Noteworthy Altered Wheelbarrow

I don't think I ever posted a picture of these little wheelbarrows when I first came across them but they're from Hobby Lobby - $1 in the unfinished wood section! Everything I used to embellish it was from the Noteworthy line from Making Memories except the paint (Sea Foam), which was from the Funky Vintage line. I also used some glittery Scribbles just around the top rim. The only difficult part was the way I did the wheels. To get the felt flower on the wheel, I had to dismantle the front end. That required getting out a wooden peg (glued, of course) that went all the way through both the outside pieces and the wheel. I first took an Xacto knife and poked it around the peg on both sides to at least have the edges free of glue. Then, using a hammer and a plastic rubon tool (the ones that come with all American Crafts rubons) to tap away at it. It was NOT easy and required some odd leveraging with the wheel to get it out. Then I simply glued the felt flowers in place and attempted to put the peg back in. Lining it up was a pain, but nothing compared to getting the peg hammered back in. One squashed index finger later, I did get the peg back in, then realized that for my purposes it really didn't matter if the wheel didn't turn - I should have just glued the wheel back in and ignored the peg since I was covering it with more flowers and buttons anyways! Anyways. I've thought of several uses - it would look great hanging out on a desk holding paper clips, or in a bathroom holding little girl's ponytail holders - basically anything small. I thought it might be cute holding chocolate, but really, it just wouldn't hold enough chocolate to be worth it, lol! I took the one photo with the paint bottle to show an idea of the size.

St. Patrick's Day Birdhouse - Luck O' The Irish Pub

Yup - it's time to switch holidays, lol! Relax - I have surprisingly few papers and zero embellishments for this holiday so there won't be much. I LOVE doing these little mini birdhouses though! There will definitely be one for every holiday by the time I'm done! I started with the Reminisce papers and then got a little Prima crazy. I considered completely covering the rooftops with them, but didn't have enough of the green. I had a bottle of iridescent shamrock green Scribbles and used that to do the flower centers and the perches. The bird - from the same package that the ones I used for the Valentine's Day birdhouse (from the miniatures section of Hobby Lobby), but there wasn't a green. So I took a blue one and used shimmer chalk from Pebbles to alter the color! The darker green spots on the wings were done using a touch of Sakura paint pen. At this point I decided I wanted to make it into a little pub for the St. Patrick's Day theme but couldn't figure out how I was going to make a little sign (or what to call it, even). I stumbled across this little scrap of paper and found my answer! The paper collection I used was "Luck O' The Irish" from Reminisce. Guess what the edging of the paper had on it - the cutest little title identifier for the line in just the perfect size to cut out, mat on the darker green, and cover in Glossy Accents (Ranger) to make my little sign! Of course, it sports a fingerprint from testing to see if it was dry (I just can't ever help myself with Glossy Accents for some reason) and a crack, but I still love that little sign! Then I used some letter brads (with the tabs removed) from Provo to finish off the look. I seriously had zero embellishments for St. Patrick's Day, which surprised me since I have overloads of every other holiday, it seems! So a quick trip to my soon to be extinct Hobby Lobby (what the heck are we supposed to do with NO craft stores in town anymore???) to see what I could find to finish this off. The selection was pretty sparse there too, but I did come across these shamrock buttons from Jesse James Dress It Up collection. I used more than I planned because I thought it was kind of cute to think of them as little shamrock shrubbery surrounding my little pub, lol! And there it is, my second in what I've decided will be a series of holiday birdhouses! :)

CHA in Spirit Day at 2Peas

Whew! I've been at it all day long with my fellow Peas and I'm exhausted! I managed to complete four layouts today and that's HUGE for me! I haven't scrapped much for the past several years - altered a lot, but not scrapped. So I'm excited and thought I'd share what I did today! Nothing earth shattering, but I had a blast!!!

Checkbook cover and a tiny wreath

I've decided I have too many projects going at once. Each in various states of "something" needed drying time so it was left "overnight". I just don't always get BACK to said project, lol! I have them everywhere. So instead of finishing any of them, last night I at least started projects I could finish in one sitting. It's a start, isn't it?

