Yesterday while searching at the thrift store I spotted five little men I just HAD to bring home. . . .
I cannot WAIT to paint these! They are is great shape just need repainted with DETAIL! Yipee, I am sooooo excited to put these in the gardens. They only cost $1.99 a piece too. Good deal compared to finished gnomes selling for around $20.
How lucky am I that I found a box full of white tiles in our garage? A couple years ago, a gal pal of mine, made the most darling tile coasters as wedding favors. Unfortunately, she only used Modge Podge as a sealant and the paper began to peel and tear only after only a few uses. Even though they weren't properly sealed, I loved them and have been dying to make my own.
To make the coasters, I first applied a layer of modge podge to the tile. After cutting the paper of my choosing to size, I placed it centered. Don't forget to smooth out all the wrinkles starting from the middle and push outwards. Once that layer dried, I added another coat of modge podge and let them sit for an hour. After the break I sealed them with two coats (waiting 15 min in between) of Krylon's Triple Thick Crystal Clear Glaze. 24hrs later, I glued a square piece of felt to the bottom.
Here's how they turned out! The vintage ones are most defiantly my favorite. I think I will redo my kiddos Easter picture coaster set. I printed the pictures out on printer paper. The colors are just too grey for my liking. But with some editing and real photo paper they will be turn out just right.
There has been a large, blank spot on the wall, in my dinning room area for a few months now. I needed to fill it in quick for my sanity. What do I want to hang there though??
A week ago or so, I decided this had to be dealt with.......NOW.
I searched the web and other blogs but found nothing. I bought a few decor magazines and still came up empty handed. I looked through my Pinterest and still not a thing was catching my eye. . I was completely stumped.
Until I remembered prior to finding Pinterest, I would save pictures of decor ideas to multiple folders on my desktop. In the dining room folder, I found a couple pictures of plates hanging on the wall. I fell in love all over again.
I did NOT want to go out and purchase expensive matching decoration plates. I hit up my local thrift store and figured out to look only for shape and detail in a plate, and not judge it on its color.
I found seven completely different plates that I loved. I also stopped by the local hardware store and picked up two bottles of Rust-oleum's Painters Touch Ultra Coverage in gloss white.
These are the plates i found, in all their prepainted glory. (I later replaced the sharp angled one on the right side with a much cuter one with a doily look)
So as you can see, these plates would look hideous on the wall grouped together. But after two coats of white spray paint they look FABULOUS!
The trick to hanging the plates are DiskHangers. I forgot to take a picture of how the disk hangers work. This is a picture from their website.
It was so easy to hang the plates with these. Well worth the cost, which isn't bad.
Remember last week when I revamped a craigslist dresser for my daughters room? I mentioned her old dresser had lived a long, happy life and was ready to go. But as my husband brought it out of her room, I started to think how sturdy it was. Really, only the drawers and tracks were in bad shape.
As you may know, I hate throwing anything away until I have thought of all possible uses or projects.
I came up with the perfect project, a dress-up wardrobe for B's room. This is the dresser before the makeover.
And the After
Bumble Bee loves it. Before I had all her costumes (as you can see she has a lot) hanging in her closet, which was just too high. I plan on mounting a couple hooks on the side to hang jewelry on.
This project was super easy and it only cost $14 out of pocket. We already had the dresser on hand plus the purple paint, and the batting. I had to purchase the closet bar and brackets. They were $6 together. The fabric for the sides ( a twin sheet from the thrift store) was only a whopping $2 and the ric rac ribbon was $6.
The ric rac ribbon was OUTRAGEOUSLY expensive. I needed to buy two spools at $6.99 each!!! Good thing I had coupons :)
After pulling out all the drawers, my amazing husband cut off the support wood for the drawers. This was way easy and I could have done it, but he likes to help. Next I sanded and sanded some more. I wanted to get the inside and out, as smooth as possible.
Once I was content with it's smoothness, I stapled batting to the sides and top. The fabric or sheet I picked up, had ballerina tutu's and slippers on it, plus a ugly barbie head. I cut up the sheet to fit the sides, top and bottom to show as least of the heads as possible and stapled it on top of the batting.
I was more precise when stapling the fabric on. I only stapled around the edges, that way I could cover the staples with ribbon. When hot gluing the ribbon on, I added a dot of glue to every staple to insure perfect coverage.
Don't look to closely at the shoes in the bottom of the wardrobe, I don't think she has one match under there in the picture LOL
I can finally post about the growth chart I made last week. I have been unable to share it because I was afraid the "soon to be mama" might sneak a peek. I painted the growth chart to match her CoCaLo Nali Jungle Dream with Me crib bedding set.
When painting this growth chart, I found it to be quite the challenge. See, I am a very "colorful" person. I struggled, not to add a punch of color to it. My friend who ordered it as a gift, wanted it to match the mama's theme completely, including only it's colors.
The monkey is freaking adorable though. I love how his legs dangle off. If I had more time, I totally would have figured out a way to copy the legs.
While my husband was taking out trash, I began to pile things on the counter to be thrown away.
