Trash Trinkets!

The Boyfriend is a dumpster diver. He loves going through dumpsters, recycling bins, the swap shack at the local dump. He'll even stop the truck for something shiny in the middle of the road.  He works in downtown Boston and picks up street trash and flyers as well.  Like a cat who kills a mouse or a bird and brings the presents home to their master, for years he has bestowed his trash trinkets on me. (LOL I didn't mean that they way it sounded!)

I have an entire box of crazy things like flyers, photos of other people, postcards, a giant faux diamond ring, smashed cell phones, lighters, and on and on. I can't bring myself to throw any of it away.  One of my most prized and beloved Trash Trinkets, he mailed to me about 2 years ago, he found Necked Troll in a parking lot.  The Boyfriend had no idea that I have loved Trolls for decades and have about a dozen of them.

Since moving in with The Boyfriend, I know now that he brings home amazing treasures like end tables, furniture, baskets, a working gumball machine, brand new items I have sold on eBay (like a $79 women's western belt, Willow Tree figurines, etc), toys, you name it!

Here's some of the things I've kept:

A wooden hat box in great condition with a carry handle.  It's so adorable!

This brand new 5 piece Craft Storage set! Three of the pieces were still sealed in their original packaging and all had to be assembled but look how amazing they look in our office (second bedroom)!

I can't wait to see what Chas brings home next! I'll let you know if anything amazing.

Happy Columbus Day!
Michele

Mini-Books Galore!

I saw this really beautiful new product made by Scotch Products 3M called Expressions Tape on a blog somewhere where the blogger was stamping on it (which I'm definitely going to try... I put it on my Craft To Do List which is way too long!), so I bought 4 of the 6 available colors; Red, Purple, Green and Pink.

About the same time, I found these mini-composition books and at a discount store.

I covered the spine of each book with 6 layers of the Expressions Tape, which even though it says it's removable (which it is) it held firmly in place. When I used Mod Podge glue to adhere the pattern papers to the front and back covers on the book, there was some overlap onto the Expressions Tape, so there's no chance it will ever come loose now. Here's one of my finished products;

On this Mini-Book, I felt it needed more color on the cover so I added a strip of the same Expressions Tape   on the front along with a green scalloped strip of paper to make the tape look scalloped as well.

Here are Mini-Books I did using the other colors of Expressions Tape; Green and Purple:

I love how these Mini-Books turned out! Creatively, you can use just about anything to decorate these books from your craft supplies. I'm going to use the Red Expressions Tape to make some for Valentine's Day.

All 5 of these Mini-Books are for sale in my Etsy Store:
http://www.etsy.com/shop/GoatGirlMH?ref=si_shop

I hope you are having a wonderful Saturday!
Goat Girl