Recycle

Hi everyone, thanks ever so much for dropping by. I know it's been a while but I have lots to show for my absence, I haven't just been sat in the garden sunning myself although I do have an outdoor studio now :)

It's my turn today to host the post(!) over on the Get Funky & Craft blog so I decided that I would make a gift bag. Now read on to see how I did it.

"I have mentioned previously my mission to reduce my wallets of paper off cuts so I should really have concentrated on that in this post. However, our lovely leader, Anice, keeps feasting us with lots of lovely paper collections and digi downloads and it's such a shame not to use them.....so on my project today I have used one of each :)

If you have ever needed a gift bag at the 12th hour and can't find one, well this is the post for you. It takes about 15 minutes to make and anyone (even non crafters) eill be able to find materials to use around the house. Oh, and when I mention a 'bone folder', a spoon handle does just as well.

This is my make for the month

                                               

and here is how I made it

                                         

You will need an old (or a new) envelope of any size.....and this tutorial works for top opening envelopes too.

Tape down the flap making sure that you don't tape the back of the envelope to the front!

Trim approximately 1/2 cm from one of the short sides.

Next you need to score each of the other three sides at 2.5cm from each edge and fold making sure each fold is crisp using your bone folder or spoon.

Now is the time to decorate your envelope with whatever you have to hand. I used the paper #7 from the new Spring Wedding Collection on the Funky Hand web site.

Pop one hand inside the envelope and use the other hand to pinch along all of the creases and watch your envelope turn into a gift bag :)

Fold the pointed end and glue to the bottom of the bag. I weight mine down with a punch while it sticks. Fold and tuck in about 2.5 cm from the top. Not only does this make the bag look professional, it makes the top sturdier to take the ribbon handles, see the next picture.

Now finish decorating your bag.

I used a selection of die cut flowers and printed off a smaller version of the mug from the I'm a mug for you' download to use as a gift tag.....Job Done!

These are great fun to make, I must have shown loads of people how to make them. They are great to make with the kiddies too now that the summer holidays are upon us, especially if they have a birthday party to go to. So start saving your envelopes in different shapes and sizes and it doesn't matter what colour they are (mine was from a bought birthday card, I didn't buy it ;)) You can even use the ones with the see through window on the front, just stick some pretty paper over it.

We would love you to have a go at my tutorial and add it to the linky thingy so we can come back and take a look.

Secret Crafter's

...Challenge #18 plus one.

This week's challenge is set by our lovely KIM - "Recycling". Any project but must have some element of recycling on it!

So here we have the ultimate in recycling!

The whole card front was recycled as it was (obviously) the front of another card but I had put it on wonky and when I tried lifting it to straighten I tore the card underneath. So rather than throw the whole thing away, I re-used it! The ribbon is from a pair of pyjamas from Santa :))


The image stamp is by Elizabeth Bell and is available from Funky Kits She was coloured with Sakura Stardust pens. Paper is by Brenda Pinnick.

DCM

This is the requirement this week (or should that be last week!)

We'd like you to do your bit for the planet and make a card using some recycled items.Yes, we know we've done similar challenges in the past, but some things are good to revisit and this is one of them - it gets us looking at stuff we might be throwing away and asking ourselves if there's some card-making mileage to be had from it.And besides, it's FREE! If you can use something rescued from Christmas rubbish (scraps from cards, decorations etc) - then you get double points! lol

My recycled bits are the flowers which were punched from the card I snaffled from the crackers and the thin red ribbon is (or was) the hanging cord from my new pjs (does anyone really hang their jamas in the wardrobe?!?)

This card also fits the new challenge on Rosie-Dee's challenge blog

If you're here then we're asking you to share with us your floral side. This week we'd like you to show us your flowers. It's easy to go and buy our flowers for cards or scrapbooking, but we'd like you to have a go at making one. It doesn't have to be diffcult or even time consuming. What will be your material of choice?

The larger gold flowers were made using two different sized heart punches, easy really LOL

100% Recycled

Lisa's Friday night challenge on Just Bex is called 'Bargain Bucket' In my fave scrapbooking mag, they make a LO each month but have to stick to a £5 budget, I've decided that we can do better than that. I challenge you to make a LO spending no more than £1 (adhesives, pens etc are not included in the budget) We'd love to see a list of what you have used.

Here is my LO and I have spent............................zilch!!!

The brown paper is what my cards from my last PDA order were wrapped in, the blue 'photo mount' paper is the inside of an envelope, the yellow flowers were punched from a Yellow Pages memo pad (which was free when I placed my ad) and the beads were free on the front of a scrapbook mag a few weeks ago. The beads in the top right hand corner read "I see no ships", the flowers read "Perran" and "Porth" and the word at the bottom says "Cornwall". :))

I must just share this picture with you too. It is one of my dozy kittens sat quite happily in my handbag!

Night night. x