Paisley Pink Polka Dots

Time For A Change...

2012-01-23T16:10:00.003-06:00

Well, as you all know, posting is pretty sparse around these parts. It's few and far between that I get a chance to craft and then post about it on this blog. I love doing this craft blog, but life gets in the way too often. As most of you know, I'm a teacher. A special education teacher. And, if any of you know any teachers you know that some days you come home too exhausted for much of anything, let alone crafting and blogging.

To no fault but my own, I created this blog about crafts. People come here to see crafts, not read about my life. And, while I'm not always crafting, my life is always going on. Things are happening, and I want to be able to share that with my friends and family, but I don't think that this is necessarily the place to do that.

So, I started a new blog with my husband. Life With The Luther's. I'll be posting about whatever tickles our fancy. Life, crafts, our never-ending task to fix up our house, and whatever else comes along. I will leave this blog up though for now. Thanks to pinterest, it still receives over 250 hits a day, which is awesome! I may post things on here, but I wouldn't count on it.

So, thanks for sharing in my blogging with me. If you want to visit us on our new blog, we'd love to have you!

See you around!

Rustic Wedding Flowers

2012-01-02T17:59:00.000-06:00

So for the wedding I knew I wanted to have rustic looking flowers. Now, flowers can be VERY expensive! For our wedding on a budget, I knew I wouldn't be able to do big huge flower arrangements. So, I decided very early into our planning that I was going to DIY it! Why not, right? What could go wrong...

So first up was finding bouquet inspiration. I knew our bouquets needed to have Billy Balls in them, so I could bring in that mustard yellow color. If you haven't seen billy balls, or craspedia, before they are beautiful! They have a deep mustard color and the best thing about them in my opinion is that they just dry out when you're done with them. They don't brown or lose their color, so you can keep them in your house afterwards. So to google I went. And this is what I came up with.

I'm unsure of the source since I saved it to my computer. If you know where it's from let me know and I'll credit the photo.

Isn't it beautiful? It was absolutely the look I was going for. After some research I found out that the white flowers in the bouquet are balsa wood, and the little green/brown flowers are called scabiosa pods.

I needed to order all my flowers so I could do them myself. I found the balsa wood flowers on a really helpful site called save-on-crafts.com I used that site a ton in our planning process.I priced scabiosa pods and found they were a little more then I wanted to pay so I tried to look for something comparable in color and size and found these:

Balsa Wood Flowers 18/$3.99 Himalayan Thistle Roses 12/$3.99

Both of the ones I chose didn't have stems (because that made them cheaper!!) So I added stems by buying floral wire and pushing it through them and hot gluing them for extra support.

I ordered my billy balls from a local florist here in town.

Then it was time to assemble the bouquets. I couldn't do this until 2 days before the wedding since the billy balls were fresh at the time of purchase. It made it a little stressful since it was so close to the wedding and the only backup plan I had was that the girls would just carry a handful of billy balls down the aisle.

I grouped the bouquets how I liked them and then used floral tape to secure each one.

I made the girls' bouquets on the smaller size. I didn't want them to be huge, just small and dainty. I made my bouquet slightly bigger.

For the stems I covered some in burlap and others in twine and just hot glued as I went. They held up very well throughout the night and still til this day.

I loved the colors. I think they turned out great and I was very happy I could save the money!

Now for some wedding photos. For my Mom, Mother-In-Law, and Grandma I made them singed flower pins with mustard yellow satin and tulle.

The flowers looked great with the girls.

They were perfect in size.

I also made the groom's and groomsman's boutonnieres. I used billy balls and smaller balsa wood flowers also purchased from save-on-crafts.

So, if you're worried about DIY-ing your own flowers, don't be!! Just plan it out and don't be nervous, just go for it!

Buffet Redo

2011-10-27T18:44:00.001-05:00

So my Mom and sister decided to do some changes to her house this weekend. They found a beautiful buffet at the Salvation Army. It was in need of a little work and I think it turned out amazing! Take a look for yourself.

Before:

And the beautiful after:

Such a great transformation. If you want my tutorial for the Pottery Barn Numbers Art Knock-Off you can find it here. And if you like that cute little twine spool I'll be posting a tutorial soon. I used them in my wedding decor!

Have a fabulous day!

We Interrupt These Wedding Posts...

2011-10-24T19:04:00.001-05:00

I found the pictures from a baby shower gift I made that I wanted to share!

I made another Personalized Name Art for a friend of mine's nursery. I used the fabulous tutorial from Ashley at Lil Blue Boo that you can find here. She gives a very detailed tutorial and it's very easy to follow. She makes hers 5"x7", but I wanted this to be a statement piece so I made mine an 8"x10".

I previously made one of these and it turned out like this

You can find that tutorial here.

I did this one more like Ashley's tutorial and I love it!

Here is the closeup.

The new Mommy and Daddy loved it and it is now hanging in their little Archie's nursery!

Rustic Wedding Cakes

2011-10-19T08:00:00.003-05:00

So, our wedding was a "Rustic Chic" theme. I searched many of blogs and spent many of hours on Pinterest (thank goodness for it, right?) looking for the right elements to add to our wedding. I wanted to share with you all the things that were DIY projects!

The one craft project I did not take on myself was our cakes. If you knew my baking/cooking skills, you would know that doing the cakes myself would have led to one big ole' mess. Betty Crocker would have hung her head in shame... Lucky for me, I work with two FABULOUS teachers who just so happen to have started their own cake business, Thirsty Gourmet. Lucky for me huh?? I love the things they do and I knew they would be able to take on the challenge of our bride and groom's cakes!

I went back and forth on my wedding cake. I knew that I wanted it to be "non-traditional". Actually those words came up a lot in my wedding details. I just didn't want to do anything expected. When my friend, and cake baker, Kara found this picture. I knew we had it!

Photo via Modern Wedding

I knew it had exactly the unexpectedness I was going for. So, I left Kara and Katie to run free with the idea and this is what they came up with.

What do you think? To be honest, I think it's actually better than Hilary's! Sorry Hilary!! I loved it. All of our guests loved it, and best of all it was DELISH! It was a strawberry cake, my favorite.

Then, there was the groom's cake. Is the groom's cake done everywhere? It definitely is done in the South. Usually it is a groom's interest, alma mater, or anything reminiscent of them. My husband makes washer boards. Know what they are? It's a tailgating game, backyard game, similar to the idea of horseshoes, but you throw washers into holes. He also has really gotten the knack of painting washer boards in some fancy fashion. His very favorite washer boards are his "Texas Boards".

So, that's what we wanted his groom's cake to be. Here is what the girls came up with.

Isn't it adorable? I mean.... manly. They did such a great job. We couldn't have been happier!

Check back for more wedding goodies!

And I'm Back......

2011-10-18T21:58:00.000-05:00

.....I promise this time! So, I got married two weekends ago! Super exciting, but I'm so happy for things to get back to normal around here. And back to normal means "I Get To Craft!!!!". I'm going to start with some posts on some crafts I did for the wedding (since I did them ALL... like, every little detail), and then hopefully I'll get back into the swing of things! I can't wait to get blogging again!

Desserts and Cocktails Bridal Shower

2011-03-13T22:56:00.005-05:00

Hello? Anyone still here?

If you are, I appreciate you sticking around.

I've been thinking a lot about this blog. I love doing this blog. I feel great when I'm crafting and I feel even better when I can share what I've done with other people and it helps to inspire you. With that being said... life always seems to get in the way. I'm a teacher. And I realized I starting really posting on this blog during the summer when I had plenty of ample free time. I started to get followers and getting in a real groove of posting and then school started and I got busy, really busy! So, I'm going to try to be better. And if I'm not, we're in luck, because summer is right around the corner and with a wedding coming up the crafts are sure to follow!!

Today I'm going to share a bridal shower that I put together for one of my very best friends, Kristen. Kristen had a total of three wedding showers. One was for her family and one for the groom's family. The one I was throwing was for all of her friends. I wanted this shower to be different. I immediately began brainstorming themes for her shower and I found this photo at Hostess With The Mostess.

Although I didn't use these vases, I took them as inspiration for the entire night. My color palette was red, pink, black, and white. My good friend Jessica made the invitations for the night.

Invitations from Jessica Klima

I wanted to create a dessert buffet that had some pizzaz! I used strips of crepe paper to create a curtain behind the table and then hung a frame from Ikea in the center.

I tried to vary the heights of all the platters to create dimension throughout the table.

Here's a little secret. I don't own very many serving dishes. So most of what I used were my actual plates with either candlesticks underneath or little votives. Shhh! Don't tell! I used my Dollar Store Hurricanes to hold some tulips.

