Altered Matchboxes....

Hey Girls....

I've been on a bit of a crafting streak lately and have been busy working away in my craft room.

Last weekend, I made two new altered match boxes.  One of which I will keep for myself and one that I made for a family member who will receive her Christmas gift of cash wrapped up in a special and pretty way.

The match box I will be keeping for myself has my favorite colors of blue and pink...

  

 

 

And this is the one that will be used to hold a gift of money at Christmas time...

 

This weekend, I was busy altering some more wooden spools and I will share those soon in another post.

Until then... Take care.!!

Random Stuff...

Hi Girls...

I hope you've been enjoying your weekend.  It's been a beautiful Fall weekend here in Minnesota with temps in the 50's and lots of sunshine.  A very nice change after what seemed like weeks of cloudy days.

The sunshine has made it much easier to get some good crafting done as the lighting is so much better in my craft room.  This is a collage I made on Saturday...

I'm making a point to try and just use leftover scraps of paper in my collages before I start cutting and tearing up any new pieces.  A good way to be frugal and get your money's worth out of your paper.  I probably take it to the extreme at times.  Someday, I'll have to show you my box of small scraps that I just can't get myself to throw away. It's almost embarrassing really, but I just never know when I may need that one small piece to add to a project I am working on. 

 

 

And on a related note about frugality, I've been visiting some local libraries over the past few weekends that have been having their Fall book sales on the hunt for some super cheap and unusual books with foreign language text, unusual fonts and graphics whose inside pages can be torn out and used as backgrounds in my collages.  A few weeks ago I found a paperback French/English textbook  with lots of French script. It wasn't very old, but I was able to age it a bit using some of my favorite Tim Holtz Distress Ink.  You can see in the photos above how I used part of a page from the book in this collage.

And my great find at another book sale yesterday was this vintage German/English readers book published in 1934.  This book only cost me $1.00.

 

In addition to it having foreign language text, it has some very unusual but pretty font. Another major plus.

I've already torn out one page to use in another collage that I started earlier today...

 

I just have the background done on this one. Waiting for the Mod Podge to completely dry before I start playing around and deciding what else I will add to the collage to make it complete.  I'll show you the end result soon.

 

Well, that's it for today... Enjoy the rest of your weekend!!!

 

 

Pretty Crafting...

Just popping in for a quick visit to say hello in hopes that you haven't forgotten about me.  Something I can't blame you for if you have beings I've been such a terrible blogger lately.

I guess my heart just isn't in it as much as it used to be and I'm finding it harder and harder as time goes by to even find the motivation to put up a new blog post.

But here I am today to share with you two of my latest altered canvas pieces which I made this weekend. 

 

 

I hope all is going well with all of you and that you have been having a wonderful Fall so far...

Take care...

Inside Peaks Of My Altered Vintage Cash Ledger Book....

Hi Girls,

Yes, it's been another long stretch of time since my last post, but I'm back for the moment to share a few inside pages from my altered vintage "Cash Book" that I shared in my last post.

I love how they are looking so far and can't wait to continue embellishing each page.

Well, I can't believe that summer is almost over.  I hope you've been enjoying yours as much as I have mine.

Take care and thanks for stopping by to visit.

Yes, I'm Still Alive...

But I have pretty much lost all motivation for blogging. 

Something that probably doesn't surprise you considering as how I've pretty much dropped off the face of the earth and haven't posted anything new in almost a month and a half.

I am fine however and doing very well.  And I wanted to let all of my loyal followers know that in case you may have been wondering what happened to me. 

I've been working, enjoying the summer weather and of course doing lots of crafting when I have time.

These are just a few of my latest creations that I had photographed weeks ago but never blogged about.

A shabbified 8x10 canvas panel using leftover scraps of paper from an earlier project.

 

And a smaller piece to which I added a chipboard dress form.  I even dressed the dress form using the coordinating back side of the paper that I used as the background.  I love this paper. Both sides of the paper had the prettiest patterns and colors and I was glad I was able to use both sides in this little project.  I love how cute it turned out....

And to close out this post, I had been on the hunt for months for some more vintage ledger books/journals to alter like the one I did last summer, which you can read about here , but I had not had any luck in finding any in the antique shops, so I went online and shopped both on EBay and Etsy where I found two that were in very good condition and were affordable.  They both arrived in the mail on the same day.  The one I purchased on Etsy even had a few extra treats tucked inside the book.  That was a nice surprise.

I've already made a great start in altering the "Cash" book and I will hopefully share more about that with you in the not so far future. 

Until then, keep on enjoying life and what's left of this quickly dwindling summer.

Pinterest Inspired Crafting......

Hi Girls..

My name is Kim and I am a Pinterest addict.  

But that's a good thing I think because I have gotten so many great craft ideas as there is just so much inspiration out there when it comes to crafting ideas.  YouTube is another great place to go for inspiration and tutorials.

My latest project is a Pinterest and YouTube inspired paper bag mini album that I made using paper bags and scrapbook papers.  Six bags were used for this project. As recommended in several of the YouTube videos I watched, I chose to use the "Celebrate It" brand of paper bags from Michael's which are more a bit more sturdy than your standard lunch bags.

So without further ado, here is my first paper bag mini album from front to back...

I've made two of them so far and I love how both of them turned out. I can't wait to make more of them.  They were very easy to make and actually went together very quickly.

Definitely another fun project to make.

See you again soon!!!

My Latest Altered Thrift Store Find....

Hi Girls..

This is going to be one of those posts with lots of pictures so beware.

I recently altered a small boring wood planter box that I purchased at the Goodwill store for $2.99 using some spray primer, Martha Stewart craft paint and some pretty coordinating floral patterned scrapbook paper which I adhered with Modge Podge.

This was what it looked like when I first started, after sanding the planter...

 

 

The next step after spraying with primer was to give it two coats of Martha Stewart craft paint.  The paint color is called "Cloud"...

 

And to regress for just a moment, before starting anything, I first sized and precut all the paper pieces I would need.  Kind of like puzzle pieces waiting to be put together...

 

 



And to get back on track, once the paint was dry, I got out my trusty bottle of Modge Podge and adhered all the precut pieces into place.  And this is the end result...

 

 

 

This was definitely another fun alteration project and I hope you enjoyed seeing how it went from start to finish.

I'm going to keep this in my craft room to hold some of my crafting supplies.

See you again soon!!!