First is this checkbook cover. I can't believe I've never done one of these. I've put up with the ugly ones you get from the bank or the check companies. I found one of the Creative Imaginations blanks at Blessed 2 Scrapbook in Champaign and last night decided it was time I had a pretty checkbook cover I won't be embarassed to pull out in a store! Cheryl, one of my fellow Zsiagettes, recently sent me (among other things - she's so sweet!) the Stone Rose collection from Prima. I LOVE this line! Then again, I love a lot of their paper lines (totally in love with Angelique and Cavalier from the upcoming CHA release!), lol! I thought the paper was pretty enough on its own to not need a lot of miscellaneous "stuff" added. I did use a rubon that came with the collection which I embellished a bit with glittery Scribbles (I wanted the pattern to show through so used those rather than the Stickles, which would have covered completely). I used some Bo Bunny letter stickers I had hanging around and an old EK quote sticker. I'm in a "less is more" kick right now...except when it comes to sparkles! Oh - and the center of the flower IS in Stickles in a teal color. Click on the picture to get the gigantic version where you can see details.



I found these adorable little tiny grapevine wreaths at Hobby Lobby in the miniatures section (actually I found several really cute little things over there to play with - would it be totally weird if I want to do a full dollhouse altered style even though I only have the one little boy so there will be no one to play with it?). Simply covered it in tiny Primas and used glittery Scribbles (just because I still had them out from the checkbook cover) for the centers. I was debating adding some ribbon and other embellishments, but think I'll hold off. I rather like this one as is...after all, I did buy several more to play with! They can get a busier design. It's about 3" by 3" - thinking I might add a magnet to the back and pop it onto the refrigerator.

Valentine's Day Wooden Tree

This was a little unfinished wood tree kit from Joanne's. The tiny finished sample pictured was just painted and I thought "oh no, we can't have THAT". Yea. I wish I had, lol! This was, in no uncertain terms, a pain in the butt to do. Even with the Basic Grey file kit I broke down and bought. I ended up giving up and leaving it kind of ragged. The paper is from Reminisce (same collection as I used for the gift bag and mini album). I was originally going to paper all the hearts too, but after the tree, there was NO way I was going to mess with them, lol! So they just got painted and then decorated with Sakura Glaze and Souffle pens - which was actually a lot of fun! Did those while one of my favorite movies of all time (Fried Green Tomatoes) was on last night.

Hanging Valentine's Day Decor

Love this little mobile! It came as just an unfinished wood piece already assembled from Hobby Lobby - couple of bucks regular price and you know how Hobby Lobby is...closer to the holiday the better the sale! It was actually really easy to alter too. I used double-sided papers (from Bo Bunny's collection from last year) and laid a piece down onto my glass cutting "mat" (ok, it's just a cheap picture frame glass I pulled out!) and used my Xacto knife to cut in between each section - plenty of room to not be precise. This gave me two options for each size heart. I repeated this with another double sided piece and I had four options for each size heart and I just picked my favorites, lol! It's meant to kind of spin, so I just made sure no paper was used on two sizes closest to each other. Adhered all the paper with Mod Podge, did my trimming, and voila! It was pretty much done! I added a little bit of dimension with some pearly Scribbles. I was going to decorate them more, but realized that once again, I had something where the paper just seemed like "enough" to me. Plus, because this hangs on its own little cotton cord, care must be taken to get weight evenly distributed, so if you try this yourself, just watch any heavier elements you might add so that it doesn't hang crooked!

I hit Hobby Lobby last night (finally gave in and got the Basic Grey file set for a project I'll be posting later) and wanted to share a few cute finds. The first was they had (sorry, last week's sale but they run it so often I'm sure you can catch it!) these floral bushes on sale for 50% off. Now I LOVE Prima's flowers, but have zero access to them here in the "sticks". I've been dying to play with some of the bigger ones, but even going over to Champaign, with a Michael's, a Target and 3 scrapbook stores, still NO decent selection (I saw exactly ONE type in my last trip) of Prima's! Soooo, I have to make do. This was ONE $7 bush (which I actually thought was kind of ugly as a bush) that was on sale and after a quick check of the construction, I could see it would come apart beautifully. And it did! So for $3.50 I got 8 each of the large (which are 5" across) in each color and some random smaller ones. As a bonus, the red and pink ones are very lightly flocked! Just enough to be soft. Check your local craft store floral department - especially during sales (which are frequent - especially during season changes!). While not all are suitable for scrapbooking, your options open up dramatically in altering! There are some beautiful colors and textures available and if you especially watch for bushes like these, you can get multiple colors at a time.

