Friday, May 21, 2010

Friday Hopping!

Still learning all the ins and outs of the blogging world but have enjoyed the blog hops I've done thus far and am joining this one today:



FollowMeFridays 
 

Thursday, May 20, 2010

Sssshhh....It's a Gift

Which begs the question why are you posting it for all the world to see but I didn't say I was being logical. I have a friend who does AMAZING wood work. Maybe someday I'll get to post some pics but I think I better ask him before I do. His wife who's one of my BFFs was asking about how to make some tags to put on his did I mention AMAZING pieces so I made him some which are going in the mail tomorrow. So Lucy...if you read this, don't show or tell!

Started with this: 

and aged the tags with the Distress Ink ( I also spritzed half of them w/ some ancient gold metallic spritz stuff I bought a long time ago) and then edged the tags with black ink. I used the inkpad as a stamp because I liked the pattern it made.


Got out a set of clear acrylic alphabet stamps I picked up on sale @ JoAnn's for $.90 (they were being discontinued so yes, I bought all the fonts they had) and stamped the initials and then threaded twine through them so they can be tied on to stuff. Here are the completed tags:

But they needed packaging so I put them in a cello envelope and used some paper from my scrap pile ( because we know we don't throw that stuff away am I right?!) and they're on their way tomorrow:



I hope he likes them! The colors remind me of the wood he works with. OK they also remind me of chocolates.

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Wednesday, May 19, 2010

$1.92 Wreath!

I'm one of those people who when she goes to the $1 store, doesn't just buy one of the thing I went for. So when it comes to things like their deal on wreath forms, I buy several because you never know when you might need one right? Combine that with a complete inability to not stop at the 50% off remnant bin at JoAnn's and Houston, we have a problem.

I took one of these: ($1)


and a $.92 remnant of duck cloth or whatever it is that looks like muslin but is heavier. Cut the duck cloth in approx 1 inch strips ( exactness isn't required) and wrap your wreath form. I just used pins, started with one strip and when I came to the end, started with the next strip until the thing was covered.  Still new at remembering to take pics as I go along.

With the remaining remnant, I made flowers using Maize in Montana's frayed flower tutorial  which I first saw in Stampington & Company's 


and made flowers. I made 6 but ended up using 4 so two will show up on some other project...I'm thinking a grocery tote or something...haven't decided yet. I glued the flowers to the wreath and:



I decided it needed something and having gone to a store over the weekend that specializes in being a "purveyor of  fine goods" ( translation, stuff they can get away with waaaaaaay over pricing) and seeing a lot of things with cool tags on them, decided to add some shabby tags to the wreath:


And the end result:

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Tuesday, May 18, 2010

YUM!

In my trips around the blogosphere, look what I found at

 
Chocolate Peanut Clusters:


Jump over there to see the easy steps and the recipe but I will definitely be adding this to my chocolate recipe collection!

Monday, May 17, 2010

Table Makeover

So we have this corner of our bathroom that's been bugging me. We have a LOT of space around our tub and it's become home to this and that because it's a flat space and flat spaces tend to do that. I wanted to make it look more cohesive and put together. When I saw this for $3.99:


on one of my "Goodwill hunting" trips, I had an idea. I sanded it (during which I remembered to take the before pic and made a note to myself that if this is going to become a habit buy a small electric sander) and gave it a spray of heirloom white:
I didn't care too much if it was totally covered because I knew I was going to do more to it and I'd rather work inside anyway.

After bringing it in and giving it a coat of an antique linen, I  got cracking, or crackling, by covering the top and bottom shelf with crackle medium. After that was dry, I went over it with an antique white ,  crackle crackle , and voila:




I dry brushed the legs with the antique white to give them a worn look. The finished product (with a couple of 40% off baskets from Michaels):

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Friday, May 14, 2010

The Days Of Twine and Coffee

Twine is such a versatile thing to work with, especially when you find a big roll of it in the $1 section at Tar-jay ( my name for Target with a faux French accent) . Mr. Chocolate thinks I'm a little wreath crazy ( emphasis on the last part) but I was playing around with coffee filter flowers and then I got the idea to put them on a wreath and the twine went perfectly with it so this is the result:


  • Wreath form from $1 Tree
  • Ball of twine from Tar-jay
  • Natural coffee filters from wherever they're pretty inexpensive 
  • Layered book page flowers left over from my topiary project
  • Buttons
Wrapping the wreath form in twine took the longest but that's what Lifetime Movie Network movies and a glue gun are for. To make the coffee filter flowers, I just crumbled them up then layered about 8 for each flower, layered the book page flowers and sewed through the button holes to secure the whole thing and glued them to the wreath. The flowers are a little big and if I make another one, I'd probably use a bigger wreath form.

It's on my office door ( I work from home and my office is also my craft room) so I can see it from my desk while I'm crunching spreadsheets :)  I think maybe I'll add a bow?

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UndertheTableandDreaming

Join us Saturdays at tatertotsandjello.com for the weekend wrap up party!
 

Monday, May 10, 2010

Dream A Little Dream





I've had this clear glass plate ( I forgot to take before pictures early in the process) for a while, thanks to my sis-in-law who would pick these up at Goodwill for me. Sometimes you have stuff and it takes a bit to decide what to do with it. I decided to combine paint, vinyl, silver leaf and paper and here's the end result:


  • First, tore a circle of scrapbook paper and then glued it to the underside of the plate
  • Then I applied leafing glue randomly around the plate, let dry and applied the silver leaf . I wanted this to be splotchy so that the silver leaf would peek through the paint layer but you could leaf the whole area so it's solid. Edged the underside of the rim with black acrylic paint



  • Painted over that with cream acrylic paint 



  • and over that with black acrylic paint and a coat of clear. 
  • When dry, flipped the plate over and applied a vinyl "Dream" sticker I found on sale at Michaels. 
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