While Our Son's Away...We Work!

It's Spring Break around here, and our son is spending the entire week on my mother's farm.  This is the longest "alone" time my husband and I have had since...before Parenthood, hmm, maybe since early 2005!  My how time flies.......

And since we're boring grown-ups, we've spent the week cleaning.  Spring Break and Spring Cleaning are two very different experiences.  But we have to take this opportunity to clean--it's the only way we can honestly says "This room is done!" and expect it to stay that way until the next day.

Jewelry Box and Necklace Organizer
I did get some crafting done over this past weekend--a lot, really.  I've had an unfinished-wood jewelry box for a long time now--bought from Hobby Lobby on a whim with a 40% off coupon back in 2010 I think.  I haven't been able to decide what to do with it.  It has this strange recessed lid, which I now realize is perfect to throw your jewelry on at the end of the day and it doesn't go rolling off.  But I've been thinking it needed a picture or a frame attached to it, and couldn't figure it out.  The strange thing is that this wasn't even in my Top 10 Projects To Complete--but I'm extremely glad it's done now.  My jewelry has been stuffed into a tiny silver box for 2 years now, and necklaces are my favorite jewelry to make.

I have no clue where this inspiration came from, but my favorite colors right now are gray and turquoise, and I have some beautiful fabric in those colors.  I also had some gray-ish mixed paint that was begging to be used or thrown away.  So I painted and painted and painted, then Mod Podged the fabric down into the lid.  I painted the inside of the box turquoise, with more fabric in the bottom of the 2 pull-out trays that sit on the inside.

Then I remembered this sad little project from Christmas, a necklace organizer to hang on the wall, that had not turned out well.  I have no pictures of it all, which surprises me since I take pictures as I work along.  It was originally a long thin mirror in a plastic frame with great details.  I'd painted it silver-ish per the glitter paint instructions, then with silver glitter paint, and clothespins for hooks, but, well, it was hiding actually, cowering in fear of a 15th coat of glitter, lol.  It was Christmas, so the very season itself brings to mind all that glitters and sparkles.  That's my excuse, anyway :p

Some advice: if you know you don't like glitter, don't force it on yourself--you won't like it, and the very sight of the project will make you cringe every time you see it.  (Which might be how it ended up hidden....)  And this goes for metallic finishes, pastels, whatever--stick to what you like!  There's a difference from "being in a rut" and just knowing you don't like a certain paint treatment.

Anyway, I tore the clothespins out of the frame and set about painting it to match my jewelry box.  For hangers, I used small nails pushed into the fabric-wrapped foamcore; they're in the center of each flower, so 7 nails total.  And it is beautiful, if I do say so myself, and they're beautiful together.  Now I just have to figure out where in the world to hang it....

Family Motto Sign
I've had this sign for a loooong time now.  It was one of those generic "H-O-M-E" signs and did not match our personalities at all.  (It was free, so awesome!)  I painted it "Love one another."  Then a different quote.  Then "Be nice or leave," which is rather the opposite of "Love one another," lol.  But it never lasted more than one day up on the wall--I was never happy.  I'm a quote-collector, and I've been going over and over my huge list, thinking that I have the perfect quote, somewhere.  And, I did, sort of....

"Love is being stupid together." – Paul Valery 

This quote I've had for a long time, and while it's appropriate, "stupid" is not a word I want our son to start using, much less to describe his family.  Although, we are rather insane at times, lol.  Goofy a LOT of the time ;P  Inspiration struck again, and I decided to use "silly" instead of "stupid."  Perfect!

The font posed the 2nd major hurtle for this project--then I remembered the handy-dandy glue lid craft paint secret, and my handwriting worked well in the end.  There were a few bad hours there though...but in the end I've got the perfect sign for our entry:

{Inspiration hit a lot this past weekend...wonder why?}

Twilight Book Covers and the Fabric Poster
And finished on Wednesday, between cleaning sessions:

So let's talk Twilight....  Hopefully for the last time for a while...even I'm tired of it!

I got the Breaking Dawn part 1 DVD from Wal-Mart that came with a "fabric poster."  I hung it up when it arrived, but it's been sort waiting around for a more permanent spot.  I have several of those art posters still with their cardboard backing, one was the perfect size!  And so I moved Bella and Edward to the Library.  But then they looked a little lonely, and I've been wanting to try crafting with dust jackets, and I remembered that all 4 dust jackets have been laying in the same spot for years now--yay!  Fabric-covered foamcore, red paper and careful positioning resulted in this awesome Twi-Hard display ;P  Woot!

Although it does feel strange to have wedding pictures on display larger than our own.....

