. Paper Lanterns. Planning a romantic dinner? How about you light the room with candles and paper lanterns? This lantern is truly so easy! Instructions on how to make it are here. Put your candles in glass votives so that you don't have firemen joining your dinner.

2: Pails in Comparison: These cute little pails almost look like a wedding cake! Clear pails can be lined with any design of paper and embellishments to personalize your gift. Fill them with homemade cookies, candies or love notes. A past post featuring a cookie recipe is a great inspiration for a unique, heartfelt gift.

3. Fimo! We love what Christina has done with Fimo. So versatile you can make Valentine ornaments (why not?!?) or this gorgeous card. Click the links for instructions. And how brilliantly easy is it to use pieces of decorative tape as a background?? love it! P.S. Be sure to sign up for our email list if you want to hear about a free upcoming Fimo demo in our Seattle store!

4. Buckle up your love. Easy as using a paper punch and some ribbon and you have a wonderful little embellishment to add some love to your wrapped gifts.

5. Message in a Bottle: Give your sweety a vial filled with sand from where you got married; dirt from a hike that made your day; a note telling them all the qualities you love about them; or something whimsical like fairy dust (glitter). The possibilities are endless.

Create something special in your life! --Kim

5 Easy Ways to say "I Love You"

Love. It has inspired music, poetry, and beautiful works of art.

It has also inspired the creative minds at Paper Zone to design love notes, sweet treats, cute cards and gorgeous gifts. I always say the best gifts come from the heart. And what better way to express what is in your heart than through your hands?

I thought I would share 5 ideas from our Facebook album that made my heart skip a beat. I hope you find some inspiration for your Valentine:

1. Je t'adore : This lovely little Valentine (above) was made with items from the aptly named line from Making Memories: "Je t'adore" (which was previously featured in this blog post). All you need is some smartly cut paper, a couple of brads and these charming embellishments to make your sweetheart say "Oui, Oui" to your love.

2. The ruffled heart card (left): Detailed instructions for this card are found in this post. This technique has many variations and they all say "love me".

3. The tower of love: You can't go wrong giving a gift smartly packaged in beautiful papers. Plus, who doesn't love multiple gifts!?! Instructions for folding these adorable little boxes can be found here.

4. For the Record. . . Declare your love in a unique and fun fashion. Whether you are going on the record to declare your hearts desire or you want to remind someone special that you make beautiful music together, this card can be easily made with paper, a brad (for the center), a circle cutting tool and a folding tool (to make the outside envelope). Rock on!

5. Seal it with a kiss: You can use the same heart punch used in the ruffle heart card to make a great little candy wrapper made out of folded paper and tied with a bow. The additional trim was also made with the assistance of a punch and adds a charming touch.

Remember, Valentine's are not only for couples in love. They can be for your child, your sister, your best friend, your UPS guy (we've got some great ones!) or the man at the deli counter who always knows your sandwich.

Have some fun while you make someone smile. Inspire Design Create. . .and share the love! --Kim

Ribbon, Ribbon and More Ribbon!

I'm so excited about the new American Crafts ribbon assortment that has just arrived in our Seattle and Shoreline stores! With over 400 different styles to choose from, it's like being in a candy store. There is a perfect ribbon for any project from wedding invitations to scrapbook pages to cards-even clothing embellishments. A full range of colors are offered in the simple grosgrains, satins and sheers:

Plus there are some great embellished ribbons like these scalloped velvets and gathered satins:

I find this rose ribbon particularly intriguing. It's great for adding texture to cards and scrapbook pages.

Right now this is only in our Seattle and Shoreline stores, but we hope to get it into all of the other stores soon if we have a good response.

Let us know what you think!

Amanda

Perfect Paper Pinwheels

{pink pinwheels}
Pinwheels have been popping up all over, we saw a lot of adorable pinwheels at the Seattle and Portland Wedding Shows this year. They are such a fun little decoration, look at how cute these are as cupcake toppers:

{cupcake decor}

And they make the perfect little wedding place card for a whimsical Spring wedding:

{spring wedding place cards}

{floral pinwheel place cards)

The best thing about these is how easy they are to make, and inexpensive too - you can get four pinwheels out of just one 12x12 sheet! These are great for weddings, kids' birthday parties (think Circus/Carnival theme!), baby showers, bridal showers and - since the day of love is right around the corner - Valentine's Day. I always like to give small gifts to friends and family on Valentine's Day to show them my appreciation, and I think a little Valentine cupcake with a pinwheel topper will be perfect. Ready to make your own? Here you go:

Step One: Gather your supplies:
-12x12 Paper (1 sheet=4 pinwheels)
-Scissors (I like the cloud-edged ones for a scalloped edge effect)
-Brads (just 1 per pinwheel)
-Ribbon (optional, but a very cute addition!)
-Stick for the base (I used a chopstick that I found in my junk drawer)


Step 2: Cut your 12x12 paper in half, then cut those pieces in half
-Each of the 4 squares should measure 6" x 6"


Step 3: With a ruler, draw a line from each of the corner points (diagonally) and then draw a circle around the center point


Step 4: Cut each line, stopping when you get to the edge of your circle


Step 5: Punch a small hole in each of four edges and in the center


Step 6: Using your brad, start threading it through each punched hole
-If you want to add ribbon, put that on the brad first before you put it through the paper
-When finished, secure your brad on the back by opening the edges.


