Papertrey October Blog Hop

Projects this month were supposed to represent a winter holiday that was not Christmas. I used traditional Christmas colors...mainly because I loved how the mug looked paper pieced using the new Christmas Prints paper ;)...I was careful not to use trees, since those screamed Christmas to me and I was trying to keep it generic winter.

I make a cocoa box using an A2 card box and tiny tubes.

I had extra space at the top and originally was going to fill it with starlight mints which I thought would look adorable, but I was to lazy to go to the store and ended up filling small 1 x 8 inch bags with individual servings of marshmallows...one package per tube of cocoa. The marshmallows fit in perfectly with minimal coercion :)

The mug fit nicely on a 1 3/4 inch circle punch...so then I had to use the new dies that coordinate with that punch. The scallop is quite pretty. I cut it in felt and paper and ended up using the paper...but it cut really nicely on the felt too...no problem with the details.

This is a pretty generic winter giftie that could be given as a Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or Hey, I like you present. It should also make my friend Cindy happy that I actually made something and submitted it somewhere ;)

If at first...

it looks like crap, try, try again.

Ummmm...it's only like 15 times cuter now.

And it took about 5 minutes...must have just been having some kind of cute craft blockage yesterday....

Same ribbon tie, same stocking, just a different layout and bolder colors made such a difference...in my head at least :)

Justification...

so...I swore off Papertrey for 3 months. I decided that I couldn't buy anything new until I had actually used each stamp set that I had already purchased from them.

Three months is a long time...since I made it that long, I deserved a prize (I may not have actually used all of the stamp sets, but I showed amazing restraint...and that in itself is prize-worthy...isn't it?!?) I knew the perfect thing...more Papertrey things to look pretty on my shelf, create oodles of creative thoughts, and accomplish nothing...great plan!

Package arrived, I opened it, oohed and ahhed, then let it sit on my counter for 4 days while I was up to my armpits in paper bats, sparkle modge podge, and cricut letters (don't ask).

Anyway, after telling my friend that I caved and finally made a purchase, I told her I had this idea to use the stocking die for paper and felt and then stitch on the paper...then I felt compelled to actually do it...

I like the stitching on the cuff, and the felt with the paper...but the rest of it definitely needs work...

but, it was only a prototype...and I did actually make something...so it's probably okay that I already placed another Papertrey order...right?

Random Hoopla...

okay...here's a bunch of random crapola.

Here's the wreath I made for Connor's birthday tomorrow. The blog I stole it from (Howdoesshe.com) said it took about 144 balloons...ummmm, I obviously did something wrong because I used about 400 balloons. Maybe because I cheated and cut a styrofoam wreath apart, added rubber bands, glued it back together and then jammed the balloons under the bands. I just couldn't find the greening pins they were talking about. Can you say 3 trips to Party City yesterday?!?!? I think it's cute. Sanford is NOT impressed. Connor hasn't seen it yet.

I decorated a licorice tub as part of my father-in-law's birthday gift.

It turned out pretty cute for an 8 minute project...

I even put a matching sticker on the lid...yup...dork!

Here's part of Sanford's Father's Day gift...a waste of cute packaging. He doesn't care.

Connor also got him a toolbox to keep all of the tools and parts for their new ridiculous RC cars in. I printed out a label that matches the maker of their cars and modge-podged it on...who knew modge-podge could be manly??

The camera adapter for the iPad finally got here. I downloaded some editing software and played last night...How adorable is that boy? It's probably why he's still alive!

ummmm...this might be a little much...but it cracks me up!!

all hail the glue gun!

so...not only did I decide what to do with them...I made more ;)

I just glue gunned those suckers right to my mirror...hopefully it'll be okay when I pull them down in a few weeks...whatever, it's festive for now.

well.....

we went to the antiques roadshow...

it was a fun experience...kind of like geriatric disneyland...a whole lot of old people standing in reeeeeeeeeeealy long lines looking for a thrill...Sanford said we weren't old enough to be there. I pointed out to him that we had to borrow stuff from people OLDER than us to take...ummm...old people have better crap...or at least older crap ;)

so, here are our items in order of appraising...

This is my Aunt JoAnn's doll from the fifties. She has a case FULL of outfits and hats and purses and several colors of cats-eye glasses. She is all about the accessories!

Poor thing has spent her entire life being called the wrong name. She is NOT a Ginger doll, her name is Muffy. Hmmm...maybe she was happier with Ginger...I mean Muffy? Really? Maybe in Connecticut...anyway....she's worth about $75 and each of her little outfits is worth about $10...

so around $200 total.

