So, I make stuff. Accordingly, It really really hard for me to purchase presents for the ones I love. The good news is that the ones I love seem to enjoy handmade gifites, but occasionally I get stumped as to what to make.
This is when my "inner squirrel" comes in handy. A few weeks ago, I just happened to be browsing through my local Pat Catan's craft store in Cleveland, OH, when I meandered thru the paper-mache aisle. Not my usual thing, the brown, round, hat-box shaped purses kind of struck me as interesting. So as I was racking my brain for a creative thought, my eyes fell upon it.... and inspiration struck. My mom, who is a card crafter, is also a rabidly-proud "Nana" of two. So I decided to "alter" the hat-box purse into a photo craft tote.
After base-coating the entire thing with gold acrylic paint, I got out some lovely brown- and orange- themed scrapbook papers by Scenic Route. I designed one side w/ my sons' altered photo (just scanned and convered into a aged sepia-tone look, printed on watercolor paper) and the word "craft" using letter embellishments from Architexture. The other side I treated my daughters' photo the same way, and used the word "create". Now, I'm a little crazy w/ the distressing pads, so I "browned it down" to pull it together, and then used paper to accent the sides.
The inside was painted and lined with felt. (This is the craft-tote part!) I included sticky hook-and-loop tape so that she could put it on tools and supplies, so that they'll stick to the felt and not rattle around on the inside. {I'm hoping that there will be a photo gallery soon, with more detailed photos...}
The whole thing took less than 2 1/2 hours, and I had everything I needed in my studio- so the gift was on time!So, Mom loved it, I decided I wanted one, too, and I was validated in my "squirrelly" tendencies. Morale of the story: if it speaks to you, and it won't make you miss the mortgage, pick it up. Then you can spend more time getting creative with what you have on hand, too. Ok, now I'm off to go make stuff. Next up: altered clipboards.....
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