Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Glimmer Mists and Burlap

One of the great things I love about this blog is I can look to see how people came across it. This post is for the person looking to find out if you can glimmer mist burlap. The answer is...YES! I just haven't posted about it yet. I figured before I show what I was making with my glimmer misted burlap strips, I would just show you the strips. The first time I tried it I wanted to make a flower for a box but all I have is various shades of brown/tan/cream colors. I took my lightest color and sprayed it front and back with Tattered Angel's Cross My Heart glimmer mist. I let it dry completely (this takes awhile becuase it takes a lot of glimmer mist to cover it). This is the box I made:


Then I decided to make up a bunch of roses...here's the post on those. But these are the strips I made. I used Tattered Angel's Dragonfly, Pomegranate, Vintage Pink and Cross My Heart glimmer mists.

Sunday, February 17, 2013

Pinspiration Sunday: Wall Decor



So, 14 months after having my son I’m finally getting some décor put on his bedroom walls. While scrolling through Pinterest I came across a J&A and Company blog which provided free printables that she had used to decorate her children’s bathrooms. My son’s crib bedding is CoCaLo’s Turtle Reef which is shades of blues and greens and that’s what I was looking for in wall décor. Also, while on Pinterest I came across a great Winnie the Pooh quote which I just HAD to use! So here’s what I did…

You are my Sunshine:

First I purchased this awesome unfinished wooden tile board from Wal-Mart for under $10. Looked like this:

I originally planned on doing a multiple patterned design and incorporate the Winnie the Pooh quote. But I just didn’t like it. So I decided to do something else entirely different with that board (Check back in a few weeks to see what I do with the tiles). I stained the entire thing with walnut colored acrylic stain (as I’ve used in the past). Next, I used a 12 X 12 sheet of scrapbook paper cut to fit inside where the tiles would have gone. And mod podge that in place and allowed it to dry. I printed my free printable and just trimmed it down. I decided to back that sheet with another solid color scrapbook paper. But before I attached them together, I inked the edges of the paper with the phrase. Then I mod podged the entire board securing all the pages to it and allowed it to dry. Done! ***Just as a side note, if the paper starts to bubble just let it go...once it completely dries, it will lay flat.***

Winnie the Pooh:

This phrase I just typed up in Microsoft Word with the font called Minya Nouvelle in various sizes. I didn’t want to just put it on a white background but I didn’t really like any of the patterned paper I had so I went searching the web for circle prints in green or blue. I found this background. Saved the picture to my computer then inserted it to the background of my text and stretched it to fill the page. Then I printed that out. (The frame I used was purchased months ago from a thrift store for a buck or two)

I love you more:

This was another printable from J&A and Co. The frame is actually scrapbook paper. For Christmas, my husband’s Aunt Sarah got me the Fancy Frames Cricut cartridge. I measured how big I needed the opening to be and used my Cricut Craftroom software to manipulate the frame to fit the image. After I cut it out I used my ATG gun to attach the image to the frame. I then used some 3M strips to attach the frame to the wall.

And there you have it. I love how it turned out but I think it's missing something else. I was thinking about adding another picture but then I thought about putting his name on the wall. I have leftover vinyl that I used for the mustaches on his birthday ballons so I decided to write his name. Here's the final wall display.


Monday, February 11, 2013

Oatmeal Smoothie...I just had to share



So I found this recipe on Pinterest for Lauren Conrad’s 7 Days to skinny Jeans...it was an Oatmeal Smoothie. Sounded delicious but was too many Weight Watchers points. Her recipe goes like this: 1 cup ice. 1/2 cup frozen raspberries or strawberries. 1/2 cup plain lowfat yogurt. 1 banana. 1/2 cup old-fashioned rolled oats. 1 tablespoon honey. This would have been 8 WWpt+ (and that's assuming the frozen fruits weren't sweetened...11 WWpts+ if they are sweetened...yikes!)




