Archives for September 2011

Decor, Craft & Home Tips From Pinterest

Seriously, Pinterest has changed my life. I know you know what I am talking about. I spent the majority of my day there, and am eager to share with you some of my favorite crafty DIY finds.  Here you go, from making your own mod podge to using car wax for a glistening stove top.  Enjoy and thank you Pinterest!

*Free printables, fall and all other categories at iShare Printables.  So excited to have found this site!

Free Printables

*Printing on Fabric by Modern Day Moms;  This is so cute, and simple.  What a great gift idea.

Print On Fabric

*Make your own mod podge with Do it Yourself Divas!

Make Your Own Mod Podge

*Use vinegar to restore gunked up paintbrushes over at This Old House.

How to Clean Paintbrushes

*Use carwax to maintain a pristine stovetop, over at Real Simple.

How to Clean Stovetop

*48 gifts in a jar, shared by Tip Junkie;

Handmade bath and body

 

 

Thrifty Thursday Week 42

ThriftyThursday

Featured
Yay!  It is Thrifty Thursday again.  Can’t wait to see what you crafty ladies are up to this week.  Thanks for stopping by.

How it Works:  No giveaways, shops or links to your main blog, please. That way we know when we come to Thrifty Thursday, we will only encounter DIY projects and not end up sifting through a bunch of other links. Entries not related, or to main blog pages/shops/giveaways will be deleted.
Other stuff:

*Stop by my new Facebook page and Like it, if you like it – Click here.
*Please add a link or my button to your post!
*I will choose 2 participants to feature the following Thursday, Please drop by and follow the features! Their links are in the post where their projects are featured.
*Please visit the at least the 2 blogs above you and shower them with comment love.
*Leave me a comment and let me know you were here. I love hearing from you.
*Have fun and be inspired!
*Stop by and say hello to Nikki and link up to her thrifty party too…
thrifty decorating 003 Page 4 1 Thrifty Thursday Week 41

Weekly Featured Projects:

  • This living room at The Pennington Point is really doing it for me.  It love the way it all comes together, and the scripture wall is beautiful!  I wanna do that.

Fall home decor

  • Jenn at Rook No. 17 absolutely blows my mind with her culinary creations.  This toadstool cake tops it all.  Oh my gosh you guys, look at it.  Her detailed tutorial makes me feel like I could actually do this.  You rock, Jenn!

mushroom toadstool cake

Party time…

Polymer Clay What?

Polymer Clay TutorialsThere are some amazing things happening with polymer clay these days.  Since I have been in the studio for the past 72 hours and all I have to show you is a big ol craft fail (that is for another day), I thought I would share a jackpot source brimming with cool free tutorials I found recently. Might I just say, thank you pinterest!

Over at Iratirita is a three part series listing tons of tutorials for beautiful clay creations.  I am not even kidding… this must have taken forever to put together.  There is everything from beads, bracelets and pendants to surfaces, image transfers and more.  Some of the tutorials are not in English, but you can follow the pictures pretty well or just use Google translate.

A big thanks to Iratirita for compiling this wonderful clay project resource list.  I know where I am going for polymer inspiration!

Fall Front Porch Reveal

Paint Pumpkins

I have shown you a pumpkin and wreath here and there.  Now for the full reveal.  This porch was DIY frugal all the way.  Using supplies you probably have on hand, some fall foliage from your yard, and some creativity, you will be well on your way to a cozy, welcoming autumn porch.

 

Fall porch

Fall porch

Save old paint cans and paint them in fall colors.  Here I used masking tape to create the stripes on the black can.  I gathered the husk from the ground at a local park to put in the can.  The pumpkin I spray painted black, painted acrylic blue over that, then rubbed off in most places with a dry towel.  I love the distressed look that came out of it.  I wrapped some orange cotton yarn around the stem and threw a hand stamped tag on there.

Fall porch

Here are the blue crackle pumpkins from the post linked above.  Easy and quick, you check it out if you like the look.  The spray painted white gourd is adorned with self adhesive scrapbooking border.  What I love about this part is that I actually grew the squash.  Can’t say I have ever grown my own home decor until now!

Fall crafts

Here is another paint can with white stripe painted on, as well as a white pumpkin with black crackle stamp like the blue above.  The give thanks pumpkin came from last year’s fall decor.  I spray painted over the white pumpkin with its vinyl lettering, then removed the vinyl, leaving white words on black pumpkin.

