Dappled Air

I imagine that beer leftovers are not a common occurrence in your house, but if it ever does happen here are 9 uses that you might have never thought of.

This is the third mask I have painted so far. For some crazy reason I could always see a face in those lids. First Mask Second Mask When I start painting the lid I have no idea how it will eventually look. It is almost as if the lid has a mind of its own. For this mask I used paper punches for the yellow stars, the red hearts and the text swirls for the hair curls. The rest is painted with craft paint and then coated with a few coats of water based varnish.

Today is garbage day in our neighbourhood and it is quite windy. So as we went for our daily walk there were a lot of cans that were lying on their side or even in the middle of the road and the lids if not attached with a string where some place else. Every time this happens. I ask my husband why people put up with this and why they don't take their black garbage bags out of the cans and only put those at the side of the road? We have a garbage can with a black bag inside just outside the kitchen door, that we fill from collection day to collection day. Today's bag was just barely full after 4 weeks. Then once garbage day arrives we take out the bag, tie it up and put it on the curb. That way our garbage can lasts a long time and we don't loose the lid. I don't think it is extra work to handle the garbage this way. I took the picture of the garbage cans on my walk. I am just curious to know if my idea is so strange and would love to know what my readers think. I am lo...

Yes, it is this time of the year again and money is tight. So how about making your own gifts? My youngest daughter just voiced this sentiment and I suggested that she bake some cookies as gifts. Well, no sooner had I thought about it when I came across this article at "Get Rich Slowly" will a list of 34 ideas for home-made gifts. Being a crafty person, I have also accumulated a few ideas of my own for handmade gifts . I try to stick with simple and fun projects and sometimes integrate some recycling into them. Like this pair of little angels below

I got a reminder today about folding plastic grocery bags as I have done for years so that they take up less space. The website shows pictures on how to do it. I learned to do that from my mom from Switzerland. She was visiting one time and showed me what she had be taught by a friend from South Africa. It does only work with all plastic bags, only the ones that have the long side handles and not the ones that have a hole at the top of the bag type handle or are made with thick plastic. Now as grocery stores are more and more encouraging using other bags, taming the plastic grocery bags has become less of an issue. The way I remember how to do it is, that you fold the bag like they do in the movies with the American flag when it is not flying.

Yesterday I came across a question on how to recycle business cards at about.com family crafts That reminded me that I had the same question a few years back and found a really useful way to recycle all those business cards by turning them into a small box that is 2.25 inches square. When you buy them commercially you end up often with way too many as the information on them seems to change just too fast and you have to get new ones. By making your own cards you can print only what you need and make the changes as they occur. I don't remember where I got the idea from, but I created a step by step tutorial on how to turn 19 business cards into a little box with a lid. The cool thing about it is that it does not use any glue or staples and there is no cutting involved. All you do is fold the cards and then slot them together. Without a lid the current business cards can also be store in the box. Multiple boxes can be connected together with other business cards. I have also made ...

I just realized that now would be a great time to get organized with all my craft creations. I never really created a list of what I have. So this weekend I started to create a spreadsheet for all my items, wow there are a lot. I have also discovered a great way to store all the various items. I discovered prewashed lettuce in seethrough plastic containers and never one to throw things out before I can figure out a use for an item, I quickly realized their usefulness. These containers are rectangular and stack very nicely. They are not too big, about 12,5 inches long and 8 inches wide. I can now readily see what is inside, which is much better than shoeboxes. I still label the containers to make it easier on me to figure out what's inside. I also read someplace to use transparent labels and then write with a pencil on it, that way the text can be changed again. I also use this on file folders.

It is time again to start cleaning out things that I am not using any longer. I have found that freecycle is the best way to find a new home for those items. What is freecycle ? Here is a quick summary from freecycle.org: "Welcome! The Freecycle Network™ is made up of 4,592 groups with 5,767,000 members across the globe. It's a grassroots and entirely nonprofit movement of people who are giving (& getting) stuff for free in their own towns. It's all about reuse and keeping good stuff out of landfills. Each local group is moderated by a local volunteer (them's good people). Membership is free. Have fun!" I have a page on my website where I place pictures of the items I have to offer as it is not always easy to explain exactly what you have to offer. I also like that people come to pick the item up and I don't have to go chase after them.

I just came across this cool creation at Flickr. I have used my printer ink caps in the past for magnets, but his bug is just wonderful. Now I will have to play with all those caps I have saved and come up with my own version of a bug or something. Check out the other bugs from this person

After painting my spare bedroom and rearranging the electronics, I needed a clock in the room. I have found that most new clocks are terribly noisy and so very annoying. Then I remembered that I had a clock I had made with a CD that I didn't really need any longer. So, I took it apart and created a new clock with video tapes, corrugated plastic, wooden corner molding and a graphic for the front. Read how I did it here . I really like the way it turned out and hubby is so thrilled. He plays guitar and has a number of instruments and we will make guitars the them of the room.

I don't usually link to other blogs, but when I saw this entry I just had to pass it on. Yesterday and today I have been painting the spare bedroom and now I have to put humpty dumpty back together and that means hooking up the TV and digital cable box again with all those wires. So when I saw this simple way of keeping the wires organized I was thrilled. This is ingenious. I have tons of those fake credit cards floating around and have been wondering what I could do with them. Now I have found a great use. I will replace the picture to the right from www.creatrope.com with my own once I get things setup.

When I saw the Lifhacker post about making a pen holder from 3.5" floppy disks , I remembered that ages ago I had also made a box from floppy disks. I haven't quite put it to use yet and it is just sitting pretty on my bookshelf. I read the instructions on how I did it here . I love to recycle, my hubby calls me a packrat, but you would be surprised by what I have made from items most people throw out without a thought. Want to see some of them? Masks from garbage can lids. This is the first one I made and it looks very masculine . The second one turned out to be femine looking . An almost 4 foot high 'Inukshuk' from video tapes