I wanted to make it a little more Weight Watchers friendly. So here's what I used to make my smoothie: 4 ice cubes. 1/2 cup frozen raspberries or strawberries. 1/2 cup vanilla fat free greek yogurt. 1 banana. 1/2 cup old-fashioned rolled oats. 1/4 cup fat free milk. This is 6 WWpts+.

Sunday, February 10, 2013

Pinspiration Sunday: 52 Reasons Valentine's Day Gift

With Valentine's Day just around the corner, I thought I would share what I made for my husband this year. I had originally got this idea years ago after Googling Homemade Valentine's gifts. Then I thought about making it this year and decided to search Pinterest for ideas. I came across this photo.
My hubby likes robots...A LOT..and so I decided that I wanted to do a cover similar to this one. I went searching the web to find just the right image I could use. There are TONS of images out there. I was shocked and amazed by the variety. I finally decided on a Photobucket image called Robots in Love. It was simple and cute and the image was long instead of wide which worked well for me because I wanted my book to open from side to side instead of bottom to top. Then it was time to gather supplies. Here is a list of things I used to make my book:

Full Deck of cards (I bought a Breast Cancer awareness deck which had pink instead of red...which I just LOVED!)
sand paper
Tim Holtz paper distressor
crop-a-dile
binding rings
ribbon
ink in red and black
burlap
ATG adhesive gun
and 52 reasons why you love someone

I bought my deck of cards but I wanted it to look old and used, so I took each card and distressed the edges with the Tim Holtz Paper Distressor. Next I used the sand paper and sanded both sides of each card. Then I took a couple cards at a time and punched holes on one side for the binding. I would use one of the cards already punched to line up another stack of cards. I repeated this until all cards had holes. Next I put the binding rings on and cut some small pieces of black ribbon and tied them to the binding rings for decoration. Then it was time to decorate the rest of the book. I used the Joker cards as my cover pages. I used the ATG gun to adhere the burlap to the front and back. I used the image and added text in Microsoft Word to make my cover. I just printed it out and tore around the edges. (It took several tries until I got the font size right so it would fit on the cards) I also typed out my reasons on Word. I inserted a table with 4 columns and 3 rows. I centered the text using the font Minya Nouvelle in size 18. I then tore out each reason. I inked the edges of the ones I used one the black cards with red and black ink on the pink cards. I used the ATG gun to attach the reasons to the cards. Here's some pictures of the finished project:














Sunday, February 3, 2013

Pinspiration Sunday: Burlap Wrapped Letter

I'm falling in love with burlap. When I found this on Pinterest I knew I had to try it. The picture is actually from an Etsy shop named DuryeaPlaceDesigns.



I wanted to make this for my mother for her birthday. I only spent $4 on the wood letter that I picked up at A.C. Moore. I had everything else scattered around my craft room. Here’s what you’ll need to make one like mine:

Burlap
Flowers (I used different kinds of Prima flowers)
Berry garland
Hot glue gun and glue
Scissors
Wire cutters
Glimmer mists of various shades
Leaves


I started out with my letter.


First I cut my burlap into about 2 and ½ inch strip and wrapped around the letter securing each end behind the letter with hot glue.



I then realized that this was too thick for the burlap strip. I then cut the next piece of burlap somewhere between 1 and ½ inches to 2 inches. I wish I could explain how I got around the edges that stick out, but I have no idea…I just moved the burlap around and around and used a lot of hot glue…lol. But it worked! I used a total of 3 strips of burlap.





Next I used Tattered Angel's glimmer mist to color my flowers and leaves. I tried to use colors on the flowers that matched the berries from a piece of berry garland I wanted to use with this project.


Then I just arranged them how I liked them and hot glued them down. I used excess wire from the berry garland and curled them around a pen to get the few curly twigs.




Here’s the final letter.


And here's another one I made for my Aunt.




You can either tie ribbon on the top (seen in the picture above) or use a wreath holder to hang it.