May White Swap

I joined up with Linda at A Swap for All Seasons again, this month the theme was weddings and white. I sent my package to Marti of Artful Curiosities, here's what I made:

I had a hard time with this one, I don't have a lot of wedding stuff. I did find the cute vintage picture, I thought the background paper was very cute.
And here's my destash:

the two bigger photos, I scanned and printed out. The large one is a tintype I bought for $3, I thought it was great, I'd love to print it on photo paper sometime. The round one, was in a frame, and when enlarged came out as kinda blurry, I hope Marti doesn't mind. Here's some more I sent her:

Some shiny fabric, a couple wedding/love pieces, some ribbon, pearly trim, gem trim, some pearl pieces, tiny doves, two white hearts, a couple flowers.

Francie from The Scented Cottage sent to me:

There's a cute lavender sachet there, a vintage hanky and some flowers along with the card and tag she made for me.

some pictures, heart doilies, some more flowers, pearls, and a few buttons.

Pink, Black and Bling Swap

I signed up for Kimberly of ArtJoyStuff's Pink, Black and Bling Swap, go here to see what I made.
I received my return cards, April 10th. I picked it up before I went to work. When I opened the envelope, here's what I saw:

The tag has a "W" on it and a cute yo-yo and button pin. It was soo hard to wait until I got home to open it further, when I did, this is what I found:

 And the cards inside:

The one on the left is from Maggie and The Mag Rag, the one on the top from Debbie at The Altered Bee, and the one on the bottom from Jess at Two Mad Dahlias. Beautiful cards ladies, thank you so much.

Easter Baskets

I keep seeing people decorating peat pots, so I bought some to alter. Of course, I picked up the tiniest size, so when I started to fill some of them, I couldn't get very much in them.
Here they all are:

I had originally thought I'd color them, and add trim on the top and go from there, I love how my finished products never seem to turn out like I plan them. I also used vintage pipe cleaners for the handles. I loved the idea of making them all different bright colors, so I did.
Green:

 This is covered with some green mulberry paper, I just painted yellow dots on top of it. I love the simplicity of it.
White:

 Also covered in mulberry paper, there is a vintage piece of trim around the middle with a paper flower on the front,

 and buttons glued onto the sides and back. I used a white pipe cleaner for the handle, unfortunately it's quite a bit shorter than the rest of the handles. I've decided to give this one to my mother, so I put a chocolate in it and a vintage wooden bunny. I'm not sure what else will go in it.
Yellow:

 This one is covered in mulberry paper and then I added a sun fabric to it. You can't tell from the picture, but it is quite sparkly.
Orange:

 This one turned into a steampunky basket. I had an old clock face that I glued to it. The trim is a burlap ribbon with a chain glued on top. The blue gear is from a sheet of steampunk butterflies by Jolees.

The gears on the sides are from a multi-pack I bought at Micheals, they have blue gems glued in the middle. The bottom one is from the same sticker sheet as the other blue one. I used some wire for the handle. I think this might be my favorite, I'm keeping it.
Purple:

Also covered in mulberry paper, I added a sparkly silver wizard to the front,

and some gems around the sides and back. I used a pink pipe cleaner for the handle. This one is for a friend.
Pink:

Covered in mulberry paper, I couldn't find anything I liked for decoration, after painting the green one, I added a blue stripe to this one and added gems to it. It has a green pipe cleaner for the handle.
Blue:

This is the one that started it all. My friend said she'd never gotten an Easter basket before, so I said I'd make/fill one for her. This one is covered in a blue napkin,

And covered in lizards. I filled it with a chocolate, a monster finger puppet, some lip balm, a tiny dragon and a coupon for ice cream.

I have two others that aren't quite done yet, and I have no idea what I'm doing with them, or the green, pink and yellow ones.

Altered Spring Box

Last year, I participated in a swap where we altered a candy box and filled it up with fun stuff for Valentine's Day, go here to see it.

This year, I was hoping the same swap would come up, but it never did, so I asked my CollageATC's Yahoo group if anyone wanted to do something similiar. One person wanted to play, we put it off for awhile because we were both busy with other things. I later decided it would be a Spring box filled with fun spring items. Here's what I created:

 I took a tin I had bought cookies in for Christmas and covered it in blue tissue paper, I found some napkins that had blue roses on it that matched pretty close to the background paper and added those. I added pink jewels to form the corner flowers and a blue burlap rose for the center. The edge is covered in turquoise seam binding.

