SO Excited! Open House Tomorrow and Giveaway Details Today!!!

I'm channeling Paula Deen..."Hey Y'all".

I'm so so excited that tomorrow is my third "Open House" link party; that I get to celebrate reaching 300 followers, and a wonderful giveaway!!! So now the details.

Open House Link Party!

• Link up whatever you want to feature. Holiday, not holiday, home decor , cards, jewelry, decorations, apparel...if you made it, link it. No advertising or etsy stores though pretty please?
• Recipes welcome...especially chocolate! 
• Link to your specific post, not your general blog
• Link party will run from Friday to Sunday with giveaway winner selected on Monday

PLEASE READ CAREFULLY!!!

In order to keep the selection of the giveaway winner simple using random.org, you MUST leave  a comment.  You don't have to link up anything, but you MUST leave a comment. Even if you link up you (say it with me ) MUST leave a comment.  Additional entries if:

• You are a follower of The Answer Is Chocolate (leave comment saying so)
• You blog / tweet / facebook about the link party and giveaway ( leave one comment for each thing you do)

Now on to the good stuff!!! The giveaway will consist of two fun things! My friend Cindy, whom I have known since our kids started first grade together (and now they're HS Seniors yikes!), is an Independent Rep for Silpada Sterling Silver Jewelry and has kindly offered as a giveaway a $25 gift certificate!!! If you are not familiar with Silpada , their jewelry is gorgeous and I love that they provide entrepreneurial opportunities for women!  Look at some of their gorgeous stuff!

 

 

 

You can browse through their current catalog at Cindy's site here

But wait, that's not all! I've been so delighted with the wonderful feedback you've given me on my Stashbusting projects, so I thought it might be fun to share a few things from the closet of magical mystery! So in addition to getting to shop for some jewelry, the winner will also receive some "stash"!

This collection includes the owl and raven images ( from The Graphics Fairy) printed on clear label paper; a sheet of the vinyl I used on my upcycled cabinet door; a package of Magenta peel offs; a paper mache star like the one from my Witch Wand,  and other misc embellishments.

Thanks again for making this one of the most fun experiences I've had, ever! See you tomorrow!

Stashbusting September Project #1

It's three days in and I haven't set foot in a craft store! Yeah me! That may also be because I haven't left the house but.....pesky details. I went to the closet of magical mystery and pulled out some stuff that I picked up to be used "someday".

ONLY THE TIP OF THE ICEBERG

I decided on a project using a cabinet door I picked up at a salvage place. Everyone keeps cabinet doors on hand for no reason right?

I had some vinyl left over from my "Wish Upon A Tray" project and the lightbulb went on. So I painted it black. The cabinet door. Not the lightbulb.

FIRST COAT

added a second coat and then tried the white glue crackle technique. "Make The Best of Things"  has a great tutorial on this. I will NEVER buy crackle medium again! Love this. Best part was that during school supply shopping, I bought a half dozen or so bottles of white glue at Staples for maybe $2 total. Less than the cost of a small thing of crackle medium.

SMEARED IT ON W/FINGERS

After it gets tacky but not dry, add another color of acrylic paint and wait for it to dry. Or not...I was not patient so used my craft dryer ( aka an old blow dryer) to speed things up and I can't be sure, but I think the heat made it crackle more:

I just did the edges so it would look like a frame if that makes sense. I added a couple of strips of scrapbook paper on the raised panel in the middle; used my "dream" vinyl leftover from my earlier project; added an embossed metal strip from the magical mystery closet (which means it was something I picked up on sale somewhere that I knew I'd use someday) along with some dimensional flowers (Jolee's Boutique I think) from another project which I dry brused w/ gold paint and silver Rub n Buff; and a butterfly from a bag of ephemera I'd bought at a stamp show. And: 

STASH BUSTED! OK, TINY DENT MADE!

You can check out the other projects in the T Shirt Diaries "Stashbusting September" challenge here

Linking Up At:
 

Father's Day: Wall Art

I didn't put this up earlier because I didn't want you know who to see it before he got it. But now that he's got it ( and likes it) here's what I made Mr. C. for Father's Day:

I'd been wanting to try out Sabby in Suburbia's photo transfer tutorial, and when my husband found a photo of a favorite childhood memory, his favorite bike, I thought it would make the perfect subject to use.  I've had this cabinet door I found on an excursion to a magical place called  Earthwise Architectural Salvage in Seattle, which I knew I wanted to use for a piece of wall art. Originally I thought I was going to do something w/ chalkboard paint on it but I decided the wood was too pretty as is. 

I converted the photo to black and white in my photo editing program and printed on regular printer paper. Then using Sabby's tutorial, I covered a plain canvas board with Mod Podge ( I didn't even paint it...it was already primed and gesso'd) , stuck the photo to it printed side down ( remember to print any text mirror image!) and let it dry for 24 hours. Then wet the back of the paper and rubbed it off. I then added a scrap of scrapooking paper:

I then spelled out his name and the word bike with some pewter letters I had on hand and superglued them to the canvas. I really like how aged this looks. 

I didn't leave the cabinet door completely alone...that's not what we do is it?!  I cut a piece of scrapbook paper to fit the center panel and Mod Podge'd it on:

The sun  decided to make a rare appearance and mess up my picture, but you get the idea. And yay...another use for my still ginormous roll of carpet tape, which I used to adhere the canvas to the cabinet door.

Linking Up At:

Here's his card, using images from The Graphics Fairy along with a transparent frame from Colorbok's Nocturne collection.

Linking Up at: