Crafty Recycling: Vitamin Container to Gift Box

I've been keeping some of these empty vitamin containers, knowing that I wanted to use them as little gift boxes, so I converted the first one as a gift box for a beaded bookmark I made:

This is how it started off, a plastic container with a snap-on lid - I just had to remove the sticker label:

I tore up white mulberry paper into small pieces and decoupaged them all around the container:

 

I painted the top white plastic at the top, just to give it that extra hand-made look (instead of having a piece of bare plastic):

To decorate the lid, I used a little decorative circle design plate with my Cuttlebug, cut it out with scalloped scissors and glued it on top of the lid:

Then I just tied a white ribbon around the top and added a beaded dangly to decorate the gift box - the beads that I used for this decorative dangly matches the beads that I used for the bookmark that I'm gifting inside (except for the angel goodie - I just added that for the Xmas touch.)  :)

LINKED UP to these linky parties:
C.R.A.F.T.                 Making the World Cuter
Vintage Wanna Bee    .

Welcome Door Sign

I thought I'd make a welcome door sign for my gran for Xmas.  I think it turned out quite cute, but it looks a little "girly"...I dunno if she'll like it, but we'll give it a try. :)

No it's not spelled wrong...my gran's Afrikaans. :)

I painted the background with a metallic mink paint, and the letter with pink paint, obviously.
I used some "touch 'n glow" copper coloured product to the letters, you use this to add some accent to things, and then I spray painted it with varnish and added some glitter while it was still wet, then varnished the letters again to seal on the glitter:

I added a cute little 3D flower pot with mini roses, as well as a cute little bee:

I thought this is a cute "centre piece" goodie

I had to do *something* around the edges of the board because it looked bland, so I added more of the "touch 'n glow" copper product all around the edge, but it still looked kind of bland, SO then I painted the edge with gold paint as well - I think it looks alright now:

After hot-glueing the wooden letters on, I spray varnished the whole thing to help seal it.  Then I just hot-glued everything else on, including some pretty paper flowers and plastic leaves (they're actually more maroon in real life, but they look red here) -

Now I just have to drill 2 holes at the top so that I can add a jute hanging thingie so we can hang it on the front door.


LINKED UP at these linky parties:
I Heart Naptime             Be Different Act Normal
A Vision to Remember   Tatertots & Jello
Vintage Wanna Bee        .

Xmas Tree Decorations

This year I decided, for fun, that I'd only decorate my tree with ornaments that I've made. :D  Ok, so it's not as sparkly as it always used to be, but at least I can look at it and say I made it all, which is much more fun, eh? :)

Here's my tree....somehow December sneaked up on me this year, so I haven't fnished making all the ornaments yet (I'm still busy making some), so I'll post my updated tree as soon as I've finished my other ornaments. :)

The big star hanging above the tree I got from Birgit's Daily Bytes, and it's so easy to make.  I had a hook in the ceiling so I just hung it up from there and placed the tree underneath, hehe.

I also suddenly realized that I didn't have a topper for my tree, and it looked quite odd without one, so I made a little angel to put on top.  Not my best work, but desperate times call for desperate measures:

I used a small styrofoam ball to make the head, and glued one different lengths of gold "string" to make the hair.  I folded a piece of ordinary white paper into a cone for the body / dress.  I stuck a toothpick in the head and inserted it into the top of the cone, then cellotaped and glued the toothpick to the inside of the cone to secure the lot.  I drew on some designs with a glue pen and sprinkled on gold glitter, then finally wrapped some gold ribbon around neck.  Well, it'll do for this Xmas. :)  This was far to finicky to make, so I won't be doing that again!

And then here are some of the ornaments I made last year and thought out this year:

My glittered wooden star ornaments.  I made them HERE.

I made these ornaments from old Xmas and b'day cards...I made them HERE.

These beaded loops with the bells I made HERE.

I collected a whole bagfull of pinecones at our family farm last year Oct.  I spray painted some of them gold last year for decorating the table for Xmas lunch, but this year I just placed them in the tree to add some more colour.

