Craftaholics Anonymous Handmade Gift Exchange

A couple of times a year Linda at Craftaholics Anonymous hosts a Handmade Gift Exchange. This is always so much fun! I've participated several times now, and I love getting to know new crafty people! My partner this time was a very cool lady named Laura, and she really nailed it with my gift! She sent me this amazing twine wrapped letter, and she captured my style perfectly!

Isn't it gorgeous? And with most of our decorative things packed away in storage, it was awesome to get something like this right now.

I sent her a sort of motley assortment of things. She's a pretty free form pinner, interested in a lot of different things, so it was hard for me to decide what to do. But she did tell me that she does some mixed media art pieces, and I recently discovered something pretty awesome with my Sizzix machine and some embossing folders, so I decided to send her some materials she can hopefully incorporate into her own creations.

Hobby Lobby sells 12" x 30" rolls of 36 gauge copper and aluminum and 40 gauge copper. For church camp this year we used copper and leather to make stamped bracelets like these that I made for a friend's daughter last year.

That worked pretty well for camp, but we had 3 hours a day to work with crafts, and I was looking for a way to adapt the concept to the 20 minute craft times we would have at Vacation Bible School this month. So I pulled out my Sizzix machine and my embossing folders and played around a bit, and I sent my crafty sisters these cell phone photos in the wee hours of the morning:

The coffee cups! I swoon!

Success! I was addicted! And it went very well at VBS. But anyway, I decided to send Laura some embossed sheets of copper and aluminum.

I also made her a leather cuff.

I even embossed some patent leather, and the effect is subtle, but I like it.

I also made her some note cards with coordinating envelopes.

Lastly, I sent her this pair of fun dangly earrings that I made. I hope to do a tutorial on them soon.

Of course I neglected to take a good picture of the whole gift, but Laura kindly took one when she got it, so I'm stealing it from her Facebook. It kind of looks like she has the same kitchen table as me.

As always, this was a blast, and I can't wait till the next one in December!

*This post did not contain any affiliate links.

What's been going on lately...

I know I've been scarce around here, but it's not because I haven't had anything to post about! It's just been very, very busy. A few things that have been occupying me:

My SIL Rachael's birthday was just a few days after my last post. I got her a Marvy Uchida Border Punch System a few weeks ago, but I wanted her to have something special on her actual birthday too, so I whipped up this fun little window pillow box and packed it with a couple pairs of handmade earrings.

To make the pillow box I used my WRMK Pillow Box Punch Board, then just used a large scalloped circle paper punch to create the window. Then I cut a piece of transparency film to cover the opening, adhered it to the inside with an adhesive roller, then folded the box up and glued it.

The ball shaped earrings were one of the pairs I featured a few weeks ago. The second pair looks really impressive, but truthfully, they almost don't qualify as handmade. The wire wrapped circles came in a string of four from Walmart, and I literally just added the ear hooks and backings. She really seemed to love them though, and she's worn them several times already. :)

I used a Sizzix die and embossing folder I got recently to create a mason jar themed card. I added various buttons as filler for the "jar", and on the envelope I added a fun little pennant I got at Tuesday Morning.

The day after was my BIL Scott's birthday. He and his family live in Texas, so his gift needed to be something that would do well in shipping. He does a lot of traveling, so I thought he might like a new Dopp kit.

I sewed him up a good sized zipper pouch using men's tweed suiting and sturdy cotton, and filled it with some nice poured soaps, a new razor, and some shave cream. He loves to grill, so I also sent him a bratwurst grill cage that very narrowly escaped staying here with Nick. :)

My Lily girl turned 5 a few days later on October 5th! That morning before church she woke up to a new baby doll that looks just like her baby cousin Adelaide :), and this assortment of pillow boxes:

My girl loves accessories (as you can tell lol), so each one contained a new piece (or pieces) of jewelry:

This necklace and bracelet set was a clearance find at Hobby Lobby.

The charm bracelet was one I put together using charms from Walmart and basic findings.

