Thrifty {Thursday}: Vintage Ruler Project

Last thursday when I was out antique shopping downtown with my {mom} she found these excellent old beat up rulers {only .10 a pop} to paper craft with. We brought them home and got right to work. These would be excellent gifts for teachers, students, and fellow paper crafters! For starters here's what you will need:

1. Wooden rulers {old or new}
2. Sandpaper of some sort
3. Glue and brush {Aleenes; School Glue; Mod Podge will all work}
4. Decorative paper
5. Embellishments
6. A smile on your face!

Step 1: Sand the part of the ruler that you want to decorate. This should not include the ruler markings. You don't need to sand too much {you are just trying to remove the glossy top coat}

Step 2: Measure and cut a strip of decorative paper. Use the brush to apply a thin layer of glue and attach your strip of paper.

The last step: Embellish your little heart out. Rhinestones, pearls, flowers, rubons, stamps, you name it. And then you're done! {How simple and cute was that?}

Happy {thursday} to all!

{Tutorial} Tuesday: Straight pin accents and {giveaway!}

So as I said the other day when I posted the play date cafe challenge card with the little stick pin I would be showing you some delicious {variations} on stick pin decorating. First off my favorite pins to work with are the vintage ones that I have found at antique stores and thrift stores. The heart and glass bead top stick pins in these photos were bought at an antiques store and I adore them! {there are some in the giveaway!}

Buttons buttons who's got the button! Buttons are the most common pin adornment that I have seen. My favorite way to use them is like this: with several similar button shapes and colors. You can mix and match of course or just use one. This is an excellent way to pull a little more of an accent color into the piece.

Next is beads! Beads can be done a lot of ways. If you jewelry making is part of your craft repertoire you can make a multi-layer dangly bead like you would for an earring with jewelry pins and your plier sets {picture on the left}. Or if you have some charms and are not good with the jewelry making do what I did on the right {and in the play date cafe card} put the top circle part of the charm in between a pair of pliers and bend it down so the charm and the charm hole at the top make a 90 degree angle. This will make your charm lay flat in front of the pin rather than stick straight out {and you wont have to put it on a jump ring!}

When using more than one bead you have a couple of options too. Use different shapes and colors to make an eye catching look or design a pretty shape from multiple beads.

If you liked this tutorial and you are a follower leave a comment below telling me your favorite part of adding decorative stick pins to your work. I will select a random winner during next weeks {tutorial} tuesday to win all the pins, beads, buttons, and charms used in today's tutorial, plus a few extras! {good luck}

The blog {candy}:

Challenge Submission: {Eight little presents!}

So today's card is for a sketch that I think just has so many possibilities! Thoughts To Paper's Challenge was to make a card or scrapbook page using this sketch {click here to try the challenge or check out their great blog!)

I turned the sketch on it's side and used the ornate shape from my last card as the bracketing. {which I love} Here's mine: {I have been in the mood to do my Christmas cards with all the Christmas in July sales, blogs, and blog hops going on right now!}

I loved making all the tiny presents and their little tiny bows! I glittered the presents, their bows, the ric rac and the sentiment to jazz it up a bit. I think this card has so many possibilities. I think it would be great as a Chanukah card with 8 little presents and the bracket on the side as an 8 or a birthday card with little girly packages for girls or bright bold colors for boys!

I also wanted to share with you this little fun idea I use. I had this cork that I loved with a super cute little fox on it and it had no real home so I put it on top of my paper piercer to protect it. So there you have it: {an excellent reason to go buy some wine!}

Stop by tomorrow for {tutorial tuesday} it's a cute one with a giveaway!