Father's Day Card Handmade

Father's Day Card, a photo by b-a-boop on Flickr.

My handmade card for dad for Father's Day. That's an old photo of my big sis & I in his lap probably in 1959.

Last Minute Recycled Gift Bag

Finally a crafty post instead of a reconstruction one.

We got a last minute invitation to a birthday party for our friend's son. I managed to squeeze in some shopping time for a present, but when I looked through my stash, I had no wrapping paper or bags fit for a 6 year old. Most of my craft supplies, glues sticks, glues, etc. are all packed away in storage while we're doing our home renovation, so I couldn't make my usual upcycled gift bag. But if you save enough junk like I do, you can always find something usable. Another of my friends (who's received a few of my recycled calendar gift bags) now hands me down her calendars at the end of the year & I found one stashed in the bookshelf. I also had a Williams Senoma shopping bag. I just cut out 2 cute pages from the calendar & taped them on the bag. Since the sides of the bag said williams-senoma.com down them, I cut a strip of some used wrapping paper that said 'Happy Birthday' and taped over that too. Quick, easy & pretty cute to boot!

Miniature Journal Pendants

I’ve been working on these for a few weeks. I was inspired by a metal charm in the shape of a book. I decided to recycle a bunch of junk mail, scrap paper, magazines and clip art from an old letrastat catalog (picked up in thrift store). I’ve never handmade a zine or book before, I figured a mini one would be a good start. The journals only have about 8 pages, depending on how small you can write, you could jot down your favorite words, spell out your loved ones name one page at a time, or paste in mini photos & use it like a locket. Not sure yet if I’ll just be adding ball chains, or making ribbon or chord necklaces, or just listing them as the pendant alone. How would you hang or list them?
Coming up in the jewelry section of The Reformatory.

Valentine Crafting

My husband & I don’t buy in to the commercialized Valentine’s Day crap of expensive jewelry and dinners out. We usually just make each other small tokens of our love. He made me some chocolate & coconut covered strawberries, YUM!!! And he added a post on his flickr page for me.

I made him a framed valentine. Some old photos I saw at an antique fair I visited last week inspired me. They were photos of couples in art deco like cardboard studio frames. I created an art deco design for the frame & planned to edit a photo of us with sepia. Realizing I didn’t have any photos of us that were right for the project, I decided to just do something artsy of myself (always fun trying to jump in front of the camera after you set the timer). He loved it & took it to work & hung it up.