The rings are actually midi rings from Rue 21, but they fit her 5 year old fingers like regular rings.

The rose necklace was one I made. The rose pendant came from Hobby Lobby on clearance, and I added the crown and chain. The crown was another charm from Walmart. I cut the top ring off, then sealed it into the well of the rose using Lisa Pavelka Magic-Glos.

The rhinestone crown necklace was yet another Walmart charm added to a chain, and it ended up being one of her favorites.

We had a party for her on the 11th, and I'll tell you about that in my next post!

I've also been having some fun playing with my new Pinwheel Punch Board, which We R Memory Keepers was kind enough to send me to try.

It was my intention to make some pinwheels for Lily's party to use as favors and decorations, but I wasn't able to get my hands on any of the pinwheel attachments that makes the pinwheels functional. Every craft store I've gone to has been sold out of them, but as soon as I find some to snatch up I'm going to do a review post on the punch board.

In between everything else I've also been doing some mending and altering jobs, as well as giving the growing laundry a meaningful glance and a promise. But hopefully I'll have a bit more time to post now that the cluster of birthdays is past!

Birthday Gifts with We R Memory Keepers Punch Boards

Guys, I've been playing with the Envelope Punch Board (and a few others!) by We R Memory Keepers, and I've been having so much fun! Nick’s grandmother Gail’s birthday fell the week we were at camp, so we missed the party, but we got to see her on July 4th, and I gave her the birthday gifts I made for her then.

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Last year, for Mother’s Day I think, I made Gail some blank note cards. I punched out butterflies and flowers from scrapbook paper and sewed them to the fronts of the cards, and she loved them! I sure wish I had thought to snap a picture before I gave them to her. Anyway, I thought she would enjoy some smaller note cards for her birthday, and okay, I really wanted to make her something using my punch boards!

I actually made her two different kinds. One set of ten were little gift card sized cards, and each one had a different image or pattern embossed on the front. I just made these with stamps and embossing powder. These will be perfect for slipping a gift card into or attaching to a package or gift bag.

The others were a bit larger at 4 x 3.25 inches and suitable for mailing if she chooses. These were my favorite! Each card and envelope was unique in pattern.

I used fun cardstock for the cards from 4.5 x 6.5 inch stacks that I trimmed to 4 x 6.5 and folded in half. Then I used a Marvey Uchida Clever Lever Border Punch System that I got for crazy cheap at Tuesday Morning ($7.99 - score!) to punch a decorative border along the front edge.

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This border punch system is ah-may-zing! You can get different cartridges, which are normally about $11.99 each, but Tuesday Morning had them for $1.99! The punch cuts exactly 2 inches in each punch, which was why I trimmed the cards to 4 inches wide. There’s no guesswork with where to line up the punch for the next cut, because the guide has little slots where the punch fits, and there’s a pretty strong magnetic bar that keeps your paper from slipping out of place.

I made the envelopes from different patterned 6 x 6 sheets, and I LOVE how they turned out! I also punched a little flower out of sticker paper so she can seal them if she wants to mail them, and also a label for each so that she can write an address. I just included those in each envelope.

The labels were a little larger than I wanted them to be, but that was the size paper punch I had.

I also used all three of my other boards in making her gift, although I forgot to get a picture of the cute little gift bag I made with the Gift Bag Punch Board. First of all, I made her up some adorable little pillow boxes using the Pillow Box Punch Board.

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Some of these I made using 4.5 inch length cardstock, and some using 6 inch length cardstock. The smaller ones are perfect for something small like candy or earrings, and the bigger ones fit a gift card perfectly.

I also made her a couple of pairs of earrings, and I put them in this sweet little box I made using the Candy Box Punch Board. She had already untied the baker’s twine from one end to open it when I took this picture.

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I’ll go into a little more on how to use each of the punch boards in my upcoming posts, but for now I’ll just say that they are all just the best thing ever, ever, ever! None of the links in this post are affiliate links, and these products were not provided to me for review.