Friday, October 21, 2011

Button swap

I signed up to do a button swap through the blog, Button Floozies. My partner was Victoria of Things I learn from Bear. We had to decorate an Altoids tin and fill it with buttons and send it off to our partner. Here's what I sent her:
The top is decorated with some metallic papers. Starting in the lower left hand corner and going diagonally up, here are the embellishments: a metallic fabric flower with a faux pearl flower in the middle; a coppery/fabricy flower with faux pearl beads in the middle; and a flower pin that I trimmed the back off of.


My favorite thing to do lately is cover things in dictionary paper, so that's what I did with the sides and the bottom of the tin.


I just looked through my pictures and realized I never took a picture of the buttons I sent Victoria, oops.


Here's what I got from Victoria:


A beautiful button necklace with a nice orange flower, and my Altoids tin. I believe she decorated it with popourri, it smells so nice.

And here are the buttons I got


These are my favorite buttons:


I love the green ones, cause they're green, love the sparkly ones cause they're sparkly. The big one in the front is my favorite, its some kind of plastic that's been worn on the light parts. The bigger metal one is really heavy.

Thank you Victoria.


Check out other tins and buttons from this swap here.

Grandma's Birthday

This past Saturday(10/15) was my grandma's 95th birthday, here's what I made for her:

The layout for this card I got from an issue of Papercrafts magazine. I layered patterned paper that I cut with decorative edged scissors on the card. The green flower is a chipboard shape from my Secret Santa, it has a sticker that says "Time to make a wish" on it. There are 3 paper flowers with beads in the center as well.
Here's her present:
I started with a white wooden frame. I painted it blue, and then added dictionary pages to it. I then spritzed it with a shimmery yellow spray. The buttons on the side, the glass heart and the button in the middle all match in color. The "9" and "5" are chipboard shapes that were painted a moss green. The flower was also misted with the shimmery yellow spray.

Monday, October 3, 2011

New projects

What have I been doing lately? Or what have I realized I need to get done, now that it's October?
I signed up for a Pretty Pennants swap on one of my Yahoo groups, and realized it needed to be in the hostesses hands by Oct 15th. Last time I posted it, I hadn't quite decided on the edges.
I tried doing some embroidery that waved sort of like ric rac, but it did not look good. Then I remembered these nice tiny trims I got a t a yard sale and attached them.
And once again, blogger has deleted one of them, the third one has little tiny flowers for the trim. Now I need to figure out how to finish the back, take care of the fraying on the top edge and figure out a way to hang them. I have a piece of quilt batting on the backs of them to give them more support, but I still need to actually finish the back and add my information. I think I might just add eyelets for the hanging part. I also realized how empty the top third now looks, but I think the front is actually done.

Next up, I have to do one more ATC for my Yahoo group for last month, the theme was Kawaii, and I have to say it's really not inspiring me.

You totally can't tell that that blob is a cat, I embellished the flower that's on his head.
Here are my other member's cards:


I also have to finish my Altoids box for a button swap I'm doing, and put together the fall packets for my Yahoo group. Sometimes procrastination is not good at all.


What projects are you all working on?

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday

I haven't participated in this for a long time, mostly because I don't generally have anything neat to show you. Today, I do:
I joined a Pretty Pennants swap on a Yahoo group I'm in. I was orignally going to make my pennants with vintage hankies, but they weren't big enough. By that time, I'd already got myself so excited about fabric, I just had to find some. I chose this vintage green scarf, I affixed it to a piece of quilt batting with spray adhesive and went to work.
There is a row of vintage buttons with old thread in them at the top. The middle piece is from a doily I picked up from a garage sale and the button is also vintage. I couldn't find the right thread in my stash, so they are all sewn on with some cord from some tags.
I think I might add some decorative stitching and some beads or buttons hanging off the end. I'm supposed to have a way to hang it as well, and finish the back (which is just the batting and stitches right now), but I'm not sure how.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

What's on your Workdesk? Go over to Julia's to see some more workdesks.

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Buttons!!!

Here is my collection of buttons:
This table is about 4 feet long by 2 1/2 feet wide.

These are two color buttons

These are mostly shank buttons.

These are my purple buttons

These are my hearts and a few with anchors imprinted on the front.

These are white shell ones, and ones with printed words on them.

These are my metallic buttons.

These are the red ones.

These are brown ones, balloons, and some round ones.

Here are my white ones and some of my orange ones.

Here are my orange and some of my yellow ones.

Here's a better look at my yellow ones, and some more of my shank ones.

Here are my blue ones.


And my pink ones.

And my green ones.

Here's a better shot of the new/old ones I got a few weeks ago.

These are interesting, they're edges are cut sorta like gears.


The colors are a little off because these were taken at night on a dark table, they're mostly bright colors.


Any ideas on what I should do with my buttons?

Friday, August 19, 2011

Buttons

I have too many buttons, and I try not to buy more, but last weekend I went to a flea market and broke down and bought some.
Here are my metal ones, the one with the green circle in the middle is missing some of the clear stones around the edge, so I got it free.
OK, this is not a button, but it's a cute little dog pin I picked up

My favorite in this picture is the one that looks like a die, and the green one with the leaf and the wooden one next to it with the red flowers.

Here's a close-up of my favorite ones

Last weekend, we went up to our timeshare in Okoboji, IA. While there, other than going to the flea market, I picked up some nice beach glass. I just don't know what to do with it now.

Sunday, August 7, 2011

Chinese papercuts

I found these gorgeous Chinese paper cuts at a garage sale this weekend.
There were two packages for fifty cents, I was curious as to what they were, and figured if they weren't anything exciting, I could always sell them online.

Inside the packagaes were these very delicate paper cuts.

They're either cut from rice paper or tissue paper, I don't know the difference, and then painted.
What you see in the pictures are the paper cuts sitting on rectangular papers. They are gorgeous.





Anyone got any ideas of what to do with them? Or want any? Let me know.