**Whew** Am I behind on posting these, or am I behind? Hehe... Yes, yes, I am way behind! It seems that the closer we get to the 25th, the less hours there seem to be in my day. Craziness! Well, that's still really no excuse for being so late in posting my Advent gifts... ;) Oh well. Here's day 7, which we were to open on the 15th... (Go ahead and say it... FINALLY! Lols!)
These gifts were given by Ms. Cindy Dillion... and pretty much surprised everyone in this swap! I'm pretty sure these had us all wondering if she had stayed within the spending limit! Haha... She was just too, too sweet to send these gifts to us! :D
I think these chipboard pieces were my favorite! I'm a strong believer that you can never have too many alphabet options!
Aren't these just so cute! I'm definitely going to be using those pink glitter pieces! I think I have the perfect paper and project for them!
These are super cute too! I might use the blue one for my youngest's baby album!
Anyways, thank you Cindy, and I will catch all of you again in the next Advent post! ;)
So, I joined a swap over at MSR last month (no surprise... hehehehe...)! It was hosted by the lovely Stephanie and was called "Brown Paper Embellishment Packages Tied Up with String." Sounds cute, huh? This swap was basically wrapping up 6 small embellishment goodies in brown wrapping paper and tying it with string! The wrapper could also be further embellished if we wished to do so.
Well, for this swap, we had an odd number of participants and so we did a "round the house robin" kind of thing. This means that one person will be sending me a box of goodies and I send my box to a completely different person. I got in touch with the lady who I'm sending goodies to, and was able to procure a very good sized wish list! Also, in addition to her wish list, I found out the her favorite color is purple, which gave me the color of ribbon I wanted to tie my packages with! So, here's what everything looked like after I wrapped them all!
I think they turned out pretty gorgeous! :D And, as you can see, I actually sent 7 gifts instead of 6. I REALLY got into the wrapping. And, I think it's pretty ironic that my 7th gift is the ONLY wrapping I further stamped and embossed on. I would've done it to the rest, but all the others were either too small or too bulky to do so. Oh, well... still looks pretty! :D
Here's what I included in each of the packages for her and how I wrapped them:
First is a sampler of some flat-back pearls that I sell along with some bling trim in black. Marina, my partner, is a newbie to crafting and wanted some bling mesh, but I only had bling on a string. I gave her a yard each of the pearls and 2 yards of the bling. Hope that made up for that! :D
Next, Marina said she didn't mind receiving handmade goodies, so I made some fabric flowers for her as well as a purple fabric butterfly! I mounted these on a couple of die cut card stock and included my info on the back.
I also made a purple, black, and white charm dangle for her to use on a mini album if she wished to. I backed it on a small chipboard tag with my info on the back and packaged it in a pillow box.
Next, she requested some brads since she's getting really into using them. Luckily, I had a bunch of unopened packages of some Making Memories brads!
Last, on her wish list were some Tim Holtz items. I had a few different ideology things and trinkets, so I packaged them into a little gift box. I had also gotten her a Holiday/ Seasonal TH mask. I had gotten the idea to wrap this particular gift into a candy-like wrapper from my Advent Christmas swap. It turned out pretty cute!
Last, but not least, I decided to wrap up a K & Company Mat Pad and to stamp and emboss "Merry Christmas" and a whole bunch of snowflakes.
Anyways, that's all for now! Thanks for stopping by!
Hi again everyone!
It's kind of hard for me to remember to keep up with these posts daily... Hahaha... Sooo, yeah... I'm late on this post again... :D But it's okie. This day was for my 3 slot in the swap - my angle swapper slot.
This is from the hostess again! :D Sorry... I don't have a picture of the envelope I decorated for the ladies. However, you can see it in my video here.
This is what was inside my gift for yesterday! Thanks Leslie! :D And what I had given to the ladies were a couple of dollar clear stamps, and for those with more than one slot, a box with a bead strand. :D
Anyways, thanks for stopping by and I'll be back in a bit for another advent gift!
Hugs!
♫ On the fifth day of Christmas, Jerri gave to us...
TONS of awesome LACE!!! ♫
Hahahaha! Here's how the lace came to us...
Isn't that soo cute? She made little sour cream containers and a candy wrapper looking present!
