It's a birthday extravaganza!!

Design House Digital is turning three!  And we are going to celebrate!  Hope on over to DHD for the site-wide sale, hosted chats, and other fun.  While you are there be sure to check out the new January challenges and stop in the forum to say hello. 

Hope to see you at the party!!

Creative Home Decor

Little Birdie creative team member Heather Steed has posted a fun, inspirational project over on her website.  Using papers from several of my kits - several I wouldn't have even thought to mix up! - she has created beautiful wall art.  Not only is her project great, but the idea is also a wonderful idea for your home entry way.  While at her website, be sure to look around as she has a lot of creative inspiration to share with you!!

Grand Opening at Design House Digital!

The day has come!  You can now find my designs at Design House Digital!  I hope you will come on over and check out all the fun there with monthly challenges, designer collaborations, a fun team of inspiring decorators, and so much more.

As a special bonus to my blog readers, you can get an additional 10% off anything in my shop through December 31st using the coupon code: LBDHDOPEN10.  Please note that a minimum purchase of $1.99 is required.

I hope to see you over there for some digi-scrapping fun!

Creative Team Call!

Along with a move to a new store, I am hosting a creative team call!  I'm looking for some experienced digital scrappers to work with my new releases and help promote Little Birdie Digital Designs.

My requirements are pretty simple.

• You'll be the first to know about my new releases and will receive them prior to release FOR FREE! 
•  I'll ask that you create 1-2 layouts to help me promote the product.  
• You will be responsible for posting them at my store gallery, on your personal blog or any other social media you use for your crafting, and at any other store with an open gallery that you frequent being sure to mention the product and my name.
• You will allow me to post them on my blog and other media for promotion of new products.

***Hybrid crafters also welcome!!

I'll be announcing my new store on the 27th but it is a large and vibrant site with plenty going on.  I'm sure you will enjoy hanging out there if you don't already!

To apply, please contact me at littlebirdiedigi@att.net and include the following:

• Subject line "CT Application"
• Your name
• A link to your online gallery
• A link to your blog or other social media
• A little bit about you and why you are interested

I look forward to hearing from you.  I'm attaching a sneak peek of my next release to get you interested!

Grand Opening Coming Soon!!

I'm excited to announce that I will be re-opening shop at a new location on December 27th!  So stay tuned as I will be revealing the location and a special coupon just for my blog readers.

Under Construction

I'm feeling that the look of my blog should be updated.  Please bear with me while I make some changes and sort things out.  Now back to work!!

Wine Cork Christmas Tree

I'm sometimes amazed at the price people will pay for home decor.  Now I understand that not everyone has been bitten by the crafting bug, but there are some seriously overpriced goods out there!  I was flipping through our latest issue of Wine Enthusiast (we have received one each week for the last three weeks - even though we've never purchased anything from it!) and I saw a Christmas tree made out of wine corks.  I thought it looked easy to do and would be cute in our dining room which has a wine theme decor.  My husband was all for it since it would use up some of the many, many corks we have collected over the years.  I was already set to make one when I got some time but was shocked when I saw the price - $39.99!!  What?!?!

Using 39 corks, ribbon, and a hot glue gun I was able to complete my tree in 20 minutes.  The resulting product is only about 6 inches wine by 7 inches high and went together very fast.

I made mine by selecting similar sized corks and making sure any red (wine dyed) ends were not in front - although that might look kinda cool since red is a holiday color.  Then I glued together the rows and finaly stacked the rows upon eachother while gluing them.  The construction of this tree began with a base row of 5 corks and then 6, 7,5, 4, 3, 2, 1.  I found a scrap of ribbon for the top.

Next you can really embellish it however you choose.  I think misting sprays would be fun or some glitter or even making a tiny paper garland or banner to adorn your tree.  I found some old pearlized powder I had and dusted some on the end of the corks to make it a shimmery green.  I think this small, quick project turned out pretty cute.  I may even try making a bigger companion tree.  So have fun.  Give it a try.  After all if you mess up, you just get to drink more wine before trying again!

Gift money holder

Let's face it.  We've become slaves to the almighty gift card!  Not sure what to get someone, you grab a gift card.  Not sure what you want, you say a gift card to your favorite store.  For some reason it just takes all the thoughtfulness out of the gift for me, even thought I do love to both give and receive them.  In order to feel like I've put more thought into a gift of money, I like to dress it up a bit.  This year, I thought a fun little project in Photoshop would work well.  I currently only plan to give one gift of money (whoo hoo!) and it's for my brother.  In a few months he has a ski trip planned and I know he would appreciate some money to purchase a lift ticket.  So here it goes:

To Start: I made a pretty simple template in Photoshop.  I then clipped some Christmas-y paper to it and decorated it with my message.

 Step 1:After printing my design, I folded it in half.

 Step 2: I scored the edges that I will fold inside and glue together.  The scoring just gives me a nice, clean fold.

 Step 3: I punched a hole through the top and fitted each side with an eyelet to dress it up a bit.  Regular holes are just fine too - you simply need a place to put the ribbon.

 Step 4: Put a little glue down on those edges and fold the two sides together.

 Step 5: Insert cash or gift card and close with ribbon.  Ta Da! (as my toddler likes to say at the completion of anything!)

Just remember that if you want to label the back with To/From information, that you will need to rotate your text both vertically and horizontally so that it appears proper after folding.  If you would like to download a PDF version of the template that you can print, cut, and trace on any paper you have, you can do that here.   Or you can download the Photoshop template file here.

A simple little banner

With a new baby in tow, it's been hard to juggle getting any projects done let alone all the day to day upkeep of a home!  So as we neared our new son's baptism day I felt a little sad that I had not made anything to decorate our home with for this special day.  Enter last minute crafting.  I decided I needed to do something large since I'd only have time to sneak in one project so I choose to do a banner to hang from our fire place.  I wanted to spell out "God Bless" thinking I could also use it for Easter by choosing some soft tones.

To keep it simple I opened up Photoshop and made a big circle and cut it in half.  My banner will be made out of half circles.  Then I choose some light blue and tan papers to clip to them, selected my font, and went about typing the letters and positioning them.  Once printed and cut, I decided to embellish them a bit by using cut pieces of text paper.  I took an old book (bye, bye International Tax Law!) and cut out one inch wide sections of text paper.  You can really use any size you like but I wouldn't do smaller than one inch wide as it would be hard to work with. I folded the paper accordion style with no real perfection to it and crumbled them in my hand a bit.  Then I glued them around the back edge of each banner and scrunched them as I went to make a ruffle look.

 Next, I wanted to spruce them up a bit so I used some Tattered Angles Glimmer Mist (Trunk Bay) to add some colored shine to the text.  Again, no perfection just a mist on the edges here and there.  Then I used some Tattered Angels Glimmer Glam (Chandelier) to add even more sparkle and to stiffen the text book paper so it would hold up better.

 And here is a shot of the banner hanging by the fireplace.  I punched two holes in each half circle and threaded some simple ribbon through to hang it.  It really added a nice touch to the day and was a great place to take pictures in front of.