This is the other cute find! I have been drooling over all the cute projects I've seen done with Say It With Letters' little wooden houses! Here is a recent one they shared on their blog from Valerie. Cute! Well anyways, I found these teeny tiny ones that Hobby Lobby puts out. There are four in a package. They are tiny (3 3/4" x 4"), but I can't wait to do a little playing!

I'm back!! With a super quick Valentine's project!

See, I knew I shouldn't have gotten on that blogging every day roll I was in a couple of weeks ago! My computer crashed! I finally got a new one, but am still getting things caught up and organized. And trying to FIND all the disks to reinstall all my software! However I really wouldn't have had a whole lot to blog about - I've been doing tons of creative "stuff", but most of it can't be shared yet! {wink} - Doesn't that sound mysterious, lol! It's really not. I made a bunch of things for the first issue of Scrapbook News + Review (I'm on the staff so this is my shameless plug - you're going to LOVE this magazine!) and some random things I just want to hold onto for various calls and such.

I HAVE, however, replaced my Christmas kick with a Valentine's Day one. Which is odd - the holiday itself is rather depressing for me, a single gal and all, lol, but I am just in love with creating in pink and red and hearts for some reason! So here is one more item I've made to decorate my house and show the love of my life (who turns 7 next week!) how much I love HIM!
I have more, but need to get better pictures.

This was a 50 cent wooden heart plant stake type thing I found at Hobby Lobby. This took less than a half hour, including drying time on the paint! The paint, ribbon and buttons are from Making Memories and the flowers from Heidi Swapp. One of my secrets for getting this done so quickly was the glue I used. Can I just RAVE about Beacon's 3-in-1 Advanced Craft Glue? This stuff really grabs onto embellishments and holds almost immediately. Dries clear and FAST. Love this glue!! A little goes a long way and its hold is similar to E6000 (it smells too, but not nearly as bad as the E6000 does) in that it will take metals and all kinds of things and hold them strong. Seriously - if you haven't tried it yet, do so! I have buttons everywhere and never use them and one of the reasons is it's just a pain to get them to stay put long enough to dry where I want them. On layouts I usually can get away with Glue Dots, but on altered items I just don't have the faith that they will stand up and take a little abuse. I'm so glad I pulled them out and tried them with this glue! The pictures are of the front and back - which are pretty interchangable, but I plan on putting this in a plant hanging in an opening between my living room and dining room so both sides will be visible.

Tea Holder WGB

I think I'm on a roll with this blogging thing this week! Ha - I shouldn't have said that, now I won't get around to it for another week, lol! Having a dark, dreary day here - it's trying to spit some snow out, but so far just enough to be a tiny bit annoying. So much for my son's hope for a snow day! Bad for picture taking though. I altered this little WGB (wooden gift bag) to use in my kitchen to hold teabags. I'm on a pretty big coffee kick lately (we finally have a Starbucks!), but do love the occasional cup of tea. My absolute favorite is from Celestial Seasonings and called Sleepytime. The box describes it as a "comforting blend of chamomile and spearmint". I love this at bedtime! I do not, however, like the box it comes in. So I thought I'd make myself something I DO like to hold my little packets of my favorite tea! I used Calcutta Gardens paper from Zsiage's Impressed With India? (see, there's that question again) line. This paper has a nice gradation in colors so I used one side (the lighter) for the front and back, then the darker side for the sides. It still felt kind of dark and I wanted to pep it up so I rubbed a pearl glaze from Making Memories over it. I overdid this just a bit, but still really like how it changed the look of the paper. Tip for the glazes - add a tiny bit at a time! It dries really quickly so while you can keep adding more, getting it toned down once you've put too much on is next to impossible. I used chipboard letters and a scroll from Zsiage covered in pearl blue Lumiere paint from Jacquard. My picture doesn't do it justice, but the pearl glaze and the pearl in the paint really do look striking together. I need to remember to pull my Lumiere paints out more often! I finished up with a few charms I had from the bowl I found in my cupboard a few weeks ago, again clipping off the hang tags. I had to fight the temptation to add ribbons to the top because I want to be able to get to my tea without getting caught up in ribbon, lol!