It's been FOREVER since I've done a project in a sour cream looking container. I had forgotten how cool it looked! And the candy wrapped gift? I used the idea for another swap that I'll share with you all in a bit. :D I LOVE how this swap just gives you soo many different ideas for wrapping gifts! And it's soo handy this time of year! Right? ;)
Here's a picture of all the lace I got! :D There was two different types of trim in each package... and two of the packages were the same. So, altogether I got 4 different types of trim! Mostly laces and you can see in the pic that I got some red ric rac. Yay! Recently, I've been trying to up my supply of lace. They're just as versatile as ribbon (which I am overflowing with!) but more dainty looking and detailed! Love them! Thanks a whole, whole bunch Jerri! :D
So today was the first of my three slots! Yay! I'm not going to bore you with my packaging because I already did a video on it. But, the hostess did mail out replacement gifts so that we didn't have to open our own packages on the day we host the gifts. Soo... here's what I got! :D
The left side is the gift the hostess, Leslie, sent, and the right side is what I sent all the other ladies. :D
Yay! I got a pack of white adhesive pearls and a roll of red ribbon from Leslie! The Making Memories frame is what I sent in for the ladies. Thanks for the goodies Leslie! Can't wait to open up day 5! :D
Ahhh!!! I totally forgot to post this yesterday! Lols!
Well, it's the third day for my Advent Christmas swap, and this set of gifts were provided by Ms. Laura Doan!
I just LOVE the colorful goody bags the gifts came in! :D
And the gifts themselves are just lovely! This is a vintage butterfly jewelry kit, and I really, really, REALLY love butterflies! You can make a necklace, bracelet, charms, whatever! Isn't it gorgeous?! Plus, I got 3 kits, so I don't have to hoard it too much! What's better than that! ;)
Soo... I have another project to share! :D It's a calendar page swap that I'm participating in with some of my really good crafty friends! We were charged with making 12 of these 8" x 8" pages so that we'd all have a small desk calendar all pretty-a-fied! Hehehe!
I chose the month of May because I really, really, REALLY wanted to use the Cherry Blossom paper from Graphic 45's Birdsong collection! I am sooo in LOVE with cherry blossoms! :D And, since May is also the month with Mother's Day, I had oodles and oodles of fun making my calendars REALLY girly! Here's what I came up with!
This is the front side of my calendar pages. I used a TON of pearls! It was A LOT of work putting them on the pages, but I think it was well worth the effort. Plus, my friends are VERY worth it! ;)
This is the back side of the calendars. I put a pocket there so that I could add a sheet of paper with the days of the month for my friends to write birthdays, or anniversaries, or whatever because the front calendar was way too small to do things like that.
I go into further detail regarding the pages in this video...
Here's all 12 of my pages! Even though they weren't that easy to put together, I still had fun creating them! I'm just really glad this is a "once a year" kind of thing because I am ALL calendar-ed out! Lols!
Anyways, hope you all enjoyed it! Catch ya later! ;)
Hugs,
♫ On the second day of our Advent Christmas, Ms. Nishi gave to us... ♫
Wood veneer ornaments, clear stamps, ribbon, and CHOCOLATE! (In the shape of Euro coins! ;D)
Sooo cute! These goodies came all the way from South Africa! Nishi was our only International swapper, but I feel so lucky to have something that traveled so far to get to me! :D The ornaments are kind of like the ones in Michael's - plain wood and TOTALLY alterable! My fave! :D I'm not sure what brand the stamps are since they only came in that clear packaging, but they're pretty darn cute! I simply LOOOVE that reindeer! He's full of snowflakes! And the chocolate was delish! Never had Euro chocolate coins... can't say they taste any different than 50 cent piece or dollar coins... hahaha!
Anyways, theses awesome goodies came in this packaging...
Behind the number 10 on the tag is Nishi's info - I'm still a bit amazed they came all the way from South Africa! Soo cool! Thank you soo much Ms. Nishi for the goodies!
Soo... I'll be back again tomorrow with my third set of goodies!
Thanks for stopping by!
Sooo... it's been absilutely FOREVER since I've posted here! Hahaha... sorry... but I just find it A LOT easier to talk about my projects than to write about them... But I really do LOVE English and writing as a subject (one of my most favorites classes in school and college!), so go figure! Guess it's just all about time - and mine is already VERY divided between my duties as a wife and mother to two young boys... :D oh well.
Anyways! I shared on YouTube about a month and a half ago my Advent Christmas packaging for a swap I joined over at The Scrap Beach. You can check out the videos below if you haven't already...
This first video covers my first two packages for Dec. 12th and Dec. 25th.
This video covers my packaging for my Angel Swapper slot on Dec. 14th.
So, as I explained in the videos, we had 17 days filled with participants - more than 12 for the 12 days of Christmas, but not quite 25 for a FULL advent Christmas. A bit weird, but no biggie. So, we all decided to just start opening gifts on the 9th of December instead of the 1st so that we can open a gift on the 25th of December! :D Like I said, not a FULL Advent Christmas, but something's better than nothing, right?