And now the food! It was all so yummy! We tried to keep the food as close as we could to the theme colors. Cake Balls from Bakerella. Creme Puffs.

Orange Brownies.

Red Candies.

Three Layer Chocolate Pie.

Kristen has a love for all things skull and cross bones. So my friend Kelly at Baby Cakes made some super delish skull and cross bone cookies with matching icing!

Homeade eclairs! Yum-o!

Raspberry Meringue Hearts that I made using this recipe.

Dipped Oreos.

Chess Pie. I had never heard of it, but it was delicious!

Chocolate Dipped Pretzel Rods.

Chocolate Covered Strawberries.

And of course we had to have some cocktails! I made this Champagne Punch that was a real hit.

Yummy punch with OJ, Pineapple Juice, and Ginger Ale.

Well... are you hungry yet??

It was such a great shower. Most importantly the bride had fun!

All of these beautiful photos were taken by the most amazing photographer I know, Jessica Klima!

http://tatertotsandjello.blogspot.com/2011/03/weekend-wrap-up-party-and-aubreyplays.html

http://youngancrafty.blogspot.com/2011/03/free-for-all.html

Exciting News!

2010-11-29T21:03:00.000-06:00

So... the posting has been non-existent for the last couple of weeks. I have a really good and exciting reason why though. Other than it being busy at work, my birthday, and Thanksgiving.... I got engaged!! :) Yay!

My amazing fiance', Lu, put A LOT of work into my proposal to make sure that I was surprised, and boy was I! I woke up thinking that it was going to be a normal day of work, but Lu surprised me with a card saying that he had taken the day off for me. He told me that we were going to Austin for the day to have a relaxing day together. After lunch he gave me another card while we were in the car that said lunch wasn't enough and that he wanted to spend the day floating in the clouds with me. What does that mean? As I looked up we were pulling into the Austin Airport. Whaaaat?!? We checked our bags (that he had my friend pack for me without me knowing the day before), and were told we had a flight to VEGAS! Woohoo! I have always wanted to go there! When we got to Vegas we cheked into our room and I got all dressed up for our dinner. When I came out of the bathroom, he was dressed super nice and he said he had another card for me. Wellllll..... the card was adorable and after I read it he was on one knee asking me to marry him!! I was in shock! Of course I said yes, but little did I know the surprises weren't over. We went downstairs to go to our dinner reservation, turned the corner, and there were my two best friends and their husband/fiance'! Oh my goodness gracious! We had a fabulous dinner and I was so excited that they were there. After dinner we walked around the hotel. When I turned a corner, there was my Mom, and both of my sisters! I could not believe that they were all there! What a FABULOUS day that I had. I was completely overwhelmed and couldn't be happier. Here are some photos from our trip.

We were very happy!

Our amazing friends when they surprised us!

Right after seeing my Mom and two sisters.

In front of the Bellagio!

All of our fabulous friends on Freemont Street!

Such a great trip!

One last stop before our flight at the Hoover Dam.

So, the moral of the story for you guys is.... no new crafts! But, never fear! Christmas is coming up and I plan to make most, if not all, of my Christmas presents. So, there will be new ones soon! AND I plan to make most of the things for our wedding. I haven't deided if I'm going to post those before the wedding, or after, but I definitely will be looking for good ideas! We're going for an outdoor rustic wedding. If you know of any good posts or blogs, I'd love it if you would share!

Crafting soon, I promise!

Share With Me!

2010-11-04T17:22:00.000-05:00

I wanted to thank everyone for their kind words about my Pottery Barn Knockoff! If you create one of your own, send me the link! I'd love to feature it on my blog and see how yours comes out!

Happy Crafting!

Pottery Barn Knock-Off: Painted Numbers Canvas

2010-10-31T13:06:00.010-05:00

When I saw this on Pottery Barn's website I knew that it would be perfect for my sister. It's totally her style. It's not for sale through the website anymore, but I can only imagine the price tag on something like this!

Photos from Pottery Barn here.

So, I decided that I should just make my own! I used a 20x16 canvas that I got at a garage sale for $2. I read on Little Blue Boo's blog about mod podging newspaper or phone book pages on your canvas to be able to sand it down at the end, and give it a more rustic and distressed finish.

Here's what it looked like after it was covered in phone book pages.

Then, I painted over the whole thing in an antique white acrylic paint. When that was dry I went over that with a bright white acrylic paint. I didn't cover the whole thing, but more in random places to give it a streaky effect.

Once that was completely dry, I found my center and drew lines in pencil so that I could work in sections. For the numbers I used my Silhouette to cut out vinyl letters. I google searched "Pottery Barn Numbers Canvas Font" just to see if anyone knew which font they were. Lucky for me, Stephanie Lynn over at Under the Table and Dreaming had made a cute mini version and told us what fonts she used to make hers. So, I played around with mine until I liked it the best. I ended up using two fonts: Engravers MT and Century Schoolbook. I typed them into word and then went back and forth between my document and the picture that I had from Pottery Barn to decide which number fit best.

I kept working in sections to make sure that all of my numbers fit correctly.

After I got all of the numbers places where I wanted them I used my brayer to make sure that all the edges were really stuck well. At this point I was busting at the seams to go spray paint it and see what the finished product would look like!

I took it outside and gave it two good coats of flat black spray paint. I made sure it was completely dry and then brought it in and peeled away the vinyl letters! Loved it! But I knew I would love it better after I sanded it. I just used a piece of fine grit sandpaper, wrapped it around a block, and really hit the edges and where my phone book pages were a little crinkled.

I was so super happy with it!

I had to test it in my house before I gave it to my sister. I thought for a minute that I should just keep it!! :) Just kidding! I love the way the edges look and the crinkles. It really makes it look like a sheet of canvas.

Take that Pottery Barn!

Linking to:

Polly Want a Crafter? Craft Linky Party 5

Pottery Barn Knock-Off COMING SOON!

2010-10-24T21:41:00.001-05:00

I'm so excited to share a Pottery Barn knock off that I finished tonight!! It turned out better than I expected. The only problem is... it's a housewarming gift for my sister who just bought her first house, annnnnd I don't want to give away the surprise. But, I can't wait to share it, so come back this weekend for the post!

Fairytale Bridal Shower

2010-10-24T21:32:00.000-05:00

This weekend I had the pleasure to host a bridal shower for one of my good friends, Katharine. Her favorite color is pink, and so we chose a "Fairytale" theme for her decorations.

I made the banner for the fireplace using scrapbook paper and pink foam.

I made this wreath using Beverly at Flamingo Toes Semi-Scary Halloween Wreath as inspiration. I used a white styrofoam wreath form and tied strips of white tulle around, and added a pink glittered foam heart to the center with the couples initials.

For the side table in the dining room we decorated with vases filled with ornaments, some ribbon and little princess sayings. (My friend has a slight affliction with Silly Bands, so there had to be princess silly bands strewn about!)

Vases with ornaments and ribbon.

I bought a charger from Hobby Lobby and used by Silhouette to cut out pink vinyl that read "Happily Ever After". I bought a package of glittered dome dots in the scrapbooking section to apply as well.

A good trick when decorating is to plan ahead. We decorated the night before, since this was a brunch bridal shower and we knew we had lots of things to do the next morning. We went ahead and laid out our table settings and just used post-its to label where everything was going to go. It helped us stay organized and not be searching for a dish at the last minute!

A drink serving station for the Pink Punch.

The bride's glass. I used the same glittered pink dots on the glass to make it more special.

Another great idea that we had for easier clean-up. If you have a double sink use the bigger one as a chilling station for the beverages. This keeps everything cold, while saving your guests the need to search through your refrigerator! We didn't put the stopper in, so when the ice melted it would just drain. Easy clean-up! If you notice is getting low, just add more ice to the top!

The table with all of the yummy food! Pigs in a blanket, doughnuts, quiche, fruit, cheese ball, and yummy cupcakes from my friend Kelly at Baby Cakes.

The hostesses, Me and Kristen.

The happy, beautiful Bride-To-Be!

DIY Cake Stand

2010-10-18T16:28:00.000-05:00

Using a few basic supplies, you can make your own cake stand! I found this orange candle stick at a garage sale for 25 cents!! The plate is one from the wedding section at Dollar Tree! Using some E-6000, just stick them right together!

After it dried overnight, I spray painted it glossy white! I added a clear acrylic sealer after that was dry.

Super cute right? It's the perfect little stand for some good fall decorations. I think if I wanted to put food on it, I would add a little piece of scrapbook paper cut to fit.

I love an easy project!

