How to Recycle a Plastic Bottle (Part 1)

.
Years ago I worked as a Human Factors Engineer for AT&T.  The great thing about AT&T was that they had the best training and Human Factors Instructor in the country, Dr Robert Bailey, Dr. Bob to all who knew and loved him.  I LOVED THAT MAN!  He made learning fun!  One of the fun exercises we did was for the whole class to "Blue Sky" ways to use a, then glass, soda bottle.  No rules.  We came up with over 100 ways!

Yesterday I had an idea I was looking at my empty Dr. Pepper bottle thinking about how I could use it and I decided to let you in on the fun.  I would like your help in "Blue Skying" ways to use ALL PARTS of a plastic drink bottle.  You can either comment your idea, or, if you have seen it or blogged it, please, add to the Link Tool  ... see the button in the top tool bar "Recycle Bottle"... please use that screen to add your ideas or great finds.  I will leave that link so you can find it, or you can save a link... I'm hoping to have lots of participation.  If you think of something to make and you blog it PLEASE add a link.  I have already added a few...and will add the following soon. 


 Be sure and think about EVERY PART of the bottle

Here is one of my ideas...(more to come):

- My favorite...because I am feeling SO CLEVER about this... My "Marker Shelf"!


Pin It

Everyone knows that you should always store your double ended markers horizontally so that the ink doesn't all rush to one end.  That is usually a challenge, for me anyway... I have tried many different ways but as my marker collection grew I was running out of ideas... Until yesterday when I saw a bottle that I had cut the top off of for a different project laying at my feet.  EUREKA!!!  IDEA!  Hook several together, one for each color group!  


At first I thought I would punch holes and brad them together...that would work...BUT, I saw the plastic thingy that holds them together when you buy them... and it has a handle!  So, I loaded them all back into the plastic thingy and now I can carry it from place to place!

And if I decide to stand them up while I'm using them I can do that too!

The plan is, to add even more when I get more empties (thankfully I hadn't taken the trash out and was able to dig these out!)... I'll do that by adding another holder thingy...linking it to the top row of  this set giving me 3 holes to add another layer...all attached to each other!  Oh yea, I'm so clever!

added 7/20/2011

My shelves are now 3 high and 4 across! ...  with no end in sight!  I still need a "cubby hole" for scissors, rulers, and (TBD) , and, and,  and my EVER DISAPPEARING remote control! ... (because it sits on my coffee table in front of the tv :-)  And yes, it is still portable...

TIP: If you try this it is important to cut the bottle in the right place...The bottles I used have a larger bottom and top... be sure and cut about an inch above where the bottle gets smaller. You want both ends to be the same diameter when lying down so your markers won't fall out!  (guess how I figured that one out:-)

DON'T FORGET...click on the link in the top tool bar to see more ideas, and PLEASE ADD YOUR OWN...or some you have found on the internet!

OH!  And I would LOVE IT if you would spread the word...let's have us a HUGE "Linky" Party!

Today Was Mark's Birthday

.
I use to work for Mark.  He is the Minister of Music at a church here in Atlanta and today was his birthday.  I have actually stopped caring about such things but when I saw this on Pinterest ... pinned from here on the internet I knew I had to make one for him!

There are lots of folks in the choir and trust me, with lots of folks comes lots of complaints....sooooo today I went and bought a piece of wood, and made this one... my $3 version :-) :

It would have cost less but that is one BIG DADDY RAT trap!  It was $2!

OH!  I made the target button, that didn't come with the rat trap! And,  the trap is set but it is wired down so it doesn't break anyone's hand!  You can see the little green wire right under the M.  My loaf of bread is now tied in a knot... the sacrifices we make for our art....

I think I like their's better but I wasn't too sure how Mark would like it...he's not the "country" type.

Now see the fun ideas you miss if you aren't "pinning"?

PS.... I woke up at about 3:30 and I have been putzing around here and FINALLY FINALLY figured out how to show a list of the doodles I have so far with one click of the button!!!  YES!!!  

Please notice that I have added a tab at the top called "My Doodles", that is actually a link to my other blog "Polly-Wolly Doodle" but as the link I use this: www.polly-wollydoodle.blogspot.com/view/snapshot .   THAT shows you a snapshot of all pictures on the blog without having to scroll through every single post!!!  You remember, I mentioned that function a few blogs back.  I am leaving the other link in the right column because that shows when the last picture was added.

Go check it out... see how it works, and you will also see that I added a lot of posts from a DIFFERENT blog that I did last year...all those pictures were done using the mouse and PC to draw!

I know, I know, you probably couldn't care less about my doodles but I'm just proud I figured it out! Here in the middle of the night!  Actually, it is almost 6am now so not middle anymore!  

I'm off to try and sleep again!

..................... HEAR YE!...... HEAR YE! ..................... I Have Created a NEW TT Font!!!

.

.

I am SO EXCITED!  I have made my Journaling font into a True Type Font!!!  AND now anyone can have a fun, artsy font!  CHECK IT OUT!!!

Because it is TT you load it onto your PC just like any other font, and use it the same way!  However, there are a few things you need to know... see below

The caps are designed so that the lower case will fit snuggly "in" them, in the middle.  They are NOT created to use "TOGETHER" in a word, they might overlap if you try.  If you have software to move letters around that would work though.

THIS:

NOT This:

But, sometimes you get lucky and they don't look bad together:

All are "see through" so you can make other items appear to be behind the letters. Or, said another way...where you see white, it is actually transparent

IMPORTANT NOTE!  This font looks better the bigger you make it.  I usually start at 150 points and work up.

They look really great and somewhat 3D if a shadow is added either by hand once printed or with a second gray layer of the same text behind the orignal...slightly offset.

More examples (nothing done but straight typing, centered then change the colors and outline color...would look even better with shadowing!:

Click ANYWHERE on this post, it should take you to the purchase screen. OR

Please add a link below, to your blog, showing how you have used Polly Wolly Doodle!  We all want to see what you did!  THANKS!  The link is good for several years, so please remember to come back anytime, it will still be open.

There is currently a "bug" on Linky Tools... Please choose to "Crop it Yourself" when given the option.  If you use "Autocrop" you might get a message saying it didn't work... but it probably did.  ANNOYING bug!

Fun EBAY Finds

.
First, I'm not really an Ebay shopper... mainly because I have made some pretty big mistakes in the past and realized I can't be trusted! 


You see, I have this "I WANT IT NOW" problem and having to wait 5+ days to find out if I "won" something makes me a little crazy. This was evidenced when I bought TWO, countem, TWO heavy duty paper cutters (both over $300 each!!!)...because I bid on one then find another closing sooner so I bid on it too. OH MERCY! Thankfully, I found someone willing to buy the second one right away. (THANK YOU JESUS!). 


Then there was a time that I paid more in bidding than they were selling the item for on their online store! NOT happy about that!


Anywaaaay, I decided to chance it again last week and I just got what I "won" yesterday and today.


First thing... I bid on 72 Marvy LePlume II Markers or a grouping of 6 12 marker packs ...

only 5 shown because I left one in the box and didn't realize it

at Micheal's each pack is $21 so the 6 packets would be $126+ I won the bid for $43+ $5 shipping. YES!!! A GREAT DEAL! (even with a 40% coupon)


Then today I got a really huge surprise! I got my second "won" item.  ... an old Webster's Dictionary.    I found out that there are some auctions that let you "Make Your Best Offer"!!  I did not know you could do that!  So, I gave it a try.  There was a Webster's Dictionary listed at a "Buy It Now" price of $15 so I offered $10 and they accepted it.  I have no clue if I got a good price or not, I just know that I am THRILLED with it!  That puppy is a MONSTER!

It has 1000+ pages and was published in 1952!  What fun!  That makes it 58 years old!  YES!!!

And it came with someone's memories:

You want to see the definition of "Love" in 1952?  I wonder if its different now??  I don't really care what it is now... I like everything about "Love" better back then I think.... 

VERY COOL!  HAPPY HAPPY DAY!

Do you want a picture of a word defined???  Just ask in the comments and I'll take one for you. :-)

Word Search Cards

.
I have a FREEBIE for you today.  It is a single print with two different cards on it.  They are pretty much the same but one is a "Thank You" Word Search and the other is for a "Birthday" Word Search.  You have the choice of either finding and circling the words yourself or leave them for the receiver to find.

Your file is slightly different because my PC crashed before I could get the one I printed saved! AND, I couldn't find the actual software I used to create it again, I had to use a different one.  You can do a
"Right Click/Save Image As" to get the following.

OR, just use this one and create your own list because the ones I did may not fit your needs.  

This is the list of all words that can actually be found: Happy Birthday	You are the best	I love you
Thanks So Much	Congratulations	Happy New Year
Thank You	Over the Hill	Wish You Were Here
I Miss You	To Infinity and Beyond	I Love You Too Much
I Love You More

OR, go HERE and create your own.

Enjoy!

OH!  and this week's favorite from "The Voice"

But, I WANT it!

MAN!  I have been trying to load these pictures ALL DAY but Blogger has been down!!!  But, all is good again so YAY!