Love Nest Altered Mini Birdhouse

As seen in my article in the May issue of Scrapbooking.com Magazine!

Remember the cute little birdhouses I found for $1 at Michael's the other day? I finished one and now I'm so hooked! These are the perfect size for using up scraps you've got sitting around. I had been using Prima's Romantica line for a bunch of Christmas items and decided to use up some scraps for a love themed project as they were meant for and I'm just so excited at how CUTE it came out! These papers are double sided so I ended up using scraps from two different papers (sorry, I can't find the scraps that happen to include the name of the papers themselves though!). I Mod Podged them all to the house (I measured and cut these precisely - this is just too small a piece to mess with trying to sand edges on). For the roof, I cut strips of the polka dotted paper and used a little Martha Stewart (EK) cutter to give them a decorative edge. A couple extra coats of Mod Podge made the overhanging areas nice and sturdy. Then I realized I had the actual matching set of flowers to this line and started tucking them in behind the little fence to create a little garden. Then if that wasn't enough Primas, I started decorating some more with the flowers and some antique gold heart brads. Then I had to run out to Hobby Lobby and find some little birds to live in the house! I was hoping to find lovebirds but the ones in the bridal aisle were just too big so I had to find something in the miniatures section. I've only got a few more houses sitting around but I'm envisioning a little shelf with a birdhouse village all lined up, lol! Guess where I'll be going next weekend! Back to Michael's for more birdhouses! And darn it, why on earth couldn't I have done this project before the Prima DT applications were due, lol! Have you all seen the new DT, by the way? I'm so excited - there are some of my favorite designers on that list and I can't WAIT to see what they do for Prima!!! Congrats, ladies!!!

House Number Plaque

I've lived in this house for two and a half years now and suddenly USPS, UPS, and FedEx are ALL screwing up deliveries. My boxes end up several houses away, my mail next door. I've had to deliver the lady down the street's insulin to her (what if I hadn't been home!!! It has to remain refrigerated!!). So I finally decided to put up house numbers. Well, I can't possibly just use the plain, boring ones you stick or nail to the house so I decided to make my own! I got this little scroll plaque at Walmart. Painted the back and sides with Plaid paint and then Mod Podged (also from Plaid) Tantalizing Tulip paper from Zsiage's Flouristics line (I REALLY love this particular piece of paper!). I then painted some chipboard numbers from Zsiage in black and covered them in Glossy Accents. The flowers are from Prima and I used a black pen from Sakura to edge a few of them to bring in the black and give them a little more depth. I used the same pen to edge the whole plaque and give it some definition as well. Cross your fingers for me that now I can get my own mail and packages!

Spring Basket

As seen in the April/May 2008 issue of Ready Set Create E-zine. I'll put the pictures back up when allowed!

Yes, I am REALLY wishing Spring would hurry up and arrive! I'm just not a winter person. I don't like snow, despise cold, and want to open my windows back up!

This basket is one of the $1 ones I discovered the other day at Michael's. I rolled up tubes of Lucy Lines paper from the So Girly line from SEI (here's a tip - this technique does NOT lend itself well to thick, double-sided paper like this - next time I WILL go back to using a nice thin paper...) and glued them all around a basket I had already spray painted (such a time saver, especially objects with lots of weird surfaces like this) white. For reference, this particular basket took exactly one piece of paper to cover in this fashion. Because I was having such issues with the tubes staying rolled, when gluing them on, I made sure that both sides of the seam were touching the glue, then wrapped the whole thing with rubber bands to keep it in place while drying. I then wrapped some trim around the basket, ribbon around the handle, tied a few bows, and added a cute little tag from the same SEI line with a sentiment stamped on it. Stamp from the Springtime Swirls Kit from Sugarloaf (now Inque Boutique but don't know if they still carry this particular See D) and the ink is Chestnut Roan Chalk ink from Clearsnap. Trim from Making Memories, ribbon from All My Memories.

