Brown Bags at Christmas - bag one

I am not a fan of those generic looking Christmas gift bags, paper or plastic. They're usually not very cute (or the cute ones are super pricey) and while they can be reused, they just don't like them. Since I'm giving a few crocheted blankets as gifts this year I gave some serious thought as to how to give them. I decided to go with brown grocery bags, that I picked up at my grocery store. 

I carefully flattened it out, creasing it along the inside bottom fold so that it would lie flat while I worked on it. (Clips came in handy for this!)

I gave it a layer of white acrylic paint and then a layer, while it was still wet, of some red Martha Stewart glitter paint. It's a very delicate layer of glitter, which is what I love about her glitter paints. I just kind of...did whatever. Sounds lazy, doesn't it? I didn't want to put a lot of thought into it because when I do that it turns into a big production and this is meant to be a quick project. I took some markers and doodled some lines. I layered a few paper strips, half a doily. Some foam and glitter snowflakes. Deciding it was too plain, I stenciled some mini stars in Festive Berries Distress Ink all over and topped it off with some silver letters. For this one I'll probably just leave it open at the top and add a hanging gift tag. 

bag revamp

I took my vintage army map bag and gave it a new look on the flap. I cut out hexagons from favorite fabric scraps, then heat-n-bonded them onto the bag. then i sewed it on. the 'create' is stickers from authentique that i sewed onto green linen. i added some ribbon and buttons and it's perfect for crafting on the go when i don't want to carry my usual art bin bag. (and it's cuter too!)

from this to that

Oddly (or maybe not so, I've never been sure) I drink coffee in the summer and lots (lots) of tea in the winter. I'm a big fan of those Tazo teas you can pick up at Starbucks and have been collecting the empties for a while now. And since I can never seem to say no to more storage, I came up with this idea.

Empty tins: I just wiped them out. I didn't bother pulling the labels off or anything like that.


Measured and cut strips of paper and used a heavy duty double stick tape rather than glue. And by heavy duty I mean heavy duty. It's industrial strength double stick tape that they use to put together displays at Home Depot.


I removed a few pictures from my magnetic strip and artfully arranged my tins, screwing them into the wall with a single screw through the center.

Viola! Filled with various supplies that were just sitting in empty boxes and bags. I did save the lids and I'm sure I'll find a use for them at some point.


Of course, you can't really see the sides of the tins unless sitting at my computer, but I couldn't just leave them uncovered.


I've been told that if I keep up my current rate of tea drinking I'll have enough tins to fill the entire wall! (There are currently 4 waiting to be opened in my kitchen!)

tip-toe through the tulips

Since I had so much fun with the Robot boat I decided to try something a little different. I made the flowers using Picnik and printed them out on heavy card stock, then colored them with my handy Fiskars pens. (I love these pens so much! They flow easily, they cover well, and the glitter ink actually leaves glitter!) I think the bird sticker is a little on the small side, but it works. The letters are American Crafts Thickers and the box top was just one I found in my closet. I think I'm going to punch two holes at the top and add a hanging ribbon before I mail it off as a very late birthday gift.

Sea of Love

I'd been in the market for making something that didn't involve my sewing machine for a few days now. I came across this tutorial somewhere in the blog-world and knew I had to make it.

I didn't want to buy a template to make a box and I didn't want to shell out for a stamp I was only going to use once, so I improvised. I used a vintage cigar box and one of my favorite stamps, along with the print-out freebies she offers for the project.

Cons: The tutorial is picture heavy and a little slow loading. If you want it to look just like the one in the tutorial you have to shell out for the stamp and the box template if you can't figure out how to make your own.

Pros: The downloads are organized nicely and you have the options of PDF, PNG, or JPEG, along with various color choices. It's a well put together tutorial and the end product is adorable! I think the stamp she used is cute, but it's not my style and won't have a use for it, so I went with my own thing. I think this particular project allows for that flexibility and the possibilities are endless. (I already want to make another!)

Materials: cardstock, lots of glue and tape. The boat is colored with Twinkling H2O's (which I haven't played with in months) and the hearts are just chalked. (So is the sun.) The robot is a Savvy Stamp called 'Valentine Robot' and the little thought bubble hearts are a Memory Box stamp called 'Good Thoughts'. (Neither of which I can find a link for.) He's just colored in with regular pens.

Time to make: about 4 hours, mostly because I had a hard time making the sail look just right. I tried everything from paper to fabric to hearts and finally just settled on the plain triangle sail.

On to the next one. This time I think I'm going to use vintage papers!

A Fool For Spools

I had a bag of spools (wooden, plastic, and paper) just sitting in my closet longing for a use. I was going to use them for ribbon, but that didn't work out, so they just sat in their plastic bag waiting.

Then I saw this post over at Classic Campbell and I knew what I had to do:


Garland, but it's a bit on the heavy side so I think I'm going to hang it on a wall somewhere.