OK, one of the bad things about Pinterest is that you see things that you never knew you just HAD to have!  It is THE missing thing in your life (just kidding, but I do come away wanting lots of things)  I have already gotten a sugar cookie stamper, and a Popsicle maker and a Mini-Moon Pie maker.... And today's gotta have is this:

Glitter (salt) shakers! YES I WANT IT!!!

The idea originally came from Crafty Storage.com .  Heck, just the name of that site makes me want to spend hours there!  It is one that we all need to "follow"....I know I am now.  Anyway, Shirley got it from Targets and naturally, when I did an online search for it, they didn't show it listed.  BUT, I was able to find this one at Amazon....close enough.  





grocery store today...geeeesh.... need I say more?   And that's why we have wish lists, right?AND I WANT IT!!!  Well, several actually because I LOVE GLITTER and have tons of colors that need their own little shaker :-)  ... but, this one will have to go onto a Wishlist for the future... I went to the g












another thing I think is too clever...why didn't I think of these?! Sold at 2 Peas in a Bucket... but any charm will work!

All about Dynamic Views for Readers - Blogger Help

.
Did you know that you can now view most Blogger blogs in a different way? FASTER...there are 5 different ways I think my favorite is using the snapshot view. To see my Polly-Wolly Doodle site using snapshot, click HERE.  You will see all the images on the site, if you see something you want to know about you can click the picture and go to it.  LOVE this feature because I can spend HOURS going page by page looking for something interesting!

Basically, you just add "/view/flipcard to the URL for any blogger site... so for THIS blog you would put


www.nancybabb-classes.blogspot.com/view/snapshot

You can learn all about it on this link

All about Dynamic Views for Readers - Blogger Help

Aluminum Flashing + Die = COOL!

.

I was trying to go sleep last night and had one of those suddenlies! (sp?)  "I wonder it this will work??"

Several years ago Making Memories sold these:

  LOVE!

I loved them so much that I didn't want to use them...so, I still have 20 or more of each letter!  Nuts right?  But I just didn't want to not have them.  And, MM no longer sells them, so seeeee, I can't get them anymore!

  Anyway, I wondered if I could recreate it... by using my die cut machine, some aluminum flashing and my vinyl cutter... So, I had to get up right then and give it a try!


Close enough!  Because if you didn't see the original it would work.  I'm pretty sure I have a closer font so I'll have to look for that....and, I'm going to hammer the hole back further into the die so that it doesn't cut, because it is too low

Then of course the wheels started turning...what else could I cut???


... but first, I took pictures to show that I really did use my die cutter:

z

Using Tim Holtz Die  

Some of the dies I had already that I could use:

Sooooo... what to do with the different shapes??? 

• You could make anything for outside because it is rust free.. (letters for a garden sign, or numbers for your house or mailbox)
• What about organizing your garage with style?

(I spray painted the cut shape then added a piece of black vinyl... you don't need expensive "made for chalk" vinyl or paint if you are going to use these FANTASTIC liquid chalk markers:

The screws are an optical illusion...they are really brads from Making Memories...and I stuck it to the can with the super sticky Wonder tape (I had a sheet of it so it doesn't look exactly the same)

Of course, I have ZERO intention of organizing my garage so I changed it to say "Markers" instead!  So, it can look like this: 


















Or, it could look like this :-) :
You decide....

And, because I never put things away... I had everything required for this on my dining room table!!!












Final note...sure, you could easily do the same things with cardstock, but I LOVE the stainless steel look so I will be putting labels on everything in my kitchen soon!

How to Make 1700 Glittered Butterflies (sorta fast)

I actually wrote this a while back when I was working on conference stuff, I just never published it until today...
-------------------
OK, so I was told that I could put a business card or flyer in 1700 conference bags!  YAY! Right? Welllllll.... not the way I do things!  I'm thinking I need to make something that shows what I "do" so I came up with this idea:

BAD IDEA!  I have spent the last 2.5 days and I've only done about 500!  CAN'T do that!  So back to the drawing board so that I can let the printer do most of the work...and this is what I came up with:

But, back to the point, I took the pictures so I might as well share...

How to make 1700 Glittered Butterflies

1. Using a ruler to keep the line straight, run a line of glue onto patterned card-stock,...  (I couldn't find my phone book but that's the best thing to use for something like this because you can keep turning the page so you don't get glue on the backs of your card-stock when you start a new page.)

2. Repeat all the way across the page about 1" apart

3. Apply glitter to whole sheet... over a pre-folded (then opened back) piece of paper for easy pouring later.

You actually want 2 pre-folded pieces of paper so there is always a sheet under the glitter container...one for pouring and the other to catch the overflow.

4. Set aside to dry

5. Start to punch with the glittered line in the middle for the body of the butterfly.

For the business card I then glued the butter fly down onto a sheet of printed "conference logo" butterflies