I have been working like a busy beaver in my craft room (if you’re from an urban area, you probably don’t understand that reference…..but here in rural America, beavers work super hard to build dams…)  I finished the Christmas cards from my paper scraps, then had to modify the frame that comes with a round diamond painting…Here’s the painting.

To be honest, I wasn’t crazy about the tassel and the hook at the top of the frame.  And if I’m going to be totally honest, I can’t figure out where I put the tassel and hooks that came with the diamond painting, so that’s a secondary issue.  I decided I wanted to use the round frame and put the diamond painting in the frame without the extras.  I don’t see my sister getting excited about the tassel either, so that’s another reason it had to go…

I used tear tape on the back of the diamond painting and adhered it to the foam core that comes with it..Then I put it in the frame, but it wouldn’t stay put, even using tear tape around the inside of the frame….so I went with my trusty glue gun and hot glued the back, and it worked like a charm.  I put a small pearl pin in the top and bottom, but both can be removed if my sister decides she doesn’t like those either…

Then I made boxes to put Dollar Tree men’s cologne in for a Father’s Day gift.  I figure there are a lot of people who give Father’s Day gifts from little kids and they probably buy those gifts at the Dollar Tree….So if someone needs to find a last minute gift and needs an easy way to package it, this box is fast and simple.

Once I was done with the box, I had watched a video where a woman turned a small brown paper lunch bag into a decorated envelope “clutch.”  I’m not sure if anyone would use it as a clutch, but I thought it was fun and you could use it to put important papers inside, or give it with money in it as a gift…I was amazed at how easy it was to make, as I only watched that video in part, and only once.  I thought the end result of mine was fun and now that I’ve mastered it, I’ll make a video showing how I did it.  I need to work out a few kinks, like forgetting to put the brad closure on after I’d laid the liner paper down….Need to do that in the reverse.  I’m going to think about different closures I can use with it too…I might try Velcro or magnets…I’m not sure yet.

Today I went to garage sales and one had all kinds of scrapbooking tools….First, though, I went to a garage sale that an older lady was having, and she had a Fiskars paper trimmer that looked fun.  What I didn’t realize at the time, is that it was a rotary trimmer and it was missing the blade….funny thing to miss, huh?  And wouldn’t you think that she would have said, “By the way, there’s no blade on that trimmer.”  So basically, I bought a worthless piece of plastic. The real sale, though, had all kinds of paper crafting supplies, and if I was new to paper crafting, there were tons of things I could have bought..But having a room full of crazy paper crafting supplies, I really didn’t need anything, but still bought a couple of things there..Nothing impressive.  She sold a really cool looking heat gun that I’ve never seen before, and it came with a embossing ink pads and an embossing pen, and all for $3….I decided it had to be worth $3, but will let you know….They had a few of those plastic storage boxes that you put embellishments in, and you can never have too many of those, and when they sell them for a quarter, it’s crazy to pass it up.  They also sold a wooden ribbon tower…I already have one, but you know how much I love ribbon, I had to have it.  It came with maybe ten rolls of ribbon, an it’s already completely full of ribbon that I had laying in a plastic basket.  Maybe I should consider using all of the ribbon I have, but that would take a few lifetimes…at least with this additional rack, I’ll be able to see the ribbons I have, so will use more of it.  (At least that’s my plan.)

Here’s what the ladder looks like…I already have one that I bought at Joanns, like this.

It was a great crafty garage sale day and I’m ready for date night to begin…(Friday night is our date night…we have take out dinner and watch movies..)  I know our lives are pure glamour….what can you do? haha

One more note of interest.  You know the bird houses I decorated?  The cute yellow house has a wren family inside.  The two rectangular houses are uninhabited, as is another wood house I have, but another wren family is creating a nest in the inside of our patio awning….Apparently they didn’t want to slum it in the rectangle houses….Picky birds.  I did see the one wren with a stick in its beak, standing on one of the rectangular houses, waiting for its mate to get out of it’s way so it could add its stick to the nest…so the house was good enough to stand on, but not good enough to live in..  Bummer.

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