What I'm working on this next week.....

I feel like lately all I ever do is start a project and then start another one before finishing. Of course this isn't true I do finish a lot of my projects. My biggest problem is that I have way to many that I want to do or need to do and I have several going on at the same time. My goal this week is to not only start my list of projects for the next week but to get them all done this week.  


My list is a long one for the coming week: 

First I have two Halloween decor items, some polish stars made out of Halloween scrapbook paper, need to be finished and hung. I started these a couple of weeks ago, and as most of you can understand, got distracted by some other projects. They are coming out really cool so far. 

Also a new wreath with theses fun supplies. Hmm doesn't look like the ribbon made it into the shot. Oh and can someone please tell me why styro foam cost so dang much!

Then there is the never ending project here at the house. Painting the living room! I just realized that I need to update on the progress of that. I have gotten another section of paneling primed so I need to get to painting it. 


One of the little boys I take care of everyday just loves to color so I want to do one of those cool melted crayon canvases for his room at home. 










Lastly I have some art I started drawing in my art journal that needs to be finished and painted. A spin on Alice in Wonderland. 

Now let's see how much I get done, my sister is coming for a visit during this time. Keep your fingers crossed for me and check back for my progress. 

Time Out Cowl Link Up

One of my favorite bloggers, Rachel from Maybe Matilda is hosting a crochet along.  If you haven't tried to crochet yet I encourage you all to give it a try. She  really did some wonderful tutorials on how to do all the basic stitches and a walk through on how to do this pattern. I know that there were a lot of us following along so please check out the link up to see every ones. The tutorials and advice she has offered along the way would be invaluable to a newbie--she's a great instructor.

  

For this particular pattern was voted on by bloggers and is free (and simple!) offered by Lion Brand Yarn. The yarn I used was from Red Heart Curly Q: patchwork. I am so loving all of the colors in it, it will go with everything. I enjoyed making this so much that maded two other ones  LOL. I have a feeling that I will be making several more all though the fall and winter season. 




I had such a fun time with this and I hope that Rachel hosts another crochet along soon!













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Pottery Barn Knockoff..Kitchen Art

Supplies:

 wood:

 you need one piece the size of what you want your finished project to be and then you can use what ever kind of wood you would like to cut for the pieces, we went with the plank pieces so that cutting was easier.  I picked the pine that had different coloring in them 

trim:

this is for the frame, I just held them up to the wood while at the lumber store. I wanted it to a little bigger then  the wood so that there was some dimension with it also. It all depends on the wood you get and how thick you make yours

jig saw:

this is a must for lots of fun diy projects.

    wood glue:

I went with gorilla glue for this one. 

images : 

I looked on the net for the different veggies I knew I wanted and found some that had a similar look

    gel medium:

I use liquitex matte gel I get it at hobby lobby or michael's 

clamps:

we used several different kinds and as you will see later we even used bricks to help with the gluing. 

  paint:

I only painted the back piece on this one but you can add colors to your pieces like the original has. 

 The first thing you need to do is decide on the size of the art that want to make. I went with 24 x 34. At first I had planned on painting the pieces like the original has, but once I saw the colors on the wood at the lumber store I stuck with just the natural colors of the wood and the transferring gave the pieces a vintage look which just made them perfect. This picture is listed as being on sale for 229.00 at the moment (the original price was $299.00). I was able to make my version for $52.00! It can be done for less depending on the wood that you buy. We just went with what hubby thought would be easiest for him to work with :)  

Let's get started with the cutting. What we did is cut one piece at a time going in rows right to left. We would lay a piece of wood in the next spot to determine what size we wanted that one to be and marked it to cut. I have to say it was like making a puzzle. If you are good with a jig saw this is easy, I tried but for the life of me I couldn't cut a straight line to save my life so hubby was a big help there. The system that I found that worked the best is after a piece was cut I would number it, again going right to left row by row. When writing the numbers make sure you so it lightly so that it will erase off easily. I ended up with 31 pieces. 

Now after lots of measuring and cutting, the backing board was covered. It's time to print and transfer the images. Again I just went onto the net and found clip art of the veggies that I wanted to use. I will say that since I was just using my printer for the images I need an image that has a lot of ink (meaning a lot of black coloring that will be printed). Getting a copy machine copy is the best way to make sure any transfer works well.  Next I sized the images and then decided where they were going to be placed. I then turned them over and put the number on the back so that I made sure to put the right imagine on the right wood piece. 

Time to do the transfers, you will need the gel medium and and sponge brush and of course the image.   First put the number on the piece of wood on the back to keep track. You want to put a coat of gel medium just in the area that that the image is going, you will not only be transferring the ink but it will seal the wood in that area so it the extra ink will not bleeding into the wood, which is what gave mine that vintage look. Make sure that you put a good amount on but also make sure that it is smooth and no lumps and bumps. Once you have it lay your image face down and smooth it out gently, do this for all the pieces. Now the waiting begins. You want to let this dry very well so over night is your best bet to make sure that it is good and dry, you want to let it dry at lest 10 hours. 

This is now where I have to have a long talk with my camera since it decided to mess up the pictures of this next step. Once the gel medium has dried completely just spritz the paper with some water and start rubbing the paper off. As you are rubbing some of the ink with be on your fingers and this is where I just rubbed my fingers on the rest of the wood to give it the vintage look. After all the paper is rubbed off your pieces this would be when you would add a paint color is you so choose. My suggestion for this would be to add water to the paint to make it more like a wash so that it is a light wash of color to the wood piece. 

