Shopping Organizer

Happy Thursday!

I have a fun little project to share today. But first a little bit of background...I know, I know...you just want to see and hear about the good stuff! LOL.

I was at a MOPS meeting a month or so ago and our topic was about saving money, smart shopping and coupon clipping. That type of stuff. We had a gal come and share her secrets to shopping with coupons, getting deals, etc. Well, the gals at my table got to talking about this and one shared a little shopping organizer she'd picked up at the local office supply store. It had pockets for reciepts and coupons. But it wasn't CUTE. You know it lacked some personality!

Anyway, we got to talking and I was looking at it and thought "Hey! I can make one of those!" *Lightbulb Moment* And I've got everything I need to make it too! Bonus! LOL. So we got to talking about it at our table and one of my friends said she'd get one from me if I made it. So here it it! Gina, if you're reading this, I'm sorry this is so late.

She likes brown and green, so I chose the papers with that in mind. I had a lot of fun putting this together. A little measuring here and there and wha-laa!

The most tedious part was putting the whole thing together with my Bind-it-All. I had to pull out my instruction booklet and make sure I had everything in the right order. Punching the holes threw me for a loop. I need to work on that some more and figure out some tips and tricks. I know there has to be a better way than what I was doing. Especially considering I was going with the good ole' "eyeball it" trick.

If anyone has any tips for the Bind-it-All....please share!

Altered Letters

I've had this project done for some time now...I got them hung on her wall, then I forgot to take pictures of it :)

I finally took the pics because I wanted to share them with y'all. And wouldn't you know it...I forgot to upload them and post them here! *grin*


Bella is so excited to share her pretty letters with you! I couldn't show you these without showing the little cutie they are for.

I found these letters at Michael's this spring/summer. They are made of MDF and were very easy to alter. I picked out the patterned paper, which is K&Company. I'm going to use this paper for her scrapbook as well. That's a whole other story...I haven't even started her scrapbook yet!!! Ack! I still need to scrap my wedding, honeymoon, and many other events!

These were very easy and fun to do. I traced each letter onto the patterned paper, cut it out and then mod podged it onto the letter. After I had each letter covered I painted the edges of each letter with pink paint so they look all pretty.

I went with the simple & pretty look for embellishing these letters. Each letter has one embellishment like rhinestones, primas, ribbon, etc.

As you can see I hung them up on the wall right above her crib. Just to make sure they are super safe I used double sided foam tape meant to hang things on walls.

Enjoy!

Some questions...

I've had some questions asked about some of the craft items I make for sale. So, I'll just answer them here!

What kind of adhesive do you use to adhere paper to the composition book?
When adhering paper to composition books I use my ATG and red liner tape. I find that you need to use a very sticky adhesive that will keep the paper securely stuck to the composition book. I've tried Mod Podge in the past and was not especially happy with the outcome. It takes too long to dry and it also bubbles sometimes (meaning the paper doesn't lie flat after the Mod Podge dries).

In regards to getting the ATG & red liner tape....you can find these at a number of places. The link I listed for the ATG is the best price I've found online for one. I don't see these in stores often & when I do they are significantly higher in price. The red liner tape can be found at a number of different stores. Even Michael's carries it. If you're price shopping, the link I listed has a very good price for the amount you are getting.

I love your tin can ideas, too. Where did you find the lunch tins?
Thanks for expressing your like of my lunch tins. *smiles* I ordered the lunch tins online from Creative Express This site carries the tin I've used as well as a number of other tin types that would be very cute altered. When I've ordered from them, I try and wait until they go on sale and get them at a sale price. I've also seen these same tins at Joann's recently. In the stores around here they have been on an endcap. I think they were around $4.99 each.

I'm happy to answer any questions you may have!

Elisabeth...I had no way to reply back to your comment, so I've answered here. If you haven't heard about Splitcoast Stampers, I highly reccomend you go and check it out. The gallery has a ton of ideas that will help you get inspiration for you craft show. If I can be of any more help, let me know!

