BFF Link Party #7 Wrap Up and Features

Hi all! Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend and Father’s Day. I’m sure all the Dads were spoiled. Thanks to all who linked up to Blog Feature Friday’s Open House and enjoyed meeting last week’s BFF Frou-frugal! Here are a few highlights from the party and I’m so excited to see what you’re all up to each week!

From Tanya at Greetings From The Asylum we had a great Anthro knock off…she might give Bev from Flamingo Toes a run for her money!

Speaking of Bev, she has found another source to amaze us with her talent for not only knocking off a design at a fraction of the price but making hers look even better. Look at this necklace she knocked off from Loft!

Maggie over at Midwestern Sewing Girl shows why Sewing is included in her blog name ( Super Fantastic Thrift Store Find Makeovers is probably too long for a blog name!)

I am so in love with typography and fonts that if she lived near me, this just might go missing! You should see how this started out!

So many great projects…if you haven’t checked these and all the others out yet, GO!! NOW!
See y’all again on Friday! And if you were featured, feel free to grab a button from my sidebar!

BFF Link Party#7 and BFF: Frou-fru Gal!

Things have calmed down a bit now and I’m excited to get back to the “BFF” part of the BFF link party…Blog Feature Friday,  this week featuring Frou-fruGal. Suesan is the creative force behind this blog and she is (and you have to make this three distinct syllables) A-MA-ZING! She’s funny, real, and always provides a detailed breakdown of her projects including the always frugal cost of the always fabulous results! I can’t even imagine undertaking this project and trust me when I tell you you will look twice or thrice if you see the before pic and you STILL won't believe she transformed this.

Doesn’t that look like it came straight from Ballard Designs, West Elm, some very high end store? Oh yeah…she HAND PAINTED THE MAP!

I love these decorative balls Suesan made inspired by some she saw at Pier 1:

Her cost: $3.98 for all of them vs $2 each at Pier 1. Hello.

 And I love the name of this post: “It’s My World…I’ll Do What I Want”

You’ll have to go visit Suesan to see the before but I’m in love with the after. Now time to party. You know the deal…if you made it link it. Paper, home dec, roadside rescue, recipes, jewelry, upcycle, recycle, link it! Just no Etsy shops or advertising please. Party on!

Party Favor Idea

You might remember the votive candles I made for my son’s graduation party. I was always planning on them being part of something else to give to guests but wasn’t sure what. Then in the midst of all the graduation frenzy, my son went to a birthday dinner and came home with the inspiration! Mini-bottles of sparkling cider!

So simple and yet never thought of it. Won’t even go into how I should have looked first at the grocery store I go to three times a week and how I convinced myself I had to go to a specialty grocery store or five before looking in my own backyard. Dorothy (Wizard of Oz) was right. Anyway…
I decided to put one bottle of cider, one candle, and then made these:

Homemade peanut butter cups but this time with edible gold stars! I did these in gold foil cupcake liners. I put one peanut butter cup in a plain 3x3 box:

 

And sealed each box with decorative packaging tape. I had some monogramed tape from Michaels that I bought for $1. Perfect! I put the PB cup, candle and a bottle of cider in a cello bag with a little white and gold paper shred and tied each with a gold bow.

I thought this was a fun and pretty simple idea you could adapt for a lot of occasions. Anniversaries, birthdays, showers….

Linking Up At: 

BFF Link Party #6 Wrap Up and Features

Well I’ve been completely MIA for my own party. But I now have a HS graduate and next stop college! Thanks so much for partying on without me and I’ll get back on track visiting everyone again.  As always there were so many great ideas linked up and as always, it’s hard to highlight just a few but here goes!
You will not believe how this gorgeous wall shelf started out. Seriously. You need to go visit FruFru Gal to see the origins ( and read her hilarious description of its transformation)
                             
Vicki, over at Rusty Rooster Vintage shows us how to transform something shiny and new into a wonderfully vintage rusty patina that would look great on this shelf!

Greenbean’s Crafterole showed that there are infinite uses for washi tape which means I have another excuse to buy it whenever I see it.

I love these votives and how she wrapped the candles with the washi tape and of course I love love it since it’s black and white!
Finally, Fonda over at Southern Scraps shared this GORGEOUS tank top transformation. WOWZA!

It’s too pretty to wear! I hope you’ll go check out these and all of the great ideas that were linked up and hope to see you all again on Friday!

BFF Link Party # 6

It's time to party with all my BFFs! I will resume the Blog Feature portion next week after, sniff...graduation's over...sniff. Anything goes as long as it was made by you! I'm sure there are some great Dad's day ideas out there along with Summer themed goodies and I'm sure some of you are getting a head start on Fourth of July! Just no advertising or Etsy stores please and please link to your project page and not your main blog page. Party on!