Fall crafts

There you have it.  Frugal fall decor possibilities are endless.  What are some of your favorite ideas?

Customizable Monogram Wedding Printable With Tutorial

How to make a monogram

Do you want to skip the registries and opt for a unique, personalized wedding gift that is sure to stand out as a treasured token of the special day?  In this article you will find a free digital download of the layered photoshop file used to make the framed monogram you see here, as well as a simple, detailed photo tutorial showing you how to personalize the text for your bride and groom.

You will need:

  • Photoshop and a basic understanding of how it works.
  • A color printer and glossy photo paper, or a printing service
  • Square picture frame

DIY Wedding Monogram

Tutorial:

  • Download the file I created in photoshop, here.  Unzip and open the file in photoshop.
  • Select the text tool in photoshop either by clicking the T in the vertical toolbar on the right, or by hitting ‘t’ on your keyboard.  The text of the image is separated into 3 layers as shown in the picture below.  Double  click the top text layer thumbnail to select the date text, then type in your desired text.  Repeat for the remaining 2 text layers.

Photoshop Monogram Tutorial

  • Now you have changed the date, the couple’s names and the large surname initial layer in the background.    You can further customize to your liking by changing the color of the overlay effect under layer “Background Copy” as shown below.

Photoshop Text Tutorial

  • Now you will need to size the image to fit your frame.  The original size is 6.75 x 6.75 inches at 300ppi resolution (optimal resolution for highest picture quality).  To do this, click on “Image”, then “Image Size” in the photoshop horizontal toolbar.  Change the size to fit your frame in the window as shown below.  Photoshop text tutorial

Photoshop text tutorial

  • Now you are ready to save the file; In toolbar, go to “File” then “Save As”.  You will get the following window.  Save as jpg or pdf as shown.

Photoshop text tutorial

Print at home or use your favorite printing service.  I absolutely love how this turned out, and it took no time at all.


Easy Blue Crackle Pumpkins

Pumpkin Paint Designs

This time of year brings a parade of creatively embellished pumpkin decor to fit any style out there.  I have posted on SBLC’s facebook fan page some of my favorites over the past week, eluding to my recent pumpkin painting marathon.  This project was inspired by Beth at Home Stories.  Here is her version, using crackle medium.  Today I will share with you an alternative way to create this faux crackle effect with using stamps.  The result is beautiful with fewer steps involved, and greater control over the amount and placement of the cracks.

Painting pumkings

Supplies:

  • Fake or real pumpkins, gourds; I got my pumpkins at dollar tree and the gourds from my garden
  • Spray primer
  • light blue acrylic paint for the pumpkin, black for the stem
  • Staz on jet black ink pad
  • Flexible crackle texture stamp

Painting pumpkins

Instructions:

  • Remove the stems from the plastic pumpkins and spray on white primer.  When that is dry, paint over primer with light blue acrylic paint.  I used Martha Stewart craft paint in Sky Blue.
  • While that is drying, paint the stems you black.
  • When pumpkins are dry (I used a heat tool to speed this along), ink up your texture sheet and randomly apply crackle stamp to surface.  You can go for just a little crackle, to a heavy effect.  If you go overboard, you can always paint over the stamp with blue.  The flexible stamp allows you to get into the curves and depressions.

Fall DecoratingThat is it!  I thought up this technique after a botched attempt using crackle medium, and I am thrilled with its simplicity and effectiveness.  What do you think?  What are you doing with pumpkin decor this year?

How to decorate pumkins

No carve pumpkin decorating

Fall Burlap Wreath DIY

How to Make a Wreath

Who can get enough of burlap these days?  There are so many fabulous fall wreaths out there incorporating the versatile fabric.  I snatched up a roll of burlap garland at a garage sale awhile back, and used it to make this quick and easy fall wreath.  Grab a wire hanger and craft your very own.

Supplies:

  • Roll of “burlap garland”.  Not sure exact yardage on this one.  Also not sure where you can buy it since I got it at a yard sale.
  • Wire hanger
  • Flower embellishments of your choice
  • Ribbon to hang wreath

How to Make a Wreath

Instructions:

  • Clip the coils and hook of the hanger and shape the remaining wire into a circle, as best you can.  Mine was far from perfect, and my wreath looks good.

