Discarded Books into Cards

After wandering through some second-hand stores lately, I've noticed there are a lot of discarded books in pretty poor condition and I wanted to give them a new life. My new repurposing project was to turn some of the illustrations in these books into new blank greeting cards. With the help of some other repurposed items, like fancy paper from other used greeting cards and envelopes, I took the old illustrations and added a little of my own flare to each card. I personally love the look of old meets new in these cards. This project is great for scrapbookers and a very affordable project for anyone. I recommend picking up some cheap young adult books at your local second-hand store for the illustrations. You might also start looking at paper you would normally just throw away in a whole new way. Ask yourself, can I use the paper in this [insert item here] for a greeting card?

It's cheaper than Hallmark and eco-friendly!

Some of the illustrations in the pictures above are from vintage books such as, "On Your Toes, Susie!" and "Shadow of a Bull."

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Fancy Watering Cans

On a typical day of creativity, I don't usually go for decorating watering cans, but these were a donation to a local art benefit that specifically wanted decorated watering cans. I tried to make them a little more unique than just painting flowers on them. Both projects are fairly cheap to do and I think they make a great artsy piece for your backyard. The gold watering can required fabric/puff paint and gold spray paint. The fabric paint (any color) was used to create an embossed pattern and when finished, I sprayed the gold spray paint over the entire can. The other can was decorated to look like a quilt. It required scrap fabric, acrylic paint, and decoupage. First, I cut out uniform sized squares of the fabric and glued them on the can (checker board style) with the decoupage. After they dried, I painted the remaining areas of the can with paint, let it dry, and put a final coat of decoupage over the entire surface. Voila! Fancy watering cans.

Noticed I haven't posted a whole lot of Momoko doll designs lately? I'm saving them up for debut at IFDC in Las Vegas in a couple weeks. Stay tuned for some great designs.

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Repurposing, Notebooks and More

Using vintage books and stamps, I've put together some notebooks with blank pages. It's amazing what can be done with things people just throw away. The first notebook is about the size of a postcard and has pages of an old book called Shadow of a Bull collaged into the cover with a teapot painted on top of it. I have a thing for the Kawaii food with faces images. The second notebook is an ATC (artist trading card) with stamps collaged into it. Collect those stamps from your mail and you could make a great cover to a sketchbook for yourself!

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Bachelorette Party Craftiness

In an effort to provide a bachelorette party that coordinated with the colors of a friend's wedding, I decided to make the invitations and make them look a little more classy. A fun piece of advice when making cards - sew ribbon or fabric onto the cardstock. It definitely stands out. Making invites versus store-bought ones can also be handy because you don't have to write the same information multiple times. Since I had some extra paper after making the invites, I also made a notebook titled, "Notes for the Bride," in which people at the party can write personal messages to the bride to be. At the bottom of each page in the book is a little saying such as, "Last fling before the ring," among other more witty quotes. Another tip - consider looking online for some free fonts to make your cards extra unique.

All the fabulous invites have already been sent out, but these are the remainders.

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