I made some beautiful snowflakes too, and you can find the link to the pattern in my post HERE.

I made some more beaded loops for the tree, but replaced the bells with angels this time.  I made the little angels as well by using little wings, a lovely filigree bead as the body and a cracked glass bead for the head.  Easy peasy. :)  I also used earring hoops this time instead of memory wire as with my other beaded loops above - I find using these earring hoops MUCH easier that the memory wire - it costs a bit more, but oh well, it's worth it. :)

And I made these recycled little prezzies for the tree HERE.

And finally I made these crystal danglies.  I haven't made a post about them previously.  I just used tigertail wire and threaded on a filigree bead and clear acrylic beads, and secured them with crimp beads.  I made a loop at the end of the danly with the tigertail and attached another dangly to the bottom - for the dangly I added 2 sizes of acrylic bicones onto a head pin.  Lastly I used some irridescent "string" to make a little bow with.

And that's my tree so far!  Now I have some more Xmas gifts to wrap and then I need to get on with the rest of my ornaments! :D

All these ornaments were made with my Totally Handmade Xmas Tree Decorations Pledge - if you wanna join in this year or next year, grab my badge here (just scroll to the bottom) and remember to let me know if you made any of your own Xmas tree decorations! :)

Linked up at these LINKY PARTIES:
Cup of Delight         Sew Stylish Boutique

Gift Wrapping

It was my mum's b'day last week and I wasn't in the mood to wrap up her gifts in boring old gift wrapping paper, so I came up with this idea to wrap a tin of hot chocolate:

I used some scrap strips of black lace that I had and just wrapped it around the tin until it was all covered - I didn't even need to glue it or anything, the lace just stuck together well enough.  I tied around a pretty gold ribbon and made a paper flower to decorate.

To make the flower, I cut out several circles of patterned paper, all of them slightly smaller than the previous one.  I cut them out with scalloped fancy scissors.  Then I sprayed each circle with some water, crumpled it up to give it some texture, and unfolded it again, then I just layered the circles and pinned them together with a brad.

To cover the top of the tin, I cut out a circle of black paper the size of the tin, inked it with some black ink because it wasn't black enough, distressed the edges, stuck it on the tin and added a little name tag thingie on top.

I made her some earrings too, and made a little gift box to put them in:

 

I used a gift box template, so if you would like this template, just email me! :)

To round it off I just tied a ribbon around the box and added a bead to each loose end.  Just to show how small it is:

Cute, huh? :D

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And the Winner is........

And the winner of the MyMemories digital scrapbooking software is.........................................................................................................
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Maryanne from Scrappy Gifts with her lucky no. 19 comment!! :D  I know you're going to love this software!!! :D  Congrats Maryanne! :)  Please contact me within 7 days.  And thanx to My Memories for sponsoring this prize!   

Thanx to everyone else who entered...I wish I could give all of you this awesome prize!  BUT you never know.....maybe....just maybe there'll be another giveaway in future....I guess you'll have to stay tuned to find out!!  :P

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MyMemories Digital Scrapbooking Giveaway Part 2 - More Ideas

Here are some more layouts I made using the MyMemories Suite v2 digital scrapbooking software - the same software that you can win in my giveaway HERE, sponsored by My Memories! (it closes on 19 November, so you still have a few days left to enter if you want to win this incredibly fun prize!)  :)

There are hundreds of ready-to-use designer layouts to choose from, like this next one below - all the work is already done for you, all you have to do is add your photo (the only goodies I added here is the flourish at top left, and the butterfly):

And then there are probably thousands of unembellished background papers to choose from, where you can add your own embellishments...like the old-fashioned scrapbooking way. :)  I used a batty background paper and added all my own embellishments and frames here:

This digital scrapbooking software is quite addicting, I must have you know.  :)

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My Memories Suite Digital Scrapbooking Giveaway!!

