One Person's Trash....

Happy Monday! Birds are singing, sun is shining and the snow is melting (finally!)
Time for a new challenge at Heart 2 Heart! This week we have an early Earth Day challenge for you...reuse or recycle something on your project.  You can recycle something to use on a new card or layout, or raid the recycling bin to find something that can be re purposed.....save something from the landfill and give it a pretty new life!

I chose to recycle something that I know you all have....

empty ribbon spools!

I don't know about you, but I have a bag of these things in all sizes that I just can't bring myself to throw away. I knew there must be something they'd be good for, but I needed this challenge to kick me into gear and git er done! I picked out a few 2 1/2" diameter cardboard spools with nice 1" wide centers.

Here's what I transformed them into:

Pretty little Trinket Boxes!

These would be perfect for a small gift or party favor,

or just to keep trinkets in. (duh)

I made the pink one for my daughter to keep her guitar picks in.

Here are some close-ups for you:

Used CTMH X7133B Miracle Level 2 Paper kit and leftover Z1354 Miracle Irresistibles chipboard elements, bead and ribbon handle and trim from the scrap bin. Wanna know how I got that ribbon through the bead? I used a dental floss loop to pull the ribbon through the tiny bead hole. (I'm a dental hygienist, I got a million uses for floss!)

Used CTMH X7131B Sophia Level 2 Paper kit and repurposed a fabulous scrap of embroidered rose trim that I saved from a cute little sundress my DD wore when she was 4. (Yep, it's been in a ribbon scrap box for 8 years, I never throw away anything crafty)  Added a bead to anchor the CTMH crochet flower and paper flower together.

Covered this one with CTMH X7135B Wings Level 2 Paper kit,

rose made of Vineyard Berry cardstock from the scrap bin

and black ribbon remnants.

Google rolled paper roses to make these flowers,

there are a ton of video tutorials on YouTube.

Because I know you wanna know, I snapped a few pics to show you how I made these.  There are several tutorials out there in blogland, but I wasn't keen on the lid part on any of them, so I came up with a top that fits inside the trinket box to open and close easily.

First, carefully pry the top and bottom off of the ribbon spool,

I had to use a craft knife on a couple of them.

I salvaged a TP roll from the paper bin,

and found that it fit perfectly inside my ribbon spool tube:

So I sliced off 1/2" to use for my box top:

You now have all the parts needed to make the trinket boxes! 

I didn't take pictures of the decorating part, but here's what I did:

1. Cover the insides and outsides of the tubes, and both sides of the circles, with coordinating pattern papers. (I used CTMH Bonding Memories liquid glue so I would have a bit of play time before it dried to get the strips of paper lined up with the tubes.) Allow glue to dry.

2. Sand all the edges to get them nice and even and smooth, ink them too if you want to to hide the cardboard.

3. Poke a hole through the lid circle, and embellish the top with a ribbon handle knotted on each side of the hole to give it some strength. Don't want it pulling out!

4. Glue the narrow tube to the top circle, and the wide tube to the bottom circle. (I used CTMH Liquid Glass for this because it is super strong and easy to get a narrow bead on the cardboard edge.) Allow glue to dry.  Here's a pic of the insides:

5. You may want to give this a good coat of ModPodge or an acrylic spray sealer at this point to make it durable.

6. Trim with ribbon, beads, bling, and buttons...whatever floats your boat!

Surprisingly, these come together pretty quickly. I sat down to watch Survivor, and had one done before the show was over, so I kept going and made all three trinket boxes in 2 hours. I don't feel like such a big couch potato if I do something else while I watch TV:)  Recycling, crafting, photography and watching my shows all at the same time....it was a productive evening!

We want to see YOUR projects with re-used or recycled materials! Use your imagination, I'm sure you can find something in the trash that needs a new purpose. 

Need some inspiration? 

Check out what the H2H DT has to offer this week! 

These gals ROCK at turning trash to treasures!

Link your artwork up to H2H to play along.  Remember it's a CTMH challenge, so please try to use some CTMH products on it to be eligible for the Top 10 and prizes from our generous sponsors,

Michelle Zimmerman of Life's LITTLE Things and

LeAnne Dudley of Dudleychick Designs. 

**Heads up! Next week, on April 18,  Heart 2 Heart Challenges will be hosting our first ever Bunny HOP! We're looking for Easter or Spring themed projects.  Check out H2H for details if you would like to bunny hop with us!

Thanks for visiting my blog today!

Please leave a comment so I know you stopped by :)

To celebrate my birthday this Wednesday(or as I prefer to call it - my 14th anniversary of the day I turned 29 -having to do math distracts people from actually counting the candles ;), and to celebrate reaching 300 followers this past week, I'm going to give the Wings black/rose and Miracle blue/green trinket boxes to one lucky commenter. Open to all my fabulous followers, so if you've just been getting this feed in Goggle Reader click on over and sign up!  Please leave me a blog link or email (sally at gmail dot com) in your comment so I can contact you if you win.

