Mother's Day Treasure Hunting. Vintage Pocket Watch Case

You know your family loves you when they give you Michaels gift cards for Mother’s day. Thanks guys!

You know they totally get you, when they take you to an outdoor flea / farmer’s market and wait patiently while you look at all the stuff and can’t make up your mind which of several vintage pocket watch cases to purchase.

It didn’t hurt that there were vintage comics for College Boy to look at and vintage car books for Mr. C. to look at.

I love imagining the history behind this (who carried it? was it a gift from a special love or handed down from father to son?) and thinking about what I’m going to do with it. Will I do one big focal piece or a mini collage inside? I’m pretty sure I’ll fill it with resin.

I haven’t decided if I’ll use this watch themed paper or something completely unrelated to watches. Or, whether I’ll use it in a bigger piece or as a piece of jewelry. I wear big chunky stuff so I can see some chain and crystals involved.

No matter, we had a great time ( the guys actually  got more stuff than I did!) and it was the perfect way to spend Mother’s Day with the two most special guys I know and love.

BFF Open House Link Party #52: Wrap Up and Features!

I hope all the Moms had a fantastic Mother’s Day. College boy is home and we had a wonderfully fun day yesterday, beginning with breakfast cooked by Mr. Chocolate. Thanks guys!

Once again, so many great ideas linked up to last week’s party. Here are just a few:

Ashley, from Cherished Bliss shared this adorable Mason Jar party cups. These were for her daughter’s birthday party but could easily be adapted for a shower, or a Memorial Day or Fourth of July barbecue.

Bethany, from A Fish Who Likes Flowers solves one of my persistent problems: what to do with paper scraps. She made these fantastic package bows. If I was smart, I’d make up a bunch of these to have on hand!

This is my kind of flower pot: Chocolate! Back for Seconds shared these adorable flower pots that would be fun to pair with Ashley’s lemonade cups:

She also has a tutorial on how to make the pretzel stick flowers.

Washi tape is everywhere and Fonda from Southern Scraps shared a fantastic project using it:

So many possibilities and you could easily add one of Bethany’s scrap paper bows.

Finally, Andrea from Decorating Cents shared her low cost VERY high impact sunburst mirror ( and I want her wall!!!)

Thanks everyone! Make it a creative week!

Happy Mother's Day!

My PicMonkey addiction continues.  Wishing all of you creative and amazing  Moms a wonderful  Mother’s Day.

These are some pics I took at Seattle’s Pike Place Market last weekend, and played around with using PicMonkey this weekend. I’d give each of you a bouquet of these if I could! The first pic uses a paint filter to fill in the blank space while maintaining the photo. I added the butterflies and the text.

This one I converted to B&W, added film strip edges and a canvas like texture. 

This one I framed with a Polaroid effect and used a color shot option to make everything but the center black and white. 

And this one, I just cropped , framed with photo corners and added a color mat.

Have fun today whatever you do!

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Sherwin Williams Paint Chip Picker Has Created A Monster

It’s not exactly like I need another online thing to play with but in fairness, I didn’t go looking for this. I actually found it in this month’s Food Network magazine.

So what does a paint palette picker ( say that 3 times fast) have to do with a sandals?  Technically nothing. But this little tool from Sherwin Williams is  so cool for anyone who does any kind of designing.

You enter the URL of any online  picture in the box on their “Let’s Chip It” site, and up pops a color palette. It’s intended to help you pick a paint palette but there are all kinds of possibilities. You can also add a tool to your toolbar and they have a video that explains both options.   BTW, they don’t even know I’m posting this and I have no connection w/ them. I just thought it was  fun.

Here’s it’s probable intended use…picking a décor palette to go with some fabric you may have fallen in love with:

But let’s say you fell in love with a pair of those orange sandals and wanted to build an outfit around them? Purely hypothetically speaking of course not at all suggesting that I have fallen in love with a pair of those orange sandals or anything.

Or, let’s say a certain paper addict is attacked by some scrapbook paper:

and is looking for which coordinating cardstock to buy to go with it….or...or...or....

You can save your chips ( you have to log in w/ your Facebook ID ) or you can just keep entering URLs to get ideas.  Happy Saturday!

BFF Open House Link Party #52: Mother's Day Edition!

Gosh it feels like I just blink and it’s Friday again. The problem is that the weekends go by even faster.

All that blinking left me w/ out a BFF to feature this week. I am sure you’ve all been busy whipping up Mother’s Day, Teacher Appreciation, Graduation and End of Year ideas as well as DIYing , upcycling and making over!

I am getting the BEST Mother’s Day present. College Boy comes home on Saturday!!! Can’t wait. OK let’s party!

Pink Poppies and Butterfly Cards

I’m not normally drawn to pinks but you might remember the Recollections “Fashionably Chic” paper stack that attacked me at Michaels:

There are several patterns within each color family  and the pink papers immediately reminded me of two ladies I know. I think the flowers are poppies but Martha and I part ways at gardening so whatever they are, I liked them and chose a couple of coordinating papers from the stack.

Made my cards (5x7) and covered with the coordinating papers. Mounted the floral paper onto some lightweight cardstock and then trimmed around the flowers, spritzed them with Elmer’s spray adhesive, and then a good shake of Recollections extra fine iridescent glitter. 

The swirly embellishment is a Memory Box steel die. The chipboard butterfly is from a package of chipboard shapes I found at Michael’s (20 pieces for $1) by Studio 18.

 

Finished off the cards with coordinating self adhesive rhinestones I had in my stash.

Fortunately  I can deliver these cards  in person because they would cost me more to mail them than to make them.

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Recollections "Fashionably Chic Mother's Day Cards

I’ve confessed my paper addiction before. It’s not getting any better. I wasn’t even looking for paper when I walked past the paper stack section at Michaels and Recollections “Fashionably Chic” jumped off the shelf at me. Practically attacked me. It did!

The cover doesn’t do it justice. It repeats the same series of patterns in several colors and within a color family, you can mix the patterns.

I  made several different cards because I always like to recognize the special women in my life on Mother’s Day.

For the first card, I glued the scrapbook paper to a piece of cardstock to give some body, and then cut out the flower, hit it with a spray of adhesive and glittered it.

I used another piece of the same floral paper and a piece with a coordinating damask print for base panel of the card . Used foam dots to adhere the glittered flowers to the card.

For this one, I used a different floral pattern and dotted the inside of the flowers with iridescent Stickles. For the focal flower, I used Tim Holtz Alterations Tattered Floral die and cut the flowers using my Cuttlebug.

I don’t like to waste pretty paper so I use scraps to make embellishments to use in cards and other projects. This double sided tape I got at my local stamp store and is by a company called Sookwang. You can also use this tape to make your own washi tape.

I also played with another color combination from the stack:

I'm telling you. Paper just jumped off the shelf at me. Really.

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