While the boys are away....I get to play!

My hubby is fishing with some of the Bengal players today, my son is at rowing practice and out with his friends and me, well, I am home and LOVING IT! My dog is in his usual position right now (asleep on my feet) while I am posting but it is sooooo quiet here and wow, this is such a treat.

I will be posting my creations in a little while. I bought some new stamps from LOTV (Lily of the Valley) and I am in love with these stamps. They are so wonderful, super cute, and well, I will post pics later with a link...promise.

Now, on to another project I have been doing and no, I did not eat the whole cake...scroll down and you will see. I keep forgeting these pics load backwards so we are starting with the piece I took and sampled. This is a wonderful recipe of vanilla cake, fresh lemon curd filling and cream cheese icing. Oh....My.....Gosh......to die for!!! It does not look like a millon bucks but it sure tastes like a dessert from a 5 star restaurant.
WARNING: Drooling on keyboard may occur! :o)

It is a beautiful weekend here in Ohio and looking forward to sharing the other items I am working on. While it is still quiet, I am gonna go and turn on Lifetime Movie Network, get me a nice glass of fresh tea, and start coloring my new stamped images.

Many HUGS,

Crystal

A Teacher's Gift

I thought I would post a gift basket that I made for my son's teacher. Throughout the year I made gifts, mostly edible, to the teachers. This one teacher just loved it all but especially love the cake balls/pops I made for Valentines Day. I got the recipe from bakerella. Warning though, once you visit her site....you are hooked! She has the cutest ideas and makes, really, works of art. Well anyway, I made them for Valentins day, chocolate cake balls dipped in white chocolate and then drizzled red and pink white chocolate on the finished balls. Very pretty. She loved them and told me I needed to sell them. HA! I can't even get dinner on the table half the time...I can't image me mass producing these but it made me feel good knowing that she and her family liked them so much. Well, for the end of the year present I knew what I was going to give her. A basket full of homemade goodies with all the ingredients to make her own cakeballs.
I included everything. She is an environmental science teacher so I had to recycle some things to keep with the them of the basket and her teaching position.

Yes, I know...I am a sick, sick woman.....BUT....I had to. This was a store bought tub of cream cheese frosting and I just ripped the label off and covered it with pretty cardstock from the DCWV Kitchen collection.

Here is the devils food cake mix...taken from the original box (which I used later in a mini project) and put it in a decorated hot chocolate container. Of course it was cleaned out and everything....just thought it was nicer all jazzed up to match the basket.

Here is the way too cute, oversized clothspin I decorated to match everything and then put the recipes in it to hold them up while she is cooking. I had to remember to include the instructions for the devils food cake since the box was cut up and used for the mini. The other recipe is for the cake balls.

The bucket o'mini! LOL I used a red bucket I got from somewhere...target??....not sure. Anyhoo, I decorated it all up and it housed the little mini scrapbook I made from recycled Starbucks drink sleeves (yes, I keep everything much to my familys dismay), oval shaped coaster, and some of the cardboard from the devils food cake mix.

I also did two large (jumbo) paperclips for her to keep recipes together or to hold coupons...whatever. Here is the front of the mini scrapbook made from recycled materials.

I hope you enjoyed looking at my gift basket!! I had so much fun making this and to see the look on her face was just priceless. Hope you have a wonderful Friday. I have a few more things to post but need to sit and organize it.

Take care,

Crystal

Toilet Paper Roll Mini - My contest entry!

I will never look at an empty toilet paper roll the same way....ever again!! LOL It truly amazes me that something so common, thrown away, boring, and just down right, well, ugly can be turned into (transformed I should say) something that is pretty, personalized for an occasion, useful, and definitely gets people talking. I give you....drum roll please....the empty toilet paper roll(s).
This is definitely the before picture. Sorta like the What Not To Wear show. Now, the transformation of these rolls into their new purpose. They are all beautified, dressed up, doll up, putt'n on the ritz. At least that is what I tried to do anyway!! I present to you my version of a toilet paper roll mini album. This is one I am entering into Scrapbook-Crazy.com contest.

This is the front cover. The cover, back, and spine ar made out of coasters that a waiter gave me at a local restaurant. I cut them down to the size I needed, spaced them out to allow the book to close, used a template to hole punch for the eyelets and binder rings and covered with SU retired designer paper. Easy peasy!!

I added some cute little charms to the front of the cover, via the spine, and I think it adds another whimsy layer to it. I just love this ribbon...heck all the fibers are fabulous!

