Category: Holidays
After The Party Up-Cycle Tags
The Christmas holiday season is over and all the goodies are gone, including the 3 batches of Chex mix I made. So it’s time to say goodbye to the empty cereal boxes.
Some went the way of the recycling bin and others… well, they went the way of my craft room.
I cut a box into tag shaped pieces.
Then I covered one side with printed paper and the other side with plain white card stock.
I layered on pieces of different papers and sandwiched trims, pieces of paper doilies and snippets of tulle between the layers.
Here are the finished tags.
I didn’t buy anything for this project. I only used supplies from my stash. I think they turned out pretty well considering they started as waste.
I hope this inspires you to look in your recycling bin, pull something out, and use items in your stash to create something pretty and new!
Easy Tags From Scraps
Okay, here is the last project I have for now that deals with using up your scraps of paper. This project is great for using long thin pieces of scrap paper, not tiny fragments. But the best part of this project is that you can use up some of your ugly papers!
My inspiration for this project came from this video:
First I selected my paper scraps, some ugly and some nice. The only requirement is that they be of the same thickness. You’ll want to cut your ugly papers into strips about 2 or 2 1/2 inches wide.
Here are my ugly strips.
Then you want to cut your nice strips into widths of varying widths also.
Here are my nice strips.
Now you will add any cheap glue to an ugly strip, making sure you’ve got good coverage.
Next, start laying your nice strips at a slight angle over the ugly strip.
Be sure your nice strips are covering the ugly strip and that they are lined up tightly against each other without any gaps.
Keep going until you have finish covering the entire length of your ugly strip.
This is what the back looks like.
Now trim off all the excess paper around the ugly strip. Most of these trimmed pieces will still be long enough to use again.
Cut the strips into lengths you like. I pretty much just cut each one in half, although I did to a little extra trimming off the top or bottom to achieve the look I wanted.
Cut the top corners off, punch a hole and insert cord or baker’s twine. Now you have unique tags!
They can even be topped off with the scrap embellishments you made from the directions in my last blog post.
I think these tags are such a great idea and each one will turn out differently. Again, you can make these crafts with any paper and any theme based on what scraps you want to use up.
I hope you will try these scrap projects I have posted lately. Not only are they using up scrap papers and saving you money, but they are so much fun.
When I come across other ingenious ways of using up scrap papers, I promise to share them with you!
Cute Scrap Embellishments
As mentioned in my last post, I am trying to use up my paper scraps from crafting instead of letting them go to waste. I promised two more projects that will help you bust your scrap box, basket or suitcase! The first project I’m going to share is Christmas embellishments.
The inspiration for making these scrap embellishments came from this video:
First, I cut some scraps into interesting shapes, both by hand and with dies.
Then I made some ornament shapes just using a round die and gluing a topper on each.
Next I just played and played with all my little goodies and came up with these cute embellishments.
Here are some close-ups:
Please note that you are not going to get rid of lots of scrap paper, as these embellies are so small, but you will use up the smaller pieces. The bonus is that you will have a stash of Christmas embellishments for cards, tags and other projects for 2017 already done!
This was a super fun and relaxing project. After Christmas I plan on making loads more and for once, getting ahead of the Christmas rush!
Christmas Scraps
All paper crafters face mountains of paper scraps at one time or another. And most crafters, myself included, have trouble throwing any of them away. My basket of paper scraps has grown totally out of control so I spent several hours on YouTube watching what other crafters do with their paper scraps. I’ll show you two projects I found and tried.
First, I made a load of Christmas tags using pieces of scrap paper and simple embellishments. I didn’t want to get too fancy here because I know these tags will just end up in the trash after the gifts are opened.
Then I made a pile of strips from my paper scraps. The strips are all different widths and lengths.
I glued the strips to a piece of cardstock cut to the size of a card front. I varied the layout of the strips for interest.
I trimmed the strips even with the cardstock piece and then adhered it to a plain card. I made some simple embellishments and attached them also.
I hope you like these two simple projects for using up scrap papers. These are both Christmas themed because I have been crafting with Christmas papers, however, you can use any scraps you have and make these projects all year round.
Stay tuned as I have two more scrap projects using Christmas papers coming soon!
I Got Valentine’s Day Happy Mail!
Friday I went to the post office and found our mail box stuffed, as I hadn’t been for a couple of days. I was expecting a small package, which was there, but there was also an unexpected package. After prying all the letters and packages out of our mail box I saw that the unexpected package was from my dear and crafty friend Camilla. It was a total surprise as we were not doing a craft swap. I was so excited to get home and see what she sent me.
The mailing box had really cute French themed duct tape on it, however, it was hard to get into and it got a little too mangled for me to show you. This is what I pulled out of the box.
Pretty pink tissue with a special message.
Oooh, what could it be?
Beautiful Altered Spool
Look at this beautiful altered spool Camilla made for me. Everything about it is so well done and pretty. And I just LOVE rosettes! Look at all the detail she put into it, down to the stick pin in the front. Thank you so much my crafty friend. I will “scrap” you back when you least expect it!!!
