An Upcycled Valentine

I have been crazy busy with work and family and have found absolutely no time to craft. I have however been going through some old projects that I had done and photographed. A lot of them can be found in all my books, The Ultimate Guide to Upcycling, Crafty Cans and Perplexing Plastic and The Christmas Guide to Upcycling and lots can also be found on my blog.

For those of you who are reading my blog for the first time, I am a mixed media artist with degrees in Mathematics. Don’t ask how that happened, it just did 🙂 I love to use materials that would otherwise be thrown away in my art. Things like soda cans, plastic packaging, plastic bags, fabric

Christmas Eve and my Books on the Kindle :)

Christmas eve is probably the most wonderful eve of the year. Snuggled up in blankets in front of an open fireplace eating peanuts or roasting marsh mellows and singing carols with loved ones gathered all around is delightful. Then there is the promise of Christmas day, and then a new year that brings with it renewed hope and lots of promise.

Can you tell that I love Christmas? 🙂

Scrapbooking…the altered way

I love scrapbooking and have done it in one form or another for the past 12 years. I started off with a scrapbook that was made out of a few colored sheets of construction paper stapled together when I was 12. Each page had a collage made out of all the memorabilia that I had collected on a family trip to Austin, TX. Everything from newspaper clippings to restaurant napkins to tickets and photographs came together and told a story in those pages. Each page had a theme and represented one fun thing that we did on the trip.

As I started getting more serious about crafting and learnt more, I moved to ring binders and patterned paper. The layouts were now embellished with a few stickers and there were pockets and fold out pages to add some visual interest.

Then, on another vacation, when I was taking some time out to indulge myself and

Christina Katerina and the Box or how my crafting adventures began…

I have always loved to read books. Escaping into the world they offered was a great comfort to me. I have always loved to imagine myself in different worlds, surrounded by like minded friends and in different situations.

I was about 6 when I first read Christina Katerina and the Box. I never knew that book would have such a deep impact on me or that it would start a life full of adventures…of the crafty kind 🙂

FREE Crafting E-book!

I am so excited to share my latest ‘crafting’ project with y’all! Think of it as a Christmas gift for all who love to recycle, upcycle and craft! Technically the ‘craft’ project is a crafty book project and I am going to tell you all about it today. So read on and enjoy.

I have always been obsessed with coming up with new ideas on how to craft using items that are easily found around the house. If those items are ones that I was going to throw out, all the better. So I have been collecting things to use in projects for as long as I can remember. When I was really young my collection consisted of lots of boxes of all shapes and sizes that used to be turned into little cities, complete with shopping malls, hospitals and schools. As I grew up and learnt more about crafting I started saving gift wrap, old cards and  any fun looking pieces of paper to make collages. Now I save everything from soda cans, packaging plastic, fabric scraps, old books, jars, gift wrap, beads, scratched cds, match boxes… The list goes on and on and on 🙂

Recently I came up with some really cool project ideas that used mostly items that would normally be thrown into the trash. When I was done with these projects I decided I would put them together in an e-book to share with y’all. Read on to find out how you can get this e-book for FREE!

Planning the perfect Craft Staycation Part 4

Day 2 of my craft staycation was loads of fun too! I made loads and loads of birthday cards, some victorian paper shows, scrapbook layouts and an idea jar to wrap the vacation up!

I started with the cards. I wanted to use all my paper scraps and left over embellishments that had been getting pushed to the back of my crafting pile. I pulled out all those scraps and stickers and embellishments, gathered a few blank cards and got to work. I came up with 12 birthday cards and loved making each and every one of them. I specially enjoyed using some ‘thank you’ cards that I had

My Steampunk Room – Part 1

So I have been trying to make my room decor as steampunk as possible and it’s taken me quite a while to get things to where they are currently. It is still a work under progress but I thought I’d share a few pictures with you….

Cans turned into steampunkd pencil holders!

More Pencil Holders...

Beyond Paper Dolls…

One of our weekend rituals is to go to bookstores and this time ’round I found a really cool book called “Beyond Paper Dolls”. It is a collection of dolls made by different artists and they have truly taken the dolls beyond paper! These creations are full of character and are pieces of art genius. So the next time you are at your local bookstore do have a look at this great book.

Spring Time Fairy

The book inspired me to do a little doll making of my own. I have made flat paper dolls before but this time I

Papercups to …Giftbags

At one point or another in our lives we have made use of the incredible art of paper-folding to make paper cups. They are relatively simple to make and will help out when you need an instant cup but instead have only sheets of paper. I was playing around with my stash of paper pieces (if you’ve been reading my blog you know by now that I hate throwing things away…) and I started making paper cups out of them, suddenly they started looking more like baskets and less like cups…

My Basket of Bits and Pieces

My basket full of goodies that will adorn future projects!

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder”…look around you and see all the things that you throw away…surely they can be used for something!

What about the wrapping paper that you got on your birthday, or a pretty picture in a magazine, on a postcard or card! Your broken earrings or necklace (great source of beads!), bits and pieces of card, patterned paper and fabric.Wool,old calenders.Small beads, sequins and buttons.Pieces of ribbon left over from your latest craft project…even colorful sweet wrappers.