Playing card album/smash book

I actually got this idea from my little sister. She gave me a little book of playing cards for my birthday that was a book of memories. It took us about 2 hours to go through, as every page contained a memory, which we had to tell the story to. One of the best presents I have ever received and will cherish it forever.

I went to Michael's and got some rings, tied misc. ribbons around them, and used them as the binding of the playing cards. I used my crop-o-dile to punch through like 5 cards at a time (LOVE that little guy!). I found so many sets of cards at garage sales this summer, I scooped them all up and now have lots to make these projects out of.

I used some punches (hearts, stars, butterflies, flowers, etc) to punch out of papers and other cards to add dimension and interest to the pages. This actually didn't take too long and would make a great gift for mothers &/or fathers day, Christmas, birthdays, Valentines, or just about any other occasion!

Birth announcements

This black, white, & silver one was made special for the grandmother (who is the best looking granny i've EVER seen!! Seriously, she looks nothing like a grandma) who just adores bling. I'm not a blingy girl, myself, so I'm not gonna lie. Putting on those rhinestones was so hard! I wanted pearls, but that's just me. As long as she's happy with it, then all is right with the world.

Made this one for her to hand out to her friends. There is glitter ALL OVER my craft room. No joke. I used spray adhesive then dumped glitter on for the picture corners and boy is everything I was wearing sparkly! I do love the look of the feather on top of the inked doily though, so vintage and feminine.

I printed out her info and inked the edges in pink then foam mounted on the inside of the card. Stamped "made with love" in pink on the backs of all of them. I think they turned out cute and not super pink, which is what she was going for.

Simple watercolor card

This kind of card is a great way to showcase watercoloring using the Stampin' Up! crayons. This was the make & take for my most recent workshop. I love showing the label punch too, that's one of my favorites!

Homemade blackberry freezer jam

I have so many berries around me it makes my mouth water. My family has been canning lately, guess I caught the bug :) I decided (after helping can pears all day) that I did NOT want to traditional can to make some kind of sweet treat with the berries we've been picking. In searching for a recipe for freezer jam, I noticed that most recipes use TONS of sugar. I knew that I needed to search for a low-sugar recipe. I found this one and that's what I used in the big jars, going to keep & use them for our family. Used a more traditional recipe for the little baby food jars (wash/sanitize them & as long as their in the freezer, they'll work!) and I'm going to give them as gifts.

I tried the jam this morning after it sat in the fridge all night. Boy oh boy was it tasty! It soaked right through my bread and I had to use a spoon instead of a knife, but MAN did I enjoy licking that spoon when I was done! As you can see, JR agrees with me. This is good stuff! :)

Cheapy $1 car cups turned FABULOUS

We decorated those little plastic car cups at MOPS this last week. I can't believe I've never bought one of those at the dollar store before! So many possibilities!

So this year in MOPS, anther lady & I are in charge of crafts. My friend was in charge of crafts last year and I just loved our projects! I feel like I have a huge role to fill just by following her! Luckily, there's two of us to do it ;)

I am so excited for our meeting in October. It's on "Love & Logic", a parenting style. I heard someone speak on it before and boy did my interest get peaked! Having a teenager in the house is more trying than I thought it would be. My job as a mother is to ensure that when gown up, my kids love Jesus and are respectful to others (pretty much sums it up I think). Right now, I don't know for certain if I'm winning that battle with my teen. The biggest lesson that I have learned this year is "Your response is your responsibility". That not only applies to my kids, but to the adults in the home as well. I have to trust that even though she is not acting the way I hope she will someday, she is seeing a good example in me and will keep that in her heart for later on in life.

This year has been a tough one and it doesn't seem to be letting up. Just got the news that my father in Georgia has a brain tumor. When it happens to you, it's not like how you imagine others felt when it happens to them. My mind is jell-o about it. Like mush. I've been trying to collect my thoughts about it and can't... so I craft.

Wedding gift wall art

Made this for a friend of mine who had some young family members getting married soon. She said grey, cream, & a deep red, gave me a couple of pictures, and set me free! I chose to use some old cedar planks as the base, it has a great coloring (almost grey) to it without me having to do anything.

I think this is my favorite part of it. I found this great old handle, sanded it, and put her on there. I love wall art with 3D stuff. When they hang this in their home, the tags (made from sheet music, stamped on, spritzed with a 'starfish' glimmer mist, then hung on the handle with misc. ribbon) will freely hang/dangle. Each tag says something different so depending on the angle you look at it, you'll see something different. I stamped the swirls & birds (SU) in black and found some great old buttons for the corner. The hearts are chipboard that I covered with paper and distressed.

Dominoes and a doily... can't go wrong! Throw in another great button, some hat pins, and pearls and you've got a stylish chic corner. I stamped and heat embossed the "MR" and the "MRS" in black, and did the "&" in white.

If we weren't friends, I wouldn't admit to busting up my finger making this project. I used beer & root beer bottle caps for this. I took them outside to flatten with a hammer in the driveway. Let's just say I missed the cap once. Ouch. I did mess up on this. Twice. Let's not play "find the mistakes" though, K?! I absolutely loved how it turned out, wish they were pictures of me & hubby so I could hang it up in my home, oh well. Congrats you two!!

Office Accessories

I took an old pair of shutters and did a rough job spray painting them white. Spray painted some wooden clothes pins green to match my other project (the "corkboard") and, VIOLA!! A message center!

I found this great rectangle frame at the thrift store. After taking out the glass, I roughly spray painted it then stapled this great fabric onto the back of it. I bought a roll of cork from Wal*Mart (cheaper there than Michael's, PLUS I got more if the cork!) so I stapled that behind the fabric. Woot Woot I made a cute corkboard!

