Michaels is participating in Random Acts of Kindness Week, Feb. 11-17, by asking customers to share their own random acts of kindness on the Michaels Facebook page, (use the hashtag #RAOKDIY when sharing on Twitter and Instagram.) In celebration, Sunday, Feb. 17, Michaels hopes to inspire customers to participate by giving away more than $100,000 in gift cards at its nearly 1,100 U.S. and Canada stores. Gift card recipients will be encouraged to “craft it forward” and exhibit their own random act of kindness towards another person. Customers who want to “craft it forward” can find inspiration for Random Acts of Kindness projects to give to others on the Michaels Random Acts of Crafting Pinterest board.I was contacted by a Michaels representative to participate in the movement and given a nice stipend to work with for my craft-it-forward project. I’d had someone very special on my mind lately, so the timing was perfect. There’s a lovely woman I met on a plane one day while on my way to teach at a creative conference. I was on the second flight to my destination when she boarded with two other women and they all sat across the aisle from me. Turns out they were headed to the same place. Two of them were even taking my workshop there! Well, when those two nodded off during the flight the third gal and I spent what must have been a good two hours talking. My new friend shared some amazing information about her life and her family. I won’t go into personal details, but I was awestruck at the challenges and gifts God entrusted her with. I spent a good many nights thereafter praying for my new friend. Over the next year or so, I have had the great fortune to spend a bit more time with her at other creative events we’ve both traveled to. She has begun to invest in her creativity at a new level, now that her children are older, and from what I can tell, is really enjoying collage work, with an emphasis on Steampunk style in many of her projects. So when presented with a gift card to create a craft-it-forward project, I knew exactly who the recipient would be. And off to my local Michaels I went!As much as I wanted to craft some off-the-chart project, the reality is that I’m super strapped on time right now while I sort out my new studio and meet lots of project deadlines. So I came up with a project that took very little time but has a nice big punch. I had to first start with a container of some sort… and look what my Michaels had on the shelves! Lovely suitcase-style boxes in lots of different sizes and designs. I snagged up the one with the clock faces and hot air balloons. A perfect steampunk style piece. I grabbed a few other goodies and back to the studio I went to put my project together. My plan- to create a box of collage components for crafting, including a few new craft-making items and lots of vintage goodies from my own studio stash. I started by embellishing the suitcase with glitter using a Martha Stewart fine tip glue pen. Uhm, love that pen! I added a strip of elastic to the inside lid with hot glue and tacked on faux (scrapbook embellishement) rivits. This was to hold a nice fat collection of various vintage bingo game cards, and vintage photographs, both real and reproduced.That was the extent of the crafting on my part, hoping that taking a pre-made item and adding a couple of personal touches was enough. I purchased a Tim Holtz Idea-ology configuration box that not only was perfect for holding lots of small vintage components, but can be used for a collage project. I filled it with goodies such as vintage labels and star stickers, watch part vials, a vintage pocket watch, old postage stamps, Kodak slides, metro tickets, vintage keys and zipper pulls, watch crystals, milk bottle caps, and a few other crafty delectables. I compiled a nice fat stack of vintage ephemera, an antique record cylinder case, a small stretched canvas, a pair of vintage leather gloves, a beefy brass cow tag, an old glass apothecary bottle, upper and lower case rubber stamp sets, a brown ink stamp pad, brown gold, and silver glitter, and a glitter pen.All goodies tucked right into the suitcase. I think it will be a wonderful addition to my friend’s collage supply.I will be shipping this off to her this weekend. So…what do you think? Will she like it? Are you a collage artist? Dabble in it? Do you like steampunk or vintage style? Well, guess what… I had enough of everything to create TWO awesome suitcases full of fun! One for my friend, and one to share with a JSIM reader!To enter to win, please do one or more of the following with Michaels: Then, leave a nice comment on this post telling me why YOU would like this suitcase of collage goods in 50 words or less. Entry open to US residents only. Deadline to enter is Sunday, February 17 at noon, Pacific Time. Winner will be chosen, notified, and announced here shortly after.

I have also been supplied with several $5 Michaels gift cards. So if you are a Petaluma, California Michaels shopper, you just might find me handing them out in the check-out line in the next few days!

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UPDATE: Thanks for all the nice entries. Random.org always helps me out when choosing winners, and it chose #51: Maggie Raguse as the winner of this giveaway. Congratulations Maggie!