Project 365/ Days 56 & 57/ The Shady & Flowery Side to Crafting

Being on a design team, you get to inspire others with your creations...the same as what I attempt to do here on my blog. Many don’t realize that the people doing the inspiring search for inspiration themselves. This next project was inspired by an idea I saw a number of years ago on Better Homes and Gardens website, a way to give an old lampshade a new look. So, I paired up some buttons with my favorite adhesives and revamped Kylie's lampshade. For more details you can check the Glue Arts blog for instructions and supplies. To purchase Glue Arts adhesives, go to their website.

Day 56/ Kylie’s Lamp Shade Makeover

Day 57/ Paper and Pencil Flower Bouquet

This was a project that I made along with a tutorial for reapplying to the Glue Arts design team.

The flowers are made from Marvy punches, some small flowers, pearls, ribbon, #2 pencils, lime green cardstock, patterned CS from Cosmo Cricket’s DeLovely collection, adhesive squares , hot glue and gun and fringing scissors from Martha Stewart Crafts. The vase was made from a upcycled salsa jar using May Arts ribbon for the fancy bow and rhinestones for bling! You can see it in the photo above, too!

Here is a closer up view of the flower buds...

And an overhead view of the vase...

I hope this inspires some creativity in your home crafting today and gives you some ideas for recycling, upcycling or creating your next altered work of art!

Project 365 Challenge: Day 2/A Card Made with Leftovers

Leftovers are a popular thing around the holidays and for day 2’s project, I got a head start by using some of the squares left over from yesterday’s scrapbook layout. I also used digital leftovers that I set up and printed out previously for the framed verse. The artwork is from my Elegant Color Frames and Elegant Verses 1 sets for sale at mygrafico.com.

I have found it very liberating to not worry about creating projects only with "currently available" products. The flower stamp is an old favorite retired stamp from Stampin’ Up!®, the patterned papers are from Me and My Big Ideas. The buttons are from an old assortment bag from Foof-a-la. The solid papers are from The Paper Co. and the mini adhesive pearls are from Michaels’ Recollections collection. 

For this project I used Extreme adhesive squares from Glue Arts to quickly attach the 1" squares and the mini adhesive squares to attach all the buttons. For all the other layers, I used my trusty Glue Glider™Pro with high tac adhesive. The border accent was created using Martha Stewart’s Scallop Dot border punch punched along the bottom of the ivory frame and for some texture I wrapped some light green Scrappers Floss from Karen Foster Designs into a bow with a tiny button in the center.

Today’s project (Day 3) was a doozey! A huge endeavor I have been wanting to tackle for over a year. Check out the blog tomorrow to see what I have created! Come get inspired to live your life creatively.

Turning Life's Tricks into Treats

Sometimes you have great plans and everything seems in order until life plays a little trick on you and you are left to scramble. This recently happened with our make-n-take project at a show I was at in Orlando.We had everything neatly prepared in kits, ready to assemble, but we discovered that the box was no where to be found shortly before the session was to begin. Richard ran on a mission to get replacement items nearby while Betty, Richard's lovely fiance, and I got to experience crafting on the fly. She is not a crafter and was a REAL trooper to step in and help out. Talk about designing under pressure. I just happened to have brought my Sizzix diecut machine with me and a fall leaf die. Hmmm, just gotta believe there was some intuition involved there!

We scrounged up some papers, cut up some ribbons as we waited for Richard's return. Then we would figure out the revised project idea. With some quick prep trimming and our Popsicle Stick Table Top Labels turned out to be a quick and easy to make hit! We joked afterwards how Betty officially crossed over to the crafting world and Richard may just come home one day to find her crafting away!

 I would say we made lemonade out of lemons, however I think it was more like pumpkin pie out of some smashed pumpkins!

The photos are a bit dark, but it gives you an idea of this easy and decorative fall project, which can be used for parties to label food at the table or used as party favors. I decorated the mini flower pots with trim and ribbon using Glue Arts ribbon adhesive and filled them with some M&Ms. Each of the popscicle stick labels turned out so cute and were made in minutes!

This was a Halloween themed version done with a Jolee's Pumpkin sticker. We used the extreme adhesive squares and extreme adhesive cartridge for the Glue Glider Pro to assemble. For the pots, it was the ribbon adhesive. The diecut labels were punched from kraft cards stock using a hand held punch from EK Success. This craft project is easy to duplicate for any holiday or them by switching out the colors and embellishments with the appropriate colors and themes for the season or occasion. 

Just had to get a picture of Richard and Betty with one of their make-n-take creations! The store owners loved the simplicity of the idea especially as a fun craft project to do with kids. Each person could add their own creativity in the assembly process to make it unique. You can wrap the sticks with ribbon using adhesive squares to fasten on each end, add buttons easily with the adhesive squares on back and make ribbon loops, too! Experiment to come up with some other fun uses for extreme adhesive squares.

Day 17 - Handmade Garland

If it’s time to trim the tree and you’re tired of the same, store bought trimmings, think about using your scrap & stamp supplies to make your own garland or ornaments. Here is an example of handmade garland, from my 12 Tips article in the Dec. 2008 issue of Scrap & Stamp Arts Magazine. You can use wire, hemp, floss, fibers, ribbons and more. Add buttons, brads and other fun embellishments to make your tree Scraplicious! I used dollar stamps from Inque Boutique’s Holiday Spotlight collection along with favorite finding buttons, Glue Arts Adhesives and Karen Foster Design’s scrapper’s floss. Happy Decorating!!