I made this recipe box for my sisters birthday. She was really happy to get it, she loves to cook.

I made this box out of an old filing box of some sort I found at my job. It was quite torned and ugly, but the perfect size for a A5 sized paper. That means you can print out a recipe and fold it in half and store it with style!

The inside is covered in a purple color. I used regular printing paper in that color, because of the thin thickness if was easy to get nice corners and folds. The outside is covered in different patterned papers. I kept the decorating simple with just a few brads and feux stitching. I like to keep it simple, hopefully that will help when you look at it in a few years from now…

This is the inside with the dividers. In the far back there is room for empty recipe cards and a CD so you can print out more of them when needed.

Here is a closer look at the dividers. The circles with the text on is printed out and cut with a punch, and then chalked at the edges.

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I have been looking for a sturdy table for me to stand up and craft at. It has been hard to find something in the right height and also good looking : ) After several months of table hunting I decided it would work to use the LEKSVIK bar table from IKEA. The pricing was even lower, then the already low original price, at the time I bought my table (I am IKEA Family member). But it was to high for me, and didn’t have any nice color to it.

The LEKSVIK bar table unhacked

The hacking took it’s start! Cutting down the legs at the top about 4 inches, to keep the shape at the bottom. Then I drilled new holes for the construction to work. Then I added a shelf. I found a shelf at the hard ware store made out of glulam, that fitted just right. Finally painted the whole thing in a nice creme yellow color. The shelf is big and holds two sewing machines and some boxes with miscellaneous stuff in.

The LEKSVIK bar table hacked

This was my first IKEA hack, but not the first time I build a furniture, I can’t recommend doing this if you aren’t a handy gal or guy, the drilling part is an exact business, but the shelf and painting is easy.

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This calendar is made from a pattern I found at Canon Creative Park. I printed all the pages and used them as a pattern. I cut the pieces out from a patterned paper by October Afternoon and a piece of Bazzill for the cubes. I was looking for a nice stamp set to use for the writing, but I didn’t have one big enough. So what I did was, print all lettering out on a sheet of transparency to make my own rub-ons and then fill them in with a black marker. It turned out ok, but a stamp set would make a better job. It is hard to get the cubes stay closed. Tombow mono didn’t do the job, you need to use something stronger than that, I used a liquid glue.

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This is the description on how to make a cover for a small notepad. The notepad I used is almost 4 1/2″ high. The cover is made so it is easy to replace the notepad when needed. For this notepad it was just enough with a 12 by 3 1/2″ piece of cardstock. I started out by figuring out the measurements on a printer paper and then just did the same on my piece of cardstock after that.

This is the front cover. I rubber band holding it closed. You can decorate the front in many many ways of course, but I made it simple with patterned paper and a border punch.

This is the side view, as you may notice, it is wider on the side were the spine is. You also get a hint of the piece of cardstock that is on the back, holding the notepad in place.

This is the way I made my folding. Begining from the left side, the first and second fold is to make a bottom for the notepad to rest on.

Then the next two foldes are for the top.  This step is easy to figure out. You place your notepad onto the

piece of cardstock and do the folding.

Then you close the cover and it will be way to long on the front. The piece that is to long, you fold back, and glue the two outside edges so it will create a pocket on the inside of the cover for the notepad to slide in to.

Also take a narrow piece of cardstock and glue it to the inside of the back of the cover to hold the pad from sliding sideways.

Finally punch a hole and thread some elastic band through. You can even reinforce the hole with an eyelet if you like. Do a knot on the inside of the cover. The notepad will cover the knot.

Feel free to ask any question

TFL!

This is a very simple card I made for my dads birthday, he is really into Mercedes from the 50s so I just printed out a picture I googled and made a card, very simple!

Cardstock by Bazzill Basics

Patterned paper by  MMI

Buttons from home!

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I came up with this girl, her name is Effie, I don’t have any stamps that is good for practicing coloring with markers. I think she is cute! Some day she will get a dog… Well I traced her onto a piece of photo album paper, the kind you by in bulk. They are heavy and smooth. I tried 3 different pens I had at hand and Zig writer is the best so far.

Then I started coloring! It is very fun and relaxing to do this! I thought I make a dark skin tone as well, but it is harder I think. As you can see a lot of bleeding happened, but on the last one (the blond) I started to get a hang on it.

Since the Neopiko markers don’t have over 300 colors avalible, only 144, and I only have 72 of those, I used a lot of the technique were you put some color on a slick surface and pick it up with a lighter marker to blend it. I put my light source up in the right corner.  To night I will trace some animals I found in the clip art library in word, and color all night long! (except when i watch desperate housewifes)

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I made this little gable box for my sisters birthday. I’m giving her a gift certificate. I filled the box with golden sand to give it some weight. I that way my sister may not figure out whats inside that easy? I found a template over here. She has plenty of templates! Love that! I open the jpg file in Photoshop and printed it out at 50% size. The box measures almost 4 inches wide.

Black cardstock (don’t know were I got it)

Patterned paper by Basic Gray

Clear frame stamp by 7gypsies

Some oink grosgrain ribbon & green buttons from my stash

Magnetic Letter stamps by Making Memories

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I made this for a friends birthday and it was very appreciated from what I was told :-)  First I placed a big piece of cellophane in the bucket and then I took some purple printing paper and cut thin pieces with my paper trimmer to make it look like it’s been paper shredded. And then I placed all different things in the bucket like chocolate bars and body lotion and bubble bath and so on for her to pamper her self. She just had a baby so I think she enjoys a time alone in the bathroom.  Finally I wrapped everything up and placed a coordinating card there as well.

I do agree with Lauren Meader when she talks about the packaging of a gift instead of whats inside.

For the card:

Cardstock by Bazzill Basics

Patterned paper by Basic Grey

Border stamp by 7gypsies

Dotted stamp by Martha Stweart

Ribbon from the supermarket

Frame colored with neopiko-2 marker

Black ink by Ranger, AdirondackPitch Black

White ink by Colorbox

Black ZIG Millennium writer 05

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I have finally laid my hands on some alcohol based markers! I found a set with 72 markers on the Swedish eBay site for not even 50 dollars! They are called Neopiko-2 and are manufactured by a Japanese company called Deleter. I got the 72A set and there is a 72B set as well.

I only had them for a week so I can’t tell you so much about them yet. There is 144 colors available including a solvent/blender one. One nib on the Neopiko-2 is brush like and the other one is a wide flat one. In Sweden this markers are popular among the manga people. I haven’t tried copic so I can’t tell the difference but I do like these ones. And they are waaay cheaper. They are so fun to use! The colors that are indicated on the caps are not always what they look like IRL so I made my self a chart and did a little coloring with each one for easy reference.  I will show you that later, and some samples as well

This is the set I got:

And this is how the neopiko-2 markers look:

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When we bought a bigger tv, we had to move a painting that was hanging over the old small tv. But it left a big empty wall. For a long time now I planed to do a collage sort of thing with pictures of the family. This is what we have so far.

I done some reading and found out that you should place the frames in a way that it will not be any lines all the way through for the eye to follow, if you understand what I mean. I tried to do that as much as possible, but it was hard. I also plan to put more frames on the wall later, so I tried to leave room for that as well. The “H” represent our name “Holmstrom”. I printed all the photos in BW to give it a more soft look, and added a color splash with a piece of fabric.

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