This is the view of the spine. I added another charm and this time I used a dragonfly because I used butterflies in the inner pages (you will see) and thought it was a nice addition. I did not want to overload on the charms but I guess I did not have that problem with the fibers. Seriously, holy cow! :o)

Here is the back view of the mini. I just love how the covers and spine turned out. Using the coaster gave me a very smooth surface to attach the cardstock too!

Here is a peek of the pages so you can see, even though, I changed the direction of the rolls, cut them down the middle and scored and folded to make like pocket folders, they still are 100% toilet paper rolls covers in DP.

This is the first page. I only decided to do 3 pages. I was not sure what to expect with the size of the mini so I thought three was a good number and well, as I was planning I did go ahead and utilize the most of the space and tucked a journaling card in the top and the side. you could put pictures, journaling, ticket stubbs...anything in the pockets. I did use the one inch circle punch to notch out a place for the way cool silver, bling emblishment that I made to ease in removing the card to write, read, attach things to. I thought it dressed up the tag. Also, I added some rhinstone bling after I used the scalopped edge punch to the boarder to make the pocket for the outside tage. As you can see, the whole book is held together by ring clips that go through the spine of several eyelets. I just love how it came out. Very neat, clean, and smooth. I just love it!

A look at the tages out. Way cool...whaddaya think about that!! Ha ha!

Here is the backside of the first page. The same type of scalloped pocket with the rhinestones. The second page is the homemade, die cut, butterflies. I kept with the rhinstone bling both small and large. This time the tab to ease in getting the tag out was made with prisma flowers and a beautiful flower (pink, of course) rhinestone

This is a close up of the back of that page. Still keeping with the theme of the rhinestones and the die cut butterflies. Oh yes, I did stamp on these butterfiles to give them interest.

Still the back of the second page..showing off the butterflies again. Meanwhile on page 3 we have a double heart charm nestled in a lovely scalloped edge pocket to hold the cute little piece of paper for journaling, a small photo...whatever you think of. Note the bling on the flowers. More rhinestones.

Close up of the third page.

Back of the last page. Again, I showed off the rhinstone, and added a cute little heart LOVE charm.

A close up of the dragonfly charm and the wonderful fibers I used on this mini.

I hope you have enjoyed taking a tour of my Mini Toilet paper book. I really enjoyed making it and am looking forward to making many more.

You have got to give it a try.

Many HUGS!

Crystal

Happy Monday!

I have a busy day today and have several items that I made over the weekend that need to post. I have a meeting with a bride at her church to go over wedding pics/options for her wedding I am photographing. The family is super sweet and I can't wait to see the church and snap some inspiration for picture making. Just wanted to say Hi on this beautiful Monday morning. After the stormy weekend...it is nice to see the sun!

Printable Recipe Card

Over at Skip To My Lou there is a way cool printable recipe card generator.

I am certainly going to use this for several projects that I am working on. I also have a family recipe scrapbook album for my mother-in-law for Christmas and this would be a great way to print those family recipes out for the other siblings to have as well. Go and check it out...you will love it! Also, while you are there check out her Craft Camp. 30 bloggers, 30 days, 30 crafts. How cool is that!!?? Some really neat projects to keep everyone of all ages busy this Summer!

Have fun!

Toilet Paper Roll Mini Scrapbook Contest!!

Enter your upcycled toilet paper roll craft project for a chance to win one of our cool prizes.

• First prize is a $50.00 gift voucher from the online scrapbooking store of your choice.
• Second prize is a $20.00 gift voucher from the online scrapbooking store of your choice.

Random Draw Prize: For entries to win the random draw prize package filled with 3 mini albums, a chipboard alphabet, chipboard frames and canvas art pad, you can do the do the following:

• 1 entry - Add Scrapbook Crazy to your Twitter and Tweet the contest.
• 5 entries - Create a post about the contest on your site or blog.

You can find all the other juicy tidbits on Scrapbook-Crazy.com. You will love this site even if you do not want to enter in the contest. The site has a wealth of information and tons to get inspiration and the creative juices flowing.

I just can't wait to share my mini scrapbooks I am entering in this contest. I have had a blast with this and have been working hard and have came up up with several different ways to do toilet paper minis. The biggest and the hardest thing for me was picking out the paper and colors. I know...what a wuss...but it really was difficult.

Changing the ordinary into extrodinary!

I have been working on several projects when I can. I feel like I am back to the living just a difficult adjustment with all that has been going on in my part of the world. Glad to be back and recovering nicely now! A few things I have been working on are altering some display boxes from Wal-Mart. I mean these boxes were in the pile to rip up. The employees were flattening them and I stopped and asked them if I could have some. They said sure....the rest...is history. This is what they looked like before. I will post after pics...I am almost finished.