Fall Mantle

2010-10-13T12:00:00.000-05:00

My fall mantle has been up for a couple of weeks, I just hadn't taken pictures of it for some reason. The color block piece that you see on the right was taken from Jennifer at Hope Studios tutorial on a Paint Chip Mosaic. It's made out of paint chip samples for a home improvement store! Go check out her tutorial on how to make this super inexpensive artwork! Today I wanted to show you how I made my leaf art. First, I bought a certificate frame from, where else, Dollar Tree.

I spray painted the frame black. I removed the cardboard center and hot glued burlap to it.

Then, I cut out a leaf using my Silhouette onto cardstock as a stencil.

Silhouette Image Leaf_0476

Then, I used the saran wrap technique to apply my orange acrylic paint. I think by using the saran wrap, it doesn't give it such a "perfect" look. More like and aged, or rough look.

I put it back in the frame and super glued some buttons on to give it some dimension. Simple. Easy.

Love it.

Dollar Tree Hurricanes

2010-10-12T12:00:00.001-05:00

So I have been seeing these around the blogs. I'm not sure who originally posted the idea. If you do, let me know and I'll give them credit!

Dollar Tree is selling these glasses and candlesticks. $1 a piece, you can't beat that!

Add a strong adhesive to the bottom and you have a really expensive looking hurricane! The ones below are my Mom and sister's. For theirs we used the taller glasses also from Dollar Tree then mine in the picture above.

Add some decorations to the inside and you have a really great looking piece, for $2!!

Fall Wreath for my Mom

2010-10-11T12:00:00.001-05:00

My Mom wanted a Fall Wreath for her door so we headed to get our supplies.

We pulled the leaves off the stems and glued them on individually.

Then, we added some little foam beads in fall colors with the glue gun. It turned out cute!

Happy Fall!

Super Easy Project!

2010-10-10T12:07:00.001-05:00

My Mom was in town this weekend, which really motivated me to do a bunch of projects that I had been wanting to do. This first one was SUPER easy, but it makes such a great look when it's all finished!

Using my Silhouette, I cut out vinyl letters in Georgia font. Stuck them straight onto some plates that I already had that matched my kitchen, and Voila! The hardest part of this project was making sure they were straight on the plate hangers and hanging them on the wall!

I love them! They really add a pop when you turn the corner! Yay for fun easy projects!

Fall Wreath

2010-10-06T12:00:00.004-05:00

Well, it was about that time to take down my Summer Wreath. Although I loved it, I have been itching to get my fall decorations up. Brooke at All Things Thrifty had posted this lima bean wreath tutorial and I knew this was exactly what I was looking for. The thing I was most giddy about was the paint color that I knew I was going to choose.

For this project I used one 2 pound bag of lima beans.

I started by first covering the front side of the wreath form. I just piled all the beans up in the middle and just grabbed and hot glued.

For the sides, it was easiest to sit on the floor and place the wreath up and down and just glue and rotate.

Then, I did the same thing on the inside of the wreath. I left the back completely blank, so it would lay flat against my door. Next up was COLOR!!

Can we talk about this color? Krylon's Bauhaus Gold. It's a warm mustard yellow. LOVE! I knew against my red door, with my orange pumpkins for fall, that Mustard Yellow was the way to go. It's my new favorite color.

Yay! So simple, so sophisticated looking.

Who knew lima beans could look so good??

Diaper Wipes Case

2010-10-04T12:00:00.002-05:00

I wanted to show you the other gift that I made for my friend's baby shower. Using Sister's Stuff tutorial, it was really super simple! These are great gifts and so stylish!!

Love it!

I Submitted a Project!

2010-10-03T19:11:00.002-05:00

Baby Name Board

2010-10-03T14:53:00.001-05:00

I'm not an artist. I think there is a real difference between someone who can craft, and create things, and an artist. Being an artist takes some real talent. So when I saw this post over at Little Blue Boo I put it in my "Dream" folder. Ashley is a true artist! I absolutely love the way the layering on her pieces looks. She has made a bunch of these, and they are all different, unique, and just perfect! You can see some of her other ones by clicking here, here, and here.

So, a friend of mine was having a baby shower and I thought I would just attempt to create something like this. I kept saying to myself that if I messed up it was OK. I could just sand it down and use it for another project, right? Right. So, with Ashley's projects as inspiration I started working on my piece for Miss Kallie Joann. I used different elements from her pieces that I absolutely loved. I started with a wood plaque and spray painted it white. I added some vinyl letters that I cut using my Silhouette. I spray painted the whole thing with Valspar's Tulip Pink and peeled off the letters when it was dry.

I then painted each letter with a fine tip brush. I used all acrylic paints.

I used Ashley's advice and bought a medium point and fine point black paint pen. I outlined everything with the medium point paint pen.

I then added different elements to each letter. For the stitching, I used a fine point black paint pen.

I used a stencil in two of the corners. I outlined them with a pencil, and then filled them in with the paint pen.

For the centers of my flowers I added stitching to my button holes and hot glued the buttons on.

To add more dimension, I used a paint brush that the tip had come off of and added dots to different parts of the letters.

I free handed the little saying with my fine point paint pen.

I love how it turned out. I think for my first one, it worked out pretty well.

Most importantly, Kallie's Mommy loved it!!

Fall Craft Day

2010-09-26T18:50:00.001-05:00

I hosted a craft day for some of my girl friends. I loved all the fall word art that I had been seeing around blogland and thought that would be a great thing for everyone to make. I knew it would be cute to see everyone's personality and personal style come out in their finished art. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves on this one.

*Don't get too accustomed to these super nice photos. You know my little camera didn't take these awesome shots. One of my good friends is a photographer here and she was snapping away the whole time! Go check out her website and see her amazing pictures! Jessica Klima Photography

My friend Kim's work in progress.

Melissa and her daughter Katie showing off their finished work.

Katie's awesome wall art for her room!

Melissa's Fall Art completed! Super cute!

Jessica was really making sure her colors coordinated.

Sally and I with our pumpkins!

Love it!

Sally's monogram fall art. I love the way it turned out!

And her glittered pumpkin. Too cute!

Jessica's turned out great! I looooove the colors!

TP Wall Art Tutorial

2010-09-09T12:00:00.001-05:00

Say what?!? TP...as in Toilet Paper??...for your walls? I know it sounds crazy, but trust me, the end product is like nothing you've ever seen. There were a couple of these floating around that I really thought were cute, like here, here, and here. I decided to do mine a little differently though. Here's how:

Supplies:

Lots and lots of toilet paper rolls (I used 11)

Hot Glue

Spray Paint or Acrylic Paint (optional)

Cut your tubes into about 1" strips. You want to make sure that they are all equal widths, or some will be higher than others which makes it hard to attach without looking wonky. I made a little template size with cardstock that made it easy.

Decide what shape you want to make. I decided on flowers with 8 petals. The easiest way I found to do this was to line up the end, and just glue the amount you needed. See the picture, it might make it more clear.

Once you glue all that you need, you'll open your flower and glue the two petals (from the top and bottom of your stack) to each other.

See, pretty flower.

Now, just make as many as you need for whatever shape you're going for. Check out those links at the top for what the other ladies did, super cute! I needed 12.

I laid out my design and decided that I wanted to paint mine, I've seen a lot left natural. I tried spray painting mine first, but after 3 coats, although more time consuming, I decided to paint mine with acrylic paint. I wanted a good solid cover. I painted all but one white, with the one being yellow. Then, I glued my flowers on the ends that connected.

Doesn't it look great? My sis has it hanging in her office, along with this, these, and some of these!

Cuuuuuute! And who's going to know it's made of Toilet Paper? Well...all of you, but we won't tell! :)

My Sister's Office

2010-09-08T17:34:00.000-05:00

Check out those chairs that my sister and I redid in her new office!

They look great don't they?

You can see the transformation here.

I love the color of the wall, with the colors in the chair.

That picture was the original inspiration for the whole room.

Outside of the Box Artwork

2010-09-07T17:32:00.000-05:00

So, I went over to my crafty friend Kim's house last week for dinner and saw this art work in her bathroom. (These were taken with my camera phone...sorry about the poor quality!)

I just had to share it with you guys! Can you tell what they are? Let me give you a closer look!

Isn't it so fun? They are plain "Jenga" style blocks! She said the frames are super cheap from IKEA, and she put some fancy Target wrapping paper inside and then glued the blocks on the outside of the glass. So creative! It really gives the space more dimension.

I love it!!

Word Wall Art

2010-09-02T12:00:00.002-05:00

While my sister was visiting, she also wanted some wall art for her new office. She really likes the word Imagine, so we decided to make her a sign.

I bought an 8" X 4' board from Lowe's and painted it with their $.99 flat black spray paint. Once it was dry I used my silhouette and cut out 6" letters in Georgia font out of cardstock. I used spray adhesive and attached my letters. I paintd in my letters using saran wrap and gave the whole board a good sand when it was dry.

Loveeeeee it! I'll get my sister to send a picture of her office so you can see all the projects we've done for it.

Roadkill Rescue: Zebra Office Chair

2010-08-31T12:00:00.005-05:00

My sister has been looking for two chairs to put in her office. Yes, we could have gone to a furniture store and paid lots of money for one... but what's the fun in that? All it took was a little waiting and wah-lah, my neighbor put out four of these guys ready for trash pick-up.

We removed the upholstery tacks and weaving from the top and sanded the whole chair. We took off the seat and covered it in an rust orange zebra print outdoor fabric we found on clearance at Jo-Ann's for $6.00. We spray painted it with Valspar paint in Porcelain and of course sanded down the edges to rough it up a little bit.

I love the way they turned out. $6 for two chairs, now that's thrifty!

I think the other chair is jealous. I have plans to redo the other two for my craft room. Right now I've been sitting on metal folding chairs...not comfy at all! Look for those soon.... I plan on being a little bold with those since they're for crafting!

Back to School Goody Bag!

2010-08-30T12:00:00.002-05:00

I made a Back to School Goody Bag for my friend's daughter. Her favorite colors are purple and blue.

I made her a Felt Flower Pin or she could wear it on a headband.

Chelsea over at Crafter's Anonymous Club just posted a video tutorial here.

I also made her a button headband.

I posted about making these here. This time, I attached a skinny piece of black felt to the headband first, and then added the buttons to the felt, to avoid any buttons popping off.

I ordered some Mod Posge Dimension Magic from their website, you can read about it here! I couldn't wait to try it out. So, I made her a scrabble tile necklace.

Debbie at A Creative Life posted a tutorial here.

* I didn't have any scrabble tiles, so I just bought a pack of square wooden pieces from Hobby Lobby. It worked pretty well!

Rosette Ring

2010-08-29T17:45:00.001-05:00

I tried my hand at making the cute rosettes that everyone is making. They are so simple to do, and look so cute when you're done. Here is how I made mine. I started with a fabric strip about 2" wide. Put a dot of hot glue and fold it in half.

Add another dot of glue and fold it over again.

Now, fold your strip over half of the end. This gives you a little base to start twisting and gluing your rosette.

The next steps were hard to get a picture of. Hold your rosette with one hand and twist your fabric with the other. Put a dot of hot glue and keep working your fabric around until you have the size rosette you want. Finally, fold the end of your fabric over the back and glue it down. Cut off any excess fabric.

I decided to add my rosette to an adjustable ring with a pad that I got at Hobby Lobby. I love how it turned out and wear it all the time!

Cute!

I'm Still Here, I Promise!

2010-08-22T20:06:00.000-05:00

I know, it's been awhile! But, I do have a good excuse, I promise! School starts tomorrow...well, the kids come back tomorrow. We've been back since the Friday before last. I have been so busy getting my room set up and getting everything going for the start of school that my craft time has diminished to nothing! But, no worries, as soon as we get back into the swing of things I'll definitely have some time.

Flower Tutorial

2010-08-09T17:39:00.000-05:00

Buttons!

2010-08-09T16:58:00.000-05:00

I was adventuring around blogland one night and I saw that Someday Crafts had a new sponsor that was doing a giveaway, buttons and badges. Due to my recent OBSESSION with buttons I had to go check out their etsy store. Holy moly, I was in love! Of course I had to order some and when they came in the mail I couldn't wait to check them all out!

I ordered the Bulk Supply of Modern Silhouette Flat Back Buttons and the Assorted Bulk Supply Flat Back Buttons. I'm so excited to start making some things with them! Stay tuned for those... for now, just admire how wonderful they are.

Horse-ish Stool

2010-08-09T16:49:00.000-05:00

So I found this guy at a garage sale last weekend for $1.

We couldn't decide if he was a horse, or a dragon. I thought horse.. so that's what I'm going with. I wasn't really sure what attracted me to him, other then I was looking for bargains and by golly a dollar is a bargain!

I thought he could become something pottery barn esq. So, I purchased him, brought him home, and spray painted him with Krylon White Semi-Gloss. I used a very fine paint brush and some black acrylic paint and painted in all of his details (eyes, ears, nose, etc.).

Of course, I gave him a good rough sand and was pretty proud of my little ~~dragon~~...er, horse!

I haven't figured out where exactly he is going to go, but I like the way he turned out!

Keep Calm and Snap On

2010-08-01T13:53:00.004-05:00

I know you've seen them.... Keep Calm and Carry On. They're everywhere, the original versions and tons of plays on the original. If you're wondering, like I was, where did this saying come from, you can find out on the Wikipedia page here.

My friend Jessica is a photographer, you can check out her awesome work at her website, JessicaKlimaPhotography. Whenever I saw this version of the "Keep Calm and Carry On", I knew it would be the perfect birthday gift for her. I used the same technique as I did in this project.

Silhouette Font: Gill Sans MT Condensed, Font Size: 189;122, Image: toy_camera_C00445_18816

A little Tulle... and it's the perfect gift for a photographer!

Finally...No Sew Fabric Flowers!!

2010-08-01T13:37:00.000-05:00

I can't sew. I know. It's a bummer. I've tried, but ultimately everytime fail. I'm looking into a sewing class, but the classes offered in my town have been put on hold, so... until then, No Sew Tutorials are what I'm looking for! Everybody has versions of cute flowers to adorn on headbands, pins, alligator clips, but most of them are sewn versions. So, I was happy to find a couple of no-sew versions that actually looked as good as the others! I followed a couple of different ones, and ended up with a couple of different versions, all that I loved. I found my tutorials at Samster Mommy, Little Lizard King, and at The Examiner Houston.

"Create" Tutorial

2010-08-01T13:18:00.001-05:00

Here is the tutorial for how I made my Pier 1 Inspired Wall Art. First I had the BF cut me a piece of MDF 10"X36". I divided my six sections, for each letter, and marked them with a pencil at 6". With this project you have to think from the bottom up. So the first color you want to paint is the color that your letters will be. I didn't worry too much about them being perfectly straight.

The next step I found out was not necessarily needed. So, you could skip this step if you wanted. I actually ended up liking how it gave some dimension underneath the flat black paint, but you could get the same effect at the end if you wait. But, for my picture's sake, and so you won't be wondering how those splatters got there, I splattered black paint across the whole piece.

I picked a font that I liked and cut 6" tall letters with my Silhouette. (Remember, you aren't actually using the vinyl, so use the color vinyl you use least in your projects, for me, it's baby pink!) If you don't own a cutter, you can just print out the font and size you like in Word and use those as a guide to cut out Contact Paper letters to adhere to your board. Also, if you're making a smaller version, you could just use store bought stickers.

So, thinking from the bottom up, next I wanted two of my sections to not be black. I used Scotch Decorate & Repair Tape (it has a real plastic texture and I knew it wouldn't pull up my letters or paint) to give a straight edge. I painted those two sections the colors that I wanted them, blue and white.

After the paint dried I then covered those two sections in freezer paper (dull side down), to keep them from getting spray painted.

Then, I used a fat black spray paint and covered the entire piece and sides. Once it was dry I removed the wax paper, tape, and vinyl letters. Then, using every color in my piece I coated a brush in paint and splattered everywhere, mostly on my garage floor and foot. (I tried to tape a small line between the "T" and "E", but ended up not liking how it looked, so I painted over it.)

I let it dry overnight, some of the splatters had a good dose of paint, and then gave it a light sand to smooth it down. I think it's a good addition to my craft room! I'm going to put it over my window, just haven't hung it up yet.

Happy Birthday...40 Blows!

2010-07-30T18:29:00.000-05:00

I saw this idea over at Susan's blog, Poca Cosas, and I knew exactly who would appreciate a gift like that! I work with someone who is a ball of energy and spunk and can make anyone laugh and I love her to death. What a fun little gift idea don't you think? I found the painter's bucket at Michael's and filled it with Blow Pops and flavored Double Bubble. I should have used one or two more bag to make it look more full.

Forty Blows!

Featured on Before & After!

2010-07-30T12:12:00.000-05:00

Lindsey features the best shots from any project, the Before & Afters of course! She was so sweet to feature my fireplace re-do! Go check out her blog, here, it gives you the inspiration you need to finish your next project!

Pier 1 Inspired Wall Art

2010-07-28T20:56:00.001-05:00

So, I was visiting my sister and she had bought a piece of art for her bedroom from Pier 1. She loved it, but her only complaint was that it didn't match her bedroom decor, color wise. So... as soon as I heard that the crafter in me said "Well, I can make one with your colors!" I figured before I bombed a gift for her I would practice by making one for myself. I've been wanting to put the word Create in my craft room, but wasn't sure in what form, so why not try this?

