The year's first thrifty Christmas project.

Happy Day, Everyone!

Hope your year is starting off well.  It has been cold enough here in my neighborhood to legitimately complain.  (My policy is no complaining above 10 degrees in the winter.  I live in New Hampshire, after all!)  The best thing about cold weather is the excuse to stay cozied up at home and craft.

During this year, I have a couple of goals I will be sharing.  The first is to Re-duce, Re-use, and Re-cycle.  I will be working on projects that reduce my craft stash,  reusing, repurposing, and recycling household items, and making better use of the tools I already own.  I am not so much trying to save the planet (although that would be awesome!) as trying to save some money. 

In that spirit, today I am sharing my first thrifty project:

 

I started on this project early last fall, but didn't finish it until after Christmas.  It fits nicely into my 3- R plan.  I recycled bottle caps,  reduced my stash of ribbon (Mostly so I can justify buying more!) and re-used my button maker.  I really love the versatility of this tool!  I have used buttons for cards, key chains, an id badge reel, lots and lots of magnets, and now this really cute wreath.  I used the print and cut feature of my digital cutter to cut the papers for the buttons.  It is so easy to do this way, and saves toner, as I print the circles in the appropriate size, rather than printing a whole sheet of paper. 

 

I had so much fun with this project that I think I will make a really large one for the front door.  I will just have to find a good solid base first.  I used a piece of heavy cardstock for this small wreath.

 

Happy Crafting!

 

Elizabeth 

 

 

Here is a list of items I used for this project: 

 

From my stash:

Ribbon; scrap cardstock; digital papers from Sassy Designs, Inc., general purpose copy paper

 

From the Recycle bin: 

Bottle Caps

 

Tools and supplies:

Hot Glue gun and glue sticks

Button Maker from American Button Machines

Digital Cutter from That's Scrap, Inc.

Make the Cut Software