A Last Minute Recycle

My niece Maddie came for a visit on Saturday afternoon.  She loves to spend time in the craft room, mostly making tags using Distress Ink and the Vagabond machine.  But this time she wanted to make something for Christmas for her mom and dad.  She's a good crafter and familiar with most of the tools in my craft room so it was not a stretch to think that we could make something in a few hours.

What to make was the first question?
think.
think.
think some more.
and then then it came to me....
Out to the garage to open a box that has all my class samples.  I made this tray for a class I taught in New Zealand back in the fall of 2011.  It was the only thing I could think of that had a family picture that might be able to be re-used since it was glued to a piece of black foam core and I could pop it out easily.
Follow along to see the transformation.

Here's what we used:

Adirondack Dabber paint in Pool

Distress Paint in Mustard Seed

Claudine Helmuth paint - Dash of Red
Claudine Helmuth - multi-medium

polka dot paper- merriment paper stash
Studio Calico Wood Veneer shape (bicycle)
Studio Calico Weather Mistables (clouds and sun)

mini numeral

SA stamp set - Way with words

chit chat sticker

remnant rubs

word band

compass coin

game spinner

journaling tickets

word keys

label clips

bare mini burlap panels

alpha cards

We set to work dismantling the tray and reusing the items into a Configurations Book I had been using to test paint techniques for the LIVE configurations class.
The inside cover was already done, we just had to find the boxes that went into the inside.  We reused almost the entire tray - even the cover of the mini book in the bottom right corner was cut off and ended up on the new cover. 

I pulled out a bunch of paper for her to choose from for the cover.  She liked this one with all the different writing and the words Forever and Unconditional.

Here is the inside that was done previously using Tissue Wrap and the Honeycomb stencil.  We added the quote from the tray then used Alpha tiles to spell out family.

We only used 6 of the boxes that came with the Configurations book.  The top portion in black is just paint with the family picture on foam core added with foam dots to pop it up even more.  I cut the ends off a word band (please wear safety glasses if you try this) and we added it right on the photo.  A little white paint over the words makes it stand out.

We re-purposed the small picture of the kids running into the house section.  We thought it was funny that the kids look like they are running right out of the book.  The clouds have been painted with Distress Stickles to give them some shine and the sun was colored with Distress Stain.  The tree, the heart and the houses are all from Collections Elements (an Australian Company).

She picked 3 words from the Chitchat sticker book that described her family and we added them to the small box along with some Remnant Rub stars.

She wanted to make a shaker box for the book.  So she painted 4 hearts representing each child in the family.  Then painted each heart their favorite color and stamped each heart with their initial.

We added some Sticky Back Canvas to the spine (we painted it brown and stamped it with Adirondack Pool paint).
Then she inked the cover with Brushed Corduroy Distress Ink. She knows her Distress Ink.  Favorite color?  Vintage Photo of course!

Well, the few hours we had on Saturday wasn't enough once we had to wait for things to dry, so she ended up spending the night on Sunday and finishing the book today.  Still plenty of time to get it wrapped up for tomorrow.
The best part?  She's proud of her work and wants to do more and try new techniques.  Love that.

Merry Christmas!
Now carry on,
paula

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