Let's Play Ketchup!

Well, we'll play catch-up, not ketchup, but ketchup sounds more fun. 

Up first: "upcycling."  I looove that word.  It's taking something old and making something else entirely with it.  I can honestly admit that I've never been careful about recycling.  Now, though, everywhere I look I see things I can use.  Those soup cans?  Cover them with fabric and let them hold craft tools.  Those soda cans can be turned into these beauties.  Even my brother-in-law's beer bottles can become something beautiful!


(Quick side note: the last site I just linked is called "Choose To Thrive," and she's all about using the craft supplies you have along with whatever nature and human consumption can give us to make a house unique and amazing.  Go check her out, I promise you'll find at least one craft you're passionate about among her archives!)


My mother is in the process of moving right now, and I've taken just about every item she was going to toss or donate, lol.  Some are real treasures (lots of broken and mismatched jewelry and several flower pictures that go along with my flower obsession) and others...need love.  Or covering, lol:

Delightfully Noted's Wine Bag w/ Fabric Flowers

Let's discuss Mod Podge for a second.  Does anyone else do this?

The school glue's bottle is just the perfect size for my crafts.  I hate lugging unnecessary supplies around, and since I craft all over the house, this makes my life easier.  It's cost-effective to buy the largest bottle of MP and then fill my little bottle up as necessary.  OK, on to juice box canvases:


One of the most memorable posts I read on Mod Podge Rocks was Soap Box Canvases.  Alma Stoller actually made them, and she can be found here.  (You should go check her out--she has a great tutorial from early August for making paper pendants!)  ANYWAY, while the idea is brilliant, I love Bath and Body Works, so we don't buy much soap in this house.  We do, however, buy juice boxes.  Lots and lots and lots of juice boxes.  And I noticed one day a few weeks ago that they have a very soap box-like shape....  Combine this idea with my "fall fever" demanding that Halloween decorations make their appearance, and a new craft is born!

L-R, juice box, covered with masking tape, then covered w/ paper

Goodbye Mater, hello blank canvas!

I covered the box with masking tape, then just Mod Podged green cardstock on top.  On my first attempt I thought I needed another layer between the tape and the paper, but I skipped that step on the rest of them.  It is literally as simple as wrapping a present!


Why green?  Well, my plan is to write B-O-O on one side and J-O-Y on the other, so these lil' boxes will be pulling triple duty (holding juice, Halloween craft and Christmas craft.)  This was not, however, my original plan.  The boxes are very light, so they'd be perfect glued onto a wreath or even strung on a garland if holes are cut.  Being so light though, they will not stand up on their own.  I will have to at least tape these together to keep them upright.


If you too are covered up in juice boxes and want to make these, I'd advise you to add a little sand or something else to weigh them down.  Actually, as I sit here and think about them, I may make a rectangle version of this great wreath made out of circles..... Hmmmmmmmmm............


On to the next one: (cue song lyrics repeatedly running through my head)
When we moved into our house, my son was young and we'd planned on making one large room a playroom with a camping theme.  A few items made it in here and up on the walls, but not all.  Then LIFE happened, and now the pictures of wolves and bears from Yellowstone just don't match anymore.  

My son is VERY into anything "Lego" related, such as Lego Harry Potter or Lego Star Wars.  Like all children, he's also growing like a weed, so I managed to snag one of his shirts that was still in excellent condition to make some new art for the wall:

I made a point to NOT glue the shirt to the back of the frame or the glass so that it will be easy to replace this at some point in the future.  James vacillates between his toddler favorites like Thomas and his new interest in superheros, so I'm saving myself money this way :) 


My last crafty item was inspired by this post at Busily Spinning Momma.  I literally had the silverware in a box of craft items I didn't think I'd ever use, ready for hubby to take to the garage to get it out of the way when I found this awesome project.


Long story short: hammer a spoon flat, bend the handle to make a bail, and MP pretty stuff on it.  I must add, however, that it is best to do this project on the cheap type silverware you can buy 4/$1 at Dollar Tree as opposed to old sterling silver, which was what I had.  I'm happy with my pendant, and the other spoon I successfully flattened (mostly) is going to be a Christmas ornament.  The third one, well, it simply refused to do anything except mock me with its scooped shape.  I used Gorilla Glue to fill the space between the handle and the back of the pendant, and the directions warn you that it will expand.  They're not kidding!  Live and learn....

The "&" was a rub-on, and I'm very in love with this paper.  I think it's Christmas without being obvious.  I didn't plan on this being a Christmas pendant though, and it looks great with my lime shirts.


So, tons of crafts and pictures today.  I hope you enjoy it, and that you are as inspired by other crafters as I am.

Impossible!

I'm rarely on Facebook.  It's not that I have anything against it, I'm just not "into" it.  I'll spend a whole day going through the 9oo+ links on T&J's Weekend Wrap-up, but I lose interest in FB within 5 minutes.  This might be why:

In high school, my 2 best friends were in the class above me.  They graduated in 1992 and I graduated in 1993.  I logged onto FB just now and one of the first things I see is their 20th High School Reunion invitation, set for July 2012.  Now,see, that's impossible!  If they graduated 20 years ago, then I graduated 19 years years ago.  And that can't be!  I'm way too young for that.  And too irresponsible.  And too...young. 

My birthday was this past week.  I had a happy one.  Until just now, when I thought "old" was closer than I thought, lol.  It's tons more fun looking at 300+ dresser makeovers than to be shocked by milestones I don't want to reach.....

Flowers for Aunt Mae

I've never been good at being a regular blogger.  I have times where I'm really into it, and others where I go weeks or even MONTHS between posts.  Anyway, in addition to getting used to James going to school, then him beginning to ride the bus, we've also had car woes and my Aunt died.  She called me "Kimby," she was the only one to ever do that.  I liked her calling me a special name........

She died at home, free of pain thanks to medications, and with her family surrounding her.  Towards the end she kept saying "It's so beautiful" and kept talking to loved ones who had previously passed away as if they were in the room.  And this is kinda...unexplainable: she said "Well hi, I didn't know you were up here" to a man in her church that she didn't know had died.  Seriously, no one had told her because while it's a small town, our family had its own death drama to survive.  So, it's wonderful to think of Aunt Mae at the "pearly gates" with my grandparents and cousins and so forth. 

So, with relatives on my mind, I made this today:

Inspired by a post on another blog, I used the lace from my mother's wedding dress, a pink t-shirt that no longer fits, and a black frame I had lying around.  The flowers look sort of pink in white glue in this picture, but they're actually more t-shirt and lace mixes.  Now don't think I'm being sentimental, my mother's wedding dress was from 1961, badly damaged and worn for a wedding that was laid to rest back in 1984.  But--it was lace, and I've really been wanting to make crafts for me lately, as opposed to things the whole family would like.  I love the femininity of this, it's something I could see having in my closet or over my tub for the next 50 years (in my "boudoir," in particular, lol.)

Also, well, it's the flowers that started the whole project.  I've been collecting examples of "fake flowers" for quite some time.  I have an entire Pinterest board dedicated just to flowers.  I have at least 20 tutorials, but I've only made a couple (and yes, pom-poms were one of them, I'll be trying that project again because they're "so fluffy I wanna die!")  So I've been collecting "burning" fabric for a while now, and I happened to find enough the other day for a simple pin:

(bad picture, sorry, glam is hard to photograph without effort)

Only 8 petals and a glam button from my stash, but it was my gateway drug :)  I don't recommend starting, because it IS addicting!  Flowers just look so happy, sitting there waiting to liven up a boring craft. 

Oh, and I was also enabled by The Headband Challenge and Link Party at Little Miss Mama by way of Amie at Kitty Cats and Airplanes.  I especially loved Amie's headbands all week long, and after much thought I just had to try one.  I was so thrilled by it that I took about 50 pictures (seriously, it was sad) and kept on crafting.  So here's a couple of pictures of my first headband (my other pictures weren't good at all, but I made a headband with a cream ribbon and stacked bow and then a plain denim one.)  And at the end is a picture of the collected flowers from today. 

see the awesomeness of my flower?

posed on my lace and flowers frame

and this doesn't include the ones on my headbands or from my craft the other day.  Oh, I never posted that!  Look:

I was on my way to bed when an empty box of soda cans somehow inspired me to stay up until 4am making tissue flowers and a felt sun and happy clouds.  It makes me smile just looking at it :)

It's been a good day.  Aunt Mae would have enjoyed my flowers.

I {Heart} Dimensional Magic

My first Mother's Day, my husband gave me the quintessential Mother's present: a locket.  Two weeks later, my son yanked my necklace off and the bail came off.  I took it to a jewelry repair shop but they refused to work on it in case it was destroyed in the process.

I've kept my locket in my jewelry box all these years, always hoping for a way to repair it myself.  I bought some Dimensional Magic a while back for another jewelry project, and I've been thinking long and hard about how to use it to make a bail stick to the heart.  My first attempt failed miserably and I was very glad that Dimensional Magic can be removed with warm water. 

So, I was down to my last resort: I had another heart pendant that had a flat back, and I hoped to "marry" the two back-to-back and let them "share" a bail.  I used a light coat of D.M. to smush them together, and after an hour, I applied a light second coat around the edges.  And now...SUCCESS!!

Side view with locket on the bottom

 

 

The back

Hanging Once Again!!

And James really wanted me to show off the pictures inside: his first Halloween as Yoda, and this past Halloween as a cowboy:

 

Do you know, I never even got to put pictures in it before today?  I'm so very happy!

Today is another milestone as well.  We're meeting James's teacher this afternoon at Open House, and tomorrow is the first day of Kindergarten!  If I'm a sobbing mess after dropping him off, at least I'll have my locket to hold onto.