Lorrinda

Need a little gift bag?

This is my second post today, can you believe it? I've actually had these done for a few days, but am only getting a chance to post them to my blog now.  I'm sure you are all having a crazy week too!

Need a last minute pretty package for a little gift or stocking stuffers? Why not use up some of that ancient printed paper or cardstock that you have laying around? (Admit it, you have stuff that you bought because it was on sale and have never used...)

Try these simple 2-5-7-10 boxes.  A full tutorial can be found HERE at Splitcoast Stampers.

Each of these were made with a single 81/2 x 11" sheet of double sided cardstock. This particular paper was in a bulk pack from Costco that I have had forever. The stamp is from SU, cut circles out of coordinating cs with my Cricut.  Used a length of twill ribbon threaded through holes to fasten the top.

I needed these to be a bit taller, so I used a 12x11"  sheet of Costco cardstock, used the same score measurements of 2-5-7-10 along the 11" side, and altered the score lines on the 12" side to 2" and 10 1/2" (see tutorial).  I cut the tags with my Cricut and Storybook cartridge, used CTMH stamps C1427 I Believe and C1379 Holiday Commentary with gold embossing powder. To make the fastener for these, I threaded a loop of stretchy gold cord through a pierced hole, and knotted it at the inside so it stays. The loop can be hooked around a gold brad to keep the top closed. Embellished with a bit of gold ribbon, a bit of bling and some punched pine branches.

I think both sizes turned out pretty nice, and these came together very quickly.

Best of all, they were made from stuff I had in my stash!

Merry Christmas!

Lorrinda

Christmas Card MOJO

I am trying to get into Christmas Card mode.

It's tough to think Christmas now, but last year I was scrambling to finish up my cards at the last minute,

and I swore to myself that this year I would get a head start.

Last year, at Thanksgiving, I gave away gift boxes of Christmas cards to my family. 

 I made bulk cards, 6 each of 12 different designs.

I was browsing my pics and came across these from last year,

and thought I would share some Christmas mojo with you.

Here is the box I made:

And here are the cards that were inside:



They all loved the cards

.

I asked them to return the box and I promised to refill it for them this year.

I have a few new cards made, but I still have a lot more to do.

I'll share them here when they are all done.

Thank you for visiting my blog,

Lorrinda



A card they're sure to keep! (and a tutorial)

Ever wonder what happens to the cards you give? After they ooh and aah, and say thank you for the handmade card?  If they're crafters like us, they display them for a while , then maybe put them in a box. If they're not crafty, the card we slaved over may even end up in the (gasp) garbage. (Just being honest here, not everyone keeps everything like we do).

And that's OK with me.

Really.

But for those really special birthdays, you know which ones I mean...the ones with a 0 on the end?

The ones that celebrate our 'experience'?

Those birthdays require more than 'just a card', those ones deserve some thought and reflection. 

I am reflecting here because my little sister is turning 40 next week.  My younger sister.  When the hell did that happen? She's just a kid!  That makes me.....oh crap, never mind. Back to my post...

This card/book requires a little bit of research. You may even need to take a few notes, but I promise it is worth it for the reaction you'll get when they open this one. THIS card gets passed around for everyone to read. THIS card won't end up in the gabage. THIS card gets displayed in the family room.  THIS card will get passed around the room at their retirement party. THIS card takes some time to make, so you may want to save it for someone you REALLY like.

You can click on the pictures below to get a larger detailed view if you want to read the text.

I have made a few of these now, and have had several requests for instructions. Since I couldn't share my little basket template with you earlier this week, I decided to do up a tutorial for you! 

Read on if you're interested:

Warning, this first part is boring. Reminded me of school...hang in there, the creative part is up next!

First you need to do a bit of research to get the events of the year we are celebrating. In this case, my sister was born in 1970.  Some great sites are wikipedia and the people's history,  you may want to take some notes.

Then you need to compile your info into tidy little topics. For this card I chose astrology, economy, politics, science and technology, entertainment highlights, popular tv shows, movies and music, and famous people born in the same year. Other topics could be sports highlights, nobel prize winners, world events...whatever you want! Don't let me lose you here, those site links I gave you have all the info rather sorted for you already. It's really not that much work.

I organized these for printing using PrintShop 2, but Word would probably work too. Place 4 equal text boxes on your page, and place your info into these boxes. I needed 3 pages to contain all of mine. Don't forget to spell check! You don't want to find a typo after you've glued a piece down. Don't ask me how I know, just trust me. I saved mine into a file so I can find them again. (You never know when you may need this info again!) Then print them out and they should look roughly like this:

Now for the creative part! (if I haven't already lost you back at research)

You will need coordinating papers. I used CTMH papers from the Veranda Level 2 kit. I love these CTMH kits, perfectly coordinated colors, all the time. No guesswork. And they tell us which inks match. Almost makes it too easy!