It's giveaway time!  :D

***CLOSED***

Winner will be announed on 26 or 27 November

And it's courtesy of My Memories, creator of My Memories Suite digital scrapbooking software.  If you've never tried digital scrapbooking before, now's your chance to give it a go, as we're giving away this software worth $40 to one lucky person!  See entry details below!

To be honest, I never thought I'd like digital scrapbooking, since I prefer working with real papers and embellishments....but I decided to give it a try because there seemed to be quite some hype about it.  To my surprise, not long after getting started, I actually thought it was good fun! :)  And here are some of the reasons why:

1.   there are hundreds of gorgeous decorated background designs to choose from...and I do mean gorgeous!

2.   there are tons of lovely embellishments and designs to further decorate your pages with - many of them look quite realistic too, and all you do is click on the desired embellishment to select it, and then drag it to where you want it on the page

3.   it's so simple to incorporate your photos onto your page, literally as easy as 2 double-clicks

4.   and then there are other fun things to do such as creating your own background designs from scratch, and you get to resize and flip over and spin around your embellishments which ever way you like - which does have it's advantages over manual scrapbooking :)

5.   and your embellishment stock NEVER runs empty!  Once you've got the embellishment, you can use it as many times as you like on as many layouts as you like - how's that for saving some money compared to old-fashioned scrapbooking. :)  Plus there are many other fun features and I can't mention it all here!

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And besides this super giveaway, there's an additional bonus for all my readers!  :)  If you're not  the lucky winner of this free digital scrapbooking software, you can still buy the My Memories Suite software for $10 off the normal price, but only if you use my special discount code: STMMMS59694
My special discount code will remain in my right side bar over here somewhere ----->, so whenever you're ready to buy this amazing software at this special discount price, just grab the code!  :)

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But now back to the giveaway........

Here are some samples of what I've been doing with the My Memories Suite software (click on the images to see them enlarged!):

It really is a lot of fun to work with!  I'm definitely a new fan of digital scrapbooking, and although I'll never give up real paper scrapbooking altogether, I will be spending lots more time playing around with my new software...  :)

(What's also nice is, is that it's all digital, so even if you make a spelling mistake - like I did up there in case you noticed - it's easy to fix it up before printing)  Hehe.

So if you'd like to win this awesome prize, this is what you need to do - each point qualifies you for ONE entry into the draw, so if you complete all the points, you get 3 entries into the draw!

1.   you must be a follower of my blog; I want to see your photo in my followers list in my left sidebar ;) - leave me a comment saying that you're a follower (even existing followers need to do this, otherwise you won't be entered into the draw);

2.   visit My Memories, then leave me a comment naming your favourite digital paper pack or layout;

3.   using the linky below, submit a scrapbook layout that you've created, (paper or digital layouts welcome) OR if you're not yet a big scrapbooker, you may submit any craft that you've created using scrapbook or patterned paper, and then leave me a comment saying which one you submitted - any crafts not meeting these qualifications will be deleted. :(

GOOD LUCK! :)

P.S. - I'll be annoucing the winner on 26 November (going on a little vacation from 20-25th), so if I don't have your contact details, please check back around that time to see if you're a winner!  If you don't come and claim your prize within 7 days, I'm going to choose another winner! Tnx!


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Crafty Recycling - Xmas Tree Decorations

This is another craft as part of my Totally Handmade Xmas Tree Decorations Pledge for 2011. :D

I got this cute idea from City Girl Gone Coastal, and I thought it'd make really cute Xmas tree decorations.  So I went looking in some boxes in our storage room to see if I could find styrofoam, and guess what?!

I found some and decided to sit in the sun and cut it up.  It's such a lovely day today outside!
My kids kept me company...

I recycled some used Xmas wrapping paper from Xmas's gone by, and wrapped up the little blocks of styrofoam:

Too cute! :D

When I finally find my beading gut somewhere, I'll make some loops to tie onto the gifts so that I can hang them on our tree. :)

So if you want to take the pledge with me, grab my badge for your blog HERE, and post a link of any of your handmade Xmas tree decorations! :)

Also posted here:

GGCAA           .


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