So... about 5 days ago I received my swap gifts! Yay! I had to organize everything by date (which wasn't to bad, but did get a little confusing at some points) and this is everything I got!
The hostess had to find a REALLY big box to send this all in! Once I got everything, I sorted through it and put them by order into another box I had laying around. I swear, I just wanted to tear into everything all at once! ;) Luckily, the hostess sent me a package I could open right when I got everything!
This was a "Thank You" gift she sent me for stepping in as an Angel Swapper at the last minute. I was soo surprised! She was just too sweet to send that to me!
These were what was inside the gift bag! I LOVE paper!!! Hehehe! She really didn't need to send these... I mean she did all the HARD work! After sorting through all the gifts I got, I could only IMAGINE what SHE had to go through! I only had 3 slots - she had to sort and repack for 17 slots!
Anyways, on to the gifts I opened today! Hehehe!
These gifts were sent in from Ceely King. She took two slots and this is her first slot!
I love the tags! They were probably die cut with her Cricut because the top layer is the negative part of the flourishes so that the red bottom layer can show through. Really cute! :D
And this is what I got for the first day of our Advent swap! Some neutral colored brads and embroidery floss (which I use VERY often) and a Mini Medley pack of Christmas colored metal pieces all from Close to My Heart. Cool, huh? :D
I won't be making videos of me opening these gifts. Instead, I've opted to just blog about them. My blog could definitely use the love and use! ;) So, I'll catch you all tomorrow with my second set of gifts! :D
I have another project to share with you all! :D This was my last "catch-up" swap project for August. It's an altered box with a shabby chic theme that will find a home with my swap partner Yvette!
This was such a fun box to alter! And, because this was my first time altering a box of this type and size, I wanted to capture my process! So here's a series of pictures I took, along with a little "tutorial" of how I made this box...
I started with a plain wooden box that I picked up at Hobby Lobby. It looks kind of like a vintage trunk or chest - which is what really caught my eye to begin with! It'd be perfect for my project!
First thing I needed to do was to remove all the hardware so I could paint the entire box! The corners had to stay on because they were structurally significant to the box. So, I addressed this by putting some tape to protect the metal from the acrylic paints I used.
For my paint job, I knew I wanted to do a crackle effect. Big surprise, huh? Lols! So, I first put a coat of white gesso to prep the surface of the wood. After that was dry, I put a coat of dark brown paint for the base layer. Next was a layer of crackle medium, and last was a coat of antique white paint.
While all the paint was drying and crackling, I started getting things ready for the inside of the box. I knew I wanted to have felt line the box, but I didn't want it to look messy. So, to get and nice, clean, professional look, I used four panels of chipboard to wrap my felt over.
After wrapping the felt around the chipboard pretty tightly and gluing it in place, I glued the panels on to the insides of the box. I stated with the bottom, then the long sides, and finally the short sides.
Once the felt panels were all attached and the paint on the outside of the box was all dry, I punched out the corners of the paper that I wanted to mat to the outside of the box (so that the paper would look nice where the corner brackets were) and glued all the mats down.
I used a Fiskars bracket looking corner punch. The tip fit really nicely into the corners of the brackets already on the box.
I also cut out a mat for the inside of the lid of the box. All these mats were distressed with Frayed Burlap distress ink.
I wanted to do a little something extra on the inside lid. A few weeks ago, I had bought some circle mirror wall decor at a nearby Family Dollar store. One of the sizes were perfect for the lid!
So, I glued one of the circles onto the lid, decorated it with some flowers from I Am Roses and some pearl trim, and added some really pretty dark brown die cut corner flourishes.
I think it turned out pretty great! :D After finishing the inside, I re-attached the lid to the box.
And then I attached the rest of the hardware back onto the box...
Of course I wanted the box to have some feet! So, I used some really small candle cups that I got from Michael's (I think :D), painted them, and hot glued them in place.
For the top of the box, I wanted to put a frame. So I broke out some of my Kaisercraft Wooden Flourishes frames. To color it, I used a some Walnut Stain Distress embossing powder and some American Crafts Zing embossing powder in Vanilla. The result was this really grainy texture with a bit of shine. It's really pretty neat!
Lastly, I added some more I Am Roses flowers and some pearl swirly flourishes, and voila! An altered shabby chic box!
Here's a video I made showcasing the end product:
Anyways, I hope you all enjoyed my project and thanks for stopping by!
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