Almost there, let's break out the glue and clamps! Glue the first row down and clamp. It takes about an hour a row and you can only do one row at a time so that you get a good fit and nothing shifts. Now as you can see once that first row was done it was harder to use a clap to hold the wood piece on, so we just grabbed the extra bricks we had on the porch and used them to insure a good glue to wood contact. 

This another part of the project that takes a lot of waiting but it is well worth it in the end. Woo hoo in the home stretch now. With all the pieces glued down its time to decide where you want to put the raised pieces, measure, cut, transfer and glue. 

Lastly we cut the trim pieces to fit the finished piece to frame it. I did a light wash of color on the trim so that it matched the whole thing better. Glue it on and clamp.  When its dry put your hanger of choice onto the back and hang up for everyone to admire.  I so love the way it  turned out and it looks better then I imagined it would in my kitchen. 

One of the biggest tips that I would give with this project is that once you have the pieces cut for your first line, go ahead and do the image transfers and then glue them onto the backing board. We thought were were keeping everything lined up well when cutting all the pieces but once we started the gluing process the last row was hanging off some, so we had to cut the extra off with a router.



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Chic Framed Necklace Holder.....Thrift Store Challenge

When searching through the thrift store I found this beautiful frame that needed some sprucing up. Then I came across the cork board and I knew what I wanted to do with them. All I needed to to was add a couple more supplies and I was ready to go.

Supplies: cork board..frame..spray paint...large fun push pins.

I started out cutting the cork board down to fit snugly into the frame, and then spray painted it and the frame. 

It took about two coats for the cork board and three for the frame. Once those were dry I glued the cork into the frame with E-6000 for a firm hold.




 Next we got a ruler and decided how many rows of pins we wanted and how far apart they would be spaced. 

 I found this pins at hobby lobby, I bet if you do some net searching you can find some even  cooler ones. I do suggest that you make sure that the cork board is pretty thick so that the pins don't stick out the back and this gives it more stability. 

After all the push pins are in then its just time to start add all the necklaces and hang on the wall. This will also look beautiful on a dresser propped against the wall. 


 We are updating my daughter's room and what I had made before for all her necklaces( which was a small cork board version) wasn't working anymore so I took the idea and ran with it and made her this new more "mature" one to use.

Movie Night Popcorn Bowl

The first week's challenge for SYTYC was to make something from the dollar store, strangely this was a lot harder then I thought it would be but I do like what I ended up with. 

When cruising the Dollar Tree  I knew what I wanted to do as soon as I saw these supplies.  Like most families now a days we are having to cut back on some of the outings that we do. One of the big ones for us is going to the movies, with a family of 4 and a price tag of $35 just to get in not to mention concessions, its just something we really can't bring ourselves to do anymore. So we have movie night at home with a movie rental from redbox, movie candy and popcorn from the dollar store which can all be done for the price of just one adult ticket.

 For our new movie popcorn bowl I used a plastic punch bowl, tickets and mod podge. I switched back and forth between the two ticket colors and put an extra layer of mod podge over them all to seal the bowl.This project only cost me $3, you can't beat that!

 Then simply add popcorn and the movie candy we are ready for movie night!!!! Now who has the remote?

Round 2 SYTYC

Good Monday morning everyone! I can't believe that I haven't posted that I did make it through the audition round at


                                                       




and then I made it through week one! We are now in week two and there are some amazing projects that the ladies have created. I an really enjoying the creativity that the contest is starting up in me again and I hope to hang around for several more rounds.


Please click the button and take a couple of minutes to check out all the creations and vote!

Fall Colors for 2011

I was so excited to see the colors that came out in the Pantone fall fashion color report. I highly suggest heading over and checking all the colors out. 

There are a lot of deep colors and one of my favorites for this season is the deep teal. What a beautiful warm and rich color my mind is just turning with things to make with this color. Then when I add the phlox, nougat, coffee liquor, and bamboo I am so in love and can't wait to start playing with these colors. 

 As most crafters know these colors don't just stay in the fashion world, the craft world also looks to these colors when getting ready for the season.  We will start to see these colors in the new decor items, scrapbook pages and even in the floral departments. 
 I will be watching to see when they start to pop up in the stores, mean while I plan on collecting several times with these colors and getting a start on my fall decorating. I hope you too want to know go and play with these colors for something new for yourself or your home. 

Happy Birthday Wreath

Good morning everyone!!! Well we made it through the first week back to school with the kids already having homework and a project. It also means that Tanner had another birthday, I can't believe he is 11!  I made a wreath for the door to put up for all of our birthdays.

Lets start with the supplies, all you need is a styrofoam wreath (size of your choice), floral pins, balloons (lots and lots of balloons), ribbon, and chipboard letters.

I separated all my balloons by color so that I could have some sort of system when putting them on the wreath. Next you just take the floral pin and put it in the middle of a balloon and inserting it into the wreath lining them up next to each other going around the wreath.  Just do this step over and over and over till you have the wreath covered. I ended up doing three rows on the top and sides.

Then I added the ribbon which I recommend to do first so that its easier to hide with the balloons. Also believe it or not being styrofoam and balloons it is very heavy so you want the ribbon to be wrapped around the wreath to make sure that you have a good hold on it. I used the remainder of the ribbon to make a medallion for the letters to sit on. Next I painted all the letters and glued them together.

Last I just hot glued the Happy Birthday onto the bottom of the wreath and it was ready to go. It was a big hit and everyone can't wait to have it hanging up for their birthday's.