Recycled Can - Gift Box

Yip, another recycled can!  Xmas is coming up so I'm going to be using some of my cans I've been keeping during my break from crafting, and making gift boxes out of them.

This one I made for my dad, which I'm gonna fill up with as-yet-unknown goodies.  He has some stamp collection, so I thought it a good idea to google some SA stamps, print 'em and decoupage them onto the can.

And I thought the stamp theme would make the can suited for a "manly" prezzie.

 

I painted and stamped up the lid and sealed it with decoupage paint:

I cut out each stamp with a scalloped scissor, and before decoupaging them to the can, I used a gold paint pen to draw around the can rims and just below the rims, so that the can wouldn't show through behind the stamps:

I think it looks cute. :D

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Crafty Recycling - Old Cans to New Gift Boxes

I have a million baby formula cans that I've been keeping.  :D  They can be so handy if you have a crafty brain! I finally used the first 2 of them - I made my mum and sis a gift box out of it, and filled it with a few health products and foods:

I decoupaged fabric onto it - an old shirt that I cut into little squares.  And added a few tiny red blings here and there - if you look carefully you can see em haha.  I pained the lids black and finished it off with a layer of modge podge too, and glued a rose on top.

This is how the can started out:

And another after:

You'll have to excuse the backgrounds in these photos, as usual I left making the cans to the last minute and then I was in a hurry to take pics before we took them.

After removing the gifts these cans can then be used as pretty storage containers.

I foresee a few more of these can being used up for Xmas too. :D

Linked at these linky parties:
Free Pretty Things for You          Someday Crafts
Trendy Treehouse                        Seven Thirty Three

Post-it Holder

While visiting some other blogs today, I got a really cute and fun idea for a post-it notes holder for your desk.  I got the idea from Sarah from Dotted Line Crafts!  Here's my version:

I've had this plastic photo frame in my cupboard for years, but I didn't want to use it for displaying photos 'cause....I think it's a little tacky for my taste, plus it's a little damaged.  But today I got this really cool idea. :D  (another reason why I'm glad I'm a hoarder - I knew I'd find an interesting way to use this sooner or later!)
I took some scrapbook paper and placed it in the holder behind the frame.  I actually wanted to use something damask-y in black & white, but I didn't have anything. :(  And as impatient as I am, I couldn't wait to go out and buy one, so I used the next best alternative that I had...

I only had a scrap piece of this paper left, which is why the bottom part of the frame didn't have any paper behind it:

But not to worry, I came up with a plan.  I wrapped some black ribbon around the bottom:

And decorated it with a ribbon bow i made:

I like black & pink together, hence the pink bow (in real life it's dark pink-ish, not red).

Instead of gluing my post-it note pad directly to the frame, I decided to make a little box to hold the notes in - that way I could reuse it over and over and over and over....

I then inked the box with a blank stamp pad, and glued a pink flower on the front to cover the staples, and hot glued the box to the frame:

Is this cute of what?!  Thanx for the idea Sarah, I love it! :)
Oh yes, and I also added some pink blings at the top:

This was my second attempt at glueing the box to the frame.  The first time round the glue got cold and it didn't stick, so the second time I was in a rush to position it just right, and of course rushing such a job just doesn't work, so I stuck it on a tad skew - which I'm very miffed about. :/  But oh well, who's judging?

Now I just need to tidy my desk so that I can actually SEE my cute little holder!! :)


Linked up at these LINKY PARTIES:
Sugar Bee Crafts          .

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    .

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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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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Repurposed Jam Jar

We had a lot of sweets left over from our halloween party, so I thought today I'll decorate an empty jam jar that we can use to store at least some of them sweeties. :)

Here's the before:

I didn't even remove most of the label glue or left-over labels.

I tore up a piece of mulberry paper and decopuaged it all over the jar and the lid, and added 2 coats of varnish over it.  I glued on a butterfly and took 3 pieces of ribbon, plaited them together and tied it around the jar and glued 2 beads on the ends of the ribbon.

 

Now it's got a neat little home on top of one of our dvd cabinets.

Mmmmmm......Nut Puffs.......

Linky Parties linked to:

I Heart Nap Time               A Vision to Remember
Truly Lovely                       . 

Also posted here:

GGCAA   .


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Halloween Bone Windchime

I wasn't sure whether I should post this or not, as some of you are no doubt probably gonna think this is ew....but I thought I'd take a chance and just start off my post with a warning for those who don't wanna see it, hehe.....soooo......

WARNING: THIS CRAFT CONTAINS REAL ANIMAL BONES

I can't help that my creativity and crafty recycling doesn't know any bounds.  Well, almost. :)

So while we were on holiday at our family farm in the Karoo (semi-desert region in South Africa), I picked me up some bones (sheep and springbuck bones to be exact) - we often see these bones laying around in the veld on our land, so on our last visit I had a brain spark, so I collected some bones and here's what I made with them:

 

 

I drilled some holes through which to thread the gut that I used to tied this all together, and I used some natural-looking raffia to secure the top bone in a plus shape.

I think it's gonna be a cool addition to our halloween party decor. :D


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