Here is the inspiration from Pier 1. (sorry, cruddy camera phone shot is all I have)

And here is my attempt at one!

I'll post the tutorial hopefully tomorrow!

Before & After Fireplace

2010-07-27T17:15:00.002-05:00

So, what do you think? We got rid of the tacky pink 80's tile that I've hated since before we bought this house! Surprisingly enough, with the right tools, a little trial-and-error, and the gumption to get rid of the awful tile..you can do it too! Now, I'm no professional. I'm just telling you how we made it work for us. This might be the complete opposite of how you are supposed to correctly lay tile, but no one lost a finger or eye, so we worked out OK.

Step 1: Go to your local do-it-yourself store and get the right materials. The people at our Lowe's were really helpful. They showed us the best materials to get, why we needed certain things over others, and were generally helpful all around. Well...except for the man who totally was laughing under his breath when we told him what we were about to do. I wish I could take him that picture and just say, "Ha! Told Ya So!"...but I won't....back to the fireplace at hand.

Ugh! Even with my decorations, there is no hope for this thing.

Step 2: You have to remove the ugly pink tile. The best thing we found to do was smash the tiles on the wall with a hammer. We bought one of those fancy schmancy 'L' bar thingamajigs. It didn't do nearly the damage that a good ole' bang with a hammer did. For the tiles on the ground, that are on the cement, we found the best thing to do was cover them with a sheet and beat the crud out of them with a sledge hammer. Seemed to do the trick! Remember your protective eye cover, those broken tiles can be sharp!

Step 3: Not always necessary, but because of how our tiles came off the sheet rock we had to put backer board up. We bought the kind that you were supposed to be able to score and snap...with no such luck. We ended up using a sheet rock knife and cutting it that way. Attach backer board to your studs.

Step 4: Now it's time to put on your tiles. It took us a while to decide how we wanted to do this. Make sure you have a good idea of where you want your tiles laid, it'll save you some cutting in the long run. We only had a few tiles that didn't have to be cut. So..to the wet saw we went. It was fairly simple to use. We marked our cuts on the back side of the tiles, where the mesh is.

Step 5: Time to mortar. A fairly simple step. You have to apply it with a trowel. Don't skimp on the mortar, give it a good heavy dose.

Step 6: It's time for the mortar to set. We let ours set overnight. This is your time to shower, veg on the couch, and wonder why your shoulders, arms, and back are so sore! Most fireplaces have a little lip on the top to hold the tile. Our didn't. So, we just used some ingenuity to rig something up to hold it while it set.

Step 7: Now it's time to put on the grout. This is the part where we were really unprofessional. There is a tool to put on grout, and we had that tool, but it kept falling off and not getting into the cracks like we needed to. Long story short..we ended up using our hands! I told you.. totally unprofessional, but it got the job done. I'm sure some professional tile layer is shaking their head right now...but he wasn't at my house, so it's OK!

Step 8: After the grout comes the sealer. Read the instructions on the one you buy. Ours said to let the grout cure for 72 hours. So..3 days later it was time for sealer. While at Lowe's the first day, we bought the inexpensive sealer for stone. After about 10 coats of it, and not seeing the color of the stone that I wanted, I went back and bought the more expensive Stone Sealer and Enhancer. After 2 coats, it was perfect!

Step 9: The people that put the ugly pink tiles in were a tad bit lazy. They didn't cut a single tile, meaning they were unlevel on one of the sides. We didn't want to follow their un-levelness, but we had to cover up the backer board that we put up to cover up the sheet rock. So, we opted for a trim piece. We just used quarter round which is what is on our base molding.

Step 10: Step back and admire all your hard work! I love it! So happy the pink tile is gone, and feeling really accomplished. Take that Lowe's man!

DIY Coasters

2010-07-23T18:14:00.000-05:00

Coasters are SO expensive. Really. I've had this bookmarked in my Things To Make folder for a while. I'm so excited that I finally made them. They were SUPER easy and the best part, since I had the paper, paint, felt, mod podge, and sealer....they only cost me $2.68!!! And they match my dining room art! You won't find coasters anywhere for that price. You can find the great tutorial at Sweet Charli. Thanks Kami!

Yay Headbands!

2010-07-23T17:31:00.000-05:00

I really liked my new button headband, so I made some more! Yay Headbands!

Button Headband

2010-07-22T22:52:00.007-05:00

Musical Birdies

2010-07-14T18:26:00.004-05:00

With the help of a new bed, I'm slowly redoing the spare bedroom in our house. I wanted to be a little more bold with the wall color in that bedroom, since it is the spare and the only people that really go in there are my Mom and Sister when they stay with us! With an old wrought iron bed (pictures soon) I am going for a shabby chic look. So I wanted to repurpose some frames and art that I already had in the room that were $1.99 a piece.

I found these guys last fall at a garage sale for 25 cents a piece! Score!

So, I used my trusty mod podge and go to work applying torn pieces of the sheet music.

(Don't mind the tacky silver nail polish.. I promise it's gone now!)

After that was dry I used my Silhouette (notice a trend with all my recent projects??) and cut out two shapes of birds. I stenciled those on with some black acrylic paint and free handed some branches for them to sit on.

Silhouette Design Bird_C000019_23851

I spray painted the frames with some 99 cent spray paint from Lowe's. And..... birdie love again!

They go so well in the spare room. I can't wait to show you the whole room once it's complete!!

DIY Personalized Sign

2010-07-12T16:18:00.002-05:00

I had a spot to fill on a shelf in my living room and I really wanted to put something there with some meaning. I started looking for quotes that could relate to us, but I couldn't find anything that resonated with me. So, I decided to use the lyric from one of my favorite songs. I love it, it's the ring tone on my phone when the BF calls, and it is one of my all-time favorite bands! I started with a wood plaque that I bought at Wal-Mart and spray painted it white. I decided on how many lines I would need and found the center of my board. I marked my lines with a pencil.

I picked a font that I liked and used Ashley's Subway Art Tutorial and Jen's Beachy-ish Subway Art as inspiration. I cut out my words using my SILHOUETTE onto some vinyl. I used my lines as a guide and placed all of my letters on.

The lyrics are from one of my favorite songs "Bumblebee" by The Band of Heathens. They are a Texas Country (Americana if you're not from Texas) group, and I love them! If you click on their link, you can actually listen to the song in the playlist on the right. It makes my heart happy! :)

So after all the vinyl letters were placed I painted over it with a mixture of two blues, then went back and added a couple layers of each color. I wanted to do this for when I started sanding at the end, to give it some dimension.

Then, I let it dry over night and used my Silhouette's Hook Tool to remove each letter. Then, I headed out to the garage and used my sander to rough it up a bit. I sanded the edges and over the letters and paint a bit.

I thought I was done at this point, but the white underneath was a little too stark for the look I was going for. So I took some brown paint and diluted it with water to give it a little stain. I just brushed it on then quickly wiped it off.

Perfect! And now it sits so nicely on my shelf.

Roadkill Rescue: Chair

2010-06-30T15:44:00.002-05:00

So, I was driving down the road and I saw this beauty sitting on the side of the road, ready for garbage pickup. What? This sweet little chair with awesome potential? Helloooo, someone needed to save her! So I promptly kicked the BF out of the car to go grab her, because I sure as heck wasn't going to be seen doing it! Actually, I was driving, so it was just easier for him to do it...or that's what I told him.

Isn't she great? I called my Mom soon after, I knew she'd be so proud of me! I knew exactly where I wanting to put the sweet thing, so I got to work on this super easy project. First I had to remove the one lonely arm by unscrewing it from the base. I took off the plasticy cover to see if the padding was still good on it, and luckily for me, it was! I cut the fabric a little bigger then the seat and stapled it to the bottom, making sure to fold the edges neatly.

Then, I took her outside and gave her a nice coat of Krylon Brown Leather spray paint.

So simple! But such a transformation!

Perfect! Now she really is a beauty!

My Bathroom Redo

2010-06-29T14:42:00.002-05:00

So one of my big projects for this summer was to redo our master bathroom. There are no upgrades whatsoever...just factory grade. When we bought the house, we kind of liked the idea of being able to refinish everything at our pace, making it the way we liked, and being able to spend what we wanted.

This was after I painted the bathroom, and decorated it.

We have the big sheet mirror, plain boring ole cabinets with nothing on them, and don't forget.....dum dum dummmm......GLOBE Lighting! Yuck!! I hate those things.

Drab, drab, drab. I had heard of framing the mirror before, but I was just going to get plywood when I came across this tutorial at Show & Tell and I knew I found what I was looking for. She gives you step-by-step directions on how to get your molding up. Base Molding, can you believe it? Base molding is the perfect solution for framing the mirror. It gives it some detail, but is still thin enough and light enough to not knock the whole mirror down. So, I got to work!

