Tallying :: Pressing on :: Cards

As the month of January coming to an end (!) I want to sorta tally things up to see how has this month been going with my mini goals.

In some areas I seemed to have improved a bit such as drinking more water and trying to go to bed by 10pm.  I think last night was the only night other than New Year's Eve that I stayed up way too late. One thing I also like is seeing myself actually very mindful of putting things away right after I used them and pick up things that are on my path. I am also on target with completing mini projects (projects that are solely mine). I am also making it a point to spend some one-on-one time with my girl friends - whether it is a quick lunch, a little visit over tea or coffee or a mini trip. It truly takes two to build any relationship.  I am grateful for the opportunities to meet with dear friends.

Other areas I need to continue to work harder is my daily devotion, I need a schedule that is more forgiving. My juicing suffered a bit this month (not sure why, maybe because the weather is cooler and I want to drink hot stuff = hot coco, latte. Things with a bit more sugar than I like. And then there is my closet. It is still not where I really want it to be just yet. Mind you, it is much better than a year ago. I have purged tons of stuff (such a wonderful feeling) that I don't LOVE or WEAR anymore. I need to work on a color palette. Even though I like all the colors but I think it would be neat to see if I can live with only a few.

I will continue to check my progress at the end of each month. It is probably easier to pull myself back up on a monthly goal fall off than a yearly one. Onward!

Speaking of mini projects, I just finished creating all the Valentine cards for my class next week. I like them all but will sneak in a few here for your viewing.  I'd love to hear what you think of them. :)

                                              

Table Skirt

I have been working on setting up my scrapbooking center in my bedroom.  It has been slow coming partly due to the fact that I felt like I was trading a part of my bedroom to something that should not be there.

Living in small space has its challenge.  I am ever so careful at where I place what furniture within this 800 square feet of living space.  For that very reason, I am in a process of giving away the office armoire that was given to us.  I am hoping to be able to give it to friends before posting it on the freecycle.com.

Anyway, I have a few rules while putting together this scrapbooking center: All the organizing set-up must come from re-purposed items from our home; Taking my time to put ONLY what I really use in the shelves so it does not look like a place of pretty clutter; how to "blend" it into the bedroom so it does not look like a store set up and, without spending any money on it as I have zero budget for this project.

Using fabrics in this area has proven to soften the "office" look. To cover the bottom part of the table, I cut up my old fitted bed sheet and made a table skirt for it~

The "valence" was an after thought addition - Using the "fitted" part of the fitted sheet.  It was so fun creating this table covering. Definitely a project that was made up as I went along! You can see the "after thought" from the waves of the valence.  I hemmed it up so it does not look too raggedy.

~This post is linked to IHeart Organizing's Green challenge link party.

Busy Friday part 3 :: Card Making Night

Continued on, Christine and I arrived at this beautiful house of a school family. We had a teen girl's craft night school event. It was fun to have met so many wonderful young girls who are also very creative.

Christine and I made some samples before hand.

Christine's creation.

She did some fancy things with her camera. By the way, she took all of these pictures for me. Another great way to experiment taking still object shots for her. I really like this one's color effect.

I made this one. I really like this card paper. It is such a happy color with glitter.

Christine's little red frog hello card. We love it!

Christine cut out a flower from my favorite paper and creating a sun burst effect.

Christine would like to say "Thank you".

Another one of Christine's card. She did a lot of the samples for me this time. We had a blast!

I was into the Mom card this time. Well, gave the girls some Mother's Day card ideas. :)

More cards...

I love making this little gift tag as well.

Cupcake was a great hit last year so I decided to bring the sample with me again.

These bookmarks was not for the girls but I thought I'd shown you that you can make a lot of book marks with a pack of these cute papers at the 99 cent store.

This is the "warm-up" card sample I created for the girls. This was the first card they made using the materials I have cropped up for them to get their creative juice going.

Look at what they have created!

We had such a fun night that the girls asked if we could do this every month! Oh I would, if my life is not this hectic. :) Looking at this picture I see that I need to hop back on the low sugar diet... or, at least think seriously about it.