This is the pile
Okay, minus the paint and glue gun. I was throwing away a book I just finished reading, that my dog chewed on ( by the way, it was called My Husband's Sweethearts, decent book for a dollar store find), a small piece of red silky material, that had an iron mark burned into it, a piece of lace that had a slightly noticeable sun stain and a large piece of cardboard. Bumble Bee added the heart to the picture.
As I ran in and out of my craft room cleaning, I was drawn back to the pile on the counter. I had to have looked back at it ten or so times before I decided to put it all on the table and figure out what was wrong.
Then it came to me. This wasn't trash but treasure. LOL I can't believe now, that I was throwing away that book, with so many pages of beautiful print left inside. Slowly, the project evolved.
First, I ripped out many pages of the book, and cut them into swirls. Taking each swirl from the outside, I tightly rolled it up, like below on the right. To get the flower look, loosen up the rolled paper. It will fall perfectly into place as a rose, just like magic.
After making forty or so, I cut the cardboard into a ring and began to hot glue the roses on. One dot of glue on the center bottom, to attach the flower to the card board and one dot on the top of the center, to attached the rest of the swirl.
If I had more cardboard, I would have re-cut the wreath a bit thicker, to fit three flowers,
instead of just two.
With the silky fabric scrap, I made a no-sew rosette. Once I added the rosette to a open spot and glued the lace to the back, it was finished. Only took five minutes and saved some room in my trash can. Cute, Right?
Now, I encourage you to go trash diving and turn your trash into treasure. Just stay away from the eggs shells and anything with a non recognizable liquid on it.
I think I am in love. This little dresser, my husband picked up for $15, is adorable. It is small, but perfect for Brooklyn's room. It is perfectly structurally sound too. I didn't have to reinforce it at all. This french style dresser is older than her current dresser yet in better shape.
Right now, she is wearing crisp white. I have a feeling, she may need some color though. Maybe not. We will see tomorrow, when I put her in Bee's room.
Not sure why the dresser drawers look shadowed badly, I need a new camera (Hope hubs reads this!)
Lately on Pinterest, I have seen some super fun homemade valentines. I have been dying to make some of our own but T-bird really enjoys to pick out his favorite store bought character valentines. He does love crafting too, though.
I asked T if he would like to make his own Valentine's this year. He said yes with two demands:
1.They had to be AWESOME
2.We had to make a girl friendly one.
T-bird picked out all the outfits himself. I honestly didn't think we would make a Valentine from each costume, but since all the scenes turned out perfect that he I insisted. We uploaded to Picnik because I thought it would be an easier editor for T to use. He picked out everything, the photo effects, clip art, and text. Together with a little help from Google, we came up with the sayings for each.
It only cost $5.36 to have 26 photo valentines printed one hour at Wal-Mart. While waiting T picked out suckers and a special marker to write on the back of them. Once home, I cut two slits, with an exacto knife, above and below his hand. T-bird stuffed the suckers. But be careful with this part, he demolished a valentine on the first try because they rip so easily.
Making these was way easy and super fun. The cost all together, valentines and candy, turned out to be less than $10. Which is about how much it would have cost to buy them. Plus we got some good quality Mother-Son bonding time in there. Not to mention, T-bird informed me these were the COOLEST valentines ever!
I thought I would mention PICNIK is sadly closing soon. But I heard Google owned the photo editor and just moved it to Google+!!! So all you out there wanting to edit photos for free, try Picnik. It is sooo easy and does not close until April 19. Then if you love it, which you will, open a google+ account if you don't already have one!!
If i want a super easy and fast photo editor similar to PICNIK, I now use PicMonkey.
Now we have to make a special Valentine for a visually impared boy in Tanner's class. Tanner has requested he gets a special one with braille. I dont think I can DIY braille, but I am thinking lots of texture. Like a bear cut out of faux fur. Any ideas??? Oh, his party is tomorrow too. Nothing like a last minute deadline.
I have an confession, I am a Craigslist addict. I lurk CL hourly! So when I spotted this cabinet FOR FREE only minutes away from my house, I had to have it. Okay so the craigslist picture was taken from a distance and a bit diseving. But it is super sturdy and FREE!
The top drawers were jammed and had awful locks on them. I fixed it right up with wood filler and a LOT of sanding. I painted the cabinet with white latex paint left over from the laundry room walls.
Once the base was dried and even more sanding, I distressed the cabinet with stain. I applied dark stain around the edges and other random spots I sanded with a rough brush. I wiped the stain off with a rag almost immediately after applying it.
Finally satisfied with the results, I painted a coat of polythene and added handles. The handles originally came from T-birds captains bed. Since I keep everything, I still had the hideous gold floral handles lying around. While a fresh wash of white looks better, I am still not completely happy with the handles. Maybe a dark bronze color would look better.
Recently while perusing the craft store, I stumbled upon a new multipurpose paint from Martha Stewart Crafts. The back reads:
Use on wood, glass, metal and fabric. Indoor/Outdoor. Water based.
Non-Toxic. Weather Resistant. Shake. Dry 1 hr between coats. For Glass:
Clean surface with alcohol. Cure 21 days. Top-Rack dishwash.