So it's hard to take pictures of my bathroom! But it makes it look so fancy! I also sanded and painted the cabinets the same color as I did the molding. I want to add knobs to my cabinets, but I haven't been able to find exactly what I am looking for yet, with a small price tag!

Loove! I did run into a...small...problem (who doesn't?).

When we removed the gross globe lights we found this underneath.

Ahh! Is that up to code? It doesn't look big in this picture but that hole was HUGE! It was bigger than the frame of the new light that I bought. So, what's a girl to do? Well, you get agitated and pitch a small hissyfit in the bathroom by yourself, then politely go ask your BF to PLEASE HELP! Then he, being the handyman he is, comes up with a nice little solution. He cut a thin board and screwed it into the studs so that it would cover the hole. I then painted the board the same color as the wall. Fixed! Hissyfit over! Thanks BF!

See you can't even see it...barely!

Hopefully soon I will be able to change the faucets. Yay new bathroom!

Giddy!

2010-06-24T15:54:00.008-05:00

You know when you have an idea floating around in your head and you think that there is no way that it will ever work out? Well.... this time, it did! And I'm super giddy about it. There's such a good feeling about looking at something and knowing that you created it, made it, and it actually looks good!

I've been searching for some kind of art work to go in my dining room, with no luck. I knew the look I was going for, but I couldn't find anything to match it. Well, my friend Kristen had this art piece sitting in her garage and she didn't want it. She asked me if I wanted it (THANK YOU!) and I figured I could come up with something to do with it. Now... I'm sure there is some pear-loving, muted-colored, fancy-art loving person out there that is just yelling at me through their computer that I painted on top of this, but... I'm not one of those people...so....sorry!!!

That is what I started with. I was going for a rustic look..and here is how I got it.

First, I gave the piece a light sand so that everything would stick. I painted the edges and center portion brown (espresso bean to be exact).

I wanted the center to look rustic as well, so I painted on a crackle finish. I added a deep red (wine) paint on top of it, but left parts of the brown coming through, almost a streaky effect here and there.

I wanted a woodsy outdoorsy rustic feel...and I knew I wanted to use wood, but man that would be a lot of work! Well...believe it or not...I found some PAPER that looks just like wood. Very realistic! Paper people! I cut it to fit around the middle portion and used my Mod Podge to glue it and seal it. I used a Walnut Stain ink to distress the edges and then inked different parts of the paper, like real wood would have on it.

And now the FUN! I bought a SILHOUETTE!!! You've seen them if you've been reading the blogs. They are the newest and most amazing cutters out there! They can do so much stuff. I got mine after the first blog reader discount hit the stands, over at How Does She? It was such a good deal! OK...sorry...back to the project! I used my silhouette to make a stencil on cardstock of a set of silverware. I crumbled up a plastic bag and just lightly dabbed it with some antique white paint to stick with the rustic feel.

Silhouette Design Silverware_0772

Now..stick with me..I thought I was done, but then decided that it needed something...so here is where my brain got to turning. I wanted to add burlap to cover up where my paper met on the sides. When I put it against the wood paper, it just didn't have enough contrast. So, I got creative. I cut pieces of red burlap to fit underneath my neutral burlap and used spray adhesive to attach them. I'm not sure if you can tell from the pictures, but it just gives it that little bit of contrast that it needed, and blends really well with the color in the middle.

To polish off the edges I added my jute (helloooooo, obsessed!) with spray adhesive to make the burlap look straight. And here she is... isn't she purty?

Giddy, people, giddy!!!! I smile everytime that I look at it. That's the power of crafting!

Vase--Paint Redo

2010-06-21T18:14:00.001-05:00

So I've had this vase just sitting in front of my fireplace for probably two years now...

To tell you the truth, I've never liked it..never..but I just always had it sitting there because that's where it fit the best. The thing I hated the most about it..was...the black hole!

So today I decided to redo it.

I squirted my paint on a paper plate and bunched up my plastic bag. I dabbed it in the paint and then around the plate to just get a very light coat on the bag. Then, I started dabbing my vase all over. I wanted the pattern to be sporadic, but I needed the first coat to cover the base color.

After I got a good coat on the vase I used my second color (green) using the same technique. I just dabbed my bag back and forth all over the vase. The greatest part about this technique is that you really can't mess it up! If you notice one part has too much of one color, use your other bag and dab a little of the second color there. Just go back and forth until you like what you see.

You can play with how much paint you put on your bag. Use varying amounts to give your surface different textures. I like the way the bag leaves the paint looking. Once I was happy with my paint I decided to refinish the top of the vase. The before was a ceramic version of a type of twine-look. So, I used the same method as here and wrapped my jute around the top, securing it with Elmer's Glue.

I think it fits my space much more nicely then the ugly black hole did before! And I'm digging the texture on it...which unfortunately can't be seen by my photo, but trust me, it's great!

Freecycled Summer Wreath

2010-06-20T18:08:00.008-05:00

I decided that it was time to make a new wreath for our front door. I wanted something fun and colorful for summer. I grabbed some *inspiration* from my most favorite blog, Tatertots and Jello.

I used parts of her Whimsical Spring Wreath and Burlap Wreath and combined it with some inspiration from Amy's Freecycled Napkin Rings from Positively Splendid.

I started with a Dollar Store Wreath Form and wrapped about a 2-inch section of burlap all the way around and glued it with good ole' Tacky Glue.

As I started making my flowers I decided that my wreath form was too skinny. So, how was I to beef that bad boy up....Ah, ha! I added my smaller wreath form from this tutorial I showed you. I used my jute and sisal from this tutorial and attached it all the way around. Now, it does look a little wonky...but, sometimes I like the way wonky looks!

After this came the FUN part, making all the different kinds of flowers! I used soda cans and water bottles to make all the different types of flowers.The cans were easy to cut with just regular scissors, and I hot glued the different shapes to one another.

Then, I spray painted some with my ocean breeze paint and painted some others by hand with some yellow acrylic paint that I already had. Then, I cut out some different sized circles of burlap and fabric that I had bought for a ~~failed~~ project..... that's just not finished yet. I attached the circles with hot glue.

I added my flowers to my wreath with hot glue, and I sure do love it! I love how the roughness and craziness of the two forms looks with the bright colors and cutesy fabrics. It's super kooky..but I'm realizing that I must be a little kooky myself to like such things!

Love, love, love, love, love, love it against my red door! And the best part is that I had everything except the $1 wreath form. So, a super fun, kooky, wreath for $1! You just can't beat it!

Girly Craft Day! Part 3

2010-06-18T15:28:00.000-05:00

For our last craft we made T-Shirts! I have been wanting to freezer stencil something for a while now, so I was excited to do this. I found some tanks and shirts on sale at Old Navy and bought the new Fabric Spray Paint, so Avery could do the painting!

First, we cut out our shapes with cardstock and outlined them on the dull side of a piece of freezer paper.

Then, I cut out the shape with an exacto knife.

I then ironed on the freezer paper, shiny side down, onto the shirt.

Avery couldn't wait to spray paint!

For our first two shirts we covered the rest of the shirt and then sprayed the

paint to cover the entire stencil opening.

For our last shirt we used the negative of the freezer paper to add flowers to our shirt.

Avery asked to just "spray like crazy" all over the shirt! So...that's what she did!

Here is what we came up with! Our "A" shirt bled a little, I think that we sprayed too much paint. But, that's the best part of making it yourself, we still liked it!

The flower one is my *Fave* because it was all Avery's idea!!

Girly Craft Day! Part 2

2010-06-18T15:10:00.000-05:00

For our next craft we followed the tutorial at Sweet Charli and made some cute rings!

We used satin ribbon and cut them into descending circles. I used a lighter and burned the edges to make them curl up.

We measured hair rubber bands to fit our fingers and hot glued them to a piece of felt. We hot glued the felt to the bottom of the biggest circle.

We attached all the circles with hot glue and added a small rhinestone in the middle. Waa Laa!

Here we are with our rings and headbands!

Girly Craft Day! Part 1

2010-06-18T14:43:00.000-05:00

My friends Amanda and Chris had their niece, Avery, come and visit for a couple of days for the summer. This morning I had the pleasure to have her for a GIRLY CRAFT DAY! For one, I was super excited! I have been saving some ideas from some of my favorite blogs, but didn't have a little one to do them with. This was the perfect opportunity! Yay!

Our first craft was HEADBANDS! Who would have guessed that? These were super super easy! For these I followed Disney's tutorial @ Ruffles and Stuff

First we cut out a basic flower shape out of felt. Avery picked purple and yellow for hers! Then, we hot glued them to some headbands I picked up at the dollar store.