 For the bottom, I used the same blue tissue paper and blue roses. I added pink flowers to each of the long ends, the covered lip has blue washi tape on it.
Here's what I put in the box:

 There's silk roses, some hankies,

 a pinwheel, a pom pom chicken, a duck fingerpuppet, some more flowers, a heart stamp and other things that you can't see. And since I'm so great at not taking pictures of what I sent, I honestly can't tell you what else is in there.
This week, I received my box in the mail:

 It's a cigar box covered in mulberry paper, with colored sand stenciled on it.
Here's what was inside:

 mulberry paper, stamps,

chain, yarn, wire, a pair of earrings and some very cool beads she made me.

Birthday presents

OK, first I apologize for not posting on here much. I found a few pics just sitting on my phone waiting for me to upload them to the computer, edit and post them, so I'm scheduling some posts until I run out of pictures.
Today's post: My friend's birthday gifts. Her birthday was March 28th (I told you these have been sitting around awhile). Red and black are her favorite colors. I had given her a carton of ice cream earlier in the week, but I had a card for her actual birthday and I wanted to create/alter something for her, so I altered a box with red and black.

 I covered the box with red mulberry paper, added sparkly black ribbon to the top and bottom, clear gems to the sides of the front, red buttons, and a black rose button to the front

 More red buttons

 And more

 And more.
Here's the card I made for her:

 ribbon makes up the stems, the leaves are cut from washi tap, the flowers are all embellishments picked up from Hobby Lobby.
Here's a card I created for anothe friend who had a birthday earlier in March:

I had just bought a ton of brightly colored buttons from Jo-Ann's and thought I should use them in some way. The petals are washi tape, the stems and grass are tissue paper.

Peach Swap

I participated in A Swap for All Seasons Peach swap this month. Deb of Garage Sale Gal sent to me, I received my package on Monday, here's what was in it:

 packages for my card/tag, destash, and a card for me

 I love how she found a vintage peach card for me. I love how we all interprete the theme, so our cards/tags come out so different. I love the use of the gold on these.

 I love those little rosettes, I've seen them around, but I don't know how to make them, so I'm tickled she sent me some. I also love how much vintage there is in this packet.

And I sent to Marie of Spun by Me, here's what I sent her:

I didn't think I had a lot of peach materials to work with, and I didn't find much, but when I sat down with what I found, I created the two pieces above. The papers on the tag are scraps, the trim is from a bag of vintage trim that I bought at the Little Pink Studio, the picture is vintage, and the words, I cut out of a vintage children's book.
The card background is part of a scarf I cut up for my fabric book, the frame is from one of my Valentine's Day swaps, the button is vintage, the picture is a piece of clip art.
I LOVE what I created, I think they're beautiful (I wanted to keep them). Here's the destash I sent:

 I found peach to be a hard color to come up with, and most of the stuff I found, I used on my card/tag. I found some leftover fabric, some flowers (with fairies attached), the paper and trim are leftover from the card I made. I found a peachy hankie and one that said Mother (since our theme was peach/mother's day)

 There were a lot of peachy colored tags in my stash, there's some more fabric and paper, some butterfly punches. The buttons are new, I couldn't pass by some buttons at JoAnn Fabrics they other day (I miss buying buttons), and the box was the perfect color, I had to fill it with something.

I admit, I used the bags I got in my yellow stash last month to package some of my items this month.

Pink, Black and Bling Swap

I signed up for Kimberly at ArtJoyStuff for her Pink, Black and Bling swap. I had the hardest time figuring out what to make. I wanted to incorporate vintage and fabric into them. Here's my first attempt (it's blurry, sorry)

 I have a black background (kinda hard to see), pink fabric, some vintage trim and a plastic button. Once I made that one, I didn't really like it. Here's what I decide to make (they are much neater looking in person):

Again, you can't really see the background, but it's a vintage handmade letter, I glued black lace on top, added some pink trim and pink jewels. I really like these, unfortunately, I didn't have quite enough of the materials to make an exact extra for myself:

I think it's a little plain because this lace doesn't have the flowers on it. I may add more to it.