Day 16

Today I was stumped for ideas.  I looked online, I looked in my books, I looked at all my craft items and I was coming up blank.  As I was looking around the room I found a candy box from Valentine's Day.  I had picked up two mini boxes of chocolates, one for me and one for Stan.  Four little delicious pieces of chocolatey goodness.  Stan loves to save boxes, he just adores them.  So we had these two laying around and I found a use for at least one!

I decided to make a gift box.  I had some Spring themed cardstock, and quilling paper.  I originally was going to make a flower motif on the cover, but I didn't have enough of the yellow quilling paper so decided on this design instead.  In the pictures, you can still see the white of the glue, but it will dry clear. 

The box is tiny, so it will be nice to put some jewelry or some other small trinket in it. 

BEFORE:

TOP AFTER:

SIDE AFTER:

 BOTTOM AFTER:

TOP & INSIDE AFTER:

Day 14

Two weeks into the challenge and I'm a bit surprised I have stuck with this.  I think it has to do with the love of crafting and not so much the ability to follow through with stuff!  Anyone who knows me knows I get bored easily!  I see other people's blogs, who are doing this challenge and a lot of them stick with one craft theme.  I was thinking about doing that, but I know that would be the beginning of the end!  I need variety. 

Today's craft was more of a lesson for me then an actual craft project, but I feel it still counts!  I had picked up this book called "Drawing Lab: 52 Creative Exercises To Make Drawing Fun" and the first exercise in the book is called "Cats in Bed".  The book is fantastic, it basically takes the fear of a blank page away from you.  Anyone who has sat down to draw has felt that fear or anxiety, I'm sure.  The instructions for this exercise were simple.  Get a piece of white card stock, a pen and get into bed.  Once in bed, draw cats!  Simple, easy, nothing fancy cats.  Being a self described "crazy cat lady", this exercise was right up my alley.  And since one of our cats, Cody, was on the bed next to me kneading the blankets, I used him as my muse.  He was thrilled at the idea of being captured on paper, let me tell you.  Once I explained what I was doing to him, he quit kneading and proceeded to clean my forehead.  (See, I told you...crazy cat lady!)

Here is the book cover:

And the exercise I did:

And here are the cats I drew, sort of hard to see so making the picture bigger (yeah, they look insane, but they are cute if nothing else):

Day 6

I admit it, I sort of cheated tonight.  All I can say is "I bow to you, Ms. Martha Stewart".  I get daily emails from Ms. Martha and this bookmark was one I received the other day.  Complete with template...yeah, I said I cheated!  I printed the bookmark template on the colored cardstock, cut it out, cut out the collar, added the magnet tape, folded here and there, and VOILA!  Instant bookmark!!  Hey, it's a craft!  Tonight is TV night with Stan so I didn't want to interfere with time that could be yelling at Zack on Ghost Adventures (geeze, I really can't stand him!), so here is my cute little magnet bookmark!

Day 5

Hallmark watch out!  Okay, well maybe not.  I did have other ideas, but I realized that they would take more then a day to finish.  Since I only have an hour or two when I get home at night, I think my options are going to be limited.  Maybe once I get into a better routine, I'll be able to whip out more advanced projects.  In the meantime, here is another card.  This one will go in the "when needed" box for now, so I didn't designate it an occasion. 

The design is a stamp that I inked and stamped two different times on yellow paper.  I cut both designs out and colored them in, and then used a 3D pop dot to stack the designs to get the popped effect.  I like it lots!  Once I find a use for the card, I'll add words and maybe some other decorations, but for now, it's perfect! 

Day 2

I'll be honest, it's only Day 2, and I'm tired. It took me all day to think of something to craft after I got home, exercised, showered, made dinner...you get the idea. But I'm happy to say I didn't give up after one day and I came up with something to make, something I actually need no less!


I am an avid book collector. I actually had to purchase another bookcase yesterday for the tons of books I have teetering in towered piles all over the bedroom. So what does a book freak always need? Bookmarks of course!!! I think this may be my go to craft when I run out of ideas, because seriously, I could make one every single day for the whole year and probably still need more.

I was very pleased with the "front" of the bookmark, but I'm not to keen on the "back". I went to dark with some of the clippings and it really doesn't look right, but that's the good thing about a two sided craft, just keep the nicer side facing out!

FRONT:



BACK: