Saturday, June 30, 2012

London Olympics Mod Podge and Vinyl Canvas

London Olympics Canvas

So I know it’s almost the Fourth of July which seems like a weird time to be doing a project with a London theme given the whole  declaring independence from England thing. I’m nothing if not ironic!

But, this Summer also marks the London hosted Olympics and we are very excited to watch. Will Michael Phelps make history ? Will the world’s fastest athletes break records on the track? Will the US Women’s gymnastics team medal again?

We were at World Market recently and they had a bunch of British themed art pieces in honor of the Olympics and the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee ( I still want to know what she keeps in that purse).

Since going to London for the Games isn’t in the picture, I decided to bring a little bit of the Olympics here

Goodwill Canvas

16x20 canvas from Goodwill on a 50% off red tag day. $1.99. Score!

Painted Canvas

Painted with tan acrylic paint. I knew  I was going for an aged look so this was not about precision or perfection. 

Is there nothing you can’t use PicMonkey for? I found an image of a British flag at The Graphics Fairy, uploaded it to PicMonkey and “monkeyed” around with it until I was satisfied. I wanted it big, so I cropped/printed it in two halves. I re-sized each half to the same dimensions and printed each half out. Crown image is also  courtesy of The Graphics Fairy

LONDON 2012

Downloaded images of Big Ben, the Olympic rings, torch, and London Phone Booth from the Silhouette online store, and cut out in red, black and gold vinyl.  I also edged my flag  in washi tape:

London Canvas Antique Mod Podge

Used Antique Matte Mod Podge to cover my focal piece. Mr. C opined that it still needed to be aged up some more ( not that I hadn't already thought that but see what happens when you have your husband watch Craft Wars with you?)  so I splotched ( professional crafting term) some antique gold paint on the vinyl pieces, then went over the whole thing with a dark grey glaze. Brush on. Wipe off.

London Olympics Sketchedy

Still can’t leave PicMonkey alone so used the Sketchedy frame option to age up the picture of my aged up Olympic canvas.

The games may be in London, but Maison du Chocolat will be rooting for team USA!







Thursday, June 28, 2012

BFF Open House Link Party #60!

Notice anything different around here? I changed my background at the beginning of the year so I figured a change for Summer was in order. I had fun with the header in PicMonkey.

And of course I have to make my regular where the heck is time going comment. I mean it’s about to be JULY! Yikes.

Let’s see what everyone’s been up to this week.

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Party On!



Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Gain Hawaiian Aloha! Can A Scent Trigger A Memory?

I primarily do product reviews for things that are related to crafts, chocolate, creating stuff etc. but I recently had an opportunity through my affiliation with One to One Network  to review Gain’s new premium collection.  I knew immediately which scent I wanted to try!



Print

Aloha. I love that word but more than that I love the spirit of Aloha…something I’ve felt each time I’ve been lucky enough to visit Hawaii. Each time I visit Hawaii, I remember to slow down, live in the moment, relax. Hawaii holds so many special memories for me. My honeymoon, anniversaries, the first big boy trip with our son, and um it’s HAWAII!

What intrigued me about this campaign (and yes, this is a sponsored post but the opinions are all mine) was a prompt about whether scents can trigger a memory.  That is SO true for me. I think even more than pictures, scents bring memories to life for me.


I’ve been introspective lately. Maybe because my son’s growing up (how is it possible he’s done with his first year of college already?)  or just because. I’d been thinking about Hawaii lately too.


Definitely because I would love to be sitting on a beach drinking a lava flow or a pina colada. From a pineapple. With the island breezes and warm ocean waves lapping at my feet. And oh yeah, back to reality!


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Gain has a new line of detergents one of which is, you guessed it…Hawaiian themed. I figured if I can’t go there, I can bring Hawaii here! They also have scents like Sunflower and Sunshine, Butterfly Kiss and others but they totally had me at Hawaiian Aloha.

The first things I washed with my Hawaiian Aloha were my bathroom rugs and towels. The smell is subtle enough to linger on the laundry without being overpowering and when I smell my towels ( don’t judge!) I get that scent memory of being in Hawaii.

Just enough of the tropical scent that brings back memories of sitting by the pool with my little guy ( now 6’3 and in college) on his first trip and his excitement over Hawaiian Shaved Ice, or sitting by the salt water pool watching Mr. Chocolate snorkel.

The mix of the plumeria in the leis, the ocean, the sand. Yes sand has a smell! At least to me it does. It just kind of brought all of those together.

So since I won’t be going to Hawaii in the near future, I figured I can relive the times I have been there and have great smelling laundry. Win Win. Thanks , I mean “Mahalo” Gain!



Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Mod Podgeables Mixed Metal Necklace

Mod Podgeables Necklace

It is no secret that I’m a bit of a Mod Podge maniac. You might recall I recently shared the amazingly generous shipment of Mod Podge products from Plaid featuring some of the newest additions to the Mod Podge product line. In case you don’t here’s a refresher:

Mod Podge Haul 

I love making jewelry and I love bold, chunky jewelry but sometimes it can turn out heavier than I planned. 

Problem solved with  the new acrylic podgeable shapes,  podgeable papers and tracing templates that coordinate with the shapes of the podgeables. 

The hardest part was choosing which papers to use!

Podgeables Collage 3

I went with an “industrial chic” design, using papers from the Classic and Romance stacks. The papers are wonderful because they’re double sided so it’s like having two papers in one!

Necklace Mod Podgeables

I used my new favorite Mod Podge formula, Antique Matte, to adhere the papers to the podgeables. The tracing templates make it easy to cut your shapes exactly to match, and depending on your selection of punches, you may have some that are the perfect shape and size.