Glass? I couldn't believe it. I have always used Pebeo Porcelaine Paint. This would not only simplify the process, but also add a wide range of colors to use. What could I test the new miracle paint out on? Mustache mugs, of course. I have seen a variety of these babies floating around, and have been dying for an excuse to whip some up. Here are my clever mugs 21 days after painting.
And they made it through the dishwasher. Yipee! Oh Martha, how you continuously knock my socks off.
Sssshhhh, don't tell. My Mother-in-law asked me to whip up architectural photography art for family. Look how they turned out. Super easy with photoshop :) I made eight of these but the Briggs family was my favorite. I just loved the "I". I purchased all the photos from multiple sellers on etsy.
I even turned it around and made one for her (They are avid outdoorsmen) I googled for these photos. I forgot to write down where I got them so if they are yours let me know please.
I just love homemade gifts. Whenever I receive ornaments made from noodles or homemade fudge or a knitted scarf, I am absolutely gleeful. To be completely honest, these gifts are always my favorite, and most memorable. Not saying I wouldn't be ecstatic for a new sewing machine (hint, hint SmittenHub).
With the economy the way it is, this year may be perfect for a homemade gift exchange. Homemade gifts don't have to be fancy or even perfect. They only have to come from the heart. Think about the gift receiver, and brainstorm some ideas of what they like. Does grandma just adore pigs? Have the kids make a piggly wiggly paper weight. Does your husband love sports? Make him a team tag blanket. The possibilities are endless. If you don't know how to do something, don't be afraid to Google or look for tutorials on Youtube.
This year, the gifts i made varied in difficulty. I hope to inspire you to get out there and craft.
the lovely ladies: Chalkboard Finish Wine Glasses
Have you seen those very charming wine glasses with the stem painted with chalkboard paint? What a great idea right! The down fall is the color: Black. Wouldn't it be cute to match their kitchen decor? So why not put a spin on the idea and add a pop of color with DIY chalkboard paint. You can pick ANY color!
Pick up wine glasses from your local thrift store. I did for $.69 each!! Wash them and let dry. I primed the glasses with a white base coat, using Martha Stewart's new multi-surface acrylic paint. I am not sure if this was necessary. I prime everything. I would rather be safe now than regret not priming later. Next mix your paint. Pick your favorite color or colors (for this set I choose purple jewel-tones). Use any acrylic craft paint. For about every three tablespoons of paint add half a teaspoon of UNSANDED tile grout. After a few tries and research I also decided to add one and a half teaspoons of a water based glazing medium. Stir the paint until hardly no clumps are left. Paint a few coats on the wine glasses with a sponge brush (the two darker colors needed five coats but the two lighter only needed three). Once satisfied, condition the chalkboard finish by rubbing chalk all over it and then wiping it off.
For the studdly men: A Duck Call Lanyard
My husband has been asking me to make him a lanyard for awhile. I was having a hard time finding good directions though. Finally, I ended up using a tutorial by Issak9898 off Youtube. He did a great job explaining the how to's. After watching the video a few times, I finally got the hang of it. I bought 100 ft of paracord here for $8. It made five lanyards. Just in case the hubby's peeking, I don't want to post a picture until after christmas.
the strapping young men: Marshmallow Blow guns
Super Cheap AWESOME present and incredibly easy. One PVC gun cost a whoppy total of $2.64!!! Add a one dollar bag of mini marshmallow and you will be amazed at how much fun your little boy can have with less than four bucks.
You will need:
2 1/2" PVC Tees
2 1/2" PVC Elbows
2 1/2" PVC Caps
2 8" pieces of 1/2" PVC40 pipe
5 4" pieces of 1/2" PVC40 pipe
Now all you have to do is put together the pieces according to the picture below. I don't recommend gluing the gun together. The marshmallow can become very sticking, jamming the gun with too much spit.
Load the marshmallow gun , by placing ONE marshmallow through the top open pipe. Blow as if it were a trumpet. But be careful the marshmallow can come out very quick leaving a sting if hit LOL
For the sugar and spice and everything nice in your life: Homemade Kool-aid lip gloss
To make lip gloss you will need small jars, various kool-aid mix, petroleum jelly, a bowl and a spoon. First add the desired amount of petroleum jelly to a bowl. Warm it up for about forty seconds. Add appropriate amount of kool-aid. Stir thoroughly for a minute or so. Microwave for another thirty seconds. Stir until consistency is just a bit thicker than honey. Easy peasy!
The Droolers: Stocking Caps.
Every little bambino needs a cute hat to keep their ears warm. I recently taught myself how to knit, but before I made hats, scarfs, blankets with looms. Loom knitting is super easy and nobody can tell the difference. Looming is great for kids too.
I made both these hats with my loom. they are infant size. They do have looms that vary in sizes. So you can make adult or kid sizes as well.The pick hat I doubled the rim and the green I did not. I highly highly recommend buying soft and high quality yarn. The Loom Room has a great hat tutorial plus many more.
T-bird picked out all the outfits himself. I honestly didn't think we would make a Valentine from each costume, but since all the scenes turned out perfect that 
