Building Blocks Party!

The last couple months have been crazy but I’ve missed sharing my craft room creations with you, so I took the morning off to hang out in my craft room and update my blog.

My twins just celebrated their 6th Birthday and they wanted a building blocks themed party, Which means that is what has been taking over my craft room. I started out with creating invitations to send into school with my kids. Yes, I am that crazy mom that invited both of my kids full classes to the party. I needed to make 36 invitations and the fastest way to do this is mass production. I knew I wanted to use the Building blocks stamp set by Kindred stamps, I picked the to building block boy and girl as the main images. Before I could start any stamping and coloring I need to design the invitations on my computer with all the party information. I use open office and paint to keep it easy and simple. I do measure the stamp images I plan to use to leave enough space for stamping. The invitations are A2 size 4 1/4 x 5 1/2 in order to fit 4 on a page. I printed them on yellow card stock for a fun pop of color and cut them down with my large paper trimmer. A stamping tool like the misti is amazing when you need to stamp the same image multiple time. I lined my stamps up in my misti inked them up in blackout ink by ink on 3. I recently switched to this ink since it a hybrid ink that is Copic safe and waterproof. 36 cards later I cleaned my stamps and started coloring with color Copic markers.

Boy Shirt: G05, G14, G19 Girl shirt: RV04, RV13, RV19, Pants: C5,C7 or B16, B18 Girl Hair: E23, E25, E57 Head/Arms: YR24, Y13, Y35.

Next I hit up the dollar store because they have great party supplies for cheap! plates, napkins, table cloths, decoration and goodie bags all in my building blocks theme. I am all about inexpensive and easy, mixed with a little handmade.

To add a handmade touch to the goodie bags I created small circular “Thank you” tags using a sentiments from the building blocks set and Polynesian Adventurers set by Kindred stamps. I set the stamps up in my misit again so I could stamp all my tags at once. Using my colored pencils I colored the heart block from the building block set. lastly I had my kids sign the back. Add to the goodie bags with ribbon and your done.

To entertain the kids during the party I had simple games and activities. like building kits from the dollar store, bean bags made out of felt and rice, coloring pages, block key chains to decorate and I even brought my kids block table so they could build and play with their friends.

For me adding little handmade touches takes my inexpensive party supplies to the next level without being to over whelming.

P.S Theses are the cakes that the kids Grandmother made for the party!

I hope you all enjoyed these craft room creations. I will be back soon to share. If you want to see more of what I am up to you can follow me on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube @TheCraftBean.

Brandi M

The Craft Bean.

Prehistoric Party

I had fun creating a personalized invitation with the prehistoric alphabet stamp set by kindred stamps this week.

For the outside of my invitation I used an older technique call punch art, before cute critter dies became a thing many crafters used punches or simple shaped dies to create critters. I wanted a Dino shaped card but I don’t own a Dino die plus I wanted to use things I already had in my craft hoard, so I deiced to made my own Dino.

My card bases is made out of olive green card stock cut to 5 ½ x 11 inches scored at 4 ¼ and 8 ½ inches

I used a Swiss dots embossing folder to add texture and two circle dies to make eyes (1 inch and 1 ½ inches ) and my regular hole punch for the nose.

I traced my water color pallet on the top and bottom of my green card stock base to make the curve of the mouth. I then traced the smaller circle die 5 times starting in the center of a 5 ½ x 2 inch card stock to make the teeth.

The inside center panel with the party info was typed up in a word document on my computer leaving space to stamp “RYAN” with the prehistoric alphabet set by kindred stamps. I also created masks out of post it notes for the letters so I could stamp the foot print across my invitation. I colored everything in with Copic markers.

To put the card together you will need:

1 card base

1 center panel

2 small black circles

2 lager white circles

1 large green circle (cut in half)

2 Tiny black circles

2 sets of teeth

I layered the white, black and half green circles together to make the eyes. To give them a bit of dimension I add a small pop dot under the green half circle. I add the teeth to the inside of the card which I did cover with scraps of embossed green card stock. The tiny black circles I placed on the front of the invitation to make the nose.

for a bonus project I made two simple cards to go along with my invitation.

I used the same fonts from my invitations to type up two different sentiments to make simple but cute cards. The “Thank You”card would be great to send to guess after the party and while the ” I love you” card would be the prefect Birthday card from any family member.

Some quick tips about making computer text files for cards:

• change to margin size to .25 (1/4 inch) it makes the math for a A2 card easy
• use the grid feature to break up the text document into 4 equal sections
• Set the grid to No line, that way it won’t print the lines but will show them in grey while designing
• Create the text layout in 1 section and then copy and paste into the other 3 to get same spacing on all 4 panels
• For adding typed sentiments inside card type in the bottom 2 quadrants
• print on high quality card stock

I hope you enjoyed these project! I will be back soon to share more craft room creations with you all.
If you are interested in this stamp set or any by Kindred Stamps consider using my affiliate link, It cost you nothing but help support my blog. Kindred Stamps.

Brandi M.
The Craft Bean