More Happy Mail!

I was going to do a paper gift bag/box tutorial today, but I'm getting so frustrated with making it look a certain way, that I'm going to spend the weekend trying to perfect it before sharing it with all of you. So instead I'm going to let you all drool over the beautiful washitape I got in the mail today.

These six rolls were purchased from Scrapbook Daily Deals. They're from My Minds Eye (love their products! The three on the left (pink & grey) are from the Ruby set and the three on the right (blue, grey & yellow) are from the Oliver set. I love them both! 

Now I just need to get more washitape racks from Michaels and find a more effective way of organizing them so I don't have to move around a hundred rolls just to add in one or two.

If anyone has any ideas on how to better sort my washitape I'd love to hear it.

Here's a photo of how it's currently stored/organized in case you missed it on Tuesday (obviously need more racks). It sort of sorted by colour, but it's hard to tell because so many are stacked beside them. I was debating doing it by pattern (ie. stripes, chevron, polka dots, letters/words, solid colour, etc.), but since there are so many and there's so few that are actually the same it would be a mess.

Thanks for stopping by love! I'd love to hear your thoughts on anything crafty. Project suggestions, storage solutions, a new banner to hang on my wall, or a logo design of any kind!

Have a wonderful weekend! See you on Monday!

Little Gift Basket

I was browsing Pinterest, again, looking for ideas and stumbled across this adorable little basket. The link took me to Sweet Anne (here).

I'll warn you in advance that I struggled with this a little. It wasn't looking the way I wanted it to, and I got frustrated and almost gave up, figuring that I could whip up a card really quick. (10 minutes or so. Yeah right!)

I downloaded her PDF printable file and printed it out on purple cardstock.

I cut it out and scored the dotted lines. 

After messing around with it for a good half hour, I finally went to the original tutorial (here), and used it to assemble my basket. It ended up looking like that when I was finished fighting with the pieces to stay where I wanted them.

I cut out an extra handle piece, and attached them to my basket using little white brads.

For those of you looking for a simpler way to do it, I would suggest simply using the original tutorial. You can adjust the size of your basket according to your needs using the original tutorial, and you can adjust your design to work for you. The printable was also missing a score line that the original tutorial suggested having in order to have a flat base.

Have a wonderful Thursday everyone!

Thanks for stopping by.

-Alex

Washitape Wednesday

For those of you who missed it last week, you can find my Washitape Wednesday project (here). For those of you who haven't heard of Washitape Wednesday, you can click that link and read all about it!

This week's project was quick and simple. I used the same paper flower tutorial that I posted earlier, which you can find (here).

To make these paper flowers, I put washitape on a scrap of white paper and then punched out four scalloped circles. Here's the tape I used and the finished flower.

There you have it! A quick and easy way to make custom flowers using your washitape! If you'd like a more detailed tutorial, please ask, and I'll edit this to include step by step photos, but you can use the tutorial from last weeks Washitape Wednesday for adhering your tape to a piece of paper!

Thanks for stopping by! I'd love to see your washitape projects, and if you have a blog, be sure to share them over at Crafting a Fairytale!

Happy Washitape Wednesday everyone!

-Alex

Michael's Haul #2

I was hoping to get this post up earlier, but I had to first unpack everything, then organize it and figure out how I wanted everything to go. I spent most of the $1000.00 that I had set aside for this trip. I don't regret any of it, though I might have gone a little overboard on a few things.

This haul includes more than just Michael's, but rather than have 6 different posts for each store I went to, I'm grouping them all under my second Michael's haul. I'll have things from Indigo (bookstore), HMV, Michael's, and Treasured Memories, a small scrapbook shop in Edmonton than sells Project Life, as well as a multitude of other things. Possibly the greatest scrapbook store I've ever been to. The best part is that both Jon and I found things there that we would absolutely use!

Here's all the bags. It doesn't look like many, but there was a bunch here. The paper bag is from Treasured Memories, and started to tear because it was heavy. The minute I picked it up the bag tore apart and everything spilt onto the floor. Good thing I was going to empty it out anyway!

Here's what I picked up at Treasured Memories. It was the last stop we made yesterday, so I only bought the one Project Life kit that I hadn't picked up at Michaels. I didn't plan to get Mod Podge, but I wanted to try it out before I tried making my own so that I could compare the two. I also couldn't leave her store without buying stamps! The four tins have little wooden stamp sets in them, and I only picked them up because Jon wanted the tins, but I actually love the stamp sets in them!

Here's a close up of the Smash Pad I picked up. It's the quotes one. I plan to use it for sending my favourite quotes to penpals. I also picked up a cute little stamp set with envelopes. The one on the left says snail mail and the banner at the top says intro.

Here's the inside of the PL kit I picked up. It's the rain edition, and I'm in love with the colours of this one!

Here's the stamps inside of the butterfly tin.

Here's the stamps inside of the London tin. Love the keep calm and carry on stamp!

These are the stamps inside of the symbols tin. They'll be great for decorating envelopes, letters and for little things in Project Life (if I ever get started).

Finally, here are the stamps inside the New York stamp tin. I love the Statue of Liberty!

Since I'm sharing my haul in the reverse order that I bought everything, before going to Treasured Memories, we stopped at HMV in West Edmonton Mall. I couldn't resist picking up movies on my list and some CD's I wanted. The CD's I picked up included The Piano Guys, Ellie Goulding, Imagine Dragons, and Michael Buble. I picked up a bunch of movies as well, Jane Eyre, Julie & Julia (which I'm watching with Jon right now), Blue Valentine, Trouble With The Curve, The Host and got Hot Tub Time Machine for like $6 or something for spending over $15.

Before that we went to Chapters (Indigo, Coles, etc.). I really wanted to get the Hunger Games set, but couldn't find all the books together. I was also a little disappointed that I couldn't find the third book in the Beautiful Creatures Series. I was excited to get Under the Dome (I'm watching the TV show on CBS), and The Host!

While we were in the book store, I couldn't pass up getting some pretty tissue paper, and a couple journals. The airmail one on the right is for a penpal, and the other is for myself. It has pretty papers inside.

Sample of a couple of the papers. They're so pretty! I could always tear them out and write letters on them.

Before we travelled to the giant mall, we went to Michaels. One thing on my list that I refused to leave Michael's without was more washitape dispensers (though still not enough). I picked up four pairs and need another four to hold all of my tape (and a few extra rolls).

Here's all my washitape stacked on my racks. I wanted to keep the colours together still (like how they were in the suitcase). When I ran out of holders, I stacked the remaining rolls on the little holders on the side of the bottom holders. On the far right I have all my remaining orange tape, and one multi coloured chevron roll in front. The others also have two stacks (the front stack being 2-4 rolls high. I think that this is an indication that I almost have too much washitape, some of it hasn't even been used yet!

I picked up some clay planter bases for another project. I bought four little ones, and a large one (larger than the last one I bought). 

I also picked up some sticker packs. The Hello Kitty ones are for penpals, and the Dora and Disney Princesses are for my niece. I send her stickers once a week or so.

I also picked up some family stickers. Hoping to do something family related for my boyfriends parents regarding the family reunion they held last summer.

I couldn't resist getting an owl and an elephant punch. I also couldn't help but pick up more washitape. I'm a little ashamed about how out of control my addiction to washitape has gotten. I can only imagine what's going to happen when they bring in new designs.

I also couldn't resist getting some stamps. I needed more birthday related stamps. I also loved the Canada stamp. It'll go nicely with my other Canada stamps, and they'll be beautiful on envelopes for penpals!

Of course I couldn't resist getting acrylic stamps either. So I picked up all of these.

The two small sets on the left were in the sale bin. Yay me!

Found these beautiful photo boxes as we walked into Michael's. I only needed one, but I couldn't resist. Plus they had owls on them so I needed them. 

Here's what the sides of the photoboxes look like!

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I also had to pick up stamp cleaner replacement pads for my stamp cleaner.

Only picked up two paper stacks. The black and white one has some patterns that match a paper stack that I use a lot! It's also by Recollections, it just has more bright pastel colours.

Of course I bought Project Life at Michael's. I WANTED the Cherry Blossom edition, but couldn't find it here, nor at Treasured Memories, but I ended up getting all of these instead. 

First up, we have the Midnight Edition. Lots of black, white, yellow and grey.

Next up we have the Kraft edition. This one is so fun and different. The predominant colour is kraft paper brown. I love it! 

The Honey Edition. I love how bright and cheerful it is. I hadn't planned on getting it, but I figured I might as well just get one of each instead of just 3/4 of what they had.

Then we have the Cinnamon edition. I love the colours of this one. I'm not a fan of brown, but I love the way this looks!

Currently all six of my Project Life core kits are stored under my second desk. The top one, the Blush Edition, I ordered from the HSN special (long story), but only received the one kit before cancelling my order. I hate the box that it came in. I love the box the others came in. They're so much nicer! But I can't wait to show you what my kits go towards.

I feel a bit like a hoarder of craft supplies, but Jon assures me that it's okay because I'm hoarding things that I'm actually going to use. That justifies this right? I'm allowed to pick up every single Project Life edition because one day I'll use them, but until I do use them, I can just store them under my other desk.

Hope you all have a wonderful day! This post took me a couple of hours to write. I'm rather surprised. Though I had a lot of pictures to upload, which took forever. I also had a lot to say.

I'd love to see your craft supply hauls and your Project Life layouts, or other creative things that you use your Project Life kits for! If you'd like to submit something or offer feedback, feel free to e-mail me creationsbycoal@gmail.com or leave a comment below!

-Alex

My Apologies

Sorry for the lack of a crafty post today. I spent the weekend trying to come up with something to post quickly, but couldn't think of anything. I sat at my desk for a couple hours flipping through magazines looking for inspiration and finally gave up.

I knew this would happen eventually, but tomorrow I have a massive craft haul to share with all of you. I spent the day in Edmonton and I can't wait to share with you all what I got. Both crafty and non-crafty. Hope you all had a wonderful weekend, I'll see you tomorrow!