Another transformed Crystal Light Container

I purchased gift cards for my son's teachers and wanted an unexpected gift box. So again I took this:

and turned it into these:
I was at Michael's recently and discovered a line of customizable ribbons like I made above. They were really pretty but at $5.99 to $7.99 a bit steep for my budget. Who can pass up creating a package out of a recycled drink container and scrap paper! I used some scrap tulle, some shapes from my Cricut, and a stamp from my stash! Took me about 15 minutes. So frilly and fun.

I am hoping for the sun around our parts. I literally saw the sun for the first time Thursday in a week. No I didn't exaggerate, one solid week of gray Sky and rain. We also are celebrating the end of school next week! For an East coast girl this is a bit hard to accept but I have some fun things planned. Going to be a bit brave and post our summer list of things to do here. Maybe then I will actually get them done! :-)

Hope you all are able to enjoy these last weeks of kids in school!

Blessings!

Yummy . . .well if you like spinach.

I Love trying new recipes and had the perfect opportunity tonight to try one out of the most recent Cooking Light magazine.
I made Spinach and Parmesan Souffle. We paired it with bread and a fruit salad.
The quality of the picture isn't good. Hubby has the nice new camera with him and my photos with the best light are fuzzy.

Folding Flower Tutorial

First apologies, I am hoping this post is clear. Second sorry for the granny hands that need a manicure! :-)

I had a request to post how I made the folded flower in the gift box post. There are many tutorials out there for this, just google it. But here are the directions on how I created this. i have a few cards to make and plan on using this technique. Will post those soon.

Recycled Gift Box

I am finding myself more and more trying not to throw things away that can be possibly used again. Trying to find that balance between becoming the next hoarder and finding time to actually re-purposing those items.

Can you guess what this gift package was made of?

My brother-n-law's birthday was coming up and I wanted a creative way to wrap a gift card. The Crystal Light plastic container fit perfectly. I wrapped it with scraps of card stock and scrapbook paper. The tag is made with a Stampn' Up! stamp and tag punch. I punch a whole in the top and pulled the ribbon through which made it easy to open.

So the next time you make iced tea don't throw that Crystal Light container away! I am going to post some more items that I have created with these containers. Can you tell we are big sweet tea drinkers?!?!?!?

Pulling together a Dining Room

Here is a picture of the dining room in my old house.

When we moved I had the movers take the top of the hutch and put it in our basement. This actually all started with my husband wanting to replace our dining room set. It was not ours it was my Mom's. While I wasn't too enamored with it myself I have grown to love it for many reasons. One it was my Mom's, two I love the fact it is completely solid wood. Totally replacing the set is not in the budget plus I just can't get rid of something that there is nothing wrong with! :-)
Here are some design ideas I pulled together. Hoping to have the budget to do it all. The chairs might have to wait a while. I am horrible at pulling together patterns. I tend to stick to simple combinations. The dining room is the first room you see when you enter my home. So I thought it prudent to pull this room together first.
The blue square is the paint color, Windy Blue by Sherwin Williams. The carpet is staying, it is an antique given to us by my in-laws. I want to keep the table and the black bench. The buffet will stay too. I am trying to figure out drapes and chairs. Should I do colored chairs, or simple beige? The patterned squares are for the drapes and I am very unsure about these combinations. Any thoughts?

Here are some better pictures of our dining room and the table.

A Simple and in-expensive cord solution

A nightly ritual for my hubby and I is too sit in our recliners (yes we are below the age of 80) and watch movies or TV. We LOVE media in our house . . .my hubby is the resident geek in the family which helps feed our love. The other thing we like to do is pull out our laptops and surf /read blogs (in my case) and work in his case. As a result we have a few cords in between our two recliners. We are always trying to de-tangle and figure which is hers and which is his cord.

I discovered this file holder/magazine holder in Steinmart this past week. It was inexpensive at $7.99 was wide enough and a hole to feed the cords through. Yeah!!! No longer will I have to view all the cords lying on the floor in between our chairs. I need to tidy it up a little bit more but wanted to share this idea.

You could even put a surge protector in the bottom and feed the cords through the hole at the top.

I want to put a "top" on it to really conceal the whole thing.

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day!

(These are cards that I made for my Mom and Mother-n-Law with Creative Memories Storybook Software. I used a few of the images from the software and others from vintage cards/postcards.)