Then Sanford and I split up. He went and stood in the PAINTINGS line...that wrapped around the building..okay...maybe not, but it WAS almost 2 hours...and I went to the DECORATIVE ARTS line to get this checked out...something else borrowed from my Aunt...

Whatever could it be?? Antique...hand painted...wooden feet....lovely...perhaps folk art? victorian umbrella stand? decorated by someone famous? Nope...it's crap. The appraiser actually asked me why I brought a trash can to the roadshow. Lots of people liked it. My aunt likes it. My uncle said it was in his house as long as he can remember. It's pretty...but still crap. Worthless. Feel free to drop in your banana peels and chewed gum. It was the butt of innumerable jokes throughout the day. My husband quite enjoyed it...so at this point it's a priceless family relic...I'll have to see if my aunt will leave it to me someday! It is without a doubt the cutest trash can I've ever seen...but it has no monetary value.

so $0 total.

Next up were two paintings from Sanford's parents...paintings that his mom said were worth thousands of dollars...(ah nuts...I just scrolled down and realized only one painting loaded...I'm not messing with it. The painting are basically the same...rough palette knife strokes...one is a seascape and the other is a mission looking building and some shrubbery...)

We had a good time waiting in the line. The women in front of us were a crack up...sisters...one who flew in from New York just for the show. She brought an Indian looking rug with her to get appraised...it had butterflies...it was cool...she paid $75 and it was worth $400-$600...she said if she set it in my trash can then the trash can could be worth $400.01-$600.01...yeah, the sisters were a crack up...I said something about being on the bullet train to hell and she said no...we were all just greasing out chutes...bwahahahahaha...so stealing that line! It's a winner!

Any way, after a 2 hour wait we got in and found out that we weren't retiring, or buying a new house, or a new car, or going on a cruise with the auction proceeds from these paintings. The artist was "prolific"...appraiser-ese for he painted TONS of crap and it's not worth much...

The appraiser worked hard looking to try to make it worth more money when we told him that Jane always said they were worth thousands...but again there was that word "prolific" and they are small and done "quickly"

total $300-$500 each.

So....yeah, monetarily...a let down , but honestly, none of it was our hoopla anyway...so what's it matter???

We saw Mark Walberg filming his ~welcome to San Diego~ intro, we saw a Keno brother, we had $8 cookies, we saw a half a lady getting pulled around in a wagon, we made fun of A LOT of people (who I'm sure were making fun of us for having a trash can ), and best of all...

I got this

yup...it's a gen-u-ine Antiques Roadshow T-shirt...that I won...in one of those spinning-wheel raffle give away thingies. I'm going to wear it every Monday night at 8 while I watch Roadshow until it's old and ratty...that or I'm going to wrap it in acid free tissue and preserve it in a lignin free box in unused condition so that Connor can take it to the roadshow in 50 years... ;)

now what?!?

so I had a few girls over on Friday to play all crafty...and Cindy mentioned that she wanted to learn how to make paper rosettes...I guess it stuck in my head. Then yesterday while hopping around in blog-land, I saw the cutest patriotic rosettes on a stick in a jar of red, white, and blue popcorn...seriously, who comes up with this stuff? (heartland paper company) Ridiculously adorable!

So, I broke out the paper and my scor-pal...and maybe a few other goodies. I still need to add buttons and a tag on the big one, but here they are...

The real question is...now what? They are big...the one in the center is 12", and the other 2 are 8"...I thought I was going to hang them from my mantle individually...um, no. Then I thought, okay, together on ribbon, kinda like bunting...um, no. So what do I do with them?!?

I used paper from the boxes that I never dig into anymore...I actually think there's a Debbie Mumm paper involved (reallly?) and I know that blue star paper is like 6 or 7 years old...so good for me using my stash...I bought the flags at Michael's when I went looking for paper to finish them off...I managed to buy paper, but none of it looked right when I got it home ...It may be good for a whole 'nother set of these darn things that I don't know what I'm going to do with though...anyway, the flags were way too cherry a red, so I might have colored the stripes with a marker to darken them up a little...is that something I can go to jail for??? don't tell! they do match MUCH better now ;) holy smack is that glass dirty...please ignore the filth!

I think the "usa" needs a little bling, yes? It looks so sad and naked in the picture. I have a set of 3 layered buttons to get tied on top of a tag that I'll put in the center of the ribbon bow...it'll be cute, but really...um, what am I going to do with them?????