Upcycled Library Cards/Holiday Art Blessing

 My post this week features the most inspiring artist I follow,  Lani at Healing Expressions and her Holiday Art Blessing Giveaway and 20% off Healing Expression's Etsy Store Sale!!

Her inspirational art flows beautifully through every piece she creates.

 Lani's Blessing for the Christmas season: "May the joy and peace of the season bring hope to your hearts"!

I also want to share my Upcycled Library Cards

This piece was one of the crafts I made for the Library's Artisan Guild show last weekend.

I used Tim Holtz Tattered Floral dies, matte board and black cardstock then lined the back with more cards.

The soda can pull is attached to the back with E6000 for hanging.

This project is linked to:

Homemade Ornaments/Ornament Exchange

 This month I enjoyed taking part in  One Artsy Mama's Ornament Exchange

Amy partnered me up with Kirsten at One Tough Mother blog. It was so fun getting to know a fellow blogger.

This is part of what I learned about Kirsten to help create an ornament she would enjoy.

"I love color - so really, any color is wonderful :)  I'm a huge fan of owls. 

I'd love anything: colorful, shabby chic, unique!"

I had never given owls much thought when it comes to ornaments but I was up for the challenge! I found an adorable string of owl beads at the Beadin' Path in Freeport Maine, close to where I live. I was very excited to have the owl to create around.
 A bit of a rustic, woodland design is what I came up with.

 I had fun picking out coordinating beads for her snowflake to match the owl. 

These were my gifts to Kirsten.

I had made these shaker box ornaments in the past. They are little paper mache boxes filled with enough seed beads to cause the shaker sound. For this one, I wrapped it with burlap, strips of sheet music and beaded twine. The tricky part was the beaded branch which is attached to the pin holding the owl onto the box.

  This is Kirsten's beautiful gift to me!

 

I don't have my tree up yet but this beautiful vintage style jeweled ornament would look lovely anywhere!

   Combined with the book pages this is truly a very unique piece and just the style I adore.  

Thank you again Kirsten

 Check out her DIY ornament week beginning next Monday Dec 10th. It should be a great time!!

In addition to Ornament Exchange my ornaments are also linked to
Make it Monday

Terrific Tuesdays

Gift in a Jar Adorned with Beaded Snowflake

First I want to share

 Home Sweet Butterfly featured some of my Christmas homemade gifts from  My Etsy   Be sure to check out her beautiful blog for her helpful links and wonderful Christmas ideas!

Make your own Gift in a Jar

(Other Ideas for Your Beaded Snowflake Gift Giving)

See post below, Nov 10, on how to make Beaded Snowflakes

 This Gift in a Jar 

is an almond seasoning mix for making Almond Rice.
1 C slivered almonds, toasted
2Tbs dried parsley
41/2tspdillweed
1Tbs dried minced onion
1tspsalt
3/4tsp celery seed
3/4tsp garlic powder
1/2tsp pepper
Combine ingredients and divide up into about 7 batches. Each container should hold about 1 1/3C
(3Tbs of mix is needed per batch of rice).
See the recipe and printable gift tags below.

Using some clipart I found, I printed it to fit the lid of the jar. Faux snow and Twinklets or glitter decorate the outer circle. Glossy Accents can further seal the clipart for a shiny glass finish.

For more recipes, visit http://www.tasteofhome.com/

Enjoy!

This recipe is linked to this party too!

Kid's Crafts for Craft Fair

Magnetic Bottlecaps

I finished gluing the backs on these little "shadowboxes" using E6000.  There are almost as many pushpins (not shown) as magnets. My July 31 and August posts shows the details of how these came to be. They are ready for the craft fair!

 

Pillowboxes 

My pillowboxes are a bit different this year because I used the a die for my Bigkick instead of handcutting out templates.  It's much easier to prepare the 5th graders for their craft.  The they can run it through themselves to emboss then decorate!

This project is linked to  Make It Monday

Check out all the papercrafts on this create and share!

Beaded Snowflakes

was the 4th grade project to prepare for our school craft fair. These will be sold in Dec. as a gift bag.   They were so creative with their designs!

Ribbon is strung though one of the loops on the snowflake along with a homemade tag and attached to a hole punched white lunchbag.

We used the 3.75inch forms. The forms can be used with most beads 5mm and larger, and size 6 seed beads can also be used.
 Be sure to use a seed bead or very small bead for the center(very first bead with each wire). Bend the tip over before moving on to the next wire.

 

Tags 

These JOY tags were made by the 5th graders as they also used the Bigkick for the embossing and diecuts.

But these were made by the 3rd graders. Very simple stamping project. (The lighting keeps you from seeing the silver snowflake on each square :)

The posts below this one are the projects we worked on over the summer for this fair.  I hope you use some of my ideas for your own school fair. Feel free to ask me any questions!

 These crafts are linked to the Joyful Stampers Party   Inspire Me Fridays Challenge
                                             One Artsy Mama's  Ornament Exchange

Children's Craft Fair Project Aladin Tags

What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday

 Using Embossing Ink, they stamped a design or just slid the inkpad across the tag. Then they used cotton pads to chalk the wet invisible ink.
                
      This project is linked to:
Anthing But a Card Challenge
What's on Your Workdesk Wednesday

They colored in their stamped Aladin image and attached it with 3d foam squares.  These will be part of the craft fair in Dec.  At this point I am sorting things out and organizing according to what still needs attention (including the projects in the last couple posts). I hope to continue to get the kids together a few more times to create a nice collection for their craft table.

