How to make a cute magazine page bow

Cheap, easy and your recycling : )   All you need is an old magazine, scissors and either brads, glue or tape.

*Cut your strips. You can cut the strips large or skinny depending on how you want your bow to look. I recommend starting with about a 1 " strip.  You can cut the page vertical (long ways) for a bigger bow.

*Make your loops if your using a brad poke it through the middle if not just glue or tape the strip.

*Continue making the loops and putting them on the brad  or taping/ gluing until you have a nice and full bow. If your using a brad, open the brad and your all done. Nice and easy!

How to make wall art out of recycled materials

These are so simple and fun and the best part is they are mostly made from things that could have ended up in our landfills. I didn't spend much time on mine but you could really make something nice if you have the patience.

First create a canvas for your art by taking a piece of cardboard. I used the back of an old minute rice box, but you can use whatever you have on hand. Take a paper bag and wrap the card board like you would a gift. should look like this..

Once you have your canvas you can begin decorating. For mine I used some scrap booking paper, a ribbon from a gift basket that was given to me, and a few old greeting cards. 

You could also use old broken jewelery, magazine pages, pictures from old calendars, etc.

To hang the wall art I use two pop can tabs, glued to the back, then I used some ribbon to tie together the pop can tabs and the little stick I got from my yard. Glue the ribbon in place on the stick and your good to go. I have also used ribbon from gift bags for a hanger as opposed to the pop can tabs, and stick.

Quilling with bark

This is a lot more difficult than quilling with paper. I used some fairly fresh cherry bark. I would imagine that the fresher it is the easier it will be to work with and ply. It works best if you cut the strips thin. Since bark doesn't keep it's shape like paper does I used some clamp clips I had to hold some of the spirals in place for  about 5-10 mins. Here are the results....

This is the clamp I used. It looks huge but it's really just a chip bag clip. : )

I will be using the hearts I made to make  a cute wall decor piece that I will post when finished. 

Paper Quilling

Paper quilling is fun, in-expensive and really easy. I came across it the other day on line and thought I would give it a try using materials I already had around the house. I used card stock, super glue, a pen, toothpick, ruler &  exacto knife. The great thing about paper quilling is that it is very reasonably priced. I found a kit on Amazon.com for under $11.00 http://www.amazon.com/Paper-Quilling-Kit-For-Dummies/dp/B003HHLAPW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1301845816&sr=8-1

I had a lot of fun playing around with this. My creations are sloppy looking because I am a beginner, but I think the biggest reason is the fact that I'm using strips of card stock that I cut my self and I can't cut a straight line to save my life.Although I haven't personally used it yet, I definitely recommend quilling paper and I will post again when I get my hands on some.

 Here are some photos of the things I made.

Pretty Pink Flower

My Love

Summer!

Love

Cute Butterfly

I will be posting some How-to's as soon as I get that quilling paper.