I had gotten a magnetic poetry set as a gift last Christmas and was at a quandary as to where to put it.  My refrigerator is already overrun with magnets and pictures so I had to come up with a new idea.  My first thought was to buy a sheet of metal but being the cheapskate that I am, I found a rusty cookie sheet that I was going to toss and decided to experiment.

I took a steel wool pad to clear off most of the rust and then covered it with a Rust covering textured spray paint.  I finished it off with some celestial stickers and a good coat of Mod Podge.  I drilled some holes in the sides and ran ribbon through to hold it so that I could hang it on the wall.

A few days ago my neighbours were moving out and brought this sad little bench to the curb.  Being the ultimate garbage picker, I grabbed the dog and ran down the street to bring the bench home.  Of course I forgot to take 'before' pics but I assure you, the fabric was dingy and worn.  I had been saving this purple stretch velvet that I had gotten on sale for something and I just knew it had to go on this bench.  It's my first attempt at reupholstering anything and am rather pleased with the way it came out...

In progress with help from my cats...

So five million staples later...I have a bench!

A friend of mine going through a difficult time told me about her "God Box".  A "God Box" is where you put your concerns or anything else that you're having a hard time dealing with on a slip of paper and put it in a box to let "God" deal with.  I thought this to be a lovely idea but being the jaded and cynical person I am, I much rather fancied the idea of letting "Karma" handle my problems...thus the "Karma Box" was created.

Front view...a wooden box painted with acrylic metallic blue paint and sealed with matte Mod Podge. The feet are wooden also painted with metallic antique gold paint.

Inside lined with blue felt, glued with tacky glue.

So, there I was stuck for ideas to get my brother in law something for Christmas...so seeings how I made everyone else in my family something crafty, I thought I'd try my hand at sculpting w/ polymer clay.  I was actually surprised at how easy it is to work with!  I may become addicted!

The only problem is that I've kind of grown attached to the little guy and now I don't want to give him away...we've bonded.  I'd make another but I bought the last of the Granitex clay at the craft store...*sigh*, at least I'll get to visit him! 

Here he is (excuse the crappy digi photos...my camera is from the Flinstone era.)

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A wonky close up...

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and his cute butt!

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So I had these bibs laying around and thought, "Hey, that would make a cute purse!".  Ten minutes, a zipper, and some grommets later...ta-daa!





 

Okay, I am about brain dead with trying to figure out what to do with 400+ sewing patterns.  Currently they are all stuffed in boxes and it's starting to overflow in my closet.  Anyone have some creative ideas on how to store them?  I can't hang them as my closet will spit them back out at me and I've tried the "binder" approach and can only fit 10 to 15 or so in the binders (besides, having 40 binders around is worse than the boxes.)

So, if anyone has an idea, I'd love to hear it...and so would my closet! 

I made this one for my crocheting stuff.  I found the remnant on sale for 50 cents (SCORE!) and frilled it up some with this blue lace I had laying around.  I added a cell phone pocket on the side 'cause I am forever digging in my bags trying to find the blasted thing when it is ringing.



And the cell phone pocket...



 

So, I had this cherry fabric laying around but not quite enough of it to make a whole bag.  So I decided to take the seam rippers to my 'skinny' jeans (he he he)    and make a bag out of them.  So HA to all those people who said I'd never wear a size 6 again....

The front 'pocket' is actually a rear pocket of the jeans.  I just freehanded a couple of cherries w/ a dressmakers pencil and embroidered them on.

The front of the bag:



The side of the bag:



The back of the bag:



And a close up of the embroidered front pocket:



I learned two very important things with this bag...1.  They actually make needles to sew through denim that won't snap when you're in the middle of sewing!  and 2.  I think my sewing machine will now sew through plywood if I want it to!  LOL!

 

So, I was drooling over this outrageously priced Prada bag and DING...thought to myself, hey I could make that!

So, here's theirs...


and here's mine...





I changed the dimensions on it only because theirs was a little too small.  I used a heavy sateen instead of quilted nylon only for my preference of the 'non-quilted' look, threw a little hot pink ribbon in in place of the black to spruce it up and ta-daa, my verson of a $300 purse!

Sorry for the yucky pictures, the bag isn't as distorted as the camera made them out to be, I promise!

I am so freakin' in love with making messenger bags that I am going to quit my job and become a hermit that has five hundred thousand messenger bags in her house...my green tablecloth bag was attracting too much attention so I wanted something a bit more subtle...so I found this green stripey remnant and prettied it up with some pink bias tape.

Here's the front...




and the back, complete with my painting supplies and my 'Beatles' death clues book...




Comments please!  Pretty?  Ugly?  Pretty ugly?  LOL!