Spools before I put the garland together.

Quick, easy, and an adorable way to use up my scraps.

3 random things

One:


Two: battling a really bad sore throat/sinus infection for the 9th day.

Three: thinking about getting my own website and moving away from Blogger.

valentine's

Valentine's for various swaps and Valentine's gifts. Left is the box, right is the valentine.

ahead of the game

A sampling of the 25 cards I made for my personal Christmas card giving: (click to enlarge!)



Materials:

Coffee sleeve and the embossed token they have on their gift sets from Starbucks. (the wish medallion and the cardboard piece in the first picture) (I really love their whole "wish" holiday campaign this year.)

Paper and embellishments: Basic Grey's Eskimo Kisses and Cosmo Crickett's Jolly By Golly sets.
(pretty much every embellishment each set has. They were too cute to resist!)

Shop update!

I updated the supply shop with some snazzy recycled votive holders!

Did I mention I have a thing about spray paint?

Give me a can of spray paint and I will, as the expression goes, go to town. This took an entire can of American Accents Marigold, but it's so worth it!

before and after

I think the picture says it all.

a bag and an update

First, the bag:

While cleaning out the massive amounts of junk left in a closet and in the garage, I came across two old, hand pieced quilts. Too lovely to throw away but way too much for me to salvage to their former glory, I cut them down into usable pieces. I did some zig-zag stitching for reinforcement and just quilted lines to give it some stability.


I LOVE it. I wish I knew how old this quilt was.



I lined the inside with some vintage floral print (found in the same bag) and gave it a magnetic snap.



An update: I finally did a shop update. (Yay! if you have a coupon!) Cozies, pouches, and bobby pins. The quilt bag. (Free shipping on the quilt bag!) Coming up: wallets, card holders, tote bags.

Oh. And. If you Twitter, you can follow me now!

And Facebook too under the email collectedmess1 (at) gmail (dot) com.

Oh! And if you ever want to trade, I have some bags and whatnot in my Flickr stream!

from this...to that

An unused maroon 3-ring binder from my closet:


My new photo album:

i *heart* spray paint

Before: one dusty, vintage, 49 cent Goodwill Rolodex find.



After: same vintage 49 cent Rolodex, minus the dust and a new look with some baby blue spray paint.

Off to the market they go...

My new way of packaging up my cozies. It not only let me use up the zillion labels I have, it allows me to get rid of plastic bags (yay!) and use up my scraps of pretty patterned papers.

ELM -- a simple little baby gift

This coming Saturday is a meet and greet for my friend Carrie's newest edition, Miles. He was born in February and I sent a gift from their baby registry around that time and wanted something a little more Carrie friendly this time around.

I guess mother's like brag books? If my neighbor is any indication, the answer is yes; her purse is weighed down with them.

I made these just using some wool felt, sheet protectors, and appliqued on some letters from scraps. (One for Miles, Lillie, and Ellen.)



If you are wondering how I did the sheet protector pages, I just traced out an inch larger than my 4" x 6" postcard in a reverse L shape and ran it through my machine. I cut that out, used pinking shears along the top, then use the open side in the binding so that I'd made a little pocket. I thought the plastic would be fussy going through the machine, but I had no issues at all.

Best part? This is going to be my Mother's Day gift(s) this year!

Shopping list:

Wool blend felt from J.Caroline
(if I recall correctly, those I used are: Lemon, Pistachio, and Moss.)

Template for Alphabet from Martha Stewart (which I now cannot find)

Scraps from my bin and sheet protectors from another life.

Before: my Ikea Fira chest. Used next to my sewing table to hold interfacing and misc. little bits like snaps and extra needles.

You can tell that I just quickly covered it when I got it and never did much to it. (And it's been 3 years already!)

After: a light coat of pink spray paint and some paper from Basic Gray and SEI. And while this is an awful pic, there are fabric covered buttons for knobs.



Done following this tutorial!

I should really redo the pic!

whimsy!

For a swap that I have yet to be assigned a partner for: a whimsy jar. I figured what the heck, why not get it done and have it ready to ship for when partners do come out. You know, be ahead of the game for once.

It's just an old sauce jar filled with misc. notions from around the craft room. A lot of it I bought a few weeks ago from Layer Cake Shop -- I bought one of their bag of bon bons for inspiration.


I covered it with paper, then ric-rac, then some felt flowers to match the paper. I was at a loss for the lid, so I just covered it with a piece of fabric.


It was so much fun to put together and while it doesn't look it in the pics, it is stuffed to the top!

before and after

Before: little house found at a thrift store and paid 45 cents for, spray painted a pretty shade of blue:

After: following an exhaustive hunt for decent looking birds, a new bird house.
Before: an old cabinet door, spray painted pink.



After: completed with a piece of foam core board cut and covered with fabric to make a new bulletin board.