Recycle Soup Can Craft

Last evening we had a Mom's Night Out event with some dear moms from our Homeschool Support group. I like this kind of outings as we are all so busy working with our children that having time to visit with like-minded friends are such a treat.

My friend Margie hosted the event at her home and I was the one to conduct the craft.

I like crafts, especially recycling craft. It gives me a sense of accomplishment where I could make something so un-wanting (that people just automatically threw them away) into a piece of art (OK, the art part is a personal opinion). :)

So, without further adieu, here are my humble "arts".

Since we are technically still in winter, I thought I would make one in the winter blue color. I painted it white and then added a coat of sky blue. Tied some blue and white ribbons around it to make it pop.

I could turn the ribbons around the can to give it a more whimsical look as well. These organdy ribbons were from Jo-Ann's Fabrics. They were on sale. Two spools (8 yards each) for a dollar! What a deal!

Since Valentine is around the corner, I thought I would pound some holes in the can to let my hubby know I love him! (I think he does after all these years) :)

Note: This was my very first try on the hammer/nail technique and I learned from my mistakes.
1) The letter font will look better if it is in the Aerial font.
2) Make sure the spacing is consistent.
3) pound the nail with even presure and counts. ie. If you pounded two times for the first hole and liked the look, repeat the rest of the holes with the same pressure and counts.

This picture does not do justice to the light that came through the can. It is much prettier in person. One mom at the event hand drawn some swirls and pounded the nail through the drawing and boy it was beautiful! I kicked myself for not remembering to take some pictures!

This was a hostess gift. I love white color (I think I will paint a whole bunch of them in white later) Again, those wonderful ribbons played up the look - the black lines with dots are Mrs. Grossman's stickers and I painted the bottom black to "anchor" the can. I put some Valentine color M&M in the cellophane bag with a heart shape doily and tied it with the coordinating ribbon.


What about the lids? Well, you could do a lot with them too, once your creative juice starts going, you will find tons of cute little craft you could do with them. This one is perfectly easy for the young girls to make for their Valentine table setting. I cut a piece of printer paper and doodled it with a red Sharpie. Placed a red tea candle on it, and it's done! (I could have pained the lid white but I was running out time and forgot to fix it before heading over to teh event)

How simple is this one for St. Patrick Day? A piece of left over scrapbook paper and a green ribbon with a simple bow. Fill the can with some fun pencils and voila, no one could pinch you if you have this one sat on your desk! Great teacher gift as well.

OK, let's not leave our men out of the fun. I got this "granite" print contact paper at Wal-mart. This one by far was the fastest one to make due to the ease of use of the paper. I again made it look more polished by adding the "base lines" of stickers. It really looks very manly. Make about five or six of these cans and group them together, you will have a very tidy organized containers for him in his workshop.

How about this one holding a bag of Jelly Beans as a Spring time birthday present for a little boy? I cover this can with a piece of plain printer paper first (as a "primer" to make the ridges disappeared) and than wrapped it with a piece of thin wrapping paper. With some green ribbons I have on hand, here I banded the edges again to give it a more finished look.

July 4th celebration! This makes a good decorated coaster for paper cup, again, to keep the youngsters occupied. :)

I had so much fun wrapping this big can with this gorgeous wrapping paper. I got the wrapping papers from the freecycle.com and this one has such nice big "framed" Iris print and was just perfect for this huge Costco Kirland coffee can. I placed the plastic lid on the bottom so it won't scratch the surface when sliding it from one place to another. If you wrap this kind of big can with sturdy pretty wedding or baby wrapping papers it could act as a gift box and you can put all of the little gifts in it and tie the can up with a big piece of tulle or receiving blanket to complete the look.

This one was what started all the jazz! I was playing around with some left over beads, silver grey and white ribbons and I came up with this wedding theme flower arrangement. I put the roses in a paper cup filled with water inside the can. The paper cup fit perfectly in it. After the event, My friend Kim and I dropped by a bride-to-be friend's home and gave her the roses. I got an email from her later telling me how delighted she was to find it at her door step (she wasn't home when we dropped by).

What do you think about all these can crafts? Are you encouraged to try some now? I hope you do. :)