Take Something Old and Refresh It

The Holidays are just around the corner, so why not get an early start?  You can begin by making some embellishments for Halloween since there are only a couple of days left in September.   I started rummaging through my box of Halloween embellishments (I organize by theme) and saw these two “VERY OLD” die cuts.  I don’t even remember where I got them, that’s how old they are.  But, I love a challenge, so I went from this:

To this by “refreshing” my old die cuts by inking, adding cutesy brads and ribbon. 

My next challenge was what to do with this plain non-descript sack die cut?

What to do?  I could have inked it and added some ribbon, but still it would have looked pretty plain.  So I decided to revamp the old shaker box idea, remember that?  Shaker boxes were more popular several years ago, so why not kill two birds with one candy sack?

I cut out a square in the middle of the die cut, and then I added a square piece of plastic I got from an embellishment package.  Next I added some beads to put into the square to make the beads look like candy.   It was that easy to make a shaker box!

I also “prepare” my embellishments by layering them to a piece of cardstock or pattern paper.  By doing this I create a sort of “border” so that I can glue down the ready-made embellishment to a layout or album.  Voila! I am ready for at least a two page layout, and I feel good about the fact that I used some of my old stash!