My Repurposed Life's The Bold & The Beautiful "Your Blog Reviewed" Blog Hop

Remember to enter my Who Made What? Weekends! #7 linky party this weekend! (open until Monday night this week!)

If you'd like a friendly review of your blog, link up at My Repurposed Life!  Now's the chance to get an honest opinion of your blog.  It should be interesting!  I've read some of their reviews and they're really friendly about it. :)

Also, the purpose of this blog hop is also to allow anyone who links up to comment and critique on any of the other blogs linked up (some constructive criticism on things like layout, readability, sidebars etc)...so, if you have one, please give me your opinion about my blog too! It's always good to get an opinion from a third party - take or leave it, it's your choice!  But remember...be nice, 'K? Tnx, any reviews are appreciated! :)

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Guest Soaps

Remember to enter my Who Made What? Weekends! #7 linky party this weekend! (open until Monday night this week!)

 
My sister and her boyfriend are coming to stay over here Saturday night, so I wanted to do something cute.  I had a few little guest soaps that I'd taken from when we were on holiday at the Kruger Park some months back.  The were already wrapped and had no labels on them - perfect!  So I just decorated them:

I just "designed" it in powerpoint quick, printed it out, cut it out with fancy scissors and inked the edges.  They'll be staying in my craft room where the colour theme is purple (and butterflies), so I made the soap stickers to match.

Oh, and then I'll be leaving my sis another little surprise under the duvet....hehehe!

I've had so much fun with this spider over the years.... :P

LINKY PARTIES linked to:

A Little Lovely Blog                                A Vision To Remember
Craft Envy                                              I Heart Nap Time
Saturday Mornings                                  .

Who Made What? Weekends! Linky Party #7!

This week's theme is EDIBLE GIFTS!  There must be something edible in this gift - a ready made edible gift or a gift with ingredients that will be turned into an edible item!  :)

PLEASE READ MY ONLY PRETTY PLEASE REQUEST BEFORE SUBMITTING YOUR LOVELY CRAFTS!

I've simplified my rules, and all I ask for is this:  Please link back to my post or blog (using my badge or just a worded link) in your post, otherwise your craft WILL be deleted - I'm trying really hard to promote my site, so I'll gladly advertise for you if you return the favour. :)  It's just the nice thing to do...so it's nothing personal!
If you notice your craft has been deleted, please try again as I'd love to have your lovely crafts here!

Also, I started this party a little late today, so it will be carrying on through Monday too!

I will feature my most favouritist creation submitted! So don't delay, submit today! :)  I can't wait to see what you've all made!

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1. Winter Wreath 2. Roses with love 3. Organize craftily with origami 4. Heart tealight arrangement 5. Cake Pops 6. Mint Oreo Brownies for the Coworkers 7. eart Treats 8. Headband tutorial

This linky list is now closed.

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CRAFTS Door Sign

 I decided to do something fun and make a crafts "sign" for my craft room door.  I got some chip board letters:

And the initial idea was to use different decorating techniques on each letter.....but alas.....I became lazy, but was also worried that any daring new techniques would mess up the little letters! So I just stuck to what I considered less risky crafting.
So here's C:

This one isn't too terrific - the colours just don't match...I should have used orange glitter for the paw prints that I drew on (except I don't have orange glitter, yet).  Also, the letter stickers weren't friendly to me.  Some of them tore when I tried to get them off the sticker sheet, and that's why I had to glue blings on them, to cover up those tears.  It was just the "O" that was in good shape.  Anyway, I used spotted scrapbook paper, and embellished with a cool cat 3D embellishment from a sticker pack.
And then at the last minute, I thought of 2 little mini pom-pom goodies that I had - had 'em for YEARS just stashed away in some box, I don't even remember where I got them from, but they were far too cute to throw away!
So I made a cute dangly kitty toy - I tied some string around the letter and glued the pom-pom on. Cute, huh?! :D

And then, while I was peacefully going about my business of adding blings to the C, all of a sudden.....NOOOOOOO!!!

My whole little container of blings fell and they all fell out on me and onto the floor...

Don't you hate it when that happens??!

Here's the R:

I just painted it pink, tied on a purple ribbon and glued on some purple blings and a pebble.

Here's the A:

Silly me, I decorated the wrong side of the letter...it's supposed to slant to the right and not the left! *sigh*...
But, it's still my favourite one! I painted it green, added a 3D flower embellishment from a sticker pack and drew on some swirly designs with my glue pen and added purple glitter.  I love purple and green together!

