Stamping and Recycling

Did you know that stamping can be a great way to recycle and alter something so it can be used again. Two of my items in my previous post are recycled items.

The gift bag is one that I received when I purchased some chocolates about a year ago. It is a wonderfully sturdy bag and I could stand the thought of just throwing it away so I popped it into a drawer. I never could come up with a use for it though since it had the store logo in both sides and a list of store locations on the bottom of each side. It is now reincarnated into a usable gift bag with the logos covered up with stamped images and designer paper and the locations covered with strips of coordinating designer paper.

The bottle is a Starbucks Frappichino bottle. It will be filled with some sort of goodies, probably Hershey Kisses, and given as a special gift.

I'm sure there are many many other items out there that could be wonderfully recycled into altered stamp art and gifts. So stampers can help keep the land fills a little less full!

Here are the final three items I altered with the June craft kit. I also made 3 12x12 scrapbook page layouts which will e used in my Family Cruise album and a total of 15 cards. This has been such fun and such a challenge. I have learned quite a bit about myself during this challenge. When I first received the kit there were many things in it I did not really like. First off these are not colors I would naturally chose to work with. Also I don't particularly like working with stripes ( I don't like striped fabric either!), Then there was this ribbon, all I can say is YUK! (That was one part of the kit I never did work with well. I only used it on one card). Also I wasn't sure about the alpa stickers and had never used giant paper clips on anything.

So what did I learn? I learned that with some perseverance and an open mind, I can create with items I am not originally fond of and for the most part I can be very happy with the results. (I did create a few items I am not particularly happy with, but I also learned that is okay.) I also discovered you can do A LOT with a relatively small set of supplies that do coordinate. During this challenge because I was working with the same papers and embellishments so much I tried several new techniques to try and spice things up a bit when I got tired of looking at the same stuff over and over again. So that was good. I covered my first chip board pieces, I created a glittered background, I finally used my punch for spiral notebook holes (I forget it's real name) and much more. Most importantly I learned that my hyper-focusing addictive personality trait is still alive and well. This is not necessarily a good thing....I kept working in these even when I knew I should be doing other things. But it was so much fun and I now declare this project officially done! Now maybe I can finish the card for our niece's wedding.......

JUNE CRAFT KIT CHALLENGE, Part Two

Continuing on with the June Craft Kit Challenge I've made these two altered items that will be used on our upcoming vacation. The travel journal is a school composition book that I've covered with some of the designer paper from the craft kit. I added some "bling" with the rhinestone brad and the

glitzy alphabet stickers. The back of the journal is covered in paper patterned with a map. I had it in my stash and thought it appropriate for a travel journal.

The photo album was a plain chipboard album that I got in a scrapbook kit. More paper and glitzy alphabet stickers with some ribbon thrown in here and there. The flowers are punched out of the patterned paper that had dots and I positioned a different colored dot in the center of each of the flowers. These were both fun and easy to make.

Busy Morning in Stamp Room

A morning spent in my stamping room; partly out of necessity of needing graduation cards and partly as part of SCS Flybaby June Craft Challenge.

The craft challenge is to use a kit of paper craft items and create as many things out of it as possible. The kit included 2 12x12 card stock sheets, about 6 double sided designer paper sheets and a variety of embellishments. The embellishment pack included ribbons, brads, buttons and ordinary office paper clips.

So far I have created 5 cards (of which these are three), covered a chip board 6x6 inch photo album, decorated a Starbucks Frappachino bottle and put together 2 12x12 scrapbook photo page layouts. Oh, I also altered a photo frame which came in the kit.

This has been fun and interesting. When I began the project I found that I was having a hard time using the items in the kit effectively and was relying heavily on my stamp sets and card stock to make the cards. The "Memories" card is an example of this. The items from the kit are the ribbon and the rhinestone brad in the middle of the flower. My second attempt was the aqua graduation card. Here I used three buttons and some of the designer paper. As I work longer with the kit I got better at focusing on the items in the kit and not my own card stock. The baby card is an example of this. Here I used the designer paper as the card front background along with ribbon and a button from the kit.

I am really having fun with this. It really does stretch your comfort zone when you have to use items chosen by someone else to make projects. In another post I will show some of the non-card items I've made.

Thank You and Goodbye

Our minister is leaving us after being at our church for 7 years. He is also my boss as I work at the church. The staff got together and had a good bye lunch for him several weeks ago. Though we had a gift at the last minute we realized we didn't have a card so I quickly made this one up.
I find it fairly easy to come up with a quick design for women. There are alway flower stamps, but I find it much more challenging to come up with something that is masculine. From what I read this seems to be a common problem for many stampers and card makers. I am going to make this a challenge for my self. Coming up with attractive designs for masculine cards. I like this one but it seems to be missing that extra spark that takes it out of the "homemade card" category.

Carol Doak's 2000 Member Block

Just a little break from stamping over the Memorial Day weekend. I was issued a challenge by a quilting friend to complete this block before midnight on May 28. If either of us didn't get the block completed we would take the other out to lunch. If we both completed the block on time next time we got together we would go out to lunch "dutch treat". We both completed our blocks and my block grew into this wall quilt as well. The block is one that created by Carol Doak for a yahoo paper piecing group that she hosts. It was in honor of the group gaining its 2000th member. Some day I will get the wall quilt actually quilted. When...who knows. Hopefully before August and the county fair.