521 Lake Street’s Penny Rug !

I will warn you ahead of time lots of photos and a rather long post! :)

I have a dear friend I first met when I started blogging named Elizabeth. She has a magical site called Bluebird Papercrafts aka Creative Breathing. When I first saw her blog I was so taken aback by all of her talent for crafts and writing the most touching beautiful posts of the memories she has of her past.

We have become friends over the last two years and she has blessed me with many of her handmade items. I have them for every season! They are my treasures!!!!! When my life was in turmoil this last year Elizabeth was always there with a kind word or deed. Recently, she made me one of her coveted penny rugs. And not just any penny rug but a 521 Lake Street Penny rug! I knew it had to be a very special place that this beautiful piece of artwork resided. To keep it safe I decided to frame it. I envisioned a Red frame with a cute pale yellow matt. So, I went to Michaels and with the lest expensive thin painted red wood frame and just the glass it was $116.00…..are you ready????? AFTER THE 60% off coupon! Can you say RIP OFF????

SO my friend Cheri and I got creative and went to Home Goods looking for an inexpensive art piece in the right size frame…..here is what we got!

Pretty plain and ugly right now….but look at what we paid for it!!!!!

My kind of deal on the budget of the unemployed!

So I brought it home, took it apart and here are the steps it took to make it a perfect frame for my penny rug!

One can of Banner Red Krylon Paint $2.50

First coat of four coats..

Now, matting as we all know can be very expensive, so as Cheri and I went to Hobby Lobby to check out a single matt, we walked by the poster board…..this color is perfect!!!!!! Sorry for the poor photo, kind of forgot my tutorial…:)

Poster Board, two sheets (just in case) $ on sale for $1.06. Now, when times are better, and I am sure they will be soon, I plan on getting this matted correctly, but this works perfect for right now……

The frame had these horrible thick ugly staples, that I could not bend, so I had to pull them all out….to paint the frame. I wanted to keep the glass safe and clean it up, as there was a film on it.

So afterwards we tried staples…no good. So for right now, it is the good old duct tape method!

I used some glue dots to keep the penny rug stuck to the poster board…..so here is the finished product!!!!!! Drum roll please…..

And on the wall……

Never am very good t taking a straight on photo!

This is my entry way….so everyone who comes in gets to see my wonderful 521 Lake Street Penny Rug!!!!!!

Total Cost: $25.00 and some change. Happy Dance here!!!!!

Elizabeth, you have my heart! Thank you seems so not enough!!!!! I will cherish this very special loving tribute to my favorite place always!!!!!

Thanks everyone for stopping by and sharing this wonderful piece of art with me!

The Big “O”

Hope every one had a great Labor Day, my hubby worked so I finished my “O” letter banner tags for Elizabeth’s Halloween Banner. This was a lot of fun, once I got an idea….I went with E’s original instructions and made the cards the same as hers, in regards to thickness and size. See Elizabeth’s blog for this info: http://creativebreathing.blogspot.com/2010/08/halloween-banner-swaptag-along_18.html.

I had bought a TON of Daisy D’s Halloween paper a few years ago, and had only used a bit for my son’s Halloween pages. So I pulled it all out and saw that that there were tags already the size I needed! How lucky was that????? I then pulled out my Halloween bag of goodies and found these:

lots and lots of possibilities.

I then got out this:

having only used it twice I was looking forward to getting to know this machine….so I cut out shapes and letters….so much easier!!!!

My next thing to pull on out:

I just LOVE Stickles! You can never mess up with Stickles! It covers a multitude of sins.

And you can’t do Halloween projects without this:

From Kris Hurst at Blissfull Elements last year. So I spent a few hours just cutting out the three layers, it takes awhile with my arthritis, but I played my tunes and the time went quickly…..and I started putting the items together. And this is what emerged:

I swear I just let go….didn’t think too hard and quit worrying about mistakes….A black cat eye stamp pad helped that a lot! :)

So what was I going to do for the backs???? I save Halloween images and such to a folder on my desktop and I had this image:

I put it in Adobe Photoshop Elements and I did this:

I know it isn’t much but for a newbie, just putting my name on something was fun. First I used the stamping tool and got rid of the words at the bottom and then I used the text tool and added my name….Meri aren’t you proud of me?????

And since this was a vintage sucker tag, well…I got suckers!

Sorry this photo is so washed out it is cloudy right now….

The darn flash had to be on…..

And I glued these to the backs of the tags….I feel very happy with the results! But there is one more thing I need to say….