Prom…The Creative Ask

I’m sure you’re bored to tears with me mentioning graduation etc. but since that’s what’s been keeping my blogging to a minimum lately, I thought I’d share some of what I’ve been busy doing.

My son’s school has all these traditions. Freshman year was culture shock and now, by Senior year, it’s all old hat . Don’t tell…I’ll miss some of them! One tradition is that for the two big dances each year ( Homecoming and TOLO, which is what we in the Northwest call a Sadie Hawkins type dance) and then for Prom, you do the “creative ask”. What the heck is that you ask? Well it’s just about anything creatively done to ask your date to the dance. Never mind that the dates have been agreed to well before the creative ask is done. It’s still expected.

In four years, he’s asked or been asked by: conspiring with lockermates to hide things in and decorate lockers and cars; things have been delivered to the house creatively wrapped ( a box within a box within a box etc each with a clue); a faux turtle terrarium ( luckily the girl got talked out of a REAL turtle; in the middle of assemblies; and one year, before he could drive , I swore we’d end up on the news after leaving lighted luminarias on one girl’s  front steps (her mom was in on it).

He went to prom with a girl he’s been friends with forever and they have an inside joke of being “Cookie Monster” and “Elmo” including having had these on  team sweatshirts  etc. He asked if I could do cookies but I’m horrible at decorating cookies so I did cupcakes! I was really excited to try this stuff :

Edible gold glitter stars! They’re by Wilton and I found them at Michaels. Got so excited I ripped open the package before taking a pic.

The cupcakes themselves were just dark chocolate with vanilla frosting. The gold stars made all the difference though!

To carry out the “Cookie Monster” and “Elmo” theme, I found clipart, created a graphic, printed and then punched w/ 2” circle punch. Cut larger circles on my Expression and then decorated with adhesive rhinestones. Did I mention that the request for these came at 3PM the day before he wanted to do the ask? IMPROV time!

I stuck the cupcake toppers to straws using glue dots, and computer generated the text using a fun font.

Thankfully he and then she loved them. And Prom was last Saturday and they had a wonderful time! And I still have tons of gold stars left for graduation cupcakes!

BFF Link Party #5 Wrap Up and Features

Thanks for your continued patience as I’m winding down towards my son’s graduation! Prom was this weekend…..the “kids” cleaned up nicely and what a wonderful group of young men and women! Working fast and furiously, the Prom scrapbook is DONE along with the overall HS scrapbook and the future College scrapbook.  Some people power walk; I power scrap!
Great projects linked up again this week! Here are a few features:

Christine from Christine and Co, shared these “A”mazing monogramed keychains made using resin.
Gearing up for Summer, Jenn from Rook No. 17 shared these Sno Cone cupcakes that look so real I expected them to start melting!

You really have to check these out!
Paula from JC’s Loft shared a creative twist on party invitations that could easily be adapted to so many different occasions:

Please feel free to add a featured button from my sidebar and hope to see you all again this week! I’ll get back on track with the actual Blog Feature part of the BFF link party next week but we’ll definitely have the party this week!

BFF Link Party #5

Another week that flew by too quickly. I always get thrown off when the week starts off with a holiday. So between that, work, and getting ready for Prom and Graduation , I didn't pick a blog to feature this week but will get back on track week after next. We're still going to party and see what everyone's been up to!!

Dad and Grad ideas? Link 'em. Fun Summer decor makeovers? Link 'em. Delicious treats? Link 'em. If you made it link it...just no advertising or selling please! Party will be up through Sunday so feel free to invite your friends. I  haven't had time to do much visiting lately but as soon as things calm down, I'll be over to see all of you!  Party On!

My First Resin Project!

I may or may not have accidentally prematurely posted this before :) so you may or may not be confused! We'll just pretend that didn't happen OK? 

I have LONG wanted to play with Resin, but have been intimidated to try it. When I recently had the opportunity to try Envirotex Lite by ETI (Environmental Technology Inc) , I was so excited to jump right in! I am not always good at reading instructions…ask Mr. Chocolate. But I CAREFULLY read the instruction sheet that came with the package which was super easy to follow.

EnviroTex Lite has many many uses from finishing furniture to home dec uses to jewelry making. I decided I would do a pendant.

I bought these fun bezels from the Bezels, Frames and Filigree collection by Bead Landing at Michaels. I was so excited I pulled them off the card before I took a picture! I had this great collage paper in my stash by Kand Co so the hardest part was deciding on a focal image.

Decided on this one (you can’t go wrong with Paris) and punched a circle out, then using PVA glue, glued it to the center of my pendant (you can see the glue’s not quite dry here but it dries clear) . Make sure you coat it really well so you don’t get any edges coming up

I also had some glass micro beads in my stash. In doing some prep reading about using resins, I followed the advice not to use plastic or coated beads because of interaction with the resin. I poured some in this bezel as well as a smaller bezel from the same package.