Cute Project

I have some fun news and a neat little project to share with you! A little while back I was approached by Donna at K&A Diecuts to do a bit of guest designing for her! I was super excited to be asked and of course I said yes!!! She has a neat twist to her business, at least I think so! Everyone loves die cuts right? Well, since not everyone can afford a die cutting machine and all the great dies to go with it...I mean, how many different dies are out there? Hundreds?...she offers the die cuts for sale...no cutting or hassle involved! And the prices seem pretty reasonable to me. I know that I personally get a little tired of die cutting when I have a ton of one thing I'm trying to make up. Isn't is so much easier to just get them pre-cut and all you need to do is put them together and add embellishment? The majority of dies that she has are boxes, purses and things such as that.



Well, she sent me an assortment of different diecuts to work with. The first thing I decided to make up was this cute little matchbox. I used my PaperTreyInk Holiday Treats set...such a fun set! The scalloped was made using my Marvy giga and mega scalloped oval punches. The blue stars were inked using Versamagic in Aegean Blue. I also used Colorbox Cateyes in Cranberry and Ice Blue. The ribbon around the box is red grosgrain over light blue organdy. Inside the matchbox I put four Hershey's Nuggets and wrapped them in Avery labels stamped with the Holiday Treats polka dot stamp.

There are so many cute things you could do with these! Wouldn't it be neat to make some up for Easter and put little treats and goodies inside them and hide them along with the Easter eggs?

Ornaments

These are the ornaments we had made for the craft show I just did. I think we had about 80 of them finished and ready to sell. I have to give the majority of the credit to my mom for getting these done. She spent many an evening glittering and cutting and then glittering and cutting some more! I can only imagine how tired her hands were!

So here's the lowdown on how we made them...the ornaments themselves are either clear glass that we made glittery using the reinker technique or they are colored glass ornaments from the store. After Christmas last year I bought a TON of glass ornaments for this purpose. We still are floating in ornaments at both my house and hers. In total I think we have somewhere around 300 ornaments. Still a whole lot to decorate and hopefully sell!!!

The toppers for the ornaments are made using stamps from Outlines. I got the Poinsettia topper in both large and small, the Holly Leaves in large, the Cut Away topper, and the Ornate topper. I opted to purchase them in unmounted rubber as opposed to mounted. I had heard Outlines was offering the sale of unmounted rubber on there stamps...to order them unmounted you had to either call or email to place your order instead of using their online shopping cart. I saved a ton by ordering them this way...at least in my opinion! When the stamps reached me I spent a few days pondering how I wanted to mount them. I didn't have any wood blocks that were big enough. After playing with ideas I realized I wanted these to be unmounted and use clear blocks with them. The ease of being able to see through the block for placement with these ornaments was priceless! It helped us SO much! We wanted to use every inch of paper and not waste, so having using them with clear blocks was the best! I ended up buying a set of the Cuttlebug clear plates and using those to mount the stamps on (thanks Emily G. for the great idea!) The only problem I encountered was that the rubber came with permanent adhesive instead of cling mount. So...I first tried using Aleene's Tack it Over and Over with no luck. Then I decided to pull the foam off the backs and adhere EZMount. I'm so glad that I chose the EZMount method! Being able to stamp the ornament toppers onto paper and see where I'm stamping really makes a difference in using all of a piece of paper.

Shower Gifts

My best friend, Grace, got married the end of August. Congrats to her and her new hubby! I was in her bridal party...that's right, at 7 months pregnant too! The other gal in her bridal party, Sally, made our dresses. She did such an incredible job. I would NOT want to make a dress for a pregnant gal! The dresses turned out great.

I hosted her bridal shower at my house and these are pics of the gift I made for her. Of course there are all kinds of goodies in the paint can! I couldn't just give her an empty one now could I? *wink* I used this turquoise blue and green printed paper to decorate the paint can with since her color was blue...royal blue. I know, it isn't royal blue, but I didn't have any royal blue patterned papers without them looking like the 4th of July! The paper is from a stack I got at Costco a little while ago. It was such a great deal! I paid about $13 for a stack of patterned paper about 2" tall! To finish off the paint can I wrapped ribbon around in three colors: white organdy, green organdy and turquoise satin. Tied onto the ribbon is a plastic wedding ring. I got this from Target some time ago. It's actually meant to be a shot glass, but I thought it would look much cuter as a decoration for altered items. The picture doesn't do it much justice, as you can't see the whole thing.