I added a piece of felt with hot glue to cover the headband and to keep it snug. We added a little rhinestone to the center of it. Here is Avery with her finished headband.

We also made these. One for me, for Avery's Aunt Mina, Avery's Mom, and a horseshoe one for Avery to match the shirt we made her.

Natural Bottles

2010-06-11T17:33:00.000-05:00

What do you get when you combine...

A really cute accessory for my fireplace!

Loooooooove it!! And a recycled project! I got my inspiration from here and here. Thanks ladies!!

Welcome Post

2010-05-24T17:09:00.000-05:00

I saw this idea here and I knew that this was just the weekend project for me. This project served a couple of different purposed for me. 1. To beautify my front porch and 2. to desperately learn how to use some power tools so that I wouldn't constantly be nagging the BF to help me with all my projects. And I can tell you... Mission Accomplished!

I went to the Home Depot and picked up the following items:

1 4X4 piece of wood

1 Decorative 4X4 Trim Piece (you can find these by all of the decking supplies)

1 4X4 Base Piece

1 Set of silver hooks

First, I used the table saw to cut my wood to the heigth I wanted it (3 foot). I was happy after this step, I still had all my fingers and toes! And... on a serious note...this probably isn't the best cutting position or apparel, but it served us well for the photo op!

After that, I used wood glue to attach my trim pieces to the post. I wanted to make sure that it was sturdy, so I also used the nail gun and put in a few small nails into both the top and bottom.

Thenext step was to make the sign that would hang on the post. We had some scrap pieces of MDF in the garage, so I used a jigsaw to cut a piece. When I got the size that I liked best I clamped it to the table and drilled two holes in the top for my wire to hang. I already had some picture hanging wire, so that is what I used.

Then I spray painted both my post and sign. For the sign I used chalkboard paint. Then I impatiently waited for it to dry, mostly, and used the Dremel to sand down the edges.

I'm in love! I think it has a perfect home right in front of the door!

I'm excited to change out the sign with the seasons!

Dollar Spot Redo

2010-05-24T16:47:00.000-05:00

I wanted something to go in my kitchen so that we could write our grocery list or any reminders that we had. I found this little thing at Target in the Dollar Spot (love it!). You can't tell from the picture but the yellow was VERY bright, almost electric. Yes, I could have just hung it on the wall as it was and it would have served its purpose...but, it wasn't very cute now was it?

So, I took the whiteboard piece out of the frame and spray painted it with chalkboard paint.

Then, I spray painted the frame white (originally I thought that I wanted it white, I was wrong).

Once I got it back inside, with my kitchen lights, I realized that the white didn't pop as much as I wanted it to against my wall color. So, I dry brushed on a little yellow paint (I know, back to the color it was...). For the flowers, I cut out different colored patterns of scrapbook paper. I didn't want the flowers to be too matchy-matchy. I wanted them to have the different colors that are in my house.

I distress the edges and crumbled them to give them more texture. And I used tacky glue to add little beads in the center of them.

Then I put it up on my wall......and.......I didn't like the yellow either! Ha! I thought it just blended right in the wall, and that wasn't what I wanted.

So, I took some acrylic olive green paint and used the same technique. I put it on my paintbrush and then rubbed most of it off until there was a faint bit of paint on my brush, then rubbed it all over. It kind of gave it an antiqued look. I then used my distress ink and distressed the edges of the frame. Now, I love it!

Graduation Banner

2010-05-24T16:28:00.000-05:00

Graduation is right around the corner for those of us here in Texas. I made a banner for one of my friends at work to take with her to her sister's graduation party. It was in her school's colors, Gold & Black.

I used gold vellum for the letters. On most of the banners I've made I have used a stencil of some sort for the letters, on this one I freehanded it. I added little gold embellishments to the letters.

Happy Birthday Katie!

2010-05-04T11:33:00.000-05:00

My latest banner for my friend Melissa's daughter, Katie! She's having a pink and green polka dotted party! I think the colors and polka dots turned out great! I added some paper flowers with little rhinestones in the middle to add some girly-ness!

Singed Flowers

2010-04-18T19:23:00.000-05:00

I saw a post on singed flowers a while back and thought, "I could do that!" After perusing the internet I found a few inspirations that I knew I needed to try to make myself. The first one is a belt, or I could wear it as a headband (like I don't have enough already)! I got my inspiration from Linda at Craftaholics Anonymous, love love love her site!

Singed flowers is a super easy thing to make! I used organza for my black and white flowers and satin for my yellow flowers. All you do is cut out your flowers and singe the edges. I lit a candle, since I was making so many. Easy peasy!

The next thing I made with my flowers was a shirt. I didn't just get my inspiration from Char at Crap I've Made, I completely copied hers! I loved the blue and yellow together, so springy!

And finally, I made a single white organza flower for my hair. I used the same techniqued and just attached it to a bobby pin. The picure is a little glare-y, but it has little white beads in the center. Simple.

No Pain = No Gain?

2010-04-18T19:03:00.000-05:00

Continuing with my weekend plans to re-decorate the different areas in my house that bug me, this weekend I got to work on my mantle. I've always seen pictures of other people's mantles and they are beautiful. Mine on the other hand lacked...well, it lacked a lot of things!

I love seeing the differnent vinyl wall stickers that are available. I've passed by these at Kohl's forever but kept telling myself that I really didn't need to buy one. When I was sent a $5 coupon to Kohl's I knew exactly what I wanted to buy with it!

I love the quote. It's a good one. When I first bought it I had plans to put it in a different spot in my house. But, after tons of rearranging and taping it in different places I decided that I liked it above my mantle best. So, I started to put it on my wall. Everyone has them, it's got to be simple right? WRONG! It was SO frustrating. I know now that it's because our walls have a lot of texture on them. I fought with that bad boy for a couple of hours. Every time I would try to peel it off it never wanted to stick to my wall. I had to PAINSTAKINGLY rub and re-rub and mash each and every little letter into the cracks of my wall. Maybe because it wasn't a high quality one you can order offline, but no pain no gain right? Ugh! At least I like it, or that would have really stunk, really!

I like it. I don't know if my mantle is finished, but it's definitely an improvement from the before picture. Now...if only someone wanted to convince me that ripping that tile out and replacing it would be something I could do by myself...

Little Birdie, I love you!

2010-04-11T12:35:00.000-05:00

So next I needed to address the top of my little table in my entryway.

Ugh, boring! I needed to find some inspiration. And I did. I found this little guy at a local little boutique for 6 bucks. I love him! So perfect for what I wanted to do.

He is my most favorite recent purchase. I think I love him because he is so pudgy! Pudgy birds need love too! I knew he would just blend in with my black/brown table and I was trying to get away from that so I decided to spray paint him.

Ah! I love him even more!!! Now here is where my frugalista self kicked in. Whenever I bought my little bird friend the bag that the store used was this:

Hellooooo! I cut it open and used it to cover two different sized boxes. Well, one was a VHS that we don't use anymore (hey, that's recycling right?)

I then wrapped them like presents and TA-DA!

So pleased with it. It was exactly what that space needed! With my new fancy frame hanging above, I would now say this space is not boring at all!

I added this to:

No more boring!

2010-04-11T12:21:00.000-05:00

This is my entryway.

Since we moved into our house I haven't really done much to it. Brown wall. Brown/Black mirror. Brown/Black furniture. Black bowl. Brown pinecones? Wow. One word comes to mind. BORING!

I was in a serious need of an un-boring makeover. First up, that mirror! I figured it would be the easiest thing to change. I like that piece of furniture and wasn't quite ready to change it.

So, I decided that was where I could add some color!

So I taped off the mirror (which was the most difficult part).

I found a GREAT color that I loved, and sprayed away!

Say it with me, Ooooooooh! I love it! It was a little too perfect for me, so I just took my sandpaper and roughed up the edges a bit to give it a little distressed look.

I love it!

Fancy'n Up a Toothbrush Holder

2010-04-11T12:08:00.000-05:00

We were in need of a toothbrush holder for our bathroom. I saw tons that I liked, but didn't really want to spend a lot of money on one. I was in Kohl's this weekend and came across this ceramic tumbler. It was on clearance for $2.00! $2.00 people!!

Boring? Yes. But would it work? Of course!! I have a bag full of flat decorating marbles and I thought I would just glam it up a bit using the color scheme in our bathroom.

I made a pattern and just hot glued them to my boring (not-for-long!) tumbler.

Waa-laa! Simple, but functional! I did have one minor mishap after the first shower in the bathroom....ah, steam!....but I just added more hot glue to those and it has stayed. Yay.