Altered Target Dollar Spot Tags
A few weeks ago I wrote about the craft items available at Target’s Dollar Spot. The gist of the post was that some of the items crafters are buying there, they could easily make themselves. I purchased three different packs of Valentine’s Day tags and then duplicated them myself.
I would never use the three packages of very uninspired tags left the way they were. I decided they needed some altering to take them up a level.
Target’s Printed Card Stock Tags With Baker’s Twine.
Altered Card Stock Tags With Baker’s Twine
Target’s Two Layer Burlap And Card Stock Tags
Altered Two Layer Burlap And Card Stock Tags. I had to get rid of the awful plastic strings first!
Target’s layer tags with baker’s twine.
Altered Layer Tags With Baker’s Twine
Altering these tags took only minutes and cost me nothing. I think they are much more fun and worthy of giving than the way they originally started.
If you like to craft and have purchased items that are a little less unique than you like, take a few minutes to “make them your own”. Break out your die-cuts, stamps, stickers and washi tape and get “crafty”!
DIY Valentine’s Day Pillow Boxes-Update
Here’s a quickie little post to show you all twelve of the Valentine’s Day Pillow Boxes I made. Here they are all filled and ready to give to friends.
I hope they inspire you to make something homemade to give out to the people you hold dear!
DIY Valentine’s Day Pillow Boxes
This week I worked on a little Valentine’s Day project. These little treat boxes will be filled with goodies and given to some of my friends.
Plain white pillow boxes.
I started out with these plain white pillow boxes I had in my stash forever.
Random script stamping.
I stamped them randomly with an old style script stamp and black ink.
Big bag of Valentine’s Day goodness.
I broke out my really big bag of Valentine’s Day craft supplies.
Tidbits ready for making embellishments.
I die cut some shapes and pulled out some other elements to make embellishments for the treat boxes.
Finished embellishments.
After putting the paper parts of the embellishments together I added some bling.
Random washi tape.
Next I added some random strips of washi tape to the boxes.
Two sided tags.
I stamped these little tags with “how sweet” on one side and the lips on the other side.
Finished treat box.
Here is a sample of one of the finished treat boxes. I did not put them all together as I don’t have the treats to put in them yet. When they are all filled I will try to remember to take a picture and post it.
This was a simple and fun project to do. You can do the same thing with plain white bags or other small containers if you don’t have pillow boxes.
I hope the recipients will enjoy them!
This Years Sort-Of-Hand-Made Christmas Cards
Christmas comes on December 25th every year. So why am I always so late in getting my Christmas cards made and mailed every year? I had two weeks between my two winter shows to decorate the house and make my cards. So what went wrong?
This years excuse had to do with the fact that I made way too few Junk Journals and December Dailies for my shows. You see, I had made them thinking I would mainly sell them at the Expo show. I decided to bring them to the Vintage Home Market first figuring I might sell one or two. That’s where my plan started going wrong. I sold almost all of them at the first show. Now my two weeks for home decorating and card making were absolutely used up making more junk journals and December Dailies. So the cards and decorating had to wait until after the Expo show.
Last year I made elaborate cards, each one very different from the others. Some even had machine stitching on them and of course they went out late because they took so long to make. So this year I decided to scale back on my card making ambitions.
Here are the basic supplies I used.
Card making supplies.
I used some colorful striped boxed cards, a package of journaling cards and some stickers all from Hobby Lobby. I also used some K & Company bird embellishments, baker’s twine from Target and some glittered stocking table scatter from The Dollar Tree. Each card also has some Christmas themed background paper pieces that were left over from other projects. I also used some glittered snowflakes and a few other embellishments I had lying around.
Here are the cards I came up with.
So even though these cards aren’t as fancy as last year’s cards, I like them just as much and they were way more fun to make! So to my friends and family who usually get cards from me, yours is on its way to you. And keeping with my Christmas tradition, it will be late again this year!
Cute Christmas Graphics
A lot of people ask me where I find such cute Christmas graphics for my December Dailies. I tell them, “Anywhere I can”. I don’t say that to be evasive or cryptic, I say it because it’s the truth. When you work on December Dailies and junk journals, you learn to look at the things that pass through your hands carefully. You want great graphics for your journals, however, most people don’t really even look at the papers that pass through their hands.
Here are a few cute Christmas graphics that may make it into my December Daily this year and the place where I found them. Hopefully this will give you some ideas for collecting great graphics for whatever project you are working on.
From and old Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer book from a Salvation Army thrift shop.
I got a whole box of these cards for $1.00 at a church thrift shop.
Snowmen plushie patterns from the Goodwill Outlet (by the pound store).
Cut from a children’s Christmas book from the library’s free book cart.
Vintage greetings cards purchased at a flea market.
Vintage sticker that was stuffed into a bag with old Christmas ornaments from a thrift shop.
These are just a few examples of what types of graphics are good to use for journals and where you can find them. But don’t forget to look at napkins, coasters, food bags, labels, newspapers, magazines, flyers, food boxes and shopping bags. Great graphics are all around, you just have to slow down and look for them.
I hope you take your time this Christmas to see all the wonderful images marketing professionals put out there for us to enjoy!
glitteronmyface 