Happiness is...

Catching up with old friends over shopping! I had a wonderful time on Saturday. Last week an old scrapping buddy of mine and I re-connected through my blog (isn't the Internet a marvelous thing - we also originally met online!). I've only seen her once since I moved and not much during the last year I was living in Champaign either so I haven't had someone to crop or shop with since then! I was in town to drop off my son so we met up and she introduced me to the newest LSS in town (Blessed 2 Scrapbook on S. Neil if you're in the area!). It's been forever since I've been to an LSS!! Then we went to Michael's, who had NEW stuff in the unfinished wood aisles! Yay! Below I've taken a quick shot of some of the latest stuff I picked up (yes, of COURSE I bought multiples of them, lol). The birdhouses and basket are more of my favorite - $1 items! And the chest of drawers was just too cute to pass up.

She also gave me directions to another LSS I didn't know about on my way home (Scrapbookers Dream in St. Joe) so I'm in heaven! Looks like my bi-weekly trip to Champaign can now include more than just a Michael's stop!

I'm working on one of the little baskets right now and hope to have it posted later today (of course, I'm working on about 20 other things too so it will depend on what gets finished and dried first, of course!).

Baby Boy Frame

Well, maybe it could be used for something else, but with the "Life's Little Miracle" plaque I added along with the light blue lace, I think it's a nice little departure from the all-pastel baby boy world! The paper is from My Mind's Eye, the plaque from Making Memories, and the lace from Hirschberger. I've had all three for probably over two years. I edged the frame inside and out with Duncan's Scribbles in iridescent white mist. To adhere the lace I used the double-sided red lined tape from Provo. Also with the lace, it had been crumpled in a drawer for years - it was a mess! I don't have one of those little ribbon irons and for some reason can't remember where my little bitty iron got "organized" to. Luckily, with my naturally curly hair, I am obsessed with working against nature and have a really nice flat iron! I ran the lace through it a couple of times to work out the kinks, then again to press the edge to the flat panel, creating a nice crease so that after I adhered the edge, the flat panel stuck out just where I wanted it to.

Wooden gift bags make great storage!

Have I mentioned how addicted to these little wooden ($1) gift bags I am? Besides being a great way to package up a small gift for someone, they are also useful after the gift! I keep a nice little stockpile of these around and make them often. Most I end up keeping simply because they're a great little storage item. I keep several on my workspace at all times to keep things handy. I have one on my desk for pens and pencils too (not my good scrapbook pens, of course - those are stored on their sides, as they should be!). Plan to see some that I am making for kitchen and bath storage too soon!



For this particular WGB (I think I'll coin a new abbreviation today!), I covered it in Fossils of Kenya patterned paper from Zsiage's Out of Africa? line (yes, a lot of their paper collections have names ending with a "?" - one of these days I'll remeber to ask Dina if there's a story behind that, lol). As you may have noticed I have an affinity for all things sparky and shiny, so I decided to rub on Making Memories pearl glaze - this completely changed the look of the paper - try clicking on the picture for the large version to see the subtle shine (ok, I checked and even in the gigantic view my photo didn't pick up the pearly effect so you'll have to just trust me that it looks really great)! Then I picked out a few Bazzill Blossoms (yikes, I'm starting to run low on Prima's! I need Hobby Lobby to carry that line too!) and layered them with small felt flowers from Creative Impressions and some glittered brads from Making Memories. I painted the inside and edges of the WGB with DecoArt's metallic finish paint in Dark Patina (this color is soooo striking in peson!) and dabbled a bit more of it around the center of the felt flowers and on the ridges of the larger blossoms. To add the paint highlights to the flowers, I used my favorite all-purpose tool that EVERYONE has...my finger!

