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

Photo Frame Spice-up

I wanted to give my best bud from the UK a photo of her time here when she came to visit me for my wedding in 2010.  I haven't seen her since, until earlier this month when she suddenly decided to come visit again...and I hadn't even started with her frame yet!! So I quickly had to get it done.  Some of her favourite colours were blue, pink, yellow & green and so those are the ones I worked with:

It started out as an ordinary untreated wooden frame:

I painted it white and decoupaged it with torn strips of blue mulberry paper:

I left the corners un-decoupaged to add some interest.
Then I just glued on some flower and voila, done:

I think it's really cute.  I love decorating photo frames. :)

Linked up to these LINKY PARTIES:
Be Different, Act Normal     .

Cute Home Decor

Because our house is not always spotlessly clean and tidy, I've always thought this little saying really cute:

Our house was clean yesterday, too bad you missed it.

So I finally made one for our house. :D

I started out with this board that I bought at the craft store, but didn't yet know what I wanted to do with it...just knew it was something I could do something with:

I painted it with a metallic mink craft paint and inked the edges with a dark gold ink pad.  I chose which papers to use, printed the saying on one of them, chalked the edges and decoupaged them onto the board:

A few months back I decoupaged some scrapbook paper designs to the back of some glass pebble, but ended up not using them, and they've been lying on my desk since then, so I thought it'd actually go well on here:

And then I bought the cutest little mini hats and decided to use one of 'em here - I attached a mini clothing peg to it, inked the one edge of the peg with dark brown ink pad for some colour, and hot glue'd the whole lot onto the board:

 And I added a cute twig heart too:

And my sis gave me some cute buttons for my b'day a while back - I finally found somewhere special to use them! :D  I just had to cut off the button holding thingies at the back (you know those half loops that you sew the buttons on with).  The one on the right is my favourite. :)

Now I just have to find somewhere to hang it up.  It think it turned out SO cute.  (of course I would though, I made it)  :P


Linking up to these LINKY PARTIES:
I Heart Nap Time          The Tattered Tag
Scrappy Gifts                A Vision to Remember
Sugar Bee Crafts           Be Different Act Normal

More Xmas Tree Decorations - A Bit Late, But Oh Well

Shew, haven't had much time for posting around here since Dec - I was so busy then.  But I made 2 more tree ornaments that I haven't posted yet - ornaments that I decorated or made in the spirit of my Totally Handmade Xmas Tree Decorations Pledge. :D

I made this at the last minute in an attempt ot make the tree look more full of decorations, and to add some more "shiny" to the tree.  So I glued a mini gift bow to a mini wood slice and added a silver string with which to hang it with.  Not my most inventive creation, but I was desperate and had run out of time to think up something cuter, hehe.

And then I also wanted to redo some plain baubles that I had and spice them up a bit:

I decoupaged them with pieces of white mulberry paper:

Added some red lace ribbon from my scrap ribbons stash, as well as a white organza ribbon bow, and voila!

So that was IT as far as my Xmas tree decoration went. :)  This year I'm going to be making some more, I need some bigger items to fill up my tree more.

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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    .

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 Drinks Bottles

For our halloween party I'm going to be making punch to drink, which will be served out of wine bottles that I've decorated:

First I decoupaged some ordinary black paper around the body of the bottle to cover the lables, then once dry I decoupaged the printed pictures on top of that (I just googled some halloween pics).  I also painted the neck of the bottle black to cover up the coloured metal piece that usually surrounds the top of the bottle....ya know what I mean?  When that was dry I painted decoupage all over the bottle to round it off nicely, including over the black paint at the top, because the paint scratches off very easily.

After adding this printed piece, I painted it black around the edges - the straight white edges of the picture just didn't do the spooky theme justice.

I wanted to use a skull and crossbones somewhere, and I thought this one was hilarious...hehehe.
At least I can say I did some crafty recycling for the party. :)

LINKY PARTIES linked to:

C.R.A.F.T.                Making the World Cuter
Sumo's Sweet Stuff   It's a Blog Party
Keeping it Simple      Craft-O-Maniac


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Repurposed Can

Shew, it's been a loooong time since I posted anything!  I've been a little busy with work, but MOSTLY with working on my new website where I'll be selling my crafts! :D So I've been busy making things to "stock" my site with as well.

Anyway, it's my sister's b'day on Friday and one of the goodies I'll be giving her is this can which I repurposed into a storage thingie (I'll be filling it up with things for her - who likes getting empty stuff, right?!).

All I did was decoupage some pretty scrapbook paper around it, coloured the edges of the tin (top and bottom) in with a gold paint-pen and decorated it with flowers and things.

Aptus Insurance

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Old Jewellery Box Before & After, & Yummy Savoury Sauce

First, sorry there was no Who Made What? Weekends! this weekend! We were out of town the whole of Thursday until late at night and I totally forgot to set it up in advance, but it shall be back again next weekend. :)

What I've been working on in the mean time is an old jewellery box that I've had since I was small.  It's just been sitting in the back of my cupboard for years now 'cause I didn't want to throw it away.

 

So I decided to do a before-&-after. :D  And here's the after:

I removed the little windows from the front and everything inside as well:

I still have to find the right fabric to cover the inside with.

Then I decoupaged scrapbook paper all over the box.  After tons of measuring I cut the paper to fit the roof and the sides etc, and decoupaged it on.  Then I took a brown ink pad, dapped a small sponge on it and rubbed the sponge along the corners & edges of the box to give it a more interesting look (you can see it in the pic above).

And then came the decorations.  I added a gold goodie that was recycled from a wedding invitation:

I made little paper flowers too using another patterned scrapbook paper, a small flower punch & gold brads:

And then for a while now (a couple months actually) I've been looking for self adhesive swirly pearl designs, but couldn't find any.  So I finally decided to make my own decorations by drawing (or dotting) freehand swirly patterns with gold glittler glue.  Here's the left side of the roof:

And here's the right side:

I also glued on that pretty butterfly.

And then I wanted to add something to the front of the "house" because it looked a little empty, so I came up with this cute idea - I used teeny glass bottles, removed the corks and added black, red & green glitter (as the soil).  I have little white organza roses that I dabbed onto with a red ink pad to give them some colour, and for their stems I glued on some of that green wiry things that I removed from some bees that I used in a previous craft project (I knew I could still find a use of these!).  So I glued a little rose pot plant on each corner on the front:

Finally done! :D  I've put it in the dining room and we're now using it to store the keys for the patio doors & gates leading out from the dining room.

Lastly I thought I'd share one of my favourite sauces.  We usually eat it with a crumbly maize meal "porridge" that we have when we have a BBQ, but this time I didn't have maize meal so we poured it over cous cous instead, and it was just as good. :)  It's really yummy & tangy with a strong flavour.

250 g     butter
1 tsp      dry mustard powder
30 ml     worcestershire sauce
125 ml   sugar
125 ml   vinegar
250 ml   tomato sauce
1            onion, finely chopped
1            green pepper (what I think some of you call bell peppers?), finely chopped

Cook everything together in a pot for 10 minutes.  This is a large batch, so anything you don't use can be frozen and it lasts for ages.  Just defrost and heat up before serving again.

How simple is that? :D Enjoy. :)

LINKY PARTIES linked to:

I Heart Nap Time                     The Tattered Tag
Under the Table & Dreaming    Scrappy Gifts
Making the World Cuter           Sumo's Sweet Stuff
Between Naps on the Porch       .