Painted Wine Glasses

Finishing up with my Christmas posts, I wanted to show you guys the wine glass I painted for my cousin, BUT I forgot to take a pic. I know, blogger fail. Although I don't have a pic of hers I do have a pic of the one I painted for myself as a test run.

To make this I used a contact paper stencil that I cut with my x-acto knife an painted the stars with Folkart Enamels paint in a silver. For the one I made for my cousin I put a J on the front for her initial, and sponged the bottom of the glass for a fun detail.

Craft Clay Ornaments

Keeping with my "what everybody got for Christmas" series of posts, this next one was also for my husband but from the kids. We made craft clay ornaments and I had the little one paint them for his daddy. I even painted one myself with baby girl's hand print, as a baby's first christmas kind of thing. Sorry I don't have any pictures of him working with the dough cutting out the ornaments. We were having so much fun I totally forgot to take pictures.

Normally I like to use salt dough, but I wanted to try something different and actually make something that I have pinned on pinterest. So I used this Easy Craft Clay recipe I had found. You use baking soda and corn starch (that's where your box of  baking soda went honey haha) and cook it on the stove, which was really cool to watch. It also comes out a bright white color which was nice.

Noah LOVED playing  with the dough, he rolled it and smashed it, after we cut out all the ornaments we needed (using a glass, and a straw for the hole) he played with the left over dough for a few hours, it took forever to get him to stop.

One thing I did not like was that the bigger ones we made cracked. You were supposed to let this air dry, which takes a few days, and over those days the craking starts. I would have much rather used a salt dough next time and baked it so that it came out right. But who knows, it could have been something I had done wrong. If you try it let me know how it turns out.

It took a while to get nana's handprint right, the internet makes it seem easy, but it's not, she did not like it. I even tried her foot, which i realized was too big to actually hang. When I first painted it, it didn't look christmas enough, so I added glitter with Mod Podge. I recommend if you do, add Mod Podge to top to seal it in. I just added the words with a fine tip sharpie.

He also had fun painting them, I was a little nervous about letting him use my acrylic paints because I never painted with him before but he was very good and we both had a blast. I tried to coax him into using more christmas colors,  but then I figured he was having fun let him do what he wants. But next time I think I may draw designs on a few for him to work on painting in the lines.

Stenciled Apron

Hope everybody had a wonderful Holiday. I know that I did! Christmas being over always makes me a little sad because I love it so much, but I am excited I get to share with you all the fun projects I made as gifts this year.

This first one was for my husband. A stenciled apron I made using freezer paper. Now this was my first time using freezer paper stencils and I am VERY happy with the results and have to use this technique more.

The technique is pretty easy and doesn't really need a tutorial but for the newbies to this I'll just tell you how I did it. First thing I did was cut my paper to 8 1/2 X 11  and printed off my design (on the matte side). After I had already printed it out, I had the idea to next time just set the font to an outline to save computer ink.

I taped my paper to the back of my cutting mat and cut the shapes out with an x-acto knife. Clumsy / accident prone people shouldn't have sharp objects, so the whole time I kept saying to myself go slowly and carefully. Once my hand started to get a little shaky I stopped and finished again later.

Once all cut out place on your fabric (don't forget to put the little pieces back inside, like in the D and the A) shiny side down. Iron down the paper with your iron setting to a medium to high setting. DO NOT over iron! After it sticks and looks good, stop. I think I started to over iron a bit and it started to picker up and not stick anymore in some places. Once attached take out our paint and paint away!

 Here it is all painted before I removed paper. Removing the paper is easy it just pulls right off any doesn't leave anything sticky. There were a few spots around the edges where it sort of bled through but that was where I over ironed, I think it adds character and over all I am happy how it turned out, and the hubs loved it!

Jewelry Box Makeover

I found this cute jewelry box for a dollar at a yard sale. Seeing as all my jewelry is currently kept in a crayon box, I had to have it. The only bad thing was that the top fabric was hideous; well I guess you could say it was a good thing because now it looks fabulous! 

Before

After

TaDaa! What a difference. This project was originally supposed to be a tutorial but things didn’t go as planned. I got so excited to have a project because I haven’t had one in so long, I dove right in unprepared and when I tried to remove the mirror it broke in three pieces. Using what I had on hand, a box cutter and a butter knife, I should have expected it. For a while I was mad because buying a new mirror would defeat my purpose of a cheap project so to be on the positive side I just scraped it and made it work.  The rest of the project went well, sanding, painting, and a little bit of glossy Mod Podge, and a hot pink zebra fat quarter for a dollar at Wal-Mart. That’s all it took, it was a real easy project, which is good because I haven’t figured out how to balance a project, a now 3 year old, and a 4 month old.

My Valspar Sample

Thursday was a good day for me, not only did my birthday present from the hubs come in the mail( a book, I will post about that later) my free Valspar paint sample came in. If you missed me post about crafting freebies, see it here. When I got the box in the mail I was so excited, This is all that it came with

The sample, mini paint tray and rollers, a chip of the color, an envelope of coordinating colors and a $5 off coupon for a gallon of paint.

Then I opened the can, it was the wrong color. All my inial excitement went out the window. I ordered a pink, and the sample that I received was yellow, a very pretty yellow though.

 

I called the Valspar customer service number that was on the back of the coordinating colors envelope. The customer service rep was very nice and took all of my info and said she would get the right color to me very soon. That was it. Although I received a color other than the one I ordered, I saw it as a plus. Now I get two free samples and both of the colors coordinate nicely together so I think i might use them together in a project. Maybe something for my little princess, who knows.
The only downside was that I took pix and pix of the tutorial I was workinng on and the SD card I was using stoped working when I put it in the computer and I lost ALL my pictures. That is also why this post was not posted on thursday as planned.

Happy Birthday to the Hubby!

Yesterday was my wonderful husbands 23rd birthday! I love him to death but he is the worst person to get a gift for simply because he doesn’t like anything (unless its Christmas related). Generally, being the crafty gal that I am, I make all his gifts, like for this past Christmas I made him a crocheted a mini Christmas tree. Figuring I couldn’t top that being limited on supplies (and ideas) I was just going to cook him a wonderful birthday dinner. Going through my miscellaneous craft stuff I found a blank 11 x 14 canvas and had the perfect idea, I painted his photography logo on the canvas and turned it into beautiful wall art. Recently he has been working on starting a photography business and the other week I finally completed his logo. I’m no graphic designer but I did a pretty good job on it and he loved it so I thought what would be a greater gift than that.
I had a few mishaps when starting the project because I was going to decoupage some paper around the edge to give it a “framed” look and couldn’t for the life of me find my paper cutter anywhere in the house, then I realized I didn’t have any small paint brushes. Besides those few problems it turned out great and it also gave me the idea to make a lighted table or box to make tracing a lot easier. I wanted to post a pic but the hubs wouldn’t let me, he said he wanted to wait to “reveal” the logo himself, but ill try to ask again to post it tonight.