How to Make a Wreath

How to Make a Wreath

  • Next, fold the burlap every couple of inches to make a ruffle, and stick the hanger through the stack of ruffles.
  • How to Make a WreathWhen it is as full as you want, twist the wire ends around one another and tuck them behind the ruffles to hide them.
  • Hot glue flowers of your choice.  I used some scrapbook embellishment paper flowers and a felt flower.  Tie your ribbon at the top and that is that!

How to Make a Wreath

Thrifty Thursday Week 41





Thank you for stopping by Thrifty Thursday. Bring on the projects!  I love seeing what everyone has been up to.  Is it just me, or are the decorated pumpkins out of this world this year?!

How it Works:  No giveaways, shops or links to your main blog, please. That way we know when we come to Thrifty Thursday, we will only encounter DIY projects and not end up sifting through a bunch of other links. Entries not related, or to main blog pages/shops/giveaways will be deleted.
Other stuff:

*If you wanna brighten my day, stop by my new Facebook page and Like it, if you like it!!  Click here.*Please add a link or my button to your post!
*I will choose 2 participants to feature the following Thursday, Please drop by and follow the features! Their links are in the post where their projects are featured.
*Please visit the at least the 2 blogs above you and shower them with comment love.
*Leave me a comment and let me know you were here. I love hearing from you.
*Have fun and be inspired!
*Stop by and say hello to Nikki and link up to her thrifty party too…

Weekly Featured Projects:

  • I am all over painted pumpkins today.  I mean really.  Hours and hours I have spent on these things.  Check out these painted pumpkins with address by Missy at Lookie What I Did.  I like how she used vinyl to trace out lines to paint in the numbers.  I would have just left the vinyl on there, missing out on the lovely hand painted look.

Painted Pumpkins

  • I wanna steal this chair by Milla at Design Par Deux.  It reminds me of the new Target Mossino line.  Ziggity Zaggity fun.  Go check out the before pic.  You will be amazed.

Chair reupholster

It is time to share your creativity and be inspired!

Spray Paint Goodwill Glass

Spray paint on glass

Accessorizing a colorful room can end up being pretty costly.  Especially when you are someone who gets bored and likes to change up the color palate frequently.  Decorate that room on a budget, without sacrificing style by spray painting thrift store glass jars and containers to coordinate.  The beauty of this tactic is that you get a big color bang for your buck, and when it is time for a change, you can just paint over your glass accessories!

How to Spray Paint Glass
Supplies:

  • Glass containers/vases/dishes/jars from garage sales or thrift stores
  • Krylon Indoor/ Outdoor and/or Krylon Dual spray paint

Instructions:

  • Clean the glass with glass cleaner, removing any debris, and dry thoroughly with lint free towel.  I got my glass at Goodwill on 50% off day and spent under $10!
  • Spray paint with several light coats until you are satisfied with the coverage.  I prefer Krylon Dual for this, as it has built in primer, but it doesn’t come in all that many colors as of yet.  I used it for the white jars and tray shown.  For the blue and yellow, I used Krylon Indoor/Outdoor in Ocean Breeze and Bright Idea that I had left over from other projects.  I didn’t use primer first.  Just sprayed several light coats, allowing paint to dry in between.

Paint on glass

How to Spray Paint Glass

Candy Wrapper Magazine Page Vase

Recycled paper crafts

These coiled magazine page crafts are quite the rage!  People ask me why I don’t sell them, and there are 2 reasons.  I don’t feel comfortable selling them since I didn’t come up with them, but instead replicated what I saw at my local fair trade store.  The second reason is because I would have to charge tons of cash to make it worth the amount of time that goes into creating them!  That said… here is a vase I created from mentos wrappers (saw this at the fair trade store) and magazine pages.

Recycled paper crafts vase

I would not put water in this, even though I sealed it, just because I am not sure it would hold up over time.  It would be great for paper crafted flowers or fake flowers from the craft store.  Maybe you could even make some from magazine pages.  Hmmm… I see another coiled paper project!

For this vase, I made a coaster sized round coil for the base, and built up and out from, then back in to follow the contour of a vase.  See this post on the coiled magazine page dish for tutorial details.  After the holidays, I hope to post some video tutorials on these projects.  I have had lots of requests, and little time, but I will come through!  Enjoy, and share your coiled page creations.

Recycled Paper Vase

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