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I hope you have a wonderful 4th of July!

Enjoy your

Hamburgers, Hot dogs,

Family, Friends, Fireworks and

Especially your FREEDOM!

We have lots of new projects for you to fill your extra summer crafting time.

Plus you’ll find tons of other ideas to inspire you in our Craft Ideas Section and in our Holiday Craft Index.

Eileen

• Leave a comment on THIS POST before midnight July 8th telling how you might use them; and while you’re there

• Sign up to follow The Artful Crafter blog.

BTW, the giveaway drawing date is The Artful Crafter’s 5th blogoversary. The Artful Crafter website will celebrate its 7th birthday next month.

New Articles

• For Artistically Designed Scrapbook Pages, All You Need is a Plan – Here are some layout schemes to get you going.

• Hand Embroidery Card Patterns – Free online patterns for hand embroidery cards.

• How to Earn Money as a Snapfish Designer – Did you know you can license your digital card designs at Snapfish?

• How to Create Fine Art with Photoshop – Doug Landreth creates amazing digital art with photos and Photoshop. Be sure to check out Doug’s gallery. The images are simply stunning.

• How to Make Greeting Card Gift Boxes – Make cute little gift boxes out of greeting cards.

• Tea Light Birthday Cake and Matching Card – Imagine a tiny decorated cake made from a tea light. Now go make one.

• How to Make a Necklace in Memory of Mom – Don’t let heirloom jewelry gather dust tucked away somewhere. Update a few pieces into a fashionable pendant necklace to wear.

• Use 3D Clay Accents to Adorn a Decoupage Box – Let 3D clay embellishments add pop to your decoupage.

• Scratchy Necklace Makeover – Do you have a pretty necklace that just doesn’t feel nice? Here’s one way to restring it using black rubber jewelry tube.

This 4th of July scrapbook layout above was created in Photoshop CS5 using a quick page by Liv Esteban from Jessica Sprague’s 4th birthday celebration plus embellishments from Scrap Girls designers Amanda Sok and Brandy Murry.