The polka dotted paper is from BoBunny’s Peacock Lane line.  The stamp is from Hero Arts.  Inside I stamped happy birthday, but it would also be nice as a card just to tell someone they’re special.

My aunt asked me to make her this special little scrapbook.  She had written this little poem book type thing for my cousin (her nephew) for his 18th birthday.  He passed away unexpectedly a year later and she received this back from his mother as a keepsake.  She laminated it and has been carrying it around in her wallet ever since, but she wanted something more substantial so she asked me to do something with it. 

I used a 7Gypsies chipboard tag album that looked like this before I started:

 And I decorated with paper she picked out and then just prettied up the front.  Here’s the after:

 This is what she was carrying around:

I actually scanned all the little pages and printed them out onto white cardstock so she could keep the originals.  I covered every page (tag) in the album with black cardstock and just adhered my little pages in order to each one.

It’s a cute little poem, so I thought I would share the inner pages with you here.  If you can’t see them well enough, just click on each photo and give it a second to adjust and it will be just the right size.

 My aunt was so thrilled with this, and I was so happy to be able to give her a special keepsake of one of her nephews.

What do you think?

Summer was only 3 in this photo!

I used American Crafts cardstock, Imagination Project paper (distressed the edges around the way around), the tag with the year on it and the tag with the word Christmas on it are from Shabby Chic Tags (love them).  The trees are a digital stamp that I printed on white cardstock and cut out.  I can’t remember where they came from and I hate when that happens!  I think the jewels I put on it are from the $1 bin at Michaels (my favorite spot in Michaels- ha ha)  I also used GCD Studios black glitter letter stickers (LOVE) and a Fancy Pants glittery photo overlay.

I know, doesn’t the name Fish Foam  just make you wonder WHAT IS IT?  ha ha!  It’s window cleaner!  I was excited to get the opportunity to try this out, because we got new windows in my house a while back and were told to NOT use window cleaner with ammonia in it (I don’t know why).  Which means now I can’t use my go-to cleaner of Windex on them, so it was great to have something to try with no ammonia. 

Anyway, I tried this stuff out on something way more disgusting than my regular windows first.  I recently uncovered from the dungeon that is my basement a door that must have at some time years ago been the door to my studio/office.  When I moved into this house, there was a louvered door on my studio/office that I have never liked.  When I found this one, I was thrilled!  It has 10 panes of glass and is wood, but I’m going to primer and paint it white.  However, it had been in the dungeon of my basement the entire time I’ve lived in this house (12 years!) and I didn’t even know it was there!  And it was absolutely disgusting!  I previously cleaned all the glass panes.  We stripped the stain off of it and sanded it, and in the process of the stripping my husband got the paint and thinner all over the windows, so they were dirty again.  Check them out:

Gross!   Now, here’s what I like the most about the Fish Foam cleaner.  It’s FOAM.  It doesn’t run down my window panes.  It just sits there and works.  See?

How cool is that?

And here are my after photos.  I tried to take them standing in the same spot so you could really see the difference.

(left side pane)

(right side pane)  See that light fixture there at the top?  That’s on the opposite wall!  The darn window is so clean you can see the light fixture in the reflection, which of course you can’t see in the before photos.  ha ha!

I also tried it out on the windows in my office/studio.  I have counters installed at the level of these windows, and there are kitty cat nose prints all over the bottom part of the glass.  ha ha!

Here’s before:

(soooo embarrassing!)

Here’s during, again showing the foam (I really love this part):

And here’s after:

 It’s so clean you can see the reflection of the Fish Foam can in the window!

 
Okay, this is probably the worst one to show for me. I’m in this group on facebook called 52 challenges or something like that, and every week you’re assigned an area to organize. Recently it was your bedroom dresser, and after I uncovered all the “stuff” off the dresser, I really got a good look at how absolutely filthy this thing was. I thought I would try the Fish Foam on it and see if it could clean things that were NOT glass. These are my results.

Edge of dresser before:

and same edge of dresser after:

Looks pretty good, huh?

Overall I am extremely happy with this stuff, and I look forward to every window in my house being sparkling clean! You can find out more info about them on their website here.

You can buy Fish Foam on their website here.

*I was not financially compensated for this review.  I was sent a free sample of Fish Foam to try it out and give my honest opinion.  When that runs out, I will totally be buying more!

I stuck the tape onto one side of THESE:

and then I dipped them in THIS:

And this is what they looked like afterwards….

Okay….LOVE them.  And this is what I did with them:

I used them to clip my Christmas cards onto some branches I bought from Goodwill (that were gold and I spray painted them silver!)

I actually need 2 of these card trees, but I bought all the branches I could find at Goodwill so I worked with what I had!

I’m sharing my project here:

Blue Cricket  Design

Yeah….so how many of you noticed the darn thing is crooked?  I didn’t notice it until it was all finished and glued down, and there was no way to fix it! 

But how about we forget that and notice how I distressed the edges ever so slightly….. see?

Here are a few of the pins/brooches:

I went to Michaels looking for the shadow box frames, and they had a set of 3 for $20 plus they were 40% off.  Score!  There were plenty of pins to do 3 boxes and I still had lots left over!  I had the plan of lining the back of the box with some type of black velvety fabric or something, but when I was at Michaels I saw the T-shirts were 2 for $5 so I had the idea of going with those.  I bought 2 of them in XXL size and only used 1 to do all 3 boxes.

I worked for a few days here and there laying out the pins in different arrangements until I got to something I liked.

So I took the back off the shadowbox frame, cut a piece of black foam board (from Hobby Lobby) to size, covered it with the black T-shirt and secured it with double sided tape (I just didn’t peel off one side of the tape).  Then I took each pin and stuck it into the foam board until it would stay put and hang straight where I wanted it.  When I was satisfied with how each one looked, I put the backs back onto the frames and voila!   Here they are:

Okay, do you have any idea how difficult it is to photograph something inside glass?  ha!

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All in all, I am very happy with how these look!  What do you think?

I’m sharing my project here:

Look at that face.  Look at those eyes.  His name is Bandit, and he’s adorable!

It was hard to get a photo of him because he’s always running around and jumping up so I was very happy to get this one!

This is what they looked like when she gave them to me (you seriously have to click on the photo to see it larger and really appreciate the yuckiness! ha ha):

 I used this spray primer on them for 3 coats:

Then I used this glossy spray paint on them for 4 or 5 coats. 

AND then I also sprayed them with 3 coats of clear gloss spray paint. Felt like it took forever, but totally worth it!

Here’s the after shot of my lights:

It’s very hard to take photos of your porch lights in the dark!   Doesn’t it look like some huge monster’s eyes?  ha ha!

I seriously love these soooo much I could just stand outside all day and admire them!

I’m sharing this project here:

30 Handmade Days