Upcycled "peek-a-boo" paint chip valentines

I had a few red/pink paint chips from painting this playroom nightstand, and I thought they would be great upcycled into valentines.

First, I took a heart cookie cutter and traced it with a pencil on the backside.

Then I took a razor blade and cut out the heart, leaving one of the straight sides connected to the outside frame to create the flap.

Next, I took a coordinating scrap of paper, spread glue on the back of the paper, adhered it to the backside of the heart and trimmed around the heart.

I took a photo of Elise and resized it to fit inside the heart opening and printed out a few copies.

Then I sandwiched the photo between the paint chip and a thin piece of scrap cardboard with a glue stick.

After the glue was dry, I gave Elise some red and pink crayons and heart stickers and let her decorate the backside of the valentines.

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Gift wrapping + pop-up paint chip gift tags

For me, wrapping gifts is a get-to, not a have-to. Love love love it.

At the risk of sounding anal, I will admit I like to use different wrapping papers to organize our gifts. I wrap gifts for my side of the family in one paper and the gifts for Dan's side in another. This way, it's easy to grab the right gifts for the right occasion without examining every teeny tag. Plus if you write "mom" or "grandma" on the tag, you don't have to guess which mom or grandma that might be; the wrapping paper will tell you.

I also like to wrap my handmade gifts in a different paper than any store-bought gifts, just to set them apart. This year I ended up having just about equal parts store bought and handmade, so the effect was lost a little, maybe.

For small gifts and gift cards, I like to disguise them a little by packaging them in jars or larger boxes. For the jars, you can slip a little scrap of wrapping paper inside the walls of the jar (or use tissue paper, or shred some scraps).

I am vehemently opposed to buying gift tags. Waste of money. If nothing else, I just cut up a sheet of cardstock into little strips. This year, I punched some shiny foil paper circles with a 2 inch paper punch; the silvery paper was upcycled from some packaging. I also used some leftover paint chips in neutral colors.

I used some oversized white paint chips I had from painting the playroom to make some pop-up Christmas tree tags. You could also do this with plain cardstock.

It's so super easy and you can be as simple or intricate as you like. Just (carefully) cut the sides with a razor blade and fold downward toward the base. Write your to/from info wherever you like and stand the tree upright. (You can fold them back down so they don't get smooshed during transport.)

I was kind of sad to separate my little white paint chip forest, but I guess I'll share.

Leftover paint chips, leftover jewelry box

This was another incomplete craft from years ago. I had attempted to makeover this jewelry box. It used to have some needlepoint on the top. I can't remember if it was gone or if I removed it. Either way, I painted it black and then stopped. (I am really good at doing a project up to 75 or 90 percent completion and then abandoning it.)

It was sitting on my work bench all dusty and gross when I decided I should just finish it. I had some leftover paint chip circles sitting there as well, so the two kind of matched themselves.

This was a super quickie project to use up leftovers, and I'll probably use it for craft storage, so I wasn't interested in spending a lot of time to make it look perfect. I glued the circles down with Elmer's Glue All, then once they were dry, covered them in Mod Podge.

The inside wasn't exactly smooth or pretty, so I Mod Podged some scraps of pretty wrapping paper (leftover from our wedding invitations three and a half years ago!).

Normally, I'm not a fan of the distressed look, but the box was kind of dinged up, so I lightly sanded the surfaces just to knock off the shine.

This was the last of the long-unfinished craft projects in my house! Hooray!