LESSology Challenge #19: Creative inspiration from Yvonne Yam, Kirsty Vittetoe and Laurel Seabrook.

Ready to check out the design team's projects for LESSology Challenge #19: Mirror, mirror on the wall? Let's see what Yvonne Yam, Kirsty Vittetoe and Laurel Seabrook have up their sleeves, shall we?

 

Hello there! This is Yvonne. I don't know about you but I can't seem to finish my makeup before it expires on me.  :( Do you have the same problem?

Seeing that my mother likes to carry photos of her grandchildren around, I upcycled a mirrored compact with a photo of my nephews so that she could look at them every time she reapplied her lipstick. It's a light and compact brag book! :)

Hello all, this is Kirsty here with the new challenge at LESSology - Mirror, Mirror.

My friend Linda gave me 3 of these wooden blocks

now let's gather the material I need for this project

of course the mirror being one of them....

you can see I also use some moss from flower arrangement....

old lace.......

TaDa........

this look like a cute piece of decor for my guest room that I intended to have a shabby chic theme, don't you think?

Hi everyone, Laurel here.  I am very excited about my mirror project for you today.  I picked up this old cabinet for about $10 at a thrift shop.  The glass doors did not slide well so I took them off.  I then repainted it in a nice dark walnut color...although the shabby lover in me wants to do a bit of distressing to it....  Anyhow to finish it off, I had an old cheap mirror laying around that I knew one day would be good for something.  I had it cut to fit the back of the cabinet.  I love how classy this looks and really shows off our items nicely.  Such and inexpensive home decor item.

There you have it. 3 very different ways for using a mirror on your projects. We would love to see your interpretation of LESSology Challenge #19: Mirror, mirror on the wall. :)

LESSology Challenge #18: Creative inspiration of Kirsty Vittetoe, Laurel Seabrook, Yvonne Yam and Linda Lapotka!

Hello there! Are you ready to check out the creative inspiration for LESSology Challenge #18: It's a Wrap!? Let's see what Kirsty Vittetoe, Laurel Seabrook, Yvonne Yam and Linda Lapotka have in store for us! :)

Hi everyone, it's me Kirsty here with my project for LESSology Challenge #18: It's a wrap! Not spending a single cent on the holiday gift wrap is my goal this year....

I found the glittered beads on an old pair of flip flaps, chain them together with 2 glittered bells from my stash

Punch a few circles with the kraft paper that came in the box with all the paper crafting supplies you ordered online..... that makes a really simple but festive embellishment for the gift box.

Next, just stamp and emboss the same kraft paper to wrap up your gift.  How simple and easy is that? And the best part?  I can do this with what I can find at home, no $ spent!

 

Hi everyone Laurel here with my version of the It's a Wrap challenge.  One thing I love to do is go garage saleing or thrifting.  I especially love it when I see something that I can then build a theme basket around.  This year I found this popcorn maker and was thrilled!  I have one that I paid full price for, it was a bit pricey but it works very well so I am happy with it.  I picked this one up for $3! Yay! I knew right away that I was going to build a Movie Themed gift basket and use this as the 'box'.  Now this makes me even happier because I really don't like all the waste of paper and such at Christmas time and anytime I can cut down on that I am a happy girl!

Anyhow, I also save interesting bottles and jars and whatnot so that I can one day upcycle them.  Today I have used two for this gift.  I used some pattern paper, cardstock and stamps to decorate these bottles and make a cohesive gift set that goes along with my theme.  Of course any movie night needs popcorn, a movie, some popcorn flavoring and M&Ms (have you had these mixed in with your popcorn, yum!).

Finally, it all fits inside and is easily wrapped up with a nice festive bow.

I hope that this gives you some inspiration and perhaps you may step away from the box with some of your gifts this year!

Greetings altered enthusiasts! It's Yvonne here to share my gift-wrapping idea! :)

I love using packaging to create my own embellishments. :) 

Love the plastic packaging that holds brads. The individual compartments are super fun to decorate! I filled up the compartments with coloured buttons then encased them with embossing liquid.

Did a little stamping on an ice-cream stick and canvas, added a handmade felt bloom and tag and my brown paper bag is all prettied up! :)

Happy Anniversary LESSology!  Welcome to this month fun challenge It's a Wrap!

For my project I recycled a brown shopping bag that I got from a coffee shop and made a Christmas gift bag.

I covered it with Christmas Designer Paper and a Martha Stewart punch to decorate the top. 

Next I used a Raisin Boat stamp called Elves on Staff to decorate the front of the bag.

