Make Your Own Blog Photo Gallery in Blogger

Hello everyone! I'm very excited about my new Photo Gallery page!
You can find it in the top tab menu of my blog.

   I had put making my photo gallery off for a couple of months because it looked a bit overwhelming. Although it was time consuming going back through all of my posts, once I got the hang of it listing my projects went much easier. It took me a few hours from beginning (learning) to end (posting), but it was well worth it. Now that I'm all set up, posting future projects should be a breeze.  

I'm so happy that a visitor to my blog can go directly to the photo gallery and click on an image that will take that person straight to what he/she wants to see.

   Having a photo gallery is essential for craft blogs, because it provides easy navigation to all of your projects. I know when I visit blogs it can be frustrating to have to go through archive menus or page by page (older posts) looking for things I like. I have Popular Posts listed in the sidebar of my blog, but that just means many people may not see something they would really like.

   So here is a quick screenshot of part of my new gallery. I also have scrapbook layouts listed and will be adding new categories for other projects. One option I didn't use was cropping my photos to make them all the same size. I didn't like the idea of doing that for cards and layouts, but there is a way to make sure you don't end up with a large photo in the middle of a row of smaller ones and that can be done after you have placed them in your gallery. If you decide to make your own photo gallery please feel free to ask me any questions as I finally have the hang of it now.
  

 

The information I used to make my Photo Gallery can be found at Sweeter than Sweets

 Happy Crafting!

Magnetic Burlap Card for Easter - From Card to Decoration

Hello everyone! I'm back in the crafting saddle again and ready to share a new card! A lot of thought went into this one and my goal was to use mostly burlap; so the background, the eggs, the grass, and basket accents are all burlap.

I was looking at greeting cards on Etsy and read in one of the descriptions that the card being sold didn't include an envelope. The reasoning behind this is because it was being sold as a decoration. I'm all for cards being a decoration, but was it really a decoration? It was a beautiful card that could definitely be framed or something, but does your everyday person frame their cards?  The recipient could just leave it on a mantle for a while, but is that truly a decoration or just a pretty card sitting on a mantle? I've also heard people state, "There is no way I would spend that much for a card that will just be thrown away". Well, even if it's not thrown away, what do you do with it? For the non-crafty person or the very busy person, that's a big question.

After some thought I decided to come up with something that really does make a card a decoration. It may not be the best answer and definitely not the only one, but this was my idea. I also want to add that people may be doing this already and I just haven't seen it. 

Make a card that the front lifts off to stand on it's own.

I placed magnetic strips between the decorative part of the card and the card itself. This allows the receiver to easily lift the front off of this #Eastercard and place it on his/her refrigerator, filing cabinet at work or where ever she wants. Then when Easter is over it can be placed with other Easter decorations and put back up next year.

 

 I had bought a pack of magnetic sheets for printing on and just cut some strips from one page. The strips are strong enough to stick to the refrigerator, but easily pulled from one another.

I cut the eggs out of paper-backed burlap (just free handed them as they don't need to be perfect just close in size) and then used markers to decorate them.

And here it is on the refrigerator :)
#Easterdecoration

Happy Crafting Everyone! 

Copyright © 2014 Angela Conklin - Heartedly Handcrafted
All Rights Reserved

Handmade Easter Egg Card

Hello Everyone! The best part about this project is that I could decorate an egg without stained fingers. It was a lot of fun and I'm thinking I may have to make a few more "egg" cards just to see what I can come up with. I love all colors, especially when they are used together, but I'm finding that I must favor green and pink when making cards and layouts because I seem to use them a lot.

I used an oval die to cut out the egg and a small round die to form the spots on the egg.

I love this pink textured paper. To embellish the card I used die cut flowers and adhesive flat-backed pearls. To keep consistent with the polka dots of the green paper I embossed smooth pink paper that I placed just behind the egg and used a green ribbon with polka dots.

Happy Crafting Your #eastercards and #eastereggs !