Day 11:Enve-leftovers

So I really didn't even think about crafting anything until...5 minutes ago.  Which should tell you right now I am providing you a craft that only takes 5 minutes.

Plus a tad of drying time.

Materials:
-Wall Paper Leftovers (hence the title)
-Scissors
-Glue (normal glue, no E6000 needed here unless you are just an overachiever)

First, you want to cut out a heart.  I really don't find it necessary that it be very precise.  I used really technical methods such as...

Folding the wallpaper rectangle in half...cutting a heart out of it, eyeballing it all the way.

You just dont want it to have been tall curves.  You need it more petite.  Think Mickey Mouse, not Mickey Mule.

Anyway fold the sides in like so. Again, I am not very precise.  I like to not put hard creases in until I make all of my hypothetical folds to make sure it works.  You may have a different method you prefer.

Like precision, for instance.

Glue those sides down, or use the self stickability of the wall paper if you can (mine didn't pan out for such methods).

Next, fold the mouse ears up like so, and glue down appropriately.

Speaking of, would it not be neat to make an envelope that kinda resembled Mickey?


By the way, if this one looks small...it is.  I really like tiny little envelopes and think they would be super cute to put little notes in for people.

However, this is perfectly adaptable to larger envelopes.

If you were to cut a perfect square, you could put it down where it looked diamond shaped and fold in sides, etc.

So then you basically just crease the top down and there you go, five minute envelope (if you use fast drying glue or some mini glue dots).

My vote is ALWAYS for mini glue dots.  I like instant gratification.

Not that a lot of people wallpaper things anymore it seems, but you can find some seriously cheap rolls of it at flea markets.

And this could easily be done with any excess paper, as long as you can get a heart out of it.

Now I just need to find a teeny tiny note to leave someone :). Pin It Now!

Day 10: Wire Ring

Today I had a complete and utter creative block on what to do for a craft.  I tried a few things I had been thinking about and I completely just found nothing that panned out.  I stared at my bead box and stared and stared...

And stared some more...

I wrapped wire around beads, I messed with washers, I folded paper (terribly).  Finally, I remembered once seeing a ring made from wire.  So I tried to focus my creative juices long enough to get something done.

What you need:
-Silver Wire (or whatever color) you need one fairly strong but still manageable enough that you can bend it easy.  I had a multipack of little spools of wire, and I sadly don't remember exactly what gauge they were
-A big bead, mine was blue.

Ignore the rose bead in the back.  I have tried so much to make these beads work in something and I hate them.  Ok, I think they are super cute, I just can't seem to make them do what I want!

Anyway, back to the ring.  I wrapped the wire (fairly loosely) around my finger about 3 or 4 times and then just twisted the remaining ends down to hold them together. 

I was going to just use these ends to hook the ring in and that quickly just turned out to not even be feasible with the length of what I had left.

But that's ok, adaptation is everything.

I had this interesting looking bead that was somewhat oblong and the best shade of blue a person could ask for.  Not that I reall wear a lot of blue, but when you can't even get your brain to cooperate long enough to craft something, a bead like this looks like the gates of heaven.

Why I have no craftability: I have discovered that my move to college is coming a lot faster than I realized.  I thought I had an extra week than what I do, so now I am more in a rush-rush mode trying to get all the final details done.  I don't think we will have tons of help moving and it could be a legitimate nightmare, but I am sure we will get it all done.  It has been really difficult to make decisions somewhat sight unseen and get this whole thing together in a cohesive state. 

Shoulda had a wider friends network, shoulda planned ahead and had a boyfriend for moving time, shoulda had a dad that would come help me move...eh, you can't win em all.  We managed to get an entire house moved this year, I am sure my apartment will be much simpler.

And I found an awesome armchair for $55 bucks at a flea market.

Anyway. The ring turned out a lot cuter than I thought it would.  By now I am sure you have seen the bird's nest necklace pendants, and I think those with copper wire could be a really cute ring as well.  If you were really crafty, you could probably make some that looked similar to animal heads with beads for eyes and whatnot. 

And best of all, this was free!  Pin It Now!

Day 9: Dried Flower Ornament

SO there have been a lot of DIY's on Pinterest about dried flower ornaments, mostly for weddings and what not.  I have had some dried flowers for a few years that were from the first time I had gotten flowers from someone.  When I saw the how-to's, I knew it was the perfect way to use them!

Materials:
-An ornament that comes in two pieces that you can put things inside (if that makes sense) (Hobby Lobby, glass jar/wood section, about $1.60ish)
-Dried Flowers (duh)
-E6000
-Ribbon, ornament hanger, and any other glitter or similar you may want to use

Here you can see my ornament in 2 pieces, which hopefully describes it better than I tried to. 

A note on drying flowers.  I have dried flowers in 4 different ways:
            -I have microwaved them (the petals) and it worked
            -I have dried them between printer paper smashed in a book, that worked really well also (takes way longer)
            -I have hung them upside down, duct taped to a wall in my closet, this also worked...and took a long long time
            -And I have used the silica sand stuff, which took a few days, worked pretty well, and is great for things like calla lilies that you want them to hold their shape a little better.

So pretty much any of those are suitable.  I would suggest the book method for flat flowers, the hanging for roses, the microwave for petals, and the silica for lilies and similar.

I put a healthy dose of E6000 glue in the back hemisphere at the bottom. I made a base of the dried baby's breath and put the roses in on top, adding more glue as needed. 

I put a few petals in the back, mostly just because I had them, they really didn't make any life altering changes in the overall appearance.

Once I had the flowers arranged as I liked, I put a very small amount of glue around the ridge and snapped the front hemisphere in place.

This might not have been necessary, but I was thinking about storage and wanted to be safe that it would not come apart and crush the flowers.

I added the little brown ribbon in on top, but think it could have used a better ribbon, this one is somewhat understated.

There are all sorts of things you could add in like glitter or Flower Soft.  FS looks like snow really (not flowers) and adds really interesting texture to projects.

Remember the fuzzy teddy bear stickers? It is sorta like that.  But not.  Go get some, like I said it makes great snow!

This is my first ornament for my tree that I don't own yet but will have in my room at Christmas time.  I plan on making many more personalized ornaments, so be prepared for random bursts of Holiday CHEER!
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Day 8: Trunk Rehab

For many years, my extensive Beanie Baby collection lived in the teal trunk in our room devoted entirely to toys.  However, I finally figured out that they really should be in a clear tub because they could not see out...haha just kidding.  I wanted the trunk because I love trunks, and the Beanie Babies needed to be in a tub better suited for long term storage in variable conditions.  Such begins my trunk rehab experience.

Materials:
-Ugly old trunk.  Mine was teal.  Not pretty teal, pretty HIDEOUS teal.
-Paint.  I prefer Behr paint and primer, I chose a gray called "Anonymous"
-Stencils (optional) and a different color of paint (mine was white crackle paint)
-Paint brushes, drop clothes, tape, whatever you prefer to use in your painting ventures.

Here is my ex Beanie Baby Hotel.  Structurally it has a few small issues, but nothing that hinders its usage severely.  I don't mind not being able to quite latch it.

I don't use painters tape.  I can get projects done much quicker if I paint slow and careful than if I have to take the time to tape.  I may be the slowest taper EVER.

We happened to have an extra cheapo shower liner lying around, so I used that as a drop cloth. 

I would advise using an angled brush (1 inch) or using a teeny tiny brush to trim if you are like me and have no desire to paint.

I bought a larger brush but did not even bother to use it, the 1 inch did just fine for the whole thing.

I bought my stencils for about $3, and they came with two different kinds of patterns on the sheet.  I instantly loved this "border" pattern because by alternating the direction of the sheet it made a damask print.

I found this crackle paint on clearance.  Let me tell you, it made my life miserable.  Unless you just love the look of crackle (which I do) and dont have crackle spray paint (which I didn't)...PUH-LEASE use something else.  Use some neato spray or something because this is just mentally exhausting and it's really fume-y. 

Which should be a legal Words With Friends play.

As you can see I goofed up pretty bad on that last bottom one (cue the mental exhaustion), but if you have a paint can opener or something you can scrape with you can try to make something similar to the pattern and then touch up the paint.

Seriously, be prepared to touch up some paint if you deal with this crackle mumbo-jumbo. 

Anyway, here is my finished product.  I did not do the back because no one will ever see it as it is going at the end of my bed.  I think it looks alright with the small section left untouched, it might also have been cute to paint that a different color.

Something for you to think about.

I absolutely love it, and it will be joining me at college.  Unless its sister trunk that is still at home turns out better whenever I decide to rehab it. 

This one would also look great in my future craft studio, which is going to have a lot of damask in it as well.  But for now, college it is.

The paint cost about $35 bucks, but I have a lot left and will be able to use it on other projects. Counting the stencils and the brushes I really spent about $58 bucks at the home improvement store.  So that is the only thing that really stinks about a project like this.  Paint is never cheap.  But you really could get by on a quart instead of a gallon on something like this, it only took me one coat.  But like I said we have a few other things that need this paint as well (our living room is this color and there are some touch-ups on the horizon). 

So nothing will go to waste!

Day 8 goes down as a success!

And Walsh-Jennings/May-Treanor got gold! WOOHOO! Pin It Now!

Cut from the Same Fabric: Day 7

I think this is day 7 at least! I am already losing track of time.  Oh, and a quick moment, I MUST celebrate the fact that May-Treanor and Walsh-Jennings are in the sand volleyball finals again. I used to play volleyball some, so I love seeing them play.

Anyway, my mom came up with the idea yesterday after making the skirt that I should make something from some of the remaining fabric...challenge accepted!  I wanted to make a statement necklace...but it ended up the same size as a regular necklace, but I still think it is SUPER COOL.

Materials you will need:
-Excess Fabric (in my case, the halter top part of my dress)
-Wood Beads (I find these in packs of 8 near the jewelry section of my favorite craft store, where leather working stuff is)  I used 5 beads in my necklace.
-Other beads, such as silver ones, to use as spacers
-An old beaded necklace you never wear but can upcycle (or strings, clasps, and beads if you don't have one)
-Wildfire cord (or other beading string)
-Needle and thread
-E6000 (optional)

You may want to use better scissors than I did.  Luckily, I didn't really care.

Alright so my theory was sew the fabric around the bead so to speak, mostly by catching the fabric while threading the needle through the bead hole.  If you are going to do it this way you really need to use some thin beading cord (I used wildfire cord) that fits through a needle so that you can string them later, because unless you precisely cut the material it will fill up the hole.

Precision and my attention span never cooperate.

Regardless, do this to all of your wood beads, focusing on the pattern if it matters to you.  This could aslo be done with embroidery thread, very thin strips of fabric, rawhide, etc, really with anything that you could loop through the hole and glue if you preferred not to sew.

You have to start pulling really tight toward the end so that it pulls the fabric back through the hole.  I cut any excess fabric off and did what I like to call a "running whip stitch" (Grey's Anatomy fan) to secure the loose end.

Does it look anything like a real RWS? Oh probably not.  But since I don't know what it looks like, I am going to pretend that it is identical.

PhD in Crafts, baby.

Anyway.  I had a multistrand necklace that had about 4 strands on each side of small white beads and a pendant in the middle.  I cut the cord where the pendant was with the remaining necklace creatively held so that beads did not spill everywhere.

I took about a half inch or so of beads off each side of the necklace.  I threaded some wildfire cord through a needle and sent it through all of the beads.  As you can see I used some silver beads, I like to think they have a little tribal flair in them, between the fabric covered beads.

With the old necklace I just knotted the strands on each side and then tied the ends of the Wildfire cord through them as well. 

I also went ahead and added some E6000 glue at the knots, because I get a little paranoid about my knot tying abilities.

It is my goal to wear a necklace I made on the first day of graduate school, which won't be difficult because I have quite a few of them already, and I definitely think this guy is in the running.

SO raid your closets, raid your jewelry boxes, and go find something to upcycle!

Day 7 and going strong.

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Day 6: Dress for Skirt-cess

At least 4 if not 5 years ago, I bought a multicolored halter dress.  I wore it to college orientation (everyone else was in sweat pants, figures) and maybe a few other places.  It was never my favorite dress.  I have had some of my clothes for over 6 years, my Doc Martens have lasted me about 9 years, so I just never threw the dress away.

Lucky me, because now I can upcycle it.

Let me just start out by saying...I can't sew worth a darn.  I have only used a machine once in my life, so I opted to do this by hand.

WHICH I also have no clue what I am doing during.

My materials:
-This dress
-Elastic Beading cord
-Needle and Black thread
-Beads
-Scissors

So I started by cutting off the dress.  I put it on and determined about where I might want a skirt to hit me versus how I might want to do the dