Let the BLOGGING trip begin

I found these candles at Kmart and they were so adorable that I had to buy them and have now decided they are going to be gifts for the ladies that attend my classes.  I’ve also put a couple away as part of my sister’s birthday present because she is absolutely crazy for pink and flamingos.  I personally prefer the cactus.  The candles were $3 for a box and you get six single candles.  Please see tutorial for the details on how to make some cute little boxes to fit these candles into.  They are so adorable.

Part of my New Year’s Resolution is to use my scraps and now with the budget strings tightened more than they have in the past I can only purchase new paper and ribbon if it is going to be used, as opposed to hoarding which I have been known to do in the past.

So over the Christmas break I cleaned out my craft cupboard and got rid of all the scraps less than 1inch wide and 4 inches long into three A4 size zip lock bags and handed these over to my son’s daycare.  Anything smaller than this I just find overwhelming and much too difficult to try and use unless I have a specific project in mind.  Given the amount that I had I felt it was easier to try and start this thrifty crafting from a fresh start and not overwhelm myself too much.  Mind you, I have seen some wonderful ladies on the Facebook pages and Pinterest pages do well and make cards from scraps really thin but my thought with this would be then I would end up with a whole heap of cards that I would then need to store until such time as I found a use for them.  As you can see from the tutorial that has been uploaded I have found a use for some of the scraps already.

I do run a monthly card class with a group of fabulous ladies and the majority of my Christmas break is spent preparing for the following twelve months of classes as I work full time in a role that requires a lot of travel and it means I am not home as much as I would like.  This year whilst designing the classes (trolling Facebook and Pinterest for ideas) I set myself a challenge that requires me to use ribbon (my mum is going to get really annoyed as she does not like ribbon) and designer series paper on EVERY card.  Now this is a big challenge for me as in the past if I have bought a roll of ribbon or pack of paper I have been a bit hesitant to cut it and use it for the cards in a class in case I ran out and didn’t get enough cards for the class.  I usually have about 10 ladies each month.  So with my first order from the new Occasions Book I set about ordering 2 x paper and 2 x ribbons and you know what?  I cut all that designer series paper and have nothing left.  I’ve cut twelve cards each for my ladies to make for the February class and I used all the ribbon and I had two rolls of half used retired ribbon of those colours and I used all of them to.  I said to my husband I think by actually buying two of the designer series paper packs I actually used both, as opposed to just hoarding one.  This is obviously not going to work for all the paper that I have already hoarded over the years but this is what needs to get me through the months where I am unable to put in an order for more supplies.

So now that it is back to work my crafting time will be minimal but I have found  some great one sheet wonder templates both 6 x6 and 12 x 12 which I plan on using to help ensure that my hoard of paper does not continue to grow.