Here's the F:

I like this one too. I painted it red, and tried something new with winding gold beading wire around the letter and adding some silver and black beads, then adding some blings:

Here's the T:

This one didn't turn out as I initially intended, so I improvised.  I decoupaged some scrap material onto it.  Then the material wasn't cut straight (or the glue made it go all skew, yep, this must be it), so I had to find a way of covering that up.  So I added strips of ribbons over the parts where the letter was showing through from behind, and then glued on some pearls to the ends of the ribbons because they just looked.....bare.  I'm not even sure what I was trying to achieve here, so......let's just move along, shall we...?

Here's the S:

I wanted something flowery too, so I glued on left over card stock, added some green glitter to the flower centres (ooh, just noticed I missed a flower there...ish), and added some paper flowers and leaves.  I 3D mounted an extra flower on top of the lower ones, just to make it more interesting.

And here's what it looks like!

 

I think it's cute. :D

LINKY PARTIES linked to:

Fireflies & Jellybeans                                                Somewhat Simple
The Shabby Chic Cottage                                         Beyond The Picket Fence
Momnivore's Dilemma                                               Life as Lori
Black Kat's Design                                                   A Little Knick Knack
Truly Lovely                                                             Tatertots & Jello
A Little Lovely Blog                                                  Scrappy Gifts
I Heart NapTime                                                      Sew Much Ado
Under The Table & Dreaming
Trendy Treehouse                                                    Seven Thirty Three
All Things Heart & Home                                        Blue Cricket Design
Nikki's Nifty Knacks                                              Paisley Passions

Stylish Blogger Award!

Kassi from Truly Lovely was kind enough to award ME with the Stylish Blogger Award!  :D  What a fun surprise that was!  Thanx Kassie, I'm flattered that you included me in your awards list!  She's such a sweet girl! :)  Yay, my first award! :D

The conditions of accepting this award are:
*   mention 7 things about yourself,
*   forward this award onto some other lovely blogs, and
*   link back to the person who awarded you the badge!

So here goes!

7 Things About Me

1.   I'm an attorney by qualification, a business owner by profession, and a crafter by choice.

2.   I'm a cat person through and through.  My kitties are my children, and they make me smile.  They are there to be kissed, squished and spoiled.  :)

3.   I love food.  You can probably get me to do things I don't feel like doing by bribing me with some good (vegetarian) edibles.  And I have an exceptionally sweet tooth - I always have space for dessert, no matter what!  The only purpose of a main course is to get to the dessert.  But I don't really like cooking or baking at all.

4.   Some things that I wish were not about me, but they sadly are: I'm lazy...and I procrastinate things I don't like doing. I'm a very tidy and organized mind in a lazy body.

5.   If I know I'm going to be staying home all day, I usually wear my jammies and slippers. Because they're comfy. And I don't really like wearing heals because I'm tall enough.

6.   I don't easily get stressed over things that don't indicate the end of my world (unless it's public speaking).  I'm a total phlegmatic (mostly).

7.   Rainy days make me feel all fuzzy and happy inside.  Just add some chocolates and I've got myself a perfect crafting day!

Now onto the awards.  I'm supposed to choose 15, but I haven't yet had a chance to get to know and love so many ladies and/or their blogs... So I only have 10 to give today, and 2 of you (according to my best knowledge) have received this award before from someone else, but I want to give you one from ME too! :)  I also tried to choose blogs that each had something different to offer, craft-wise. :)

So, after much deliberation and in no particular order, I award the Stylish Blogger Award to these ladies and their lovely blogs:

Lyndee from The Recovering Craft Hoarder

Various crafts, including some fun recycled projects (I love recycled crafts!)

Maria from Crafty Creations

Lots of lovely and inspiring cards!

Crystal from Mrs Happy Homemaker

Delicious recipes are to be found here!

Monica from Handmade Cards With Love

Beautiful cards, some also made from recycled materials.

Helen from It's All Fiddle Fart

Lovely crafts and cards.  Plus I think she's funny!

Catalina from The "W's"

A collection of the most interesting, weird and beautiful crafts gathered from all over the net - very cool!

Carol from The Answer Is Chocolate

Lovely cards, crafts, and delicious chocolatey recipes!  And with a name like that, how could I not love this blog?!

Chrystie from A Pocket Full Of Posies

Lovely crafts & cute mini scrapbook albums, including albums made from recycled items!

Irit from Irit Shalom

Lovely cards, scrapbooking and crafts!

