It's Winterings week at Little Yellow Bicycle and I was up yesterday with my projects! You can read the details on their blog, but basically, I refused to allow another kid in this house to break another cookie jar, especially since the ones I have left are special to me.  I took a  coffee can and got busy upcycling!  Painted with some gesso, added scrapbook embellishments, glitter and TWO deconstructed Christmas piks and you got one fabulous (and inexpensive) cookie/treat jar!

I was MIA all weekend since I was bedridden with lots of germs & body aches so I am finally back to the land of the living sorta kinda....but enough about me! Let's talk Little Yellow Bicycle shall we??  Their talented DT paved the way last week and started showcasing some lovely goodies featuring their new collection Winterings! A Cycling Chick call was held a few months ago & yours truly was one of the chosen few to represent this wonderful line!  LYB gifted us so much product that I truly didn't know where to start! I mean, for those who know me, I like snow, I just don't like being IN snow....I love bundling up and doing photography in it for 30 min max but there cannot be any driving in, shoveling, snowball throwing or making of snowman involved.  I think it came from living up in the Catskills (even though my dad never made me shovel snow) and just hating how cold & windy it got and then the yukky ugly meltdown afterwards.  Cold and wet don't agree with me; give me sunny & wet any day!
One look at this lovely collection had me  rethinking my snow position...I actually wanted to use every single thing in it! Journaling spots, glittered overlays, chipboard shapes, vellum stickers (loved loved loved those-they are like washi tape but MUCH thicker)... don't get me started on the papers...so, my reveal is {HERE} today....a sneak for ya and the another full reveal with a writeup tomorrow...

cycle over to Little Yellow Bicycle and check-check-check me out! Support a sistah with some royal L-O-V-E fit for a queen!

**You can buy the full collection {HERE} or contact your LSS and request it!

,Love Kim's site!!!! click on pic to HOP over!!

Since I hadn't been crafting this week, projects have piled up and the mojo was at someone else's house...My Secret Sistah from the SOC blog has gifted me tons of adhesive and some great goodies but have I sat down to create?  NOPE...it was one thing after another with the kids this week; let's hope and pray that NOTHING comes up next week when they are on Spring Break and that I get to scrap, scrap, and scrap!  Anyway, I did manage to do 2 projects today..this one comes from Lori Allred over at Northridge Publishing (you know, the fab folks that publish Scrapbook Trends, Simply Cards and other awesome pubs) and their new thing called CreaTV!  I call it an upcycled/recycled project...she and Kristine do a "Make it your own" project using t-shirts!  I'll show a few pics of mine, but they actually have a video showing you exactly how to do it..since the project isn't my idea (but who's ever it is is pure genius) and I am not big on figuring out precise measurements...not to worry though, there is no measuring with this project!  And, to make it even better, it requires 4 supplies if you make rosette pins to pin to it; I forgot to take a pic of my glue gun ..so here's what I used:
I don't normally have paper plates so that's why you see the pot lid, and I actually used 2 old tshirts but forgot to take a picture-it was just a plain black tee from hubbys drawer!
Then, you use your "lid or plate" as a template to cut out circles like this:

I used 2 lids so I'd have long & short strands)

and, just like you do in scrapbooking to make your own flowers, you cut the fabric circles in a spiral-freehand method-see how Lori does it...easy peasy and then when done cutting the spiral, hold both ends and stretch it. Then they look like this:
 I then went a step further and cut off the arms of the tshirt and cut like 2 inch strips and made some rosettes for pin to it when I wear it...I gotta glue them together though so...the only thing I can say is that this is super cute and super easy...next time I will cut 2 inches swirl and I won't use a tshirt that's as faded as these and maybe a cute teal and yellow mix would be good...something colorful...and I definitely need to buy some fabric scissors; mine weren't as sharp as I would've liked since I use all of my scissors for paper and cardboard...so, here's the link to the video tutorial-I would love to hear from you and see if you make one too!  Here's Thing 1 being my model :) and btw, SHE thinks this looks like rags but what does she know about fashion??? It doesn't look as great as Lori's but I'll try again :)

BEFORE:


IN PROGRESS:



one way to reduce waste while scrapbooking is to reuse...Found tons of these $1 Colorbok "how to" guides in the clearance section at either Michael's or Joann's and bought 5 or 6 of them...thought I'd start making some cute tag books with favorite pics-like mini coffee table albums! Am doing first one with my nature favorite pics from my favorite photographer, Mz. L....still a work in progress since I've gotten sidetracked...one side photo, the other will be a mini scrapbook page for journaling with poetry, quotes, or personal journaling like where photo was taken, when and why I love the pic. Great way to use up ribbon & paper scraps too.

Crayons are a petroleum product, they take years to biodegrade.
MORE THAN 12 MILLION CRAYONS ARE MANUFACTURED EACH DAY!!!
Just think for a moment, "How many dumpsters does that fill?"

Here is an interesting way to "GO GREEN".........

This recycling education, community service program has made it possible to stop more than 43,000 pounds of unwanted crayons from going into landfills with the help from school and organization educators and kids across this country. Thank you for your efforts to help the Earth.
National CRAYON RECYCLE PROGRAM
The CRAYON RECYCLE PROGRAM takes old, rejected, broken crayons to a better place, where they’ll be recycled into fresh, new crayons!
The program has been a national success!
The CRAYON RECYCLE PROGRAM does not add or take away anything from the original crayon.
We employ people with developmental disabilities, working on a possitive impact through community service, environmental education and art.
All CRAZY CRAYON purchases benefit the CRAYON RECYCLE PROGRAM.

Spread the word! Many people don’t know this program exists. Tons of crayons are thrown away without a second thought.

Go to www.crazycrayons.com for more information ***

since I keep getting inspired to by Kimmie and Corey over at http://useyourstash.blogspot.com/

This is what they do: The 5th and 12th of every month they issue a challenge.
You will have until the 20th to upload it and they give away RAK's at the end of the month.

In between they offer up some techniques, maybe some polls, or just chatter, after all that's what we scrappers do- their idea is to use your stash, so you can shop later! Cool huh? It's a good way to mix new stuff with old stuff instead of just using the new stuff all together.

Have fun!

You notice how more and more scrapbook sites are promoting the "Green" way? Well, here are three sites that I've come across this evening that are trying : www.piggytales.com, www.cropinsville.com which will launch in Mid-late May 2008, and http://www.creativeimaginations.us/....