The world for a pen!

I'm sure all of you can understand this next scenario. You get a phone call. The person on the other end has some information to give you, that needs to be written down before you forget. Oh crap! Where, where, WHERE is a pen???  I grew tired of the hide and seek game that all the pens in our house was playing. When coming across a pen randomly laid out on our counter, or table, or floor, or laundry room, I would then walk it over to the side table in our living room. We have our couches in an L shape with a large square table in the corner. After a while I had gotten quite the collection. So much so that it was taking over and looking way too cluttered. But what to do with them all? I still wanted them to be accessible, but not neccesarily in the large heap pile they were in at the time.

The solution came to me in the kitchen. I was at the sink, cleaning out several items intended for the recycling bin. For supper the night before we had opened two cans of peas. And the cans looked like a perfect container for all the pens I had accumulated. So once the insides of the cans were clean, I then tore the labels off.

But they still needed a little something else. Don't you agree?

And yes, that is one HUGE pen there in the middle. My daughter bought it from a Mother's Day fundraiser at her school. What's that? You'd like to see it? I knew you'd ask ;)

All together now...awwww! I'm so loved

So I'd love to say that I covered the metal cans right away. My original thought was to cover them in scrapbooking paper, and scrapbooking embellishments. Lord knows I have enough laying around. But for some reason the task of measuring and cutting the paper was more than I felt I wanted to take on at the time. So there they say..in the metal cans for about a week.

Just as I was about to give in to the measuring and cutting of paper, another idea hit me. I still had some burlap leftover from my table runner for my tv stand that I could use, as well as some leftover fabric from another art piece.

I don't have pictures of the process of putting the cans together. Sorry, bad blogger! But I do have the after shots.

The first one is covered with some brown fabric, a little piece of webbing leftover from the same table runner, and a set aside piece from an old necklace.

I used my handy dandy glue gun to attach each of the fabrics to the can, with the seams lining up in the back. It still needed a little more embellishment. And what's better than using something you already have? I had bought a necklace a couple years ago, but never liked the tassel the hung from it. I had removed it before wearing the necklace, but didn't want to part with it.

I ran a piece of embroidery thread around the can to hang it from.

As for the second can, I wanted to go with something a little "frillier". I felt like the one above felt a little structured, so I wanted to soften the other one a little. It got covered with the burlap, white ribbon, and some white felt.

After seeing these felt pom pom flower type things all over blogland, I had been wanting to make one. I just hadn't had the right place or reason. It was perfect for this situation. Opposite of the first can, I left the unfinished seam in the front. I wanted to be able to see the fringe left on the top and seam. I then ran some white ribbon around the can with the seam also in the front so that it could be covered by the felt.

And there you have it. Recycled vegetable cans into functional but pretty pen and cord organization.

Pay no attention to the layer of dust on the lamp. Geez, what was I thinking??

But you get the idea. Now when I get those phone calls, I know exactly where to go for something to write with. No more hide and seek playing with the pens. Now just if the paper would come out of it's hiding, I'd be golden. It never ends!

Green in the new black

For the last few days I've been in full craft mode. I've looked at probably over 20 blogs, marveling over everyone's creativity. They inspired me to take a trip to my local Goodwill for my little diamonds in the rough. And I have to say, when you go looking for things that aren't perfect on purpose, it opens up your eyes to the possibilities.

Projects made from my finds are to come at a later date. But to begin with, I worked on a birthday present for a friend's daughter. There's something about this little girl. She is such a great child....warm, kind, compassionate, artistic, smart (oh-so-smart!), and an all around great kid. Of course her mom would say that she's a typical tween. But see, because I'm not her mom, I get to see all her good attributes. And this girl knows what is important to her as well. She has a great passion for being eco-friendly.

So for her birthday, I wanted to honor that. Other than a couple dollars spent, I used supplies that I already had around the house.

Supplies (I had everything on hand except for the ones with prices):
8x10 picture frame
3x3 picture frame ($1 at the Dollar Tree)
pages from an old book
mod podge
cardstock
green ribbon
green button
glue gun
printer photo paper

The project started off with the idea of making her a picture frame with rolled up magazine pages. I tried and tried to get them to roll up perfectly, but it just wasn't working for me. I couldn't find something small enough to get the rolled as tight as I wanted, but also to be able to get that item out of the middle of the roll. I tried and tried and finally gave up. That's when I had a lightbulb moment. Her and her family love to read. And I have a couple old Reader's Digest hardback books that I had bought a long time ago at a thrift store. I had used them at one point as decoration. But for now they were just collecting dust in a box. So how cool would it be to decoupage them all over these two frames?

I didn't think to take a before picture of the frames because I was so excited to start. So let's just use our imagination for a bit...lol. I took the glass and backing out of each of the frames. Located my bottle of mod podge and a small paintbrush. Then tore random pages from the books. (I'm not 100% sure of what the stories were in said book, but I tried to scan the pages for any bad words or inappropriate language. Sorry ahead of time if I missed anything...LOL) Then I commenced to tearing the pages into smaller, more manageable pieces. Using the paint brush I slathered the frame with mod podge, making sure to wrap the paper all the way around. Once I had it all covered, and it had dried, I then covered the whole thing in another layer of mod podge.

Again, beginning this project I had envisioned the 8x10 frame holding a mirror for her room. But the only mirror I found must not have been the right size because when I tried to put it in the back, I broke it. (Hope the 7 years of bad luck doesn't find me. I was just working off a few I broke quite some years ago) At first I was really bummed. But my inner crafter got to work on another idea. Using my skills in Photoshop I got to work on some artwork. I've drooled over typography art for some time but never had the guts to try it myself before now. Her name starts with an "h".....so I found one that I liked and covered it with tons and tons of other h's.

It was easier than I expected, but very time consuming. The perfectionist in me started out carefully placing them in just the right spots. But I soon had to give in at the end to just filling in space. I printed it out on offwhite colored cardstock. And I had already planned to print out a picture of her and her family that I took of them to put in the small frame.

But while I was extremely happy with how they turned out, they still both needed color. I chose to print their family picture in color, but it just didn't seem to be enough. So I did a search for "how to make paper flowers". I found a few but the one I really liked seemed perfect for this project. I found it here . So I got to work cutting out 1 inch strips of cardstock and more pages from the old book.

My first attempt at the flower started off really well. But as I got to the middle, it wasn't working out as well. The reason for that was that I don't have a regular sized stapler, therefore the staples I used weren't able to get to the very middle like the example on the blog showed.

But that didn't stop me. I gathered up another set of paper strips and started again. Only this time I tied them together with embroidery floss that I had on hand from making friendship bracelets with my daughter.

That did the trick.

I love the alternating book strips and colorful cardstock. It was perfect for adding a touch of color along with more pages from the book. With a little bit of help from my hot glue gun, I added some pretty touches with a button middle and ribbon leaves.

I then added a small paper flower embellishment to the small frame using the supplies I had on hand from this recent project.

I love how they turned out! I WILL be recreating the typography in some form for my own household. I don't know what form it will be in, but I must do my own! :)

The flower vase behind the frame is Brianna's.
But we made one for the birthday girl as well.

So if there's anyone reading that knows the intended recipient of these gifts, please don't ruin the surprise. It's going to be hard for me to keep these until her birthday. I usually give in and give people their gifts early. I'm horrible at keeping ahold of them until the right time. So I'm going to go ahead and wrap these up so that hopefully it will help me stay strong and not give in...lol :)