Place Trace Cut

Apply your MP to your paper, adhere to your podgeable and let dry.

While these pieces were drying, I had fun with the new metallic Dimensional Magic. If you’re afraid of trying resins, try Dimensional Magic. The metallic DM has little flecks of glitter that float in it.

I  had some charms in my stash that I filled with silver DM and self adhesive rhinestones. The DM comes out opaque and dries clear so the glitter shows through.

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Here are my charms as they were drying. 

Podgeables Collage

I had so much fun with this. With all of the formulas, there’s something for just about any kind of project you can think of.

I want to thank the folks at Plaid and The Blueprint Social for the opportunity to have so much fun doing what I enjoy with products I absolutely love. Sponsored post? Yes. Opinions? All mine!

Mixed Metal Podgeables Necklace

Plaid is celebrating the 45 anniversary of Mod Podge, and Michaels is carrying the new additions to the MP family. You can visit also Plaid on Facebook here and Twitter here.

And you can see more wonderful projects here

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Monday, June 25, 2012

BFF Open House #59 Wrap Up and Features and Expressions Vinyl Giveaway WINNER!

Happy Monday everyone! You can throw a virtual pie in my face when I point out that today is exactly SIX MONTHS until Christmas. Uh huh. At the rate time keeps flying by, just saying….

Thanks for another great party. As always inspiring ideas that are filling up my Pinterest boards! Love seeing new blog names each week and there’s just no shortage of creativity.

Katie from Creatively Living, shared her fantastic wall art project that will have you out in your yard looking at branches in a whole new way:


Got milk? You’re going to need some to go with these delicious peanut butter brownies from Valerie at The Year of Living Healthfully:


Valerie also asks the quintessential brownie question. Are you a corner person or a middle person?

Doreen from Altered Artworks shared a great idea to bring vacation memories home with you. I’m forever bringing souvenir napkins from restaurants, hotels etc. and she transformed some special ones from a recent trip  into coasters! Perfect.

Finally, Summer is the perfect time for a Carnival themed birthday party and it’s a popular theme because there were two linked up. One for a boy from Fotini at Glamorous Affordable Life:


and one for a girl from Jenn at One Thrifty Chick:


so it’s a perfect universal theme! Be sure to visit both to see all of the fun details.

And now for the winner of the wonderful box of goodies from Expressions Vinyl! Congrats to :

Expressions Vinyl

and thanks to Expressions for such a fun giveaway. 

Jeannie, I’ve emailed you,  and either Expressions or I will be in touch! OK that's it for today. Make it a creative week! 

Saturday, June 23, 2012

Using PicMonkey to Make Printables and a Craft Themed Printable!

Busy Making Other Crafts

My PicMonkey addiction continues. Tonia over at The Gunny Sack, shared a tutorial on how to use their collage function to customize a background. Uh oh…more stuff you can do in PicMonkey!!! Thank you Tonia.

The Mumster (my mom) often quotes the saying “Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans” so it’s usually somewhere on my mind. I adapted it to crafting!

I made a black background and then just used different fonts for the text. PicMonkey added some new frame options this week called “Sketchedy” one of which I applied to this printable.

Life Is

Click to bring to full resolution. Right click to save as and then re-size in whatever photo editor you use.

Life Is Grey
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Thursday, June 21, 2012

BFF Open House Link Party #59!

Happy Friday Eve everyone. This week went by just as fast as all the prior weeks have this year. Hope it’s been good and creative to everyone.

As a reminder, I’m taking the Summer off from Blog Features and will start back up in September. If you haven't entered my fun giveaway from Expressions Vinyl, it runs through Sunday. Details here

 So, let’s see what everyone’s been up to this week! 


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Wednesday, June 20, 2012

It Don't Mean A Thing If It Ain't Got That Bling. 21st Birthday Card.

21st Birthday Card

I don’t feel old enough to have a friend who has a 21 year old daughter! Darn you reality!

Special occasion called for a special card so I outblinged myself.

Pink Black White Card

I used a black and white damask paper from a  Recollections pack I picked up at Michaels, and a pink and white paper from the same pack.

The focal point of the card is a dimensional sticker from KandCo. It already had rhinestones so of course I added more.

Black White and Pink Birthday

Layered the two papers and went over the border with pink glitter ribbon. For the “21” I used clear stickers on a plain bezel charm and filled in with Dimensional Magic.

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Finished by adding crown shape self adhesive rhinestones on the corners.

21st Birthday Card

I’m still not old enough to have a BFF with a 21 year old. Nope!

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Tuesday, June 19, 2012

BFF Open House Link Party #58 Wrap Up and Features

I’m a day late with the features from Friday’s link party. Was celebrating Expressions Vinyl’s birthday yesterday. Don’t forget, I have a giveaway from them going through this Sunday. Details here.


As always, so many wonderful ideas were linked up to last week’s BFF Open House. Here are just a few!
I’ll start off by making you drool over these cupcakes from Jocelyn at Inside BruCru Life. Starbucks should just hire her to come up with cupcakes to pair with their drinks.



Jocelyn’s got a whole collection of Starbucks inspired confections .

What crafty mom doesn’t have a collection of popsicle sticks hanging around without a clue what to do with them? Bethany at Pitter and Glink has got your covered:


Popsicle sticks!

No one would guess this was a made-over shirt versus one bought new in a trendy boutique. That’s because the ever brilliant Carolyn from Homework did it:


Time to shop in the closet!

Want to add a patriotic pillow to your décor without breaking the bank? Laura from Top This Top That shared this cute pillow made from….. a drop cloth:


If you don’t already have one in your stash you can pick up fabric drop cloths at the Hardware store for about $8 and they provide a LOT of fabric.

Thanks again for making each Friday so much fun. Make it another creative week!