I filled the paint can with all kinds of pamper yourself items. I had fun shopping for all these goodies. I know I'm going to forget something, but here's an idea of what was in there: Lip Smackers, bubble bath, nail polish, nail file, pedicure foot bath, foot scrub, votive candle, etc. I had it packed with stuff!

The card was fun to make as well. I used the same patterned paper as I did on the paint can. Using patterned paper on cards is FUN! I can see why so many people are big on that trend right now. I takes your cards to a completely different place. the stamp is by American Art Stamps. I think this line of stamps are called Stick Chicks. They are designed by Karen Stolper for American Art Stamps. I colored the image in using Prismacolor pencils. No odorless mineral spirits, just using the pencils and gradating the color to blend together. To finish off the card I added some prismas and then I HAD to add some bling in the middle of each prisma flower. Its hard to see the sparkle of each rhinestone, but the little dot in the middle of each one is the rhinestone!

When I finished with the card I discovered that it was too big to fit in the standard A2 size envelopes! I had grabbed a piece of cardstock that was what I thought to be the proper size...guess not! It was just a little bit too wide to fit into the envelope. So, this card was delivered without an envie!

I need to find a pic of the shower invite I made. I know I took a picture of it...I'm just not sure where it is in my picture files! Hope you have a spectacular day! Tonight DH has a baseball game. His team is in the playoffs, so hoping they do well and have fun! I really enjoy going to his games and supporting his passion for baseball and sports!

Lunch Tins...

I feel like I'm floating in lunch tins right now...I've got a dozen of them in process. I'm so glad that I'm done with the painting & paper part of it. I don't know it was kinda tedious to me this time. Well, I guess that happens :)

~

The lunch tins you see are now waiting for the final decorations to go on them. I've put ribbon on all of them but 3. Those 3 need a ribbon color that I don't have...I need to find a light aqua blue color (maybe a shade or so lighter than Cool Caribbean).

~

I'm planning on adding an assortment of buttons, primas, bling to finish the embellishment on each tin.

~

As far as decorating them with "recipes" or "cards"...I'm opting to NOT do that. My reasoning is this...the tins that sold well for me at the last craft show did not have either of those on them. Now, I did sell some of the ones that had "recipes" on them, but the ones with "cards" were still there at the end of the show. I'm really going with the intent of selling the tins, so I'm not going to add either to them. I think I have to agree with Taylor's thoughts she posted a long time ago at her blog www.tayloredexpressions.typepad.com She had some tins at a craft show she did last year and mentioned that people didn't go for the "cards" tins as much because they would not hold the "Hallmark" sized cards. As much as I would love for people to make their own cards...or even buy some from me *LOL*, Hallmark cards sell.

Tooth Fairy Tins

These tooth fairy tins were made for a craft show last year. It was my first time making them and I must say, I was quite pleased with the end result. The tin is an altoid tin. I purchased mine through www.specialtybottle.com They are listed under Tin Containers (specialty). I haven't found a better price online for them, if you do let me know! I always love a good deal.

I covered the tin with colored cardstock, in this case I used pink. The fairy images are from the Fairy Nice set. I was fortunate enough to get these images from the wonderful gals who are part of the WRAK group on Splitcoast. Without them I would not have been able to make these!

I printed the poem out on cardstock from my computer. After that was adhered, then I added the prima flowers. I think they add a really nice, cute look to the inside. If I really wanted to go all out, I think I would have put more on, but I was making them for sale.

The 'tooth fairy' is made using SU! Alphabits and a 1/4" round circle punch. That took a lot of work, probably the most on the whole tin. I had to stamp out 3 (I think) sets of the alphabet and then punch out each letter individually. The worst was trying to glue them on! I'm sure there was a better way than what I did....

Around the top of the tin I wrapped pink gingham ribbon and tied it in a bow. It makes it look a little more finished on the outside and also adds a cute touch.