Showing posts with label re-purposing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label re-purposing. Show all posts

Monday, November 29, 2010

I have a towering stack of magazines that I cannot ever seem to widdle down. Whole volumes of Somerset, Cloth Scissors Paper, Artful Blogger...not to mention all the House Beautifuls, Real Simples, & other assorted mags. So in the spirit of organization, I'm making myself recycle! (But not before pawing once more through each one & pulling out those gems of inspiration!) Here's the cover of the scrapbook inspiration. This slim volume holds my favorite pages from 25+ magaines! Yay!!

Sunday, November 14, 2010

thankful grateful blessed joyful glad

I had a tin of old plain milk caps that my mother-in-law gave me a while back, and thought I'd challenge myself to use up as many of them as I could...Thanksgiving garland! I covered the caps with 5 different patterned papers, punched them, and joined them with jump rings. Then added thankful grateful blessed joyful glad along the length of it, accompanied by some gems and butterflies. I think this is going to become a holiday-by-holiday project! I've already started the Christmas and New Years garlands...
supplies: cardstock> Neenah. patterned paper> Cosmo Cricket, BasicGrey, My Mind's Eye, DCWV, Scarlet Lime. punches> Marvy. font> Typerwriter Serial Xlight. adhesive>Xyron. other stuff> ~65 vintage milk bottle caps. jump rings>Making Memories, Blue Moon. gems> My Mind's Eye. butterflies> Jenni Bowlin.

Sunday, October 24, 2010

Jump Start

The wonderful girls at Copy + Paste are having a 12 Days of Handmade Christmas Class, and I've signed on for a little inspiration & clearing of the decks. We get to "shop our own houses" and to play along, here's my questionaire answers. How many days till Christmas?? 1. It would be amazing if my house was a shop like ...Anthropologie meets Goodwill treasures. 2. But at the moment, it's more like...a bookshop meets Lego Store. 3. The best stocked area of my house has to be...the boys Lego dept., the bookshelves, and my craft area. 4. But I'm not sure I would take stock of my...Christmas ornaments. 5. I could actually open my doors and sell off most of my...fabrics & sewing notions {and paper in general, but I never EVER would sell!}...and I'd still have plenty left over. 6. If I could go shopping in someone else's house I'd choose...my mother-in-law! 7. With the money I'd save by shopping at home for my supplies, I could buy...more paper :) 8. During this class I hope to "buy"/revisit/finally use my stock of...paper milk bottle caps. 9. The best thing about shopping at home will be...making space for new stuff! 10. Shopping at home will mean I can get away with wearing ...comfy-est yoga pants with the little bleach spot & bare feet...which I'd never dare go 'real shopping' in!

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Autonomous wax

'Tis the season for a new greeting on the front door. I make these hang-signs for holidays, for seasons, for reminding the boys to dump the sand from their shoes. This one has an old drawer pull with distressed paint still on it. I love the handle, the weight of it, the patina of the exposed metal. And I reluctantly added it to my sign, telling myself if I found a better use for it, I'd grant permission to deconstruct it. The sign also has some splattered crayon wax (with rhinstones), and oh how this brings back a memory. One Christmas on Cooper Hill Road, my mom had a whole tray of red votives alight on a coffee table. My brother, being a boy cooped up mid-winter in Connecticut, was under the table, and sort of lifting it with his feet. You see where this is going? So we had red wax on the oriental carpet, and one very angry mom. After attempting to remove the wax by iron-&-brown-paper-bag method, we were left with a stain, and a lesson-learned. Even here on my sign, I am reminded how autonomously hot wax (mis)behaves.