WOYWW/School Craft Fair Projects/ATC's & Picture Boards

Kid's Craft Fair Projects 

These ATC's were made with torn up paper napkins layered and sprinkled with twinklets.

The flowers are from Tattered Florals die and the Bigkick.

My "workdesk" is still is still the art building in town but I officially moved out over the weekend.  Next time I link up, you will all have to see the true chaotic mess my own craft area can be!!!
STamping Ground What's on Your Workdesk Wednesday

So the kids have been doing crafts in stages. They have several ATC's ready to finalize as well as some other projects. I put one together as an example but they will put their own spin on these at a craft table in Sept.during our 250th celebration of our town.  Let's hope they can squeeze in some craft time between climbing rock walls, bouncing with the bungee hanging with friends.   This ATC is linked to the Make It Monday 
party, create and share!! Check out all the great papercrafts for more inspiration.

Picture Boards

These are ready to hang on a child's wall or playroom. My blogger friend MaryAnne at Scrappy Gifts 
has a canvas board version of these for sale. She does such a beautiful job I wanted to the older kids to make some for their craft fair.  (We brought the cost down by using foamboard that had to be cut)  We had a good time especially with the beach boards.  We filled the little bottles with Popham Beach Maine sand and some small beach findings. There is still alot of work to do before December!!!

Bottlecap Decorating (Minishadow boxes) as a Kid's Craft

 

 It was a hit!! 

The kids art group really enjoyed this craft.

Stamping Ground is hosting:

        What is on Your Workdesk Wednesday
My "desk" moved to an art studio in town for a few weeks so the kids to do some summer crafting. This messy project is now cleaned up and ready for the next step.

If you want to see a close-up of the little nests and how to build them inside the bottlecaps, see the post below this one...those are my favorite. We used moss and Glossy Accents.

 Mini sandollars, river rocks, sea glass and lots of microbeads and glitter!  They chose some great color schemes. 

These were all sealed with glaze and will become pushpins or magnets as we gear up for our December craft fair.  
This project is also linked to Mama Pea Pod's blog for the 
       Back to School Bloghop

Altered Library Catalog Cards/Bottle Caps as Mini- Shadow Boxes

 Altered Library Cards

Using my Tattered Florals Dies by Tim Holtz, Glimmer Mist and inking, I was able to create several types of flowers for our local library to use on their projects to sell at the Artisan Guild show this December. 

 

Some parts of the inner flower I curled while still wet.

.

Altered Bottle Caps to Create Mini Shadow Boxes

To Celebrate our town's 250th anniversary, our school has decided to have our first craft fair.  We are taking some time this summer to bring groups of kids together at one of the art center buildings. I started playing around with some bottlecaps and came up with this adorable nest with some beads I had on hand

To have the kids recreate some nests I needed more beads but could NOT find the right robin's egg blue.  So, I painted some old wooden beads from a broken necklace.






Check out the results.  They did a great job....soooo
adorable.

We keep adding findings with Glossy Accents... tiny shells, seaglass, northern Maine river rocks we collected a few years ago, glitter, Aleen's snow and Twinklets.  To create a scene, just trace a quarter then cut out the circle. 

These will all become magnets or pushpins using E6000 (without the kids, it's too smelly!) for the bulletin boards they are creating!!

I will be better at keeping up with the pictures, I know I haven't posted in a while. Summer is crazy!!! Stay tuned for more of the kids crafts!!!

"Stamped Background" Challenge

This is my page for Stamped Background Challenge at Scrapbook Sisters:

 I stamped leaves and stems on the pink background paper with the same green that is in the girls pink shirts. I cut out stamped flower images and placed them directly over the matching stamped flower image on the background paper to create the dimension.   I added a pre-made scrolled butterfly and bling to the flower centers.

The tag is vellum with a stamped image.


I had two of these pictures so I made one for each of the girl's scrapbooks. This time used my leaf/branch die along with the same stamped cut out flowers. I also stamped the upper left corner with a very pale pink. It was pretty simple as I didn't alter the leaf branches like it did in my last post's scrapbook page. I hope to inspire someone who would like to use their stamps more like I need to do.

Paper Flower Layers with Branches Scrapbook Page/Text and Tulle Challenge/Flowers Challenge

 Here is my favorite scrapbook lay-out from the crops I went to this spring.

I used my Sizzix Flower Layers and Sizzlits Branch w/Leaves dies in the BigKick to create this page. The flowers are layered with some lace backing the largest flower.


I then dotted the Glossy Accents to adhere the Twinklets Diamond Dust to give sparkle to the flowers and some branches.

I found a wonderful new blog with new challenges at Scrapbook Sisters:

The above project and the scrapbook page below  is linked to Scrap it Girl May Flowers challenge.

The 3 pinwheel flowers are made from pink lace then centered with layered, punched out flowers and a brad. The large flower is a 12inch piece of lace that I dyed with perfect pearls before making the flower.


Text and Tulle Challenge at City Crafter 

This is a special lay-out for me. I wore this flower girl dress for my Aunt's wedding when I was 4.  The tulle and flowers are part of the vail but this is the last of the tulle.   I made other pages of  my older daughter in this dress and 2 other projects. I guess I have really cherished the outfit and wanted it's story to be told.