Judy from Joy In A Jar

Beautiful cards!

Tnx for your entertaining blogs, ladies! And I'm sure as time goes by, I'll find more blogs to add to my favourites list. :)

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My Totally Handmade Christmas Tree Decorations Pledge!

So...during this December just passed, I saw so many cute and interesting Christmas decorations in blog land that I decided for Christmass 2011, I am only going to decorate my tree with decorations I've made myself! :D  And no exceptions.... So it's something that I'm excited about, and during the course of the year I'll post the ornaments that I've completed for the tree.  This really isn't something one can leave for the last minute! So I'm going to get started soon. :D

I've already started last December, but I was so busy with Xmas gifts that I didn't have time to make more than 2 tree ornaments...which were these old-Xmas card recycled tree ornaments:

So, if anyone feels like joining me, you can grab my Totally Handmade Christmas Tree Decorations badge from my My Buttons tab and take the pledge with me! :D

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YOUR Featured Creations!

Featuring your lovely creations from Who Made What? Weekends! #6!

This was a close call as I had 3 favourites...but seeing that it's Valentine's season I chose something to fit that theme....so.......
This week's feature is AliLilly's Valentine's Day Wreath! 

It's made from a cereal box and left over tissue paper.  I think it's quite cute and something fun to make if you don't mind getting sticky, hehe. :)

Go have a look at her blog and see what other interesting things she's up to!  She also has an Esty shop where she sells, among other things, pretty little beaded jewellery!

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Pink Hearty Circle Card

Remember to enter my Who Made What? Weekends! Linky Party this weekend!

This card I made for Ladybug Crafts, Challenge #11!  The theme for this challenge was "anything BUT square", so.....I did just that!

 

I couldn't get the lighting right, it was either too dark or too bright, so I've posted both and you should hopefully be able to get the effect of the card when you combine them, hehe.

As you can see I chose a circle card.  I made a cute girly hearty one this time.  I cut out a circle from white card stock using some handy circle cutter goodie, then I cut another scalloped circle out of pink marbled paper with my fancy scissors, another white circle and a small pink circle with polka dot pattern.

The inside of the smaller white circle I stamped in pink ink with a small heart stamp all around the edge.  I think it made a really pretty design!  Then I inked the edges with a darker pink/red ink just to make it stand out a bit against the light background marbled paper.

I wanted to give the card a softer effect to match my cute girly theme, so with my little paper distresser I distressed (is that the right word?!) the edges of the polka dot paper as well as the most outer edge of the card:

Again there's a mystery blob on the photo that's not actually on the card...

For the final decorations I added a pretty button in the centre with a shiny string tied through it, and some hearty and round blings around the card.

I think the card would have looked prettier had I added a patterned paper onto the card background instead of leaving it just plain white, since it looks too empty with just the white background.  But oh well,  I think it's cute anyway. :D

LINKY PARTIES linked to:

Truly Lovely                                                                A Little Lovely Blog

ENTERED into:

Ladybug Crafts (Challenge #11)                                 .

Purple Sparkly Flower & Butterfly Card

Remember to enter my Who Made What? Weekends! Linky Party this weekend!

I made this card for 2 challenges.  Inspirational Card Sketches, Challenge # 98, and Glitterbabe's Challenge, Challenge # 28! I combined IC Sketches' sketch with Glitterbabe's sparkle theme:

Here's the sketch we had to work with:

So, again, I've chosen to go with purple...I just seem to have so much pretty purple stuff! :D
I used purple vellum paper for the background, and then a pretty flowery embossed paper for the right side:

For the left side, I used white card stock cut into squares, I smudged them with purple pencil shavings to colour them in, stamped a simple flower onto them and then embossed over the stamp too:

I also discovered that you can't use a hair dryer as a heating medium for embossing...it seems it ain't hot enough. Boo.  So I did it over the stove again!
I also inked the edges of the white paper:

To go with the sparkle theme, I added some blings around the card, butterflies to which I added blings as well, and a LOVE chip board word that I covered in glitter.  Oh, and the embossed flowery paper and my embossed flowers added some sparkle as well. :)

 And then to complete the design for the sketch, I added this to the bottom of the card:

I stamped a design onto white card stock and inked the edges, added some paper flowers and blings.
And that's my card! :D

LINKY PARTIES linked to:

I Heart Nap Time                                                            .

ENTERED into:

Inspirational Card Sketches (Challenge #98)     Glitterbabe's Challenge (Challenge #28)