Voila! You have created your pinwheel! Now, you just need to secure the pinwheel to the stick (I used glue on mine). If you want to create a fully functioning/spinning pinwheel, simply replace the brad with a pin and it will spin in the breeze. Easy and fun to make, enjoy! --Lauren

Ruffle Heart Valentine

In years past, I have made and sent Valentine's to my friends and family in the same way as we send Christmas Cards. I personally feel when you get a card from someone for Valentine's Day, it is remembered better. I am very excited to have discovered the Ruffled Heart, All Over the Page Punch, by Martha Stewart to use for my project this year. This unique punch has a magnetic back which allows you to punch anywhere on the page; hence the name. :)

Using this punch, along with a glitter technique involving packing tape, yes, that's right, packing tape, I was able to create these cute cards. This technique has you place a piece of tape behind your punched design, and then sprinkle glitter onto the tape. The glitter adheres to the tape, and voila, you have created a translucent glitter window; and how fun is that!


Basic ingredients for this card

Card stock cut to 8.5x5.5
Decorative paper cut to 4x5.25
Ruffle Heart Punch, Martha Stewart
Glitter
Adhesive
Embellishments of your choice


Step One

Line up your cardstock and decorative paper.

Step 2

Position your punch on the paper. Punch.

Hint. You are able to position the punch slightly after the magnets have adhered together, but they are quite strong, so it is best to have everything lined up as precisely as possible.

Step 3

Flip the decorative paper over and place a piece of packing tape over the punch.

Step 4

At this point you can begin to embellish some of your card or wait until you put the glitter on the tape.

Step 5

Sprinkle the glitter over the tape and remove the excess.

Step 7

Adhere your decorated, embellished paper to the cardstock

Step 8

For both cards, I stamped a message on to some cardstock to attach. I used the ink that I was stamping with to outline the cardstock to make it pop a little more.

Hint - It is much easier to outline your cardstock before you stamp on it. It is very easy to get ink fingerprints all over your stamped image.

Step 9

After the outline has dried, stamp your message and then adhere it to your card.

**************************************************************************

For this card, the ingredients I used are:

Bazzil Basic Cardstock in Petunia

Making Memories 12x12 Je T'adore, French Dictionary

Classic Crest Natural Cardstock

American Crafts Mini Pewter Brads

Colorbox Pigment Stamp pad, Rosebud

Stampendous Stamp, With All My Heart

Stampendous Pearl Glitter, Rose

For this card, the ingredients I used are:

Bazzil Basics Cardstock in Petunia

Making Memories 12x12 Je T'adore, French Dictionary

Classic Crest Natural Cardstock

Kaiser Craft Silver Rhinestone Strip

Colorbox Pigment Stamp pad, Rosebud

Stampendous Stamp, With All My Heart

Stampendous Pearl Glitter, Rose

Happy Crafting,

Sandra

Yellow and Gray

I have been totally obsessing over yellow and gray. Have you seen this combo lately? I have been seeing it everywhere and love it. I was so inspired I decided to make a wedding invite using these colors.(source)

Wedding invites can seem intimidating but don't be discouraged! I want to show you how simple and easy they can be using products from PZ.

To start out you'll want to find the main pieces of your invite. I stared with a piece of Hambly patterned paper, PZ Facets Slate envelopes and card stock, a 5x5 Pocket Fold Envelopment and some clear stamps from Basic Grey's new Curio collection.

I also selected some Stardream paper in the color White Gold to use for the piece with the wording as well as the Direction and RSVP cards. I used a basic word processing program on my home computer as well as my home ink jet printer for all the printing. To add a little extra interest I wanted to stamp some the the circle designs from the Basic Grey clear stamp set that went so well with my patterned paper. To get the placement of the stamps just right I placed the unmounted and clean stamps on top of my printed piece. When I had them laid out exactly where I wanted them I took my clear mounting block and placed that right on top of my stamps. With a little pressure the stamps clung on to my block and I lifted it up so I could then apply the ink.
After stamping the piece with the wording I mounted it to a piece of PZ Facets Slate card stock cut down to 5.5 x 5.5 inches. And then added a one inch strip of the pretty yellow patterned paper. Now you are ready to glue this to the Envelopment Pocket Fold card.
Next I printed and cut my RSVP and Directions cards as well as adding a half inch strip of the patterned paper. Those are tucked away neatly in the pocket with a little RSVP envelope also in PZ Facets Slate. I wanted to add a little something extra to the exterior of the card so I decided to make a seal. To do this I stamped the big circle design on a small 2 inch piece of White Gold paper. I then mounted that to a piece of slate card stock cut to 2.25 x 2.25 inches. To bring a little yellow into the seal I chose to add a pearl to the center of the design. We carry the self-sticking pearls in so many colors but the yellow we had was not an exact match with my invite. I simply colored the pearl using a Copic marker to get it the exact shade I needed! (Did you know that you can use the Copics to color rhinestones, plastic and metal too? How cool is that!?)


The finishing touch was adding the seal to the flap of the card.
Wasn't that easy? If you are thinking about creating your own invites I would encourage you to do so. They are easier than you think and you can make them to custom fit your event. (Not to mention you are going to save a lot of money!)

Happy Crafting!
Christina

J'adore Je t'Adore

Well, it won't be long now, will it? Yes, indeedy. Red and pink are everywhere and all the little cherubs are primed with their bows and arrows, ready to inspire love at a moment's notice. Yes, Valentine's Day is coming!

Robert Doisneau: Kiss by the Hotel de Ville

So are you ready for this most romantic of holidays? Well, if you need a little inspiration, you need look no further than Making Memories' Je t'Adore line. J'adore Je t'Adore! Everything in the line is truly sweet. There are great papers to craft cards with...

And lovely bits and bobs to embellish with...

And what about decoration for your house?

Or adornment for your wrist (yes there is even a charm bracelet making kit!!)?

I love this line and I'm certain you will too! Come on in and check it out and create something cute for your sweetie(s) or yourself. Tiffany