Wishing You All A

It's Christmas! In July...Workshop Wednesdays

No you did not lose time on your calendar. It’s still July but time flies when you have all these great intentions of being organized for the holidays and then suddenly you realize you DID lose time on your calendar.

Michele, from The Scrap Shoppe had a great idea to get ahead of this. She and I , along with Kara from Mine for the Making, Bev from Flamingo Toes, and Tracey from My CreativiT decided that since Santa isn’t using his sleigh right now, we’d borrow it for a Christmas in July Blog Hop !

Would you like to get a jumpstart on your gifts for this year or get some great decorating ideas? Then join us for Workshop Wednesdays starting tomorrow!

We will be sharing ideas such as how to get organized for the holidays, how to make personalized ornaments, and some great gift ideas.

Turn on some Christmas music and dust off your Santa hat as you join us as we dash through blog world by visiting these participating blogs in Workshop Wednesdays. Spread the word and dust off your elf shoes!

Cool Yule !

BFF Open House Link Party #60 Wrap Up and Features: Festive Fourth Edition!

Thanks everyone for another great BFF Open House. As always, there was no shortage of creativity and fabulous ideas. Since we are celebrating Fourth of July this week in the US, I’m featuring some of the great Fourth inspired ideas that were shared.

Malia, from Yesterday on Tuesday shared a fantastic collection of printables you can use to whip up some décor for the 4th:

Wreaths are a wonderful way to decorate and I have two really cute ones to share. The first from The Freckled Optimist:

I just love those letters! And the second is from Mel, The Crafty Scientist that is part of her interchangeable wreath series and can be updated for other holidays:

Transform a plain dimensional star with Mod Podge and scrapbook paper. Visit A Creative Princess to see how:



If you want to wear your festive Fourth colors, pop over to see Ellen at Creative Passage for this crocheted wire and bead bracelet!

Of course you know I have to feature something chocolate, so I think these Drumstick cupcakes from White Lights on Wednesday are an ingenious interpretation of the iconic ice cream treat, perfect for a 4th of July barbecue:

As always, thanks for choosing to share your creativity here each week!

London Olympics Mod Podge and Vinyl 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

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

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

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:

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.

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!

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.

Party On!

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!

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!

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!

Mod Podgeables Mixed Metal 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:

 

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!

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!

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.

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.

Here are my charms as they were drying. 

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!

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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