My 31 Day Challenge - Day 3

The Social Work Intern at my school is expecting her second child.  Friday is her last day with us.  I made her this box to keep all the important momentos from the baby's first year.  I followed Marion Smith's directions, (here) with a few altered measurements, to make the box.  The paper is from DCWV Nanna's Nursery (Baby Boy).  When you open the box, this is what you'll find:

I hope she likes it.  

For those of you keeping track Day 3 without buying any pattern paper (just 242 days to go).

My 31 Day Challenge - Day 2

Today's project- Vintage Altered Box

I bought this box (paper mache) from Hobby Lobby.  I painted it English Navy, glued torn pattern paper on top and then used a medium antiquing stain over the entire box.  I then glued vintage findings to the top.  The rhinestone flourish is by Prima Marketing (as are the ones on the sides of the box).  The roses are from the Dollar Tree.  The feet of the box were made from wooden flower pots painted blue (and stained) and then glued to the bottom.  

Pics of the sides:

This will be going to a friend in a swap with me.  Thanks for looking!

My 31 Day Challenge - Day 1

I know what you're thinking, "what on earth is she doing now?"  I few days ago, I stumbled upon Marion Smith's 31 Day Challenge (here YouTube channel, here).  She really doesn't have a lot of requirements, just do one project a day for 31 days.  So I'm going to give this a try.   The project I took on today, taking this pile of scrap paper and organizing it in a way that will be useful to me.  I used to organize my scrap pieces by color (all reds together, etc), then I organized them by size (all 12" strips together, all pieces smaller than 4x4 together, etc).  I found I never went back to those piles when I was making a card.  So I took this pile and I separated the pattern paper ( putting coordinating patterns together).  Then I put the solid scraps that matched the pattern paper together.  I ended up with 25 bags like this:

Now, I just reach for a bag when I need to make a card.  An on going challenge for me:  NOT buy another piece of pattern paper for the rest of this year.  We'll see, I'll be lucky if I can keep to that for the month of May.  If I successfully use up this stash, I'll move on and do the same with my boxes of  (6x8, 6x6, and 4x6) papers.  On thing at a time. 

TUIC April Challenge #2

Heather (Stamping Mommy) is hosting the second of our blog group's April Challenges.  Her challenge to use the saying "April showers bring May flowers" as your inspiration.  The paper is scrap from my stash, the flowers were made from taking a stem of silk flowers apart and gluing dew drops in the center.  The image is from The Greeting Farm (I got it in an image swap).  I colored her hair and skin with Copic markers and the rest of her was colored with Bic permanent markers and Faber-Castill India Ink markers. TFL!

TUIC April Challenge #1

Jenn (Jax Bean Stalks) is hosting (one of) the blog group's April challenges.  Her challenge to use the newspaper on your card.  I chose to make flowers.  I used Sizzix Flower Die #3, the centers were make from an EK Success punch with a pearl or rhinestone brad to hold them together.  The image is from a cracker box.  I don't know which I like more the box the crackers come in or the taste of the crackers.  I can only get them at the Korean grocery store, the entire box is written in Korean so I can't even give you the name of them.  They are sesame seed crackers with sugar sprinkled on top, yes the perfect sweet/salty mix.  TFL!