OK GO time on the resin. READ THE INSTRUCTIONS CAREFULLY! Just sayin’…if you’re like me and usually don’t. Mix your resin. Oh man. I was nervous. And I should NOT have been! You mix the two components together in a clean cup (ETI provided plastic cups and wooden stir sticks). When I thought it looked ready ( which I based on stirring it for the two minutes the instructions said) , I was ready to pour!

Sorry , no pics of this part of the process because I was so focused on not goofing up! A little goes a LONG way. I used an ounce each of the resin and the hardener and had leftover.

It’s hard to tell from this pic but this is after the resin has been poured and set. Mine bubbled when I first poured it and the instructions said to go over it lightly with a match or butane lighter.  I chose to do this project when hubs wasn’t home in case it came to this! Also in case it was smelly…he doesn’t do smelly. It was not at all but I ensured good ventilation just to be safe.
I just waved my pencil torch lightly over the top and voila, the bubbles disappeared! You can see the micro beads floating in the resin.

You can see the depth of the resin here a little better on the smaller pendant. I filled it w/ micro beads, poured the resin on top and then sprinkled a few more micro beads on top. Why? Cause I did.

Once my pendant had set and dried ,  I went to work on the necklace, just wire wrapping a collection of crystals, pearls and agate, and using different lengths of chain. But the focal is this pendant which I’m so happy with and LOVE LOVE LOVE working with this resin!

Thank you SO much ETI for the chance to experiment with Envirotex Lite. I am HOOKED!

ETI sent me this product to try out. You won’t believe all that you can do with this product.  Envirotex Lite was created by Environmental Technologies Inc. (ETI), which is the home for many resin and mold making products.
 

The use of resin in jewelry making, mixed media and paper arts continues to grow in popularity. Today, artists are using ETI’s products in many crafty ways and they will be showcasing these works of art on their new blog "Resin Crafts".

Check them out on:
Resin Crafts Blog
ETI on Facebook
ETI on Twitter

  

Eating On The Run...Ritz Crackerfuls

I've been running back and forth to Michaels a lot ( ok a lot more than I usually do) lately trying to get ready for graduation. I'm sure normal people just have a dinner or something and don't feel the need to have coordinated scrapbooks, cards, favors, decorations etc. But we are CRAFTERS and I'm rarely accused of being normal.

Needless to say with all that back and forth I'm not always eating properly. So when I had a chance through my affiliation with One2One Network to try Ritz Crackerfuls, I jumped at it. If you aren't familiar with these they look like this :

and can be found in the cracker section of your grocery store. I usually keep a protein bar in the car and these are the same size . Multigrain crackers with cheese and high in fiber which is always a good thing! Tasty, portable, and sigh, even I have to admit, better for you than a chocolate bar. OK eat BEFORE the chocolate bar :)  They are available in four flavors: Classic Cheddar, Four Cheese, Garlic Herb, and Cheddar Bacon. Certainly not a meal replacement and everyone should eat according to their own health needs, but for me these are a great snack on the run. To Michaels. Or other places! 

While this was a sponsored post through my affiliation with One2One Network, the opinions are my own. 

Father’s Day Printable

I’ve been heads down doing last minute scrapbooking for my son’s graduation party ( because I had four years to be doing this along the way and it made much more sense to wait til the last minute right? ) Of course!

Then the calendar smacked me in the face and I realized Father’s Day is the week after graduation! So in between scrap pages, I made up this printable ( no honey, it’s not your present…..ask me again in a week) that I thought I’d share:

Click to enlarge then right click to Save As.

Linking Up At: 

BFF Link Party#4 Wrap Up and Features!

Thanks everyone who linked up last Friday and over the weekend to the BFF Open House! Once again, wonderful projects and I’m excited to watch this party grow each week! Last week I seemed to zoom in on black and white. This week, I seemed to hone in on re-purposed, upcycled or materials used other than for their intended purpose.

Caroline, from Artfully Caroline, linked up the CUTEST apron…upcycled from a pair of jeans!

Michele, from The Scrap Shoppe, linked up an adorable pin cushion made from a frame that I may or may not have in my Michaels stash

Another Michelle, Mich from LA who is a genius at transforming ordinary objects that NO ONE would think of using into extraordinary jewelry, shared a bracelet for which you will not guess the secret ingredient so you’d better go check to find out:

And did you know you could spray paint tissue paper? Me either! But Vivienne from The V Spot shows us how!

So many creative people out there! Keep the ideas coming! For those featured, please feel free to snag a featured button from my side bar.