Handy Dyed Crinkle Ribbon

I have been drooling over this ribbon for quite some time now but being the frugal crafter that I am I just couldn't quite bring myself to buying it.  I found a tutorial to make it and decided I would give it a go.  I didn't want to invest in the Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist at this point because it is quite costly for one bottle (at least at my local craft store it is) so I used a coupon at Michaels and tried some Smooch Spritz.  The seam binding is Hug Snug and I got it at Zipperstop.  It comes with 100 yards so it is a good investment.  I am pleased with the first two attempts at this. 

gingersnap and frosted grape smooch spritz

I am sure that my end product is not as nice looking as those that I could buy but I am hoping with practice I will get better.  Anyhow, my youngest daughter has a birthday party to go to today and the mom insisted "No Presents!" so I bought her 2 small trinkets to "hold" down a birthday balloon and was hoping not to get myself in trouble for this:-)  The birthday girl is on my daughter's soccer team and also a friend from church so we had to show her how much we love her somehow, right?!   I used my new purple crinkle ribbon and attached it to a gift bag made from Tags, Bags, Boxes and More - added a button and some twine, tied on the balloon, put in the goodies and a small gift card and we are ready:-)

had fun playing around on picnik.com:-)

I am wanting to try using alchohol inks for dyeing the seam binding.  Anybody used these yet?  There is a set at Michaels in the perfect Christmas colors so I think that may be my next attempt!!  I will post pics, promise!!

**Stay tuned this week for an absolutely adorable project from DtsArt!!  It is a cute Thanksgiving project and I haven't seen anything out there like this before so check in on Wednesday to see what I am talking about!!

Have a blessed weekend my bloggy friends:-)

Happy Easter

Whew!!  What a full and fun weekend!!  Saturday morning my youngest daughter had a soccer game and this week it was a sunny day for the game!!  Yeah!!  She played great for her 2nd game ever:-)  The rest of Saturday was spent getting ready for Easter and doing "sunny-day"chores!  I have great kids - they mowed the lawn and washed both of our cars.  My hubby worked on our garden beds - he is building us 3 raised beds this year.  I snuck in a nap cuz I am still getting over an icky cold.
Easter Sunday my husband was in our church's play and had to be there early for both services so it was just us girls going to service together.  Here is a picture of the four of us -

I made a couple of Easter boxes to give to the neighbor boys.  We put some craft goodies and a matchbox car inside the boxes.  They are on a special diet so no candy for them this year.  I used a digital stamp from Doodlepantry and colored it in with Bic It markers - nothing fancy.  The box is from TBBM.

Gift bag and matching card

I realized that I have not fully utilized most of my cartridges' potential yet.  I have done a few cuts on each cartridge.  There are even a few cartridges I have not even used**gasp!!**  so, I challenged myself to try a new cut yesterday.  I used the Tags, Bags, Boxes and More and cut the inchie bag.  I cut it fit to page and added a handle.  I used a cut from Storybook to decorate the front of the bag and then used the negative image from that cut to make a matching card.  (Diane from Capadia Designs would be so proud of me for that)  I love these colors together - light aqua, dark lavendar and white. 

There has been very little sunlight these past few days out here in Oregon (constant rain and gray, ugh!!) so it has been tricky trying to get a great picture of my projects.  Thanks for looking and hope you have a DRY and wonderful weekend in your neck of the woods:-)

Cute Gift Card Holder

Between my 3 girls and their friends and our family we have lots of birthdays in April.  Last weekend there were 4 birthday parties on the schedule (one was the now famous Lego Rock Band Party at our house:-).  This weekend it is one party.  There are a few more on the agenda after this one too so I made this gift bag to house a gift card for one of the upcoming parties.  I used Tags, Bags, Boxes and More and cut it fit to page.