Blue Blue Headband

2010-04-11T11:51:00.000-05:00

The other day I made a quick and easy headband. I took the cuff off an old tshirt and then made paper flowers from scrapbook paper. I just cut different size circles out and glued them on top of one another. I cut out two pieces of cardstock and put one behind the flowers and sandwiched the other one behind the band. I like the way it turned out!

I'm linking!

2010-03-30T17:03:00.000-05:00

I'm going to link up my Spring Paper Wreath to some of my favorite sites!

I linked up with Kim at Today's Creative Blog!

I'm linking to Becca's Blue Cricket Design!

I'm linking to Skip to my Lou!

Baby Things

2010-03-30T16:06:00.000-05:00

I also wanted to use this blog as a way to keep up with all those good ideas that I find while roaming blogland. Before now, I have just had a file on my Bookmarks of projects that I wanted to do eventually. So, I'd like to share them with you, and remember them for myself!

**I can't seem to figure out how to add pictures from other people's blogs, once I do I will come back and upload those photos**

I don't have kids, but there is something about a cute little onesie or a nursery items that just calls to me! I have lots of friends with kids, so most of these things would make a cute shower gift!

The first idea is my ABSOLUTE FAVORITE! I think it is so retro cute! You have to visit Ashley Ann's Website HERE! It's definitely on my to-do list! Make sure you read down to the bottom of the post to see how she changed her initial directions.

I actually made this next item, but didn't take a picture. :( Sad, I know. I thought it was super cute for a nursery. You can find the directions at Heartland Paper.

I think this next idea would even be cute for an adult tee.

You can find it here at Samster Mommy.

For those of you with Little Boys, Dana at Made did a month long celebration called Celebrate the Boy! She has TONS of awesome ideas for little boys. This link will take you to the first page, keep clicking on "Older Posts" at the bottom to see them all.

Party Party Party

2010-03-29T20:23:00.000-05:00

In the past couple of months I've had multiple friends get married, yes, multiple! So, I've been busy with party decorations galore. Here are some of the pictures I have of the ones I made.

This was for my friend Amanda's Bridal Shower. We used apple green and watermelon pink (her two favorite colors) as the theme. This was an A that I made for the door out of cardboard, scrapbook paper, and mod podge. Super easy, yet so cute!These were some crepe paper flowers that I made as our doughnut "cake" decorations.I love making banners! They are easy to do if you have the time, but they really make a big statement! Here is one that I made for Amanda's Shower that read "Love Sweet Love".This is a banner I made for our friends Jamie & Mindy.

It decorated their rehearsal dinner space.

Spring Paper Wreath

2010-03-29T19:08:00.001-05:00

Spring is here! Hooray! The weather is gorgeous! I have been wanting to make a wreath real real bad, but I wasn't sure of my wreath making skills, since I've never made one before. As always I had to find some inspiration! I found it from Sarah over at the blog So Not Donna Reed. I love her yarn wreath, but I didn't have any...so I just used what I had! Paper! Lots of it!

I started by wrapping a floral wreath form in strips of paper using Tacky Glue to adhere it. This part took a while, but it was worth it...no one wants to see an icky green styrofoamy thing underneath! I just smoothed out any wrinkles by pressing on them. I didn't stress too much about making it perfect.
Then I cut out circles using different objects from around my house. I glued them on and was pretty happy with it! My first wreath!
I added some scrapbooking flower stickers that I had. Like Sarah, I wanted to add dimension, so I used cardboard pieces and spools from leftover ribbon to give some pieces some height.

I like it! I'm not sure how long it will last, since it is paper, but hey! It's fun for now! Notice my puppy in the bottom right window...he desperately wanted to know why I was outside!

Lucky St. Patty's Day Tee

2010-03-29T18:39:00.001-05:00

Well, after browsing the blogging world I found this and this cute tutorials for a shirt! St. Patty's Day was coming up, so I decided to make my two friends and myself one!

First thing was to cut out letters to lay on top of the shirt. I used some stickers that I already had and sprayed a little adhesive on the back to make them stay put. I just drew a shamrock out of cardstock and used the adhesive as well.

Then, like the tutorial, I used 3 parts water to one part bleach and put it in a spray bottle. I mixed it up and spritzed it into the air, not directly onto the t-shirt.

This was the part I wasn't sure of. How long do I leave it on? Will it turn my shirt white? Well, I just guessed. It made little wet spots and whenever I couldn't take the fumes any longer I just tossed it in the bath tub and ran it under water.I threw our shirts in the washing machine. I don't know if this step was necessary, but it didn't hurt. I hung the shirts up to dry and, voila! Here we are on St. Patrick's Day!

I need to get better at this thing...

2010-01-03T16:50:00.000-06:00

Well, as the title states... I'm not very good at posting on this blog. I haven't gotten the hang of it, but I'm going to work on it. I really think it would be a good way for me to keep track of all my crafts and blogs that I adore so much. Also, I forget to take pictures of the crafts that I've been making...so that doesn't help out this blog much easier. But, I'll work on it, promise!

I did start.. and slightly fail... to make something that I took a picture of. I have lots of friends who are pregnant, have babies, or are planning to have them in the near future. I have been seeing tons of baby gifts on the blogs I read and have been saving them into a "I'll get to these at some point in my life" folder. So, I decided to make one the other day. The pretty famous ruffle-butt onesie from here! The only problem... you needed to be able to sew. Now, I'd love to say that I was a sewer...er, seamstress...but I'm not. I can do your basic line, but that's about it. Throw in corners, zig zags, and all those other sew-y things and you've just about lost me. But, I did know someone who could sew... my Mom! Dum dum daaaa!! I asked her to help me and she obliged!

There is Mom, hard at work. I promise I was helping too, but someone's got to take the pictures!The first ruffle row done. All finished! But, it is sitting in my craft room...you can't give someone a gift that was your first trial. It just might fall apart before it even gets opened, but I'll keep working on them because I think they are adorable.I guess I need to buy my very own sewing machine...

No summer job = plenty of crafting time!

2009-07-15T00:04:00.000-05:00

Well, I'm really enjoying being off for the summer. I've had a lot of time to work on our new house and I have really got back into crafting. Crafting is something that just makes me so happy! So much in fact, that I'm going to have a craft room in my house. Once I get that all finished I'll definitely post pictures. I wanted to share some of the crafts that I made this past week. Most of them are for my classroom or as gifts for other people.

This is an Autism Awareness frame that I made to put a picture of my students in. We actually made these frames in my classroom last year to send home as gifts to my student's parents. We had taken a photo of them and put it in the frame. I really liked them so I decided to make one for myself. I thought it would be cute to sit on my desk!

I made it just by taking an old puzzle that was missing some pieces and spray painting them either red, yellow, dark blue, or light blue. I then just hot glued them to a frame and wah-lah! I think it's cute, and it will definitely have a spot in my room!

I love these wooden letters that you see everywhere! I found this one at the craft store and I thought it would be great for my classroom. I have a thing about using "Rainbow Colors" as I call them, otherwise known as ROY G BIV (But in my opinion the I and V should be combined to make a P for purple, and another P should be added for pink!). So I use ROY G BPP....Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Purple, and Pink in most things that I do, and for pete's sake, please let them be in that order!

So, I just used regular craft paint and decorated my P!

This is a gift that I made for Pam. She worked with me last year and she will be teaching her first year right next door to me.

It is an M made out of crayons for her last name. It was a little time consuming to get them all to fit right, but it eventually worked out to where I thought it looked nice. I then adhered the M to a piece of scrapbook paper. Then I painted the frame and the letters, and hot glued them to the frame. I was happy with how it turned out!

I found this idea here: http://testosteronetimesthree.blogspot.com/2007/12/teacher-gifts.html

One of my best friends from college, Amanda, is getting married in October. Her Bachelorette Party is this weekend and so I had the task of making her a sash to wear for the night. This isn't my first sash to make, in fact this is my third! I just think that the options in the stores to buy are just so plastic-y and boring! So I bought some purple silky fabric, a fusible webbing, and some of those crystals. I use the no-sew fusible webbing to hem the edges of the fabric to the size I want, then I hot glue the crystals on. I can knock one of these bad boys out in about an hour, so bring on the next bride!

Well, that's all of my crafts for now. I actually made a couple more, but they are gifts for other people, so I don't want to post them just quite yet! There will definitely be more to come though. I know this summer is going fast, but I'm going to soak up as much of it as I can!

Welcome...

2009-03-08T00:35:00.000-06:00

Well, I've decided that I needed to jump on the blogging boat. Seems like everyone else is doing it, so why not? Right? I haven't decided what this blog will be about exactly. Maybe to post pictures and stories to share with family or friends, or something along the lines of a craft blog. But we'll see, I'm sure it will develop into something!