I've also printed a ton of quotes, signs, phrases, plans and coloring pages, so that's my next project: getting my printables organized, framed or sorted out.

I hope your week has been as productive!  The good thing about knocking old craft projects is being able to photograph them and share them.  I can't bring myself to take a picture of the sparkling clean bathroom, lol, so this round-up is done!

One Word, One Goal, One Year

I found a great idea on Less Cake More Frosting--choose a word to focus on all year long, instead of making New Year's Resolutions. I've traced this idea around blogland, and found this with a similar idea: Ali Edwards' project: One Little Word 2012 | The Words

I always forget my resolutions, or feel guilty about them and end up feeling ashamed. This is a new year, and I'm going to try something new.

I love words!

I really do. Words can be used to heal and to hurt. Words can change emotions and even the future. As James learns more and more sight words, I really notice just how amazing--and confusing--our language can be. The subtle differences of a color are a good representative: this Wikipedia page actually names over 20 versions of pink!

I'm a true bibliophile and I L-O-V-E my books. I love books from when I was little all the way to the one I'm reading right now! I've read books to my son almost every day of his entire life. Recently I've been able to read WITH him as well :)

I spent time really listening to my soul on this One Word One Year thing, and I've chosen:

Reduce

There are so many different meanings, so I'm cautiously excited to see where REDUCE leads me this year. Some ideas already:

• reduce time in front of my computer and playing with family instead
• reduce money wasted on grocery shopping by sticking to a list
• reduce my fears
• reduce regrets
• reduce not listening for God's guidance
• reduce unhappiness
• reduce my useless drive for perfection
• reduce my horribly unorganized & out-of-control craft supplies
• reduce shame
• reduce loneliness

Hmmm, I'm starting to get a little freaked out now....

• Reduce making lists that only trigger more anxiety!!

So, let's see where "Reduce" leads me this year :)

Treasures Old and New

We are blessed to have a large home.  We are also blessed to have family members who live in places too small for all their stuff.  Some of it was moved out recently, so James and I went to see what we could find that got left behind.  He found a soccer ball and that was good enough for him, lol.

I found a treasure!  A long time ago, in a galaxy in which I had a different last name, I L-O-V-E-D the Pets.com Dog.  Well, before he sold car title loans anyway.

Reporting live from the scene...

"Don't give up!  Don't give up!!" and "It's a Stuffed Thing, I love Stuffed Things!" are my 2 favorite lines, and I will probably repeat them them until my family finds something new for me to obsess over.
Here is his 5 minutes of fame: on a You Tube video--my favorite quotes are at :30 and :45, but if you watch til the end, you'll see him as a balloon in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, and the reporters singing, it's funny.

Anyway, James adores this puppet!  It's so funny, what kids will suddenly be really into--he even slept with it that night (and yes, Teddy was jealous, lol.)

Before moving on....  I loved Jim Henson--from Kermit to the Muppet Show to his movies, they're all what I've grown up with.  I remember being in the movie theater in 1984 and watching The Muppets Take Manhattan! I remember crying at the marriage scene at the end, and in fact that may be why I love weddings sooooo much :)  Anyway, I saw this picture a few years ago and had it taped to my desk's hutch, but it ended up being lost as time passed.  I think it looks like Jim Henson and Kermit are talking to each other....

 and then I luckily caught this exchange as well:

I can't believe I managed to catch a similar moment between James and this puppet!  "I prayed for this child, and the Lord has granted me what I asked of him." 1 Samuel 1:27  Our Lord's Mercy and Grace astounds me......

We finally hung quite a few pieces of "wall art" in James's room:
The "Command Center" is something I've wanted to have for a while now.  With James's school schedule, and his homework every night, we needed a way to keep up-to-date.  I made these 2 huge pin-boards out of cardboard and a twin-sized sheet--yup, that's it!  Easiest thing to do, without having to invest money in it in case we never use it, and we no longer have a twin-size bed, so the sheets were perfect for upcycling!

Command Center, reporting for duty, ma'am

I've collected these little Snoopy figures that come on the tiny boxes of Russell Stover candy, and because I love them, I've kept them away from James (and his habit to chew on anything, much like a dog, lol) until now.  So after showing me he is mature enough to take care of my collection, I made some display shelves and now they're up on the wall, free from the box they've been stuffed into for 8 years or so!

