Countdown to Christmas Day Three. . .

Here's the next gift idea on a budget.

How's this for thrifty. I found this paper frame at the dollar store, it's nice and sturdy made of think cardboard. I just cut out another frame from my paper pack, wrapped it with the floss to give it a little more pizazz, and cut some of the patterns from the left over paper to give it a more 3D look. If you look close, you'll see I cut the center a little large, at first I thought I would have to use another sheet of paper (and waste this one), but when I laid it on the frame it actually gave the illusion of a matte, so I left it. Sometimes mistakes work out better than you think.

Count Down to Christmas Day Two. . .

Here's the second installment of gifts on a budget. A cute little card and tag box.



Here's a thrifty tip, instead of buying the expensive little jars of flowers at your local scrapbook store, try the flower section at the dollar store. I bought a stem of flowers for $1.00 and it had 24 large flowers (some LSS packs only have 15 in them for 4 times the price). I just pulled them off the stems and pulled the centers out so they would lay flat. I'm using the same paper from the 1/2 priced pad I got at Hobby Lobby, a 1/2 price pack of white 12 X 12, my dollar store flower find, and the off white floss I bought.



The flower centers were punched with a regular hole punch from the office supply store I've had for years.





Here's the link to the box pattern: http://tracysstampinschool.wordpress.com/2008/06/19/stationery-box-tutorial/

Enjoy. . .

Count Down to Christmas Day One. . .

Along with my 61 days of creative ideas, I'm going to share with you 24 gifts you can make on a budget. With the economy tight these days, every penny helps, so I'm going to give you home made gift ideas using things you have around the house and patterns from the internet. If you do need to purchase anything, paper, adhesive, ribbon, etc, watch for sales, and get things that co-ordinate to make the most of your purchases. The items I'm going to use for the projects were about $20.

Here's the before:



and the after:





I used a peanut butter jar and about 2 sheets of paper, and embroidery floss to create some tags and the jar to put them in. Who can't use gift tags? I saved all my scraps to use on another project. The whole project took me about half an hour.

Tune in tomorrow for another thrifty idea as we count down to Christmas.