"Cute As Can Bee" gift box

You know how sometimes you start on a project and you think you know where it's going, or where it's supposed to go - but then it takes a few twists and turns before you end up somewhere totally different? Something like that happened to me a few days ago.

A couple of months ago, I bought a scoring board - you know, one of those 12x12 hard plastic trays that have a ton of little lines to allowe you to score paper and cardstock for cards, envelopes etc. Said item had been sitting in a corner since the day of purchase, until I decided it was finally time to brave the "newbie" and figure out what I could do with it.

Well, fast-forward a couple of weeks and I'm just completely obsessed with it! LOL I've found that, within about 10 minutes or so, I can turn almost any piece of cardstock into a box (although I have to make the lid separately - and me being the not-so-organized artist that I am, it's no big surprise that I have as yet to actually remember that I need to write down what I'm doing as I do it in, order to be able to remember it later).

I've made quite a few different ones and I'm still tinkering around with the process, but one of the boxes I made yesterday turned out so cute that I just had to share!!

I used retired yellow Stampin' Up! cardstock and scored it, cut it, and stamped little bees all over what would be the exterior of the box. Once assembled, I added a little handle cut from the same cardstock with shaper scissors - first with some scrapbooking adhesive and then with a brad to keep it firmly in place. Last but not least, I took a pretty napkin and separated the layers until I had only the patterned one left (admittedly this was a measure borne out of desperation because I couldn't find any tissue paper in my room! LOL) and filled the little box with gorgeous Molton Brown toiletries. A cherry red ribbon to pick out the roses in the napkin-come-tissue-paper, tied in a little bow, and it's ready to be given as a gift. How cute is that??

Recycled Chipboard Packaging

Ok so today I'm going to show you another project that I made to recycle something. Yesterday, I went to a nearby town for some coffee & shopping with a friend. We went to an arts & crafts store, where I bought a chipboard album (I'll get around to posting a project for that down the line :). Well, as I've said before, I like to try and find new uses for old things - or things you'd normally just throw in the trash or recycling bin. The way I see it, not only is it a personal challenge to my creativity, but it also means that it's one less thing going to waste.

What I particularly loved with this project is that I discovered, after opening the packaging, that it actually said PLEASE RECYCLE under the chipboard album - how fabulous is that??

So you know, I can't resist experimenting with things, and it was like the challenge was staring me right in the face: so, HOW are you going to recycle me??

I started out with more or less the same process I used when I did the Recycled Art Tag in my last post by sanding down the advertising I didn't want, distressing the edges and center that I would cover up anyway, and sanding the clear plastic window where it had been glued down so that it would be easier to glue back down later.

This is what I started with:

And this is what I ended up with! How totally awesome is that? Not only did I save something from being thrown out and turned it into a piece of artwork I can now display - but on top of that, the plastic window works as a kind of shadow box. I would've loved to have had some piece of three-dimensional memorabilia to put into the "shadow box", but I still think this is pretty cool. :)

Love Is...Never Having To Give Up On Your Dreams

Wow...it's been one of those days. I had a pretty good time crafting & chatting with a friend. We plotted our plan to take over the world with our fabulous Stampin' Up! goodies and crafty genius, laughed about everything under the sun - and punched out WAY too many cardstock tags. But later in the day it all went very, very wrong.

I was feeling bored with my blog - the layout and design wasn't really representative of my creative personality, and I'd gotten to the point where I thought: what's the point? Enter a new Blogger feature, which immediately got my attention. And being a little trigger happy, I clicked before I thought it through...and my entire blog layout was messed up! I was tried to change it back and couldn't easily revert it to the previous format - so, having already felt a little frustrated, I stupidly decided that I would just delete this thread and start with a new template. Not realizing, at the time, that deleting the thread meant deleting the entire NAME of the blog!! In the split second it took me to realize the fallout, my surprisingly fast browser had already processed my action. My blog was completely gone. I was devastated. I'm so new at this and still trying to find my way, still trying to upload pictures and turn this page into something that represents me as an artist and as a person.
So I tried to retype the blog address - which of course came up with something along the lines of "blog not found". I then decided I would just start a new blog thread with the same name - but it wouldn't let me do that. EEK!

Fast-forward a few hours and my husband called me to say that he was coming home from work. I told him about my mishap, and he said it was no big deal, that he could figure out how to retrieve it - but I wasn't buying it. So imagine my surprise and delight when, simply clicking on a button on my Blogger dashboard, revealed the magic words that turned my whole evening around: UNDELETE THIS BLOG.

It's strange how something so seemingly insignificant can be so important on a particular day...Either way, I'm so happy that I was able to recover my blog, so I'm going to make an effort to post more regularly and start putting my artwork on here so that, hopefully, I can turn this blog into something fun, creative and inspirational! :)

All She Wants To Do Is STAMP, STAMP, STAMP!!

Ok so you know how I was talking about the inspiration artists get from music, and I got on here thinking of what I could name today's post - and it just came to me as this Don Henley song immediately played in my mind:



It's so funny because my fingers were poised over the keys and I thought, All she wants to do is STAMP STAMP STAMP! as the chorus.

Today was a pretty hot day & I had a really awesome time running errands, having coffee with two fellow spouses that I'm hoping to get to now better in the weeks to come - and planning some projects to work on and share. The mailbox was generous once more and revealed another package of retired Stampin'Up sets - all about putting your own stamp on projects. I love being able to add a little element somewhere that I can date, sign or otherwise "authenticate" my artwork. Hey, you never know where your art might end up one day! :)

I've got lots to do this weekend with tidying and organizing the house so that I can get that out of the way and focus on my artwork next week. I'm itching to get all my inks and paints out, especially because I also want to try some projects from the many magazines that are threatening to take over my office.

Here's to warm sunny days, great coffee & even better company. It's in those little mundane, everyday events that you can find beauty and excitement to pour, in my case, into creative endeavors...