Altered clipboards

First let me start by apologizing. I guess it had been so long since I had posted that I didn't realize that I had already posted those coaster projects way back when. I guess I liked them so much I had to share them with you twice.

Today I will show you a few of the altered clipboards that I created recently. They are super fun to make and they can be customized for just about any use.

I have been asked by a few people if I sell through Etsy or Ebay. These two clipboards are currently up for sale on Ebay. You can find all of my listings here. I sell on Ebay under the screen name calkathi. I haven't posted much because I generally sell through a private auction site because I don't know if I could keep up enough supply to list regularly. I actually just discovered Etsy today. I will have to look into that and see if it will be feasible for me to start listing there but from what I saw there would be some stiff competition. I would like to sell more since this is more of my passion than my regular J.O.B. but you all know that the day J.O.B. has to come first. I will explore selling options but at this point I am happy with just creating those items that I am drawn to even if it's only once in a while.

I found some great things in the Target Dollar spot so you should see more from me in the near future.

Altered Art

I have found a new friend. Modge Podge has provided me hours of entertainment and been my companion for the last 2 months. It seems as if a void in my life has been filled. I am still trying to understand why there are so many varieties. It would appear that they all do the same thing so what's the difference from the regular vs. the paper version? Even if I still don't totally understand, I will still enjoy my new friend.

Anyhow, I have started working on some more altered art. Since I make a lot of things with the intention to sell them, I have to make examples of personalized items. This way people can get an idea of what the items will look like. My poor girls are going to be so vain because I have to use people I know so that items don't go to waste. We have far too many items now that are personalized for the girls. Here's a recent example of this.

It's been far too long

See...I told you when I started this blog that I go full force into a new project and then I sort of fade away. I wasn't certain that I would be able to keep up with this blog and I guess I sort of willed myself to stop blogging. It's ironic that my last post was about getting 1,000 hits. I hit that milestone and then faded off into the distance.

That's sort of what happened.

You see, I started to feel like I was losing my creativity. I went through a time where I couldn't come up with any new ideas for stamping, scrapping or much of anything. I needed a break. During this break I found a deeper love of digital scrapbooking. I took some time to learn how to do it using Photoshop CS2 instead of using the Scrapbook Factory Deluxe program I had been. I spent many hours working on a book of pictures and layouts of the girls year. I have it almost complete and then I am going to send it off to be professionally printed. I can't wait to see how it turns out.

In the last month or so I found a bit of that creative desire coming back. I have completed a number of altered art projects. I guess what I discovered during this "break" was that I really didn't lose my creativity. I just need to use it in a lot of different ways. I guess the title of this blog doesn't cover the array of arts and crafts I am into.

I do plan on actively starting to blog again. I will try to recap some of the projects I have completed in the last few months. For now I will leave you with photos of 2 wall hangings I created. These were made with chipboard coasters. I plan on making more because they turned out really cute and I just got my hands on some more blank coasters just waiting to be altered.

Coaster projects

If you remember, a while back I won some blog candy from Kristine at Ink Something! It included 5 coasters. I had never made anything with a coaster but had seen lots of fun projects that I wanted to try. Well, today I decided to just give it a whirl on my own. I really didn't have any inspiration for these so I was pretty proud of what I came up with. I found these little hinges for hanging things on the wall and they worked out well for these.

The first one was a wall hanging for the holidays. I had this set of glittery Christmas 3-D stickers. I knew I wanted to do words and these stickers. This was the end result. I embossed the letters with gold embossing powder.

For the second project I wanted something where pictures could be added. I knew I wanted to use a wide ribbon to attach the coasters together. I only had a few different wide ribbons in purple tones. I dug through my stash to find any embellishments that were of the purple variety. I then added a place on each one where I stamped an image and saying so that the wall hanging could be used as is but I put the images in enough so that if someone wanted to add a picture you wouldn't see what was stamped.

I really love how both of these projects came out. I definitely want to try some other coaster projects because these were super simple and a lot of fun to make.

More manila file folder albums

I was going to save them for later in the week if my creativity was still at a stand still but here's a couple of more of the albums I made yesterday.

I can't tell you how much fun I had designing these. They were a little time consuming but really easy to make. I already have plans to make more but decided to put them on hold while I get more supplies.

A fun little project

I know I have been slacking on the blog lately. Actually I have been missing a little of my creativity in the last few weeks. I have that happen from time to time. I get so busy with other things that when I do get time to stamp or create I just don't feel like it. If I force myself to sit down and make something it really feels forced and I don't like anything I come up with.

I did get all my blog feeds switched over to Bloglines and I really like it. While I don't have time to keep up with all 400+ feeds on a daily basis, I do try to read as many as possible. After a week I was able to catch up on them all. I think this will work out quite well. The best part is the feature where you can "clip" a blog posting to save it in a special folder for reading later. I have a few different folders set up. I created one for blog candy, sketch challenges and another for card projects and ideas I want to try later. It's kind of my inspiration area.

This afternoon I went through my project folder and found something that looked like it would be fun to try. It is a manila folder Album. This was posted by Taylor at Taylored Expressions. I just so happen to have a ton of manila folders laying around so I just had to give it a try. Here is my first creation.

I can see so many uses for this. It could be a great album to carry around to show off your latest pictures of your kids. It could be fantastic for a new Grandma to show off her beautiful new grandchild. It could be a place to keep notes and shopping lists. I also think it would make a great Christmas/Holiday organizer. You could keep a to do list, notes, shopping list and then store all of your receipts. This is definitely one of my favorite projects so far. I had so much fun making this that I made a few more styles too. I will save those for posting later in the week.

Thanks Taylor for sharing this great tutorial.

Altered Art Challenge

I also decided to try an Altered Art challenge that I found at Card Inspired by Maria.

There are so many things that we use everyday that can be turned into something beautiful and useful. Well, the drink of choice in our house in a generic Crystal Light lemonade drink. I can't tell you how many of these containers I have thrown away. Today was different. I saw that empty container and got a vision.

Here's the container before:

And here's the container after:

Altered Purse

So, this isn't really stamped at all but I wanted to give it a try. I found these really cute wooden purses at Michael's for somewhere around $3.99. I thought they would be fun to add paper and embellishments. I played with this over a few days and got it almost complete.

Here's is what I did:

You might ask why I said it was almost done. Well my 2 year old found my paints. She had them all open and most of them dried out. Do you see where I am going to go with this? She decided she wanted to paint. She painted the other side of this purse with a nice Kelly Green color. I tried to wash it off but all that did was succeed in removing a few layers of the paper even through the coating I had applied. I was just a little bit angry but she didn't know any better so I really couldn't be mad at her. I was only mad at myself for not putting the paints in a place she couldn't get to. I just haven't had the heart to try another one.

Altered clipboards

I always thought these were cute but my biggest question always has been: What would you use this for? Feel free to leave me some comments to let me know how you use yours.

At a recent Stamp-a-Stack we made an altered clipboard. I saw just how easy these are to make. I think mine turned out pretty cute. It was fun to see how we all were provided with the same supplies but they all turned out so completely different. I did add the butterfly stamp to mine at home.

Here's mine:

I decided to buy the supplies to make a few on my own. I think the one I did came out cute but I still think it is missing something.

Here it is: