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Category Archives: Crafts

Painted Bubble Gift Wrap

May 16, 2013 By in Crafts, Gift Wrap & Cards Tags: , , , , , , , , 3 Comments

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My whole family is coming up this weekend for my cousins fourth birthday party at Chuck-E-Cheese. They were gracious to all make the trip here so my husband and I could join in on the fun which was really nice.  His brother is two and my niece is turning 5 in a few weeks so it’s fun to watch them play with each other. My husband and I usually get the a big gift for whichever kid is having their birthday and then get a few small things for the other two so that they have a package to open as well. I’m always trying to find cute and unique ways to wrap gifts and I saw this in Martha Stewart Living a couple months ago and added it to my list to try. It’s incredibly easy and if you have kids then you probably have all the supplies necessary (bubbles, paint, paper and straws) so you could knock this project out in an afternoon! I think it’s a really playful way to wrap kids gifts and I added my recycled bag bows (find the DIY HERE) to complete the whole thing.   You can use this technique for other things too… I think it would look cool on a card or even on fabric for some pillows!  Click here to get the tutorial and see how to do it!

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Mother’s Day Flower Pot Cards

May 8, 2013 By in Crafts, Gift Wrap & Cards, Holidays Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , 6 Comments

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I see that a lot of you are making my Pop-Up Mother’s Day card from last year (find it HERE) so I wanted to make sure that I shared my card from this year with you too! I apologize to my mom and my mother-in-law for ruining the surprise as these cards are currently in the mail on their way to you but, hey, it’s the thought that counts right? I saw a version of this card HERE and changed the measurements and flowers, plus I don’t have whatever machine they used to cut all the flowers and shapes so I did the whole thing by hand. I love the idea that you can send a bouquet of flowers without actually sending a bouquet of flowers! The “flower pot” is actually a little pocket and the “bouquet” is the actual card that pulls out, and the message is hidden in the bottom part that sits in the pot. These will be amazing for mother’s day, but also a cool idea for any time you want to “send someone flowers”!  Click here to get the tutorial and see how they’re made!

Herringbone Table

April 29, 2013 By in Crafts, DIY Furniture Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 9 Comments

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I am SO excited to be sharing this post with all of you… it was a long time in-the-making and I have been so busy since we finished it I didn’t have the time to share yet! I had this idea in my head for this table months ago and when I knew my parents were coming up for the weekend a few weeks ago, I thought now would be a perfect time to make it. I have to start by telling you all how amazing my dad (I call him Sparky) is. He was so patient with me while I tried to vocalize the MANY ideas I had floating around my head and he took them all and combined them into a clear plan. He is a project manager at a welding company so he has the software on his computer that made designing this so much easier than it would have been otherwise! He helped up pick materials, did most of the work (my husband is self-proclaimed NOT handy and I like to leave it to the professionals lol) and didn’t even complain when he missed 90% of the Masters (which is a huge deal for him). He hates when I put his picture on here, so I’m sure I’ll be getting a text about that later (lol) but I want to give him as much credit as I can because we truly wouldn’t have been able to do this without him. I think it’s so cool that he’s able to take an idea, design it, figure out all the logistics and then build it. This table is seriously SO cool and I love that we all made it together, it was probably torture for my dad because he got stuck with the brunt of the work but I had so much fun spending the time with him building something. I’ll give the step-by-step picture tutorial but I will preface that by saying this was not an easy or quick project but I will brag that we gave Sparky a 150$ budget and he came in under it! Oh yeah, and did I mention he built it to fit over our existing patio table frame so we only had to make the top and it can be removed for storage in the winter months?? Long story short, Sparky’s the man! Click here to get the tutorial and see how it was made!

Repainting Old Doormats

April 17, 2013 By in Crafts, Home Decor, Home Tips, Painting Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , 7 Comments

Painted Doormat Before and After

As I mentioned in my Spring cleaning post (find it HERE), our welcome mat has seen better days. When we got it three years ago it was beautiful (you can buy it HERE) but since then it has been really worn by the elements. We keep it in the garage in the winter to try and save it from even more damage but when I went to pull it out this year, it was so faded I was ready to purchase a new one. Then I got to thinking, “I bet I could just repaint this one and try to salvage it” so that’s what I did! It was surprisingly easy to do (I did it in less than a half hour while I was waiting in between coats of polyurethane on our new outdoor table) and it really does look just like new. My motto is always “why spend money when you don’t have to” and it’s always nice to revamp something old and give it new life (did you see my statement necklace post HERE?) so this is a great home tip. If you don’t have a straw mat now, the dollar stores sell them so you could paint absolutely anything on one and be all ready for spring!  Click here to get the tutorial and see how I did it!

Neon Statement Necklace Revamp

April 10, 2013 By in Crafts, Fashion & Accessories, Painting Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , 8 Comments

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Last spring I did a post on THIS necklace, where I spray painted a bib style statement necklace with neon yellow spray paint. Every where I went people complimented me on it and asked where I got it. It was such an easy project and since then I have worn it SO much that I was starting to feel like I might have to retire it. As I mentioned in my Instalife post a couple weeks ago, I am currently obsessing over coral so I thought why not just give this necklace a new coat of paint?! I ended up spray painting it neon pink to cover the yellow and then I actually finished it off with a coat of coral nail polish. The one complaint I had about the way the necklace previously was that it chipped a lot from wear and so I had to re-paint it every couple of months. With the nail polish I not only like that it looks shiny instead of matte but that it seals the paint up so I shouldn’t have to do touch ups! The best part is that with just a change of color this is a totally new necklace and when I want to change things up again I can repaint it any color I want!  Click here to get the tutorial and see how I revamped this DIY!

Matchstick Bottles

April 6, 2013 By in Crafts, Home Decor Tags: , , , , , 8 Comments

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I know most people have hopped on the LED Flameless Candle and lighter bandwagons but I love real candles and matches. I liked having matchbooks from different places we’d been but I didn’t like that there are so few matches in them. I didn’t want to keep big boxes of matches laying around either so I started looking into alternatives. I saw that people put sandpaper on the top of mason jars filled with matches, but after reading the comments quickly learned it was not that easy. “you need certain numbered grit sandpaper, you need an impossible-to-find type of match, etc” derailed me from that plan when I thought, duh… put a piece of the strike strip from box on the bottom of cool bottles! I went out and found some old-school apothecary jars and got to work and I’m loving the idea. These little bottles not only look cool but they’re much easier than tracking down a clunky box every time you want to light a candle!  Click here to get the DIY tutorial!

Marbleized Easter Eggs

March 27, 2013 By in Crafts, Holidays Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , 10 Comments

DSC_0309As soon as I saw a version of these in this month’s Martha Stewart Living (find it HERE), I couldn’t wait to try them out. The best part about it was that I already had all the supplies at my house so when I had some free time on Monday I made them in just a couple hours. I love how cool the marbleized design turns out and I had fun mixing and matching colors… you could make these to match any Easter decor! I always blow out my eggs before making them so that I can pack them up and use them year after year and these are a fun design to mix it with some from previous years (see some HERE)! This will be the first year that we’re home by ourselves on Easter (my parents deserted us to go on vacation longer than normal this year, the nerve right?! lol) so I have a fun idea to use these as a centerpiece for our meal I’m making. 

Click here to get the tutorial and see how they’re made!

Spiderman iPad Case

March 11, 2013 By in Crafts, iPod, iPhone & iPad, Sewing & Patterns Tags: , , , , , , , , , 4 Comments

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We spent the weekend out of town at my parents which was very fun but extremely busy! It’s always so nice to get away for the weekend but coming back and trying to unpack, grocery shop for the week, clean up the house, do laundry and catch up on lots of work is always overwhelming. Throw in losing an hour’s sleep to daylight savings time and me catching my husband’s cold from last week… let’s just say this Monday is even less fun than normal lol! I made this iPad case as a Christmas gift and in the madness that was December I forgot to do a post on it so I thought I’d share it with you today. My husband’s cousin’s son LOVES spiderman so I knew I wanted to make him something to do with that but he already has so many I wanted to make sure it was something different. He has an iPad and we were already getting him an iTunes gift card so I thought it would be perfect to make him a Spiderman case and put the card in the zipper pocket. I used the same tutorial that I shared with you last summer (find it HERE) with just a couple of changes that makes things easier. I love how it turned out… it’s amazing how just changing the fabric to a character or a specific pattern makes this such a one-of-a-kind and thoughtful gift!

Click here to get the tutorial and see how it’s made!

Easy iPhone Sleeves

March 4, 2013 By in Crafts, Fashion & Accessories, iPod, iPhone & iPad, Sewing & Patterns Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment

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I have been meaning to make this for seriously over a year and I finally had some time last week and made a few of them. I already had my iPhone sleeves with the pocket and button flap closure, but I wanted something much simpler that I could throw in my gym bag. This tutorial came from HERE and it seriously couldn’t be any easier. I tweaked a couple things to simplify it even more and was really happy with how it turned out. This is made for my iPhone 4S but if you have the iPhone 5 just add .75″ to the length it will fit the newer ones! I have added another category to the Crafts Section at the top of the page for iPod, iPhone & iPad projects so if you need some more inspiration be sure to check that out. Speaking of Apple products, my husband won an iPad mini in a work contest… does anyone have a great DIY tutorial for a case? I want an envelope style one that I can make out of leather but am open to suggestions!  Click here to get the tutorial for the easy iPhone Sleeves and see how they’re made!

Feather Trim Collar Necklace

February 27, 2013 By in Crafts, Fashion & Accessories Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 4 Comments

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I have been waiting to make this necklace since last fall but the feather trim I wanted to use has been on back order. While sitting in my office last week trying to decide on my next DIY, it occurred to me that I could just make my own. My husband and I were working to clear out some space in our basement a few weeks ago and I asked him to throw out a really old halloween wreath I had made. He asked if I wanted him to at least save the feathers and I looked at him like he was crazy but said yes… who knew he was such a genius! Using those to make the trim, chain from my headpieces to make the necklace part and a beaded rhinestone from my sandals to accent it, this DIY was a nice way use up extra materials I already had. This is a pretty simple necklace to make, and would be made even simpler by buying pre-made feather trim. I can’t wait to wear it, I like that it can really dress up even the simplest of outfits!  Click here to get the tutorial and see how it’s made!

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