Trash to Treasure

My creative cousin Lorie has started a blog called "Trash to Treasure" featuring all the fun stuff she makes from recycled items. She's doing a giveaway every week, so be sure to check it out!
I just love these juice carton purses! I've been saving them up so I can learn to make them. I'm hoping that I can get to it this summer, but we'll see!!

Sheetload of Cards

One of my favorite things to do is make homemade cards. Several months ago I stumbled across a great site called Sheetload of Cards. Every month they put out a free e-zine with directions on how to make their card of the month.

Sheetload has totally changed the way I make cards! Before I would sit down with all my supplies and spend forever just trying to come up with an idea for a card. Now all that work is done for me. I love it!!

This is a their May 2009 e-zine. Using it, I came up with these:

If you have a minute, and you love to make cards, go check them out! You won't be sorry!!

Mother's Day Gifts...

I'm a big fan of giving homemade gifts for holidays and birthdays. This year for Mother's Day, I decided to dress up notepads for my wonderful Mom and Mother-in-Laws!


I got a package of 3 yellow notepads from the Dollar Store. Here's an example of the "before" and "after".


And you know I can't give a gift without a homemade card too. So I made matching cards to go with each of the notebooks.




Remember the strawberry jam from my earlier post?
I used Mod Podge and scrapbook paper to make the lids match each set of cards/notepads.

Although it may not be much, my gift for my Mom and Mother-in-Laws comes from the heart. Those are the best kind of gifts if you ask me!!

Happy Mother's Day!!

Strawberry Jam...

A few weeks ago we stumbled across an incredible deal on strawberries. We got a whole flat for only $4.00!! We grabbed one (now I wish we would've gotten more!) and decided to use half of them for eating, and the other half for making strawberry jam.

This was my first time ever making strawberry jam. It was quick and easy, and the jam turned out YUMMY! My husband and kids would eat it straight out of the jar if I'd let them!

**Later on this week, I'll show you how I dressed up the jars for gifts!! Stay tuned!!

More Teacher Appreciation...

For the last couple of years, the PTA at my kids' school does something fun for the teachers during Teacher Appreciation Week. Each day, the kids are asked to bring different supplies to their teachers to help them get restocked for the rest of the year, and hopefully a headstart on supplies for next year.

Wednesday is Hand Sanitizer/Tissue day. I used scrapbook paper and Mod Podge (my new best friend!) to create some custom hand sanitizer bottles for each of my kids' teachers.

I had a hard time deciding between using apples and the first letter of their last names, and decided it would be more personal if I used the letters. I'm happy with how they turned out, and my kids can't wait until Wednesday so they can give them to their teachers!