My busy life is interfering with crafting

I wish that life wouldn't interfere with the crafts I have planned and would like to do, but that's the way things go, I guess.  My life has been a series of 18-20 hour days for about three weeks and I am exhausted!  Thank God for spring break, right?  I still have to work and do a bazillion things and we're puppy-sitting a tiny, not-quite-potty-trained dog during this time, too, so I wouldn't really call it a "break" but since I get to work from home that makes things a bit better.  All this goes to say that I haven't really had a chance to be crafting to my heart's content.  Over the past few weeks I've completed a couple projects very slowly, and I'm not entirely satisfied with them but thought I'd share anyway.

The first was a "book clutch," inspired by a posting from See Kate Sew.  Her's is so adorable, but my Goodwill did not want to cooperate.  After a few weeks of searching I found a clutch and a book that could work for a price I was willing to pay ($6 total), so here is my version:

Before

After #1

After #2

I also found an old frame with a plastic to-do list in it that I updated into a place to hang keys.  This actually doesn't work for my house, so into the what-am-I-going-to-do-with-this box it goes (maybe I'll come up with a good idea).

I wish that I had remembered to take "before" pictures so that you could see how ugly and old it was.  I spray painted, put a flower in the top, and used a scrapbook page that had all the letters of the alphabet on it to cut out letters for "welcome" and then I used some embellishments for "hello" and "home."  Total cost: under $4.


Last but not least was a project using a couple TV trays I picked up at a Habitat for Humanity store.  I wish this place was closer (it's a two-hour round trip drive) because the price of goods here is so much better than the local Goodwill and the walking into the store is the start of a treasure hunt.  Here's what these old metal trays looked like when I bought them:

Helllloooo, 70s floral!  I can just imagine these in the home of a grandparent who believes sofas should be encased in thick plastic in case of spills.

I don't have a fancy vinyl machine.  (Oh Silhouette Machine, how I covet thee!)  Instead, for the first tray I printed out pictures/letters, traced them on to contact paper, placed the contact paper on the tray (after I gave it its first paint color), and then sprayed the second color onto the tray.

This was a lot of work, or at least it was very time-consuming to cut all of these things out.  I decided with the second tray to use post-it notes instead, but...well...I'll explain what happened when I finally post that tray.  It's not done yet.  And since starting this project several weeks ago we've had constant rain, so I can't finish anything involving paint.  At least one tray is done!

Update, 3/25/11:
Thanks to the lovely blogger at Sew Happy Geek, my little 'ol craft projects were featured!  You are too kind. :-)