Christmas Present Adventures, Part 2

This morning I literally woke up at 4am, with this craft project buzzing around in my brain. I have been wanted to craft something personal for my Mom and my Grandma for Christmas, and this was the perfect solution!

I took two wooden frames and covered them in pages from a dictionary. I chose words specific for my Mom and Grandma such as 'love', 'family', 'tradition', and so on.

I also included a few pictures from the dictionary on my Grandma's frame (the larger one).

I love how they turned out! I don't know why I didn't think of this earlier! Now I'm off to print off some pictures to put in these frames, wrap them up, and I am all set for Christmas!

Card Adventures!

A friend of mine had a bridal shower yesterday, so I decided to make her a card to go along with her gift:

I used words from a dictionary, which I guess has become my 'trademark' thing. I chose words like Love, Marriage, Husband, Wife, etc. The bride-to-be really liked it!

The day before the bridal shower another friend of mine came over to encourage me to work in my yard. I managed to entice her with my craft room instead, and she made a card for the shower as well! I will choose crafting over yardwork any day!

I think that her card turned out beautifully! And she was so proud of herself!

Summer Adventures

Wow, I can't believe that it is almost the end of July already! School starts again at the end of August, so I am running out of summer vacation. Lately I have been busy with camping trips and going away parties, so I haven't posted here as much. Sorry! But here is a picture of a recent craft project that I put together:

I made it for my friend Andy--the handsome guy on the right. He's leaving for Law School this week, about halfway across the country. Our group of friends have known each other as early as preschool, so we have a lot of memories. I thought a great way to allow Andy to take these memories with him to school would be to create him a photo collage. But just a photo collage in a frame seemed a little too "girly"--so I made it into a magnetic board that he can use to put up notes, messages, pics, etc.! I printed out a TON of pictures, cut them out, and arranged them into the collage you see. The only thing that I did to make it magnetic was to buy a 12x12 piece of metal to put in my 12x12 picture frame! I also made Andy eight of my dictionary magnets with various nicknames or important words. He like it a lot, and I loooved making it. Printing out all those pictures really took me on a trip down memory lane...

I'm going to miss you Andy!!! Good luck in law school!

One man's trash is another man's treasure!

Or in this case--one art teacher's discarded encyclopedia set is another crafter's treasure! I am a high school English teacher by day, and just recently I discovered an amazing ritual that takes place in the halls of the school. At the end of every school year the teachers all go through their books and materials and discard the things they don't want/need anymore. These items go into the hall with brightly colored sticky notes prominently displaying "DISCARD" on them. Most of these items I didn't give a second glance to, but then I spied these beauties:

A complete encyclopedia set, still in good condition! The art teacher of all people was discarding these, and so I pounced on them. After lugging several boxfuls of these books into my car and then into my new craft room I have them proudly displayed on my shelves. Just think of the crafting possibilities! I am giddy with excitement and anticipation! I also scored about a dozen dictionaries that were really in bad shape:

Even though they may look a little rough around the edges, the insides are still in great shape for crafting! I seriously cannot believe how many books I got for free! And they were just going to sit in a landfill anyways, so I feel like I am giving them a much better home and a possible beautiful reincarnation!

Today my friend Lindsey and I went on a few adventures in Portland, where I bought some fun fabrics to make a skirt with. I am going to attempt to make the skirt this week--wish me luck! This is the biggest sewing project I have attempted, and I am a little intimidated by it. I will post updates as soon as I am finished!

Happy President's Day!

Happy President's Day!!! I am thoroughly enjoying my day off by getting a lot of schoolwork done, and a bit of crafting! A few of my friends have birthdays coming up, so I've been busy creating some fun presents for them:

Above is a birthday card I made for a friend. I cut the letters out of dictionary pages, and each letter has a word on it that starts with that letter and has to do with celebrating a birthday, like Happy or Party.

I also made my friend a coffee cozy out of felt! She owns a coffee shop, so I thought she would enjoy it.

Yesterday I went and saw 'Coraline' in 3-D, and absolutely loved it! I had to keep reminding myself that it was stop animation and not computer animation, it looked SO good. Here I am wearing my awesome 3-D glasses:

The movie was amazing, I really loved it. And the fact that it was made in Portland by amazing craftsters just made it that much cooler!

More Dictionary Adventures!

Today I created a fun little card using an old dictionary!


Each letter is cut out from the corresponding dictionary page...


And in an un-craft related bit of news, I have gotten some amazing 'Mariko' gifts recently! Today Brant gave me the book below, The Secrets of Mariko! And the necklace charm dangling there was a recent gift from my Grandma, and is a kokeshi doll named 'Mariko'! I have never seen my name in so many places! I love it!

Crafting Catch-Up

Here are some recent crafts that I've been working on...



Origami cranes made from the pages of a dictionary



Bottle cap magnets using images from a dictionary



Necklace pendant, also made from a dictionary



An origami flower ball made from magazine pages