The Hippo's Palette

Hello, and welcome to my blog!! Let me introduce myself, I am Robyn, and I was born and raised in small town called Altoona, located in the beautiful mountains of Pennsylvania. I am wife to Justin, Mom to Chanis, Chelsea, Courtne, and Judah, and Mimi to Noelle and Meir. On a cool fall day, you will usually find me sitting at my old re-purposed wood table surrounded by assorted craft supplies, laminating machines, the fabulous Cricut Explore Air 2,  and a rather large cup of coffee filled with an extravagant amount of International Delight French Vanilla creamer. I realized at a very young age that I had a love for all things arts and crafts.  My first masterpiece was an early rendition of my mother that included a mole the size of the Grand Canyon on her face.  I have always been a stickler for details!  That portrait never made it to the highly acclaimed "fridge," but, I did not give up. I spent most of my kindergarten years making Barbie furniture ...

What do you do with all those empty egg cartons?  If you have a few basic supplies, you can transform the ordinary gray carton into a one of a kind fall bouquet.  Supplies needed for this project: Egg Cartons Scizzors Buttons Floral Tape Floral Wire Wire Cutters Paint  Paint brush Start by taking your egg carton and cutting out the individual egg cups.  This does not have to be done perfectly because we will be cutting them again!  Next, you will take each cup and cut it again.  This time forming the layers of petals.  You will want to vary the amount of petals on each one, so that when you layer them together, they will form the flower. Once the petals are cut, they should layer together like this. Now comes the fun part, paint!  With your colors of choice, begin to paint the petals.  You can go for a solid color flower or, if you prefer to be daring, you can mix co...

When it comes to packaging, I can not bare to throw out a good piece of cardstock.  I believe everything has a purpose.  So, when the clouds made the sky dark, the rains started heading our way, and the temperature began to drop, I thought, "What better way to spend the day than inside, crafting!" I tend to "collect" a lot of packaging, so I pulled out my mounds of "Sparkle and Co" cardstock, my paper cutter, hole punch, a black felt tip marker and an old white 'Ornament Marker.' The cool weather put me in a Fall kind of mood and my mind immediately went to Christmas tags! This craft project was rather simple.  I cut two size of tags; 2.5 x 3.5, and 1.5 x 2.5.  Of course, I saved all those little scraps too, knowing I will find use for them during a random embellishment making day! Next, I drew two simple trees and a snow man, followed by some white highlights for the snow and a cute little moon found hidden behind the trees.  I finished the ...