Crafty Inspiration

Lately I've been diving more and more into crafting. I have always been very stimulated by the arts, but felt limited by a lack of tools or training. While that aspect has been slightly discouraging, it has never fully stopped me from experimenting with pastels, paints, scrapbooking, and anything of the sort. And its been rather therapeutic - channeling my miserable energy into creating something beautiful or whimsical... using my hands and laboring over something that nourishes me... all the while having a great time feeling inspired. While my supplies are quite scant, I think I've done a decent job with what I have. So, without further ado, here are pictures of my latest (amateur) creations: 

Gift Bags
The first of my endeavors involved recycling boxes into gift bags! The first two pictures are of a box I made for Megan's 30th bday, which was once a Cheezit box. The third picture shows a Turkey Stuffing box turned birthday gift bag for the lovely Ivie. These gift boxes are quite sturdy, and definitely reusable.

                 

Birthday Cards

I've made some birthday cards before, but thought this was one of my best ones. The picture below displays the front of the card. I placed some embellishments on the card stock, and layered a piece of vellum over it secured with brads.

Front of Card

Nord Christmas Card

Below is an image of the christmas card John and I sent out to our family and friends. I made this with the help of Izzy, a friend and Stampin Up demonstrator! She has all of the coolest Stampin Up tools that I used to create our card.

 

Other Christmas Cards
Below is a christmas card I made for my Mom. It will be my first christmas not seeing them - which is a very difficult thought. I will miss them immensely, and hope that, with this card, a bit of my spirit is sent as well.

Christmas Card 1

Christmas Gift Tags

Instead of buying gift tags to place on our wrapped presents, I decided to make ours. Some examples are below!

Tag 1

Tag 2 (Front)

Tag 2 (Inside)

Tag3

Tag 4 (Front)

Christmas Card Banner

With inspiration from a holiday catalog, Ivie (christmas card wreath), and Becky (crafty wreath) (thank you ladies!), I decided to string together all the lovely christmas cards we received and insert little handmade holiday crafty thingies (for lack of a better phrase) in between each card. It took some time to make all of the crafty thingies and to string everything together, but it worked out! The resulting banner is shown in the second picture below.

Holiday Crafty Thingies

Christmas Card Banner