On a side note, I've noticed I have several readers from Champaign - can anyone tell me where Scrapbook Expressions (I think the new owners might have re-named it?) moved to? I was going to stop by when I was in town a few weeks ago and it was no longer in the strip mall out on the south side. There are some things I'm dying to get my hands on that I'm hoping they carry so if anyone can help me out, I'd appreciate it! Thanks!

50th Post!

Wow! Just realized my little blog has hit a milestone! It makes me glad this is a picture-heavy day, lol! This is the matching album to the wooden gift bag I posted yesterday. It's made from a wooden mini-album from Kaiser Craft (I desperately need Hobby Lobby to pick them up so I have easier access - I LOVE their stuff!!!). This went super fast because I found a quick, easy formula and stuck with it. I used the same paper I used for the gift bag (total between the two projects was under two pieces - I still have tons of scraps) and Mod Podged it onto the fronts of all the discs. I painted the backs and edges with Lipstick paint from Making Memories. All the glittered chipboard hearts are from Scrapworks and again, I have tons of these left over from the original box. This was my one attempt at proper "design" - I used the visual triangle to "frame" my pictures. The pictures themselves are printed on self-adhesive cotton from Shortcuts (now distributed by DMD). This stuff is amazing! It can go through your printer, you can stamp on it, whatever! Gorgeous texture - you end up with a canvas-like end result. I have tons and tons of this and had forgotten all about it but will try to bring it out again to show you some of the fun tecniques you can do with this. The last thing I used on every page was 3D paper paint from PSX that I outlined all the pictures with. I used a few other things on the cover and back, but will mention those near the pictures.

The whole album


The cover. I used Papier Glass Finish from Plaid inside the hearts. This is very similar to Ranger's glossy accents. The one I used happened to be a tinted version in baby blue. Which I totally did not notice for some reason (and actually thought it would eventually dry clear because I just wasn't paying attention) but it worked out nicely because of the blue in the paper...crisis averted, lol! I literally noticed this when I grabbed the bottle just now to make sure I credited the product correctly. I KNEW this product usually dried crystal clear, lol (and it does...when you don't use baby blue...). Anyways. Now that I've embarassed myself, just wanted to let you in on HOW I did the heart on the left that's hanging off the edge. Since the outline hearts are open in the middle all the way through I was kind of bummed that I wouldn't be able to fill that one in like I had the one in the middle then I got a brainstorm. I took a piece of clear packaging (in this case it was the little plastic box the Target ribbon came in) and glued it under the overhang. Once that dried, I was able to fill that heart in as well and after the glass finish (blue...) had dried, I was able to use a craft knife to cut off the excess plastic and it left the heart transparent. As always, I've uploaded these in hi-res so if you click on any picture you can get a gigantic version to see close up (eek, and any mistakes I've made). I mention this here because only close up can you see the oops moment I had when I was trimming the excess and just under the left side of the heart I cut into the dark pink stripe. I used a tiny piece of scrap to Mod Podge over it. Another crisis averted. Are you sensing a pattern? LOL!


The inside pages.

The back cover. Here I've used a chipboard coaster I've had forever from Little Davis. I love finding things I'd forgotten about just at the right moment! I surrounded it with Prima's and used the same PSX 3D paper paint as the centers. I use this a lot for flower centers because I love the way it keeps its chocolate chip shape after it's dried.

And the whole gift. You'll notice I didn't photograph any of the backs of the pages in the album, well those will be used for the sentiments for the recipient so I figured they didn't need to go on the blog. At least PART of this project will be a surprise for her, lol, since of all days, she started reading my blog yesterday. Thanks, mom, lol!

Valentine's Wooden Gift Bag

Ok, trying to break away from Christmas projects still so I started a few Valentine's Day, St. Pat's Day and Easter projects. This wooden gift bag will eventually hold a wooden mini-album I'm working on that will match. The patterned paper is from Reminisce as is the "love" block which is cut from another sheet from the same line and inked with black ink from Tsukineko. The glittered chipboard hearts are all from Scrapworks. The paint is Lipstck from Making Memories. I'm so NOT a pink kind of girl, but for some reason I just love this color! The ribbon is from these cute little $1 sets of 6 mini spools from Target. And, of course, Mod Podge from Plaid and a $1 wooden gift bag from Hobby Lobby or Michael's.

