A Month...

Wow.  A month since I've posted.  Doesn't feel like it's been that long.  But unfortunately, there has been a SERIOUS lack of inspiration over this way.  I sit and sit and sit at my craft desk, pull out boxes of paper, embellishments, stickers, pictures and....nothing.  I can't come up with a single idea.

I only JUST managed to come up with a project for this week's challenge at Amber's Crafts & Stuff.  This week's theme was VINTAGE. 

My project is a combination of vintage and recycling (2 challenges ago - where I pulled a COMPLETE FAIL at my project.  Trust me, it wasn't pretty..)

I used a cool vintage 60s or 70s ish print fabric I've been hanging onto for ages.   And I recycled the covers of 2 old, and very very very boring, hardback books.  I had originally cut off the covers to make book purses, but never got around to it.

I cut out the pieces of the covers to make the top, bottom and sides of the box, assembled and then covered them with the fabric.  I padded the top just a tad with a couple of pieces of scrap felt.  Then I covered the bottom and the underside of the top with black paper. 

Top view

Inside

Front view

It should be useful to hold little pieces of jewelry or whatnot on my vanity.

Next up - a vintage 45s case that I'm going to decopage - of which I've taken what might be the worst photo ever.  Judging from the bottom, it was originally covered with a hot pink, glossy, plasticky type paper.  Which has been painted over with MANY MANY coats of ugly lumpy brown paint.  Hopefully I'll be able to rescue it.  I have a stack of 70s and 80s single records waiting patiently for a home. 

Bad photo, but the ones without flash were worse....

Cricut Giveaway

Cindy over at Royal Things is having a giveaway of this awesome Cricut cartridge, FRESHLY PICKED.  It has the most adorable gnomes!!!!

http://royalthings.blogspot.com/2011/04/fresh-picked-cartridge-giveaway-e2.html

Go on, go enter - you know you wanna!!!

Challenge projects

In downloading the pics for this week's challenge project, I realized I never blogged about the one for the PREVIOUS week, so - dual post today.

Favorite things challenge- April 13-19.

Favorite color - Turquoise.  Favorite person:  HENRY!!  And I also LOVE anything with a 50's "Atomic Kitsch" look to it, so I combined the three and got this card.  (bad pic follows)

It's really much cuter IRL, I just can't take a decent photo to save my skin...

And in case you don't know who Henry is (of course you don't) - he's my sister's best friend's son, and he is by FAR the most adorable child on earth.  Don't believe me???  Check these out:

Look at that bottom lip - could you die????

CA-YUTE!!! Is he adorbz or what?? 

Now to this week's project.  Not sure if Amber's gonna smack me for posting early or not, but anywhoooo.

I won't give away the theme for this week, I'll just post my card.  (another bad pic follows).  I actually did weave the ribbons in the bottom left corner - then covered them with the flower.  Derp.

And in other news, my daughter made this yesterday:

Excuse the dusty keyboard and giant STACK of coasters in the back - work in progress...

It's a bookmark she drew on with Sharpie pens and colored with Copics.  You can see she got all the real talent in the family.



And finally, a picture of my 18 year old son in a Hello Kitty t-shirt he rescued before I could throw it in the trash.  He claims it is "awesome sauce" and is going to wear it to school.  I'll make sure to blog about it if he gets beat up for wearing it. 

Yes, it's pink...  Finn seems to approve....

Cuttlebug Giveaway @ Welch Creations

Ashley at Welch Creations is giving away a CUTTLEBUG!!!!!  It's a prize for her blog reaching 150 followers!  Congrats to Ashley!!!  Go here to enter to win:

http://welchcreations.blogspot.com/2011/04/150-follower-giveaway.html


And a pic of a Cuttlebug, just so you can drool a little - I SO want one of these.

Go.  Go now.  Enter.  And if you win, SHARE!!!

Challenge - New Technique

Now that the challenge is up at Amber's Crafts & Stuff, I can post about my design team project.

My new technique is PAPER CRAFTING.   I know a lot of you may laugh, since 99% of our posted projects are papercraft, but I've never tried it. 

When my kids were really little, I tried "scrapbooking", but not to the extent that you could call it papercraft.  It was mostly ticket stubs from their outings pasted on a similarly themed scrapbook paper, i.e., if they went to the aquarium, I pasted their ticket stubs and any (really bad) pictures I took to a piece of paper with fish on it.  Super basic and boring.  Even they got bored after about 3 outings, so I quit.

Then my dear sister started her craft blog and I saw all the amazing projects these ladies create and I thought I'd give it another try.

I made a gift box. Well, re-created really.  Bad pics follow:

FRONT VIEW

TOP (lid)

SIDES

The pics are worse than usual and I apologize, but the box is SO SHINY that it was virtually impossible not to get a glare (even with no flash).

My sister's friend has 2 little boys whom I adore and spoil, and I believe they have birthdays coming up real soon, so this will come in handy!

I'm also entering this in the "Make a box or gift" challenge at Lollipop Crafts.  (If decorating a pre-made gift box doesn't qualify, just let me know - it WILL NOT hurt my feelings!!)

After I was done with this, I made 3 cards and really enjoyed myself.  I'll have to stock up on paper now!!



Today's New Card

I'm starting to like this card making stuff!  Here's the one I made today.  Super simple thank you card.  Using some pretty paper and a rubber butterfly sticker.  I actually cut the sentiment out of last month's LUSH COSMETICS newsletter!

I'm going to enter this one in a challenge at Crazy about Cricut  

Two - In One Day

Well, I am on a roll!  I brought some card making supplies with me to work - with the intention of using the guillotine we have to cut the parts out to make another card tonight.  But once I cut, I couldn't stop.

Here's my second card.  I'm not entirely happy with the sentiment - Although - I do think myself very clever for figuring out how to use our big color laser printer to print on a POST-IT note.

I do want to put some embelishments on the scalloped circles, but I didn't have anything with me.  And perhaps some distressing or inking of the sentiment box.

I'm entering this in a birthday themed challenge at Crazy About Cricut.