Here is the video of how it went from a brown bag to a gift bag.

I hope you will join us for our month-long celebrations. Did you see the prize?

Now get that tape and paper out and start wrapping!

How's that to start your week of inspiration? Won't you come and play along with us? We would love to see your awesome gift-wrapping ideas for LESSology Challenge #18: It's a Wrap! :)

Please leave a little love for our design team!

LESSology Challenge #17: Creative inspiration of Laurel Seabrook, Kirsty Vittetoe and Yvonne Yam

Are you ready to check out how the design team got creative with LESSology Challenge #17: Fun with envelopes? Today we get to see the projects of Laurel Seabrook, Kirsty Vittetoe and Yvonne Yam.

 

Hi there Laurel here.  I just went through a big purge/organization of my scraproom (one of my projects every summer).  Quite honestly I would love for my room to always be neat and tidy with things hidden away so it looked 'clean and crisp'.  However, I am a visual person, in order for me to use it, I have to see it or I forget I have it (I know there are others like me out there!).  One of the things I have had trouble with were my journal tags and such.  I used to have them in plastic bags by manufacturer.  But this was a problem because then when doing a page, I would have to search through them all to find things that would work.  Not only was this time consuming, it made a mess and more often than not, I just didn't bother using the tags.

Then the envelope challenge gave me the push I needed to organize them better.  I had a lot of 6

X 6 envelopes in my stash just taking up space.  I tend not to make cards that big.  So I decided to put them to better use.  I labelled my envelopes (using a stamp set by TAWS) according to the occasion (summer, fall, love, abc, everyday, christmas, halloween... etc).

Now here is a hint for you:  when stamping words with alphabet stamps and you have a word that uses a letter more than once but only one of the letters here is my trick:  stamp the word from the end to the beginning - that way you can take away the letters you don't need and add more that you do.  This also will make it so the word fits where you want it to.  For example: on my 'summer' envelope I stamped 'mer' at the edge, took away the 'er' and added 'su' in front of the 'm' and then stamped the remainder of the word.  Does that make sense?

I then sorted my journal cards and put them in the correct envelope.   The envelopes are of course put into the container in alphabetical order so they are easy to find.  Now when doing a page I will pull out the corresponding envelope and see what tags and such I can use.

Another hint:  Now because I do things for publication I need to know where my items are from.  Once they are out of the package, I may forget... so I stamped on the back of them some initials (ES = Elle's Studio; PLS = Pretty Little Studio;  CT = Chic Tags...).   No one will see this, so I wasn't worried about how perfectly I stamped.

Finally, I prefer to spend my money on craft supplies rather than on what to store them in so if I can find something inexpensive that works I am all for it.  In this case I had a plastic eclair package hanging around that I knew would be useful one day.   Today was the day ;)  I am happy that it is white, so I left it... I like whiteness.  Of course though, it wouldn't be complete with a bit of scrappy decoration... so I adhered some Black V Striped Twill to fancy it up.  Easy Peesy!

Now there is room in the tub for more tags and such but not a lot.. so I either have to make sure I use them now or buy more eclairs so I have another tub, hehehe!

This is Kirsty here with my project for LESSology Challenge #17: Fun with envelopes.

I am sure you find lots of these in your mail box....

I took 6 of them, trim both ends, and then fold it this way, kind of have a longer side and a slightly shorter side

I use double-sided tape on the smaller side and stick all the envelopes together

you should have a book of envelopes with lots of pockets

When I started this project, I have a mini album in mind, creating all the pockets where I can slot in photos, or tags but along the way, a little girl named Dolce came into my craft room, saw what I've done with all those envelope, she said: "Oh, I need a little book just like that, so I could keep all the poems I wrote in those pockets" Oh well, so I have to toss the mini album out of my window and make a little "Dolce's Poem Book" instead!

Of course she now want to have some say on the patterned paper I pick out to dress up the pockets in the envelope book

the last step is to make a chipboard cover for this book

and now this is officially "Dolce's Poem Book"

So come play along!

Hello there! This is Yvonne. I love using envelopes on mixed media projects instead of wasting pretty patterned paper that would be painted over. Plus, I love the shaped edges of envelopes! :)

I created a 6 x 6 canvas as a birthday present for a friend *winks*. I used chipboard negatives, envelopes, texture paste, crackle paint, stickles and various inks and paints for the base.

Can you spot where the envelopes are? [the little brown bits on the base!]

I also handmade a bloom using remnant lace, felt and pearls. :)

We would love to see your take on LESSology Challenge #17: Fun with envelopes! :)