Here they are marching around my paint bottles, lol

He's standing on his bed, leaning over so his face is in the picture--I have a weird kid, I know :)

I should go take another picture now, to show the shelves when they're full--there's 22 figurines total.  One shelf was a matching game from Melissa and Doug, and the other was a puzzle box that held 3 puzzles.  The puzzle box severely cut my husband's hand right after we bought it, so I took that box and along with the Melissa and Doug one, painted them, attached them to fabric-covered cardboard, and added fishing line to keep the Snoopies (Snoopys?) on the shelves since they had a tendency to fall off when someone walked by them.

We also decorated a pumpkin with these Harvest Costumes for your Pumpkin.  I tried to find a link online but I can't.  So, imagine a Mr. Potato Head-type set, only with small sharp dowels to stick into the pumpkin.  No cutting involved, very child-friendly, and we had a blast:

See how the pieces go in?  And excuse the hubby's feet there.....

And of course, the Pets.com Dog showed up just in time for an interview:

That look of pure happiness is what keeps me going every day.....

Make Something! Round-Up

OK, I had this written in one of the craft round-up articles, but I was having a hard time with uploading pictures.  So....

The Amazing Adventure of the Pink Fleur-De-Lis and the Particle Board

I've been saving for years, and I mean since before I was married, approximately 6 moves ago, YEARS, pieces of laminate particle board.  They were mostly from desks, which tend to fall apart when moved, but I've been absolutely positive I could use them for...something!  Art...a frame...another shelf...a rocket to the moon, who knows, lol.

So, with my crafty homemade Mod Podge and a piece of board, I sat down to make an art piece using papers from a scrapbook stack in a beautiful toile black-and-cream theme.  All was going well:

and so I set it aside to dry before I added the final touch: a perfectly painted, perfectly trimmed, perfectly pink fleur-de-lis.  And then, when I went back to the piece, much to my dismay (yet also amusement) the paper slid right off the darn board.

If I had PLANNED for that to happen...not in a million years.  But it did, so now I have a beautiful kind-of French themed POSTER!

Also, a tip: when doing a project like this, it is NOT the time to throw a book page into the mix.  Book pages are thin, cardstock is heavy, and when mixed with water and glue, the book page wrinkles, becomes practically translucent, and just generally messes things up.

The Superhero Known As Gel Medium

I had the gel medium out because I was using it in my experiments on Jason's birthday present.  While waiting for paint to dry (literally) I looked up my brand of gel medium online.  And was I AMAZED at all the things it could do--but the most important: it works as decoupage!!  Who knew, right????

So with nothing to lose, I followed the instructions and what do you know: gel medium makes cardstock adhere to particle board!  You can see it in this photo of my last big project...

MAKE SOMETHING!

Using the same canvas I'd been playing around (I mean, experimenting) on for Jason's birthday present, I layered papers until I found a final layout I liked.

I started out with a stack of some things...most of which didn't make it on the final project.

Layers upon layers...  I'm pleased to announce that homemade M.P. does not ruin glitter or flocking, as some of these papers had those details.  It DID ruin my printed inkjet paper, but at that point I already knew the mixture was too watery, so that may not happen again.

layers and layers and layers--lol

I also made this little heart out of 2 pipe cleaners and some twine.  It was inspired by something similar but I can't link it right now because Pinterest is down.  LOL

So, here's the final creation, ready to hang:

Soooo...go make something!

Oops, one more!  Literally, a sheet wrapped around a huge piece of cardboard, for decoration and organization in James's room.  (We have Sight Words now, every week!)  I actually ended up making 2 of these, about the same size.  I'm really hoping this is the last we'll be seeing of Thomas for a while!

It Helps If You Can See It

I've been trying to organize my craft supplies lately, and I've learned one very, very important lesson: if you can't see something, such as a great piece of fabric you bought 2 years ago, then it will continue gathering dust while you spend hours a day looking on Pinterest for a Muse.  But I also came to this important lesson through my mom.

It's beginning to be actual Fall here in Northwest GA now, and the leaves are beginning to fall.  My mom was raking leaves in the yard of their new farm, and burning them once the pile was large enough.  She was using a rake, thank God, because when she went back to stir the pile and make sure it was a controlled burn, a black snake jumped out at her!!  It wasn't poisonous, but still, it scared her so badly she said she went from the yard to the porch in 2 steps!  She didn't know she'd raked a snake until it was too late.

So this story, along with this very awesome idea of Ashley Connelly on The Creative Place, I made my own version of a frame and twine inspiration board.  I plan to use it to display fabric swatches, craft ideas and inspirational "crafty" sayings. 

I happened to have a large picture frame where the glass had broken.  I measured the sides and made the decision to create my twine lines every 2 inches all the way around.  Ashley used nails and tied her twine, but this frame is most likely plastic, so I went with the good old hot glue gun and burned fingers route. 