A tip about the brads along the bottom. I removed the tabs in the back using wire cutters in the middle, then used a pair of flat pliers to gently squish the remaining section of the tabs in flush with the edges of the brad. This gave me something for the adhesive (I used Aleene's Jewelry and Metal Glue from Duncan) to grab onto.

Front

Back

Sides

Last post of 2007!

I hope that everyone has had a wonderful holiday season - Merry Christmas, Happy Haunnakah, Happy Kwaanza, Happy Winter Solstice, and Merry Every-Other-Holiday-I-Might-Have-Forgotten, lol! I wanted to end the year by thanking everyone for joining me for my random creative excursions and hope you'll join me again in 2008! I'm honored that you have all stopped by and amazed at all the different visitors I've had from all over the US and different spots all over the world!


I've spent the past week doing a lot more organizing than actual creating (I actually found my tabletop in my craft room!) and what creating I've done has mostly still been Christmas and I've promised to stop subjecting you to Christmas projects for a while, lol, so I don't have much new to share for the moment. I DID want to share this quick and easy project though! There was a post on 2Peas linking to this clock with some ideas to make one. Well, I went the super quick and easy route so it's definitely not the same project, but was still a lot of fun - I hung it up in my son's room so we'll see what he thinks when he comes home later this afternon. This is a $3 clock from Walgreens (they had them in a huge dump bin at one point and still have them occasionally in little endcap displays). And ONE set of foam Thickers from American Crafts. I'm really glad I used the foam instead of the chipboard because it "gives" enough to really tweak the placement. In hindsight, I wish I'd used a less "curvy" font. I think it would look better with a more defined font. But still, it's a 15 minute project - can't beat that!




And also, for this last post of 2007, I'll leave you with MY favorite layout (I admit, there really haven't been as many as I'd hoped to accomplish!) of the year. Paper from My Mind's Eye, everything else from the Making Memories Noteworthy line. It's a picture I love and a story that just makes me happy!



I wish you all happiness and creativity in 2008!!!

Bead Trends January/February 08 Issue

I'm so excited! I just got mine yesterday and they have made some really great changes from the first issue. Rather than just the one great picture of each project, they have added some closeups of details - I LOVE the way this issue looks! I have projects on pages 17, 36 and 151 and am soooo proud to be in this publication!!! Just wanted to share!

New website discovery! Craftcritique.com

See, Sitemeter can give you fascinating information! When browsing my referrals today I saw one from a site I'd never heard of (or maybe just wasn't paying enough attention - Hi Colleen and Julie!) so I went to check it out. Remember my post from a few days ago with my favorite holiday projects? Want more? Craft Critique is finishing up a 3-day carnival in which they have linked tons and tons of great projects! :) Thank you so much for including a couple of mine! I'm heading back over to check out all the links, but wanted to run back here and share my find first! Seriously - just looking over the site, I'm thinking I could spend a couple of days in here checking out all the products and blogs and companies and everything they have reviewed (not just the Christmas carnival, lol)! Good stuff!!!

More Christmas goodies!

I made a bunch of these wooden gift bags for teachers/bus driver, etc. and just hapened to finish these two up last night and actually remembered to get pics, lol! Both are super quick (the only thing that took a while was drying the Scribbles, which I left overnight but was able to at least tie the ribbons after about a half hour). Papers and metal charms from Flair. Ribbon from Stampin Up. Mod Podge from Plaid. I used tons of Scribbles glitter paint on these too. On the left one, every star has clear glitter Scribbles in the center. On the one on the right, I used tons more and in matching colors - red, green, gold, and clear - to embellish all the ornaments. If you click on the picture you'll get a gigantic version in which you can see some of the detail. They are filled with peanut butter cup bells and hot cocoa kisses (yummy!!!)