Father's Day Creations!

Hello there readers!  It has been quite awhile since I've written to you and again LOTS has happened!  I'll spare you the details and just give you the headlines:

• I had a complication after my c-section that caused me to end up need a lot more recovery time - but luckily now I'm healthy!  
• Sammy is healthy!  She'll be 8 months tomorrow and she's absolutely just the most fabulous baby ever!  Being a Mom is the absolute biggest change but best thing about life!  
• By Husband switched jobs, which was stressful but now he is MUCH happier in his new situation!  

Needless to say, it's been a stressful few months!  I really didn't do much crafting during this time, but I did get back in the saddle for Father's Day!  

First - this I made a month before Father's Day but I couldn't wait to put it up in our house!  It's a shadowbox that holds bottlecaps!  I saw it in Pinterest and figured I could make a nice one for a LOT less than the one that I saw had cost.  I was able to make the entire thing for about $32!  =)  I got the vinyl lettering on Etsy for $9 and the shadowbox at Michael's with a 40% off coupon for $20!  Then my husband cut a hole in the top of the box for us to toss the caps in!  I love how it turned out:  

In addition to the shadowbox, I made some Father's Day cards for my husband's first Father's Day and my dad's first as a Grandpa!  We had a LOVELY weekend of friends and family!  Here's the first card: 

I created a golf hole with copics and cardstock, and used my Paper Smooches stamps which I love! My daughter's room is owl themed, so I couldn't resist adding the DeNami Design owl and I LOVE that Lawn Fawn sun too!  My husband loved it!  

Then onto the next card: 

On this one I freehand cut out the tree and used mostly Lawn Fawn stamps to create the sentiment and cloud background!  I had the owl rubber stamp from ages ago (an oldie but a goodie!) and I colored everything with copics!  Grandpa definitely thought it was "Owlsome" hehe!

It's been a long time since I got inky and I must say that it felt REALLY good!  I'm hoping to have more time to work on stuff in the future - both including cards and scrapbooking stuff!  

I hope you enjoyed these cards today!  =D  Have a crafty week!  

Pinterest Project #1 - Ticket Shadowbox

Why hello there blogland!  I must admit it has been quite awhile!  I have much to tell you - and even much more to share!

First of all - I've been really REALLY taking a step back from cardmaking.  It's not that I don't love making cards, but lately I've really been trying my hand at lots of other crafty things!  I'm still working with some paper, but I'm also branching out more into things involving fabrics and mixed medias.  =)

One of my big inspirations (as many of you could probably guess) has been Pinterest!  So this is going to start a series of posts I'm calling "The Pinterest Project."  I'm on a mission to make fun and easy DIY projects for $20 or under!  Many of my projects (like this one) will be MUCH cheaper than that even!!!  =D

So one of the ideas that I got from Pinterest was THIS POST that shows some really awesome shadow boxes that are dedicated to tickets from events that you have been to!  I had an idea to try and make one on my own, and it turned out REALLY great!  Here's the products that I used:

• An 8x11 shadowbox from Michaels (originally $10 but I got it 40% off for $6)
• One piece of PTI's Smokey Shadow Cardstock (any similar gray cardstock retails for about $1/piece at most)
• Some awesome free printable tickets that I printed myself (free!)  
• Silver and Gold Ribbon from Really Reasonable Ribbon (retails for $1.25 for 5 yards, so $2.50 for WAY more than you'd need)  
• A permanent black marker or ink pen (I had this product) 
• Various adhesives that I already had (Tombo Permanent Adhesive for the ribbon, Tombo Aqua Liquid Glue to attach the cardstock to the back of the shadowbox, and a Zig 2-Way Glue pen to adhere the tickets to the cardstock)
• I also used an x-acto knife and my hubby helped me with a jigsaw to cut the slit in the top of the shadowbox!  

Now, this whole project cost me at MOST $9.50, but I only actually spent $6 on the shadowbox - I used supplies from my crafting stash that I already had!   I would encourage that most of you should do the same - use what you have lying around and I'm sure yours will turn out just as awesome! 

I started by taking apart the shadowbox and measuring out the slit on the top of the box.  I used my x-acto knife to outline the slit in the top of the box, and then my husband cut it out for me!  I made my slit 4" by .75" - which I figured would be large enough for most of the tickets I'd want to put into the box!

Next, I started on the background of the shadowbox!  I cut down the cardstock to fit the back of the box.  Then I printed out the tickets and cut them out as well.  I arranged the tickets on the top of the box and adhered the ribbons to the bottom of the cardstock.  Once everything was glued down I glued the cardstock to the back of the shadowbox.  Because the Tombo Aqua Liquid Glue needs time to set without curling the paper, so I put a heavy book on top of the back of the box while it dried.

Once the glue was dry, I wrote "Smith Family Memories" on one of the tickets!  =)  Now my shadowbox is ready to be hung up and used!  We plan on using ours for sporting tickets, movie tickets, concert tickets, and other festival/event tickets since we are always doing things like food festivals and beer festivals etc!  Here's a picture of the finished product:

Because it's a shadowbox, I had a hard time photographing the details on the tickets in the entire box, so here's a closeup of the tickets:

I hope you enjoyed Pinterest Project #1!!!!  I hope that you look forward to many more of these projects and that you enjoyed this tutorial!  As always, your comments and feedback are precious and I love reading every one of them!  =)

Have a craft-tastic day!  =D