I used:

2 colors of cardstock...A cut 2:  5 1/2 x 7"

                                   B cut 3:  5 1/2 x 7"

3 coordinating patterned papers...cut 3 of each:  4 1/2 x 6"

Now, ink up all the edges for a nice distressed look. This card represents the 70's after all, that was DECADES ago! On the patterned papers you only need to ink up the front, but for the cs I suggest inking both sides since they will be visible front and back.

Score the all cs pieces at 1/2 inch along one long side to create an edge for binding. This is so the pages open easily, and lie nice and flat when open. You don't need a scoring board for this, I just use my bone folder in the track of my paper trimmer instead of the blade.

Now use up some of those patterned paper scraps to make tabs.

You'll need 5. I used a tab punch, but you can use circles or even paper strips.

Whatever strikes your fancy.

Organize the pages for your book in the order you want them. Now line up those tabs evenly along the cs pages before you glue them on. These tabs fit perfectly. I planned it that way...not. Sometimes I just luck out!

 FYI, the tabs are 1 3/8" wide at the base.

WHO's puffy fingers are THOSE?

Once you have all your cs pages tabbed, it's time to trim the text blocks we made earlier. I rough cut the pages into 4 blocks, then trimmed them to measure 4 x 5 1/2 "

Now distress them too, and stamp a pattern on them if you want.

Now, adhere the text boxes to the patterned paper

in whatever order you prefer.

There are those bloated fingers again! How do they keep sneaking into MY pictures? I wish she would get a manicure like those crafty ladies on youtube...they look so pretty...

Then adhere the patterned layered peices onto the cardstock pages. It will look best if you center the mat between the score line and the opposite edge of the paper.

When all the pages are done, it's time to embellish!

Note: if using brads or anything that may show through the back, you may want to embellish the patterned pieces before you stick them down onto the cs to hide the hardware. Maybe I should have mentioned this with the last photo. Sorry!

Here's a tip if you stuck something down prematurely (or crookedly!) and need to get it off without tearing your paper, use waxed dental floss! It really works, even with my Scotch ATG gun. Just slide a long piece of floss between the corner of the pages stuck together. and work it back and forth through to the opposite side. (I'm a paid dental professional, trust me, floss fixes everything!!! It's my duct tape)

I used flowers, fancy brads, half pearls, coiled wire thingies, and antique looking hinges, all from CTMH.  

To bind the edge, I used the pewter hinges. But you could use a cropadile to punch holes and attach eyelets to the first and last pages and tie a ribbon through. Use whatever you want!

At the end of this post are some other examples of Birthday Yearbook Cards that I have done differently.

This tutorial is just a simple guideline, and is easy to alter in any way you want! Change the sizes, use more or less pages, there's no wrong way here.


Now you may want a pretty way to package this up, since it won't fit into an ordinary envelope. I have used padded envelopes in the past, but this time I thought I'd make a custom box. Here's how I make mine:

That sticky note says: measure the item you want to put into the box. Determine the length and the width. I made mine bigger so I could include a half-fold letter. My measurements here are 8 1/2" x 6 1/4".
 Now determine how deep you need your box to be. For this card I made it 1/2 inch deep. Add that 1/2 inch to all 4 sides, the math on this one made it 8.5+0.5+0.5  x 6.25+0.5+0.5 = 9 1/2" x 7 1/4".

Cut 2 pieces of cs this size (9 1/2 x 7 1/4"), one for the bottom and one for the top.
Now, score the 1st piece at 1/2 inch on all 4 sides. Score the 2nd one at just a hair less than 1/2 inch on all 4 sides. This is to be the top, and needs to be just a hair bigger then the bottom so it goes on and off easily.

Snip in with your scissors on the corners as shown in the photo to make the tabs to be folded in, assemble your box halves by using adhesive on the tabs. Check to make sure they fit together.

Did I lose you there? Just try it, all gift boxes are basically the same construction.

Feel free to decorate the top!

I also cut little slots into the sides to make opening easier, used a small circle punch:

Now package up your creation!

Happy Birthday Teri!

(Her birthday is on June11, so I better get this in the mail!)

I can post this now because she's out of the country...her hubby surprised her with a trip to Europe for her birthday, isn't he sweet?  I'm pretty sure she won't be lurking on the internet while she's vacationing in Europe (without their kids ;)

Here are some other Birthday Yearbooks I have made in the past.

I know I made more, but I forgot to take pictures of some of them. Let this be a lesson, take pictures of everything, you never know when you'll need them...

 

 

These may seem like alot of work, but you only have to make them once. Birth years don't change! Eventually everyone in my family will have one.

I hope I didn't bore you with this very long tutorial!

Thanks for visiting my blog,

Lorrinda