Here's the finished frame, it'll help my explanation make sense.  I've not written "tutorials" before.

I marked where the lines should lay and started gluing all the way up one side (let's call it north, for my sake.)  I then moved onto the adjacent side (east) and glued twine lengths there as well.  To connect the east twine to the opposite side, I pulled the twine as taunt as I could and made sure the glue had a good hold (hence the burned fingers.)  For the last (south) side, I braided the twine in and out of the east/west lines and again made the twine as taunt as I could.

Now, I love my glue gun, I really do.  But there are times when it fails me, and I did not want this to be one of those times.  So as a precaution, to keep the twine from popping off, I glued a long piece of twine all the way around the frame (on the lip where the glass would normally sit) covering the ends of the twine, giving it one more layer of stay-put-it-ness.

The back, nice and smothered in glue

Another view of the back, for perspective

Leaning against some cardboard, waiting for me to decide where to hang it

Wow, I didn't realize those little metal tag thingies were so noticeable, I'm going to break them off, and get to swatch clipping!

Oh, and the other thing I've made today (so far) is a headband with rolled flowers.  I used the tutorial from Craft Snob except I didn't sew any of mine.  Did you know my sewing machine hates me?  It does.  I can hand sew a few stitches, that's about it.  That may be why I'm co-dependent on my glue gun....  Anyway, normal headbands from the store always slip up or off my head, so I took one that almost fit, added a couple more inches and voila!  It really was the easiest thing ever!

It's blurry, sorry, totally not used to taking pictures of my own head

The other night I made a monogram in all my favorite colors.  It's now hanging together with my lace frame here:

Chocolate brown, turquoise, lime green, pastel pink and cream--all against the unfortunate and hideous mustard wall.  Eventually I'll give in and paint this darn room, but in the meantime, I'm killing it with as much stuff I can hang on the walls as possible. :)

So, that's about it for today.  Thanks for hanging out for a bit!

School Supplies Galore

This is my favorite time of the year!  I know, that's a title reserved for Thanksgiving or Christmas, but for me, Back-To-School is my time to :indulge." 
I know they aren't the most sophisticated supplies, but as a crafter, you will never find Crayola-quality markers for a penny at any other time of the year.  Nor brightly-colored copy paper (turquoise, red, green and yellow, yum!) or notebooks to keep ideas for projects in or to dismantle for an art journal. 

Nor is this time of year limited to crayons and notebooks: storage solutions are EVERYWHERE.  And they come in the best colors (pinks, blues and lime greens are my favorites.)  Magnetic "locker" mirrors, pencil cups and dry erase boards are all begging to be reincarnated into amazing Christmas presents.  And those pencil boxes...I have about 10, and I'm always swapping things in and out of them (one is labeled "Mommy's Box" and goes with me and my laptop all over the house.)  They're the perfect size for keeping cropped family photos, ephemera and other goodies all together for a specific project.  But I also use those 3-page protectors for the same thing!  I can paint a background, slip it into a page protector and think about what I may use it for while I'm doing house chores or driving back and forth to school.

So, whether you have kids or not, this is THE BEST time of year to shop for craft supplies!

Kim's Distressing Ink

I spent this past weekend making my own "Distress Ink."  It's basically brown paint, black paint, and water.  Although another successful version had Coke in it too.....  It all started because I was painting and noticed how cool the water looked when I cleaned my brushes.  But I ruined the first version by having glitter show up.  Me and glitter don't really get along, yet I also can't seem to stay away from it.  And somehow the point of "distressing" something and then having it sparkle....  So I gave in and started again.

But it took like 10 hours for me too come up with the proper mix again.  And it was this weird thing of black ink for drawing on photo negatives that saved the day.  Which of course helped, being that it was black INK as in "Distress INK."  And yes, it's in my Vitamin Water bottle that would be impossible to mistake as anything else.  This pic was taken when I first began to "decorate" the bottle. 

16oz of ink is a very dangerous thing to have.........

See all the versions of distress there?  My hands are stained, and I had to completely trim my nails off, lol.

Luckily I'd gotten to make rags from hubby's torn up jeans.  Denim is awesome for absorption.

I love my Mod Podge :)

But I've also been very busy with my Art Journal.  This past weekend I bought a ton of new paint colors from Micheal's.  I haven't been inside an actual craft store in at least 2 years, so it was breath-taking!  But fun, and quite a bit like I imagine it is to have ADD.

Along the lines of ADD...I cannot seem to get organized at all.  I have too much of some methods, not enough of others, and a lot of things that just don't fit.  I've given up for now.

But that's ok too.  There are a lot of worse things that could happen.