I HATE POP DOTS!!!!!! The darn things end up everywhere but where I want them!!!!! I ended up using double sided tape. Does anyone else have this problem with the stinking little things???? LOL

Thanks for popping in!

ME Monday!

Hard to believe it is Monday already!!!!! I have a very special Mary Engelbreit item to share with you today…..My wonderful friend Elizabeth over at Creative Breathing made me the sweetest ME Fall banner…..we bartered for it! Her work is superb and if you haven’t seen it please go over to say hello when you are done with ME Monday!

I took four different photos so you could see the work involved!!!! Elizabeth is truly an artist in so many ways! I love how she layers items.

One more photo of that adorable chenille flower and pie tag!

I just love this!!!!! It is going on my wall so I can enjoy it all of the time!

Be sure to check out all of the ME goodies at Cherry Chick and say hello to Vicki! :)

Elizabeth’s Fun Button Card Tags

If you have been over to Elizabeth’s blog Creative Breathing, then you know she has started making a tag a week from these great cards she found, see her May 20th post. Elizabeth is always so generous with her fun vintage cards! And this group is no exception…the actual photos of the cards are on a post dated April 16 of this year, but there are a LOT of posts with wonderful cards and ideas, and if you are new to Creative Breathing you are in for a treat!

Photo courtesy of Elizabeth at Creative Breathing

Nan from Retired in Alaska was the one who got my creative juices flowing…I just loved hers!

Photo courtesy of Nan at Retired in Alaska

They are both so cute……

So, I got busy one night when I couldn’t sleep, it isn’t real elaborate but it makes me happy when I look at it, and that is what I want my paper crafting to do! :)

I use a new line of paper that Elizabeth told me about from Pine Cone Press called I think “Lizzie’s Garden”…and also some of the embellishments were from another new line, I hadn’t heard of called “Sweet Summertime” by Echo Park Paper Co. These colors are right up me and E’s and Nan’s alley! :)

Join us, and once a week make a tag from E’s wonderful cards….it is a great stress reliever! :)

I am getting ready for Rednesday…I missed it last week and I want to have some good photos….have a good night!

Some fun Postcards I found on my trip!

I am lucky enough to be involved with Elizabeth from Creative Breathing’s post card swap.

So while I was in Wisconsin I looked at a few place for antique postcards. One of my favorite spots in Eau Claire is a three story building in downtown called Antique Emporium.

They had enough paper ephemera to keep you busy for a year or two!!!

I found these fun retro postcard sets and had to share them:

All kinds of fun sets from all over!!!!!!

My Dad did his basic training in this area during WWII, I was so excited to see these!

The graphics on these are so fun! The insides were a hoot too!

I have been to Greenfield Village, it was out 5th grade trip! We lived in Ohio at the time and it was a one day trip there and back….I remember that like yesterday! I know my Mom was probably beyond anxious all day long until she saw the bus pull up. :)

Where my husband was born….

And of course a set from the Honeymoon capitol of the world back in the day!

And this cracked me up, beautiful “photos” of the cactus of the southwest…in Eau Claire, Wisconsin!

Didn’t find any for Wisconsin in Wisconsin LOL !!!! But if you ever see any of these like this, that are the sets and they are forsale online, please let me know….I like the colors and the “painting” effects of the cards…they don’t have real photos in them.

I hate to say it, but I think I am hooked on these sets….I only paid $1.00 a piece fro these too!

There is lot more to come….stay tuned! :)

Goodies from Elizabeth at Creative Breathing

I was going to post about this before Thanksgiving and then I got sick...the cold is still hanging in there, but I feel a lot better. I participated in Elizabeth's Christmas Tag Swap at her wonderful Blog "Creative Breathing" ( http://creativebreathing.blogspot.com/). This is what she sent me and I just love it all!

I received two wonderful tags, one for Fall and one for Christmas. The work on these is so good.....I so enjoy the colors and the textures! Sorry my photos aren't better....camera is not the best for this....



Here is another shot..... the little girls are so darn cute! And all cut out by hand.....my fingers hurt just looking at them! LOL

And then she sent me this wonderful little packet of the sweetest photos of vintage Christmas decorations, and a tiny vintage Christmas card with a very cute message just for me! I see a project coming on..... :)



I am going to try to do something with these before Christmas, but my craft supplies are all in bins in the storage room right now, the craft room isn't even close to being done....looks like I will be heading over to my friends house to work over there! LOL

Thank you so much Elizabeth! I really appreciate the work you put into these ! :)