Upcycled desk

This thing is so out of style ;)
I decided that I need a little home office to help run hubbies business (check it out! Teitzel & Co.) and I'm cheap, so this old thing is what I get.

The inside of the drawers needed help too, and since I love old paper, I decided to Mod Podge old book paper inside the drawers. Might as well make it into something that I'll love to use!

I used that same paint (different color though, I used a green on the desk) by 'Zinsser' called "B-I-N" (see previous post about my entry way for more info on the paint). Do you see the difference in the top left drawer than the others? I sanded it while the paint was still tacky, the others I sanded after they had dried. I'm a bit sad. I really prefer the top left drawer to all the others. But overall, I am pleased with the outcome.

The inside of the drawers turned out great. In fact, not only do I love to open them and use them, so does the baby. Great. I'm now looking for a yard stick to stick through the handles on each side to keep him from getting in the drawers and throwing all my perfectly organized stuff EVERYWHERE. Maybe I'll even paint the yard stick to match?

The end result? My great little office space! I am pleased with the outcome and even more pleased with the time it took to complete. With this Zinsser paint, there is no need to pre-sand or prime, it does all that for you! Wal-mart does carry it, BUT so does Home Depot and they'll price match AND beat their price by 10%. Needless to say, I recommend you checking out the price at your local Wal-mart, then heading over to HD to purchase it. It is a bit more than other paints (my Wal-mart had it for $9 I think, so I paid about $8 at HD), but I didn't have to pre-sand and didn't need a primer. So worth it in my book!

Chalk board table

I always forget to get the "Before" picture. No exception here. I remembered half-way through painting it! Got this cute little Elmo table at the thrift store so cheap that I couldn't pass it up. Since my little guy is just learning to sit in chairs and wants to do it himself, it's the perfect time to get him his own little set!

I started by painting the chairs green and brown. I painted the edge of the table brown and the legs green. When that was all dry, I covered the top of the table with homemade chalkboard paint. It's got that great little bowl thing in the middle to hold more chalk in, too!

My new entryway

Found this table at a great little antique/thrift store. I knew it had potential, even with all the crap piled on top of it.
This certain store has an inside, which is decorated beautifully and artfully arranged. It also has an outer building, it's actually inside, but it's like a big garage or shop that is detached from the actual store. I L-O-V-E digging my way through that shop! So this table was covered in at least 4 or 5 layers of dust & dirt, plus piled high with other stuff.

Found this mirror at an old church turned thrift store. I was talking with the lady at the front about looking for a cool old mirror and she pointed me to this one. I looked at the price tag and said it didn't fit. She continued to tell me that she had had that mirror for almost a year and no-one would buy it. I usually don't speak my mind for fear of hurting peoples feelings or making them upset. I calmly stated that I wouldn't pay the price that she was asking and saw other items in the store that were similar and much cheaper. She was so shocked! --> at the price!! She asked what I would pay for it, I told her, and that's that!

I painted the table with this new paint that the lady at that antique/thrift store told me about. It's by 'Zinsser' and called "B-I-N". It's like a stain, but tintable, which means you can choose your color!! It's cream based so it will only do pastel colors, but I tinted mine yellow and am super in love with the outcome! It dries really fast, like in less than 45 minutes. I found that with doing the shabby chic sanding, I really had to use elbow grease once it was dry. I did one section while it was still kinda tacky and wish I would have done it all while still a bit wet, I like the look better.

The old crates I lightly spray painted white and added casters to bottom so as not to scratch my floor. I made some brown chalk board paint to use on the ends so I could personalize them for the kids (LOVE LOVE LOVE).
The mirror I spray painted white over then sanded so some yellow comes out. It will be hung, not leaning against the wall, once hubby has time.
I found that cool old painters box to use as my catch all. It's perfect! It's got a spot for keys, cards, misc, and a big spot for mail. It was a great old red, but that didn't go with my theme so I painted over it in yellow then sanded.
If all else fails, I've got a back-up dinner table :)

Photo Book

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Crayon card

Watercolor crayon, that is! We stamped the flowers in Sahara Sand, the same color as the cardstock. We traced over it with the crayons then blended using the aqua painters.
We got the ink blotches on there using markers and the color spritzer tool. That's always a fun one for workshops!

Watercolor tag card

OMGoodness this turned out cute! This was another one that I did at a workshop, in hindsight, I wouldn't do it again for beginners. Lots of work for this one.

I just love the fact that you can stamp any image & sentiment on the tag, and viola! The card is now personalized! That part made it perfect for a workshop! We used SU watercolor paper and the inks/aqua painters for this tag.

The doily is easily my favorite part of this one. Also the most time consuming to put together, just throwing that out there. I recommend making sure you have a stylus close at hand when doing the doily, makes pushing out the pieces so much easier. I will also warn you that no matter how hard you try to keep the pieces on the table, in the garbage, or elsewhere, there WILL be pieces on the floor. Especially when you have 6 ladies punching out doilys.

See the "ribbon" across the front? That's actually a piece of cardstock that we wore down using our bone folders. When you break all the fibers in the paper, it starts to separate. We peeled the paper apart and that's actually the 'inside' of the paper. Neat, huh!?!

Glittered cake birthday card

Seriously, who doesn't like glitter &/or cake?!

This is a great card to teach people masking, or the general use of Post-it's with stamping!

Made this card at one of my last workshops. Love the fact that you can change it up, the guests can personalize it, by just changing the ink color and choosing different paper scraps to make their banner out of.