Gift for baby bro

My little brother graduated college this past Saturday. I started his gift about a month or so, as soon as I read about Flickr's letter pools. He's moving into a new place and I thought he could use some cool artwork.

Basically, people take pictures of letters on signage all around. I spent hours sifting through photos, trying to figure out the perfect combination (there are thousands!). Since most of the photos aren't a standard photo size, I resized them all with a black border. I just so happened to find a frame at Ross with the correct number of spaces for Bryan's name. If you aren't so lucky, you could always buy a blank poster frame and have a matte cut.


This pool finds letters in everyday things like bicycle wheels or hand railing.


I think these would make great personalized gifts!

Mother's Day!

I made mom this little package for Mother's Day.

In my effort to think greener I used a leftover box from a lunch we had catered at work, then shredded down a couple of paper bags for stuffing.


I laid out a polka dot pattern and printed a couple of 11x17 sheets at work. The house is crazy and I had no clue where ANY ribbon was, so I used this head scarf I made years ago. Printed out a label, ran it through the xyron and viola!

I added in a pedegg, some chocolate covered popcorn from Crave Chocolatier, and a sewing jar.


Sewing kit in a jar, using Martha's directions
I threw in some ric rac, decorative scissors and pins.


I hope all you mommies had a wonderful day!!

I'm Back!

Things have finally slowed down a bit and I'm back for a post!

We are now much more settled into the house (although we still have a very long way to go) and are getting back to life as normal. except now we're in an awesome house :)

I haven't crafted much...the craft room is still in progress and actually a huge mess right now! I did a couple of projects last week that I'll post next.


My birthday was April 28th, our second day in the house. My grandmother and mom came into town to help us move and brought with them birthday goodies! It was truly a craft filled birthday.


First our Housewarming gift from Mom. She's a basket making queen and I love it! She didn't want me to take a picture since she didn't get a bow on this one. She worked a crazy schedule, then drove 3.5 hours to help me move on her days off. I think she's forgiven :) I love how all the items always stick to the basket 'theme'



We did a ton of cleaning and moving on my birthday, but that night we washed up went to dinner at Outback (mark and I's fave!), then came home and opened presents.

First I opened Mom's......



Hooray a gocco!!



This is granny pointing out that everything is in japanese :)


Then it was granny gift time...a sewing machine!


Along with a little sewing bag filled with sewing goodies...



And buttons!!!


Also while we were shopping earlier that day, Mark & I found the ice cream sandwich molds I've been wanting! They're out with the summer stuff and were only $4 I think. :) Get em while they're hot! I haven't used them just yet, but I'll post once I do.

All in all it was a wonderful birthday!! I'm super excited to try all the new stuff out!

Weekend projects

I finally got around to finishing up a few projects this weekend.


Magnets.
I made some of these a few months ago and decided to do some more this morning. Using only my latest Victoria Secret catalog, glue, flat back marbles and magnets I made these cute little ones....



I have to admit it was a tad weird once I realized that I was cutting various body parts for my little magnets, but a pattern is a pattern! Here's the mess after cutting :)



Mark finished off his coffee this morning, so I quickly snagged the tin. I thought this looked pretty cool


These are unbelievably easy to make. Visit not martha for great directions.

I love her idea to package them in Altoid tins!



Frame.


I got a simple wooden frame, some Navy blue acrylic paint, and a small pack of birch buttons all from Micheal's. I painted the frame and spray painted the buttons white. Hot glued those on and viola! Total cost was around $4 with paint and buttons left over. I framed a pretty piece of scrapbooking paper...I can't tell you the last time I had photos actually printed! (bad lauren..)

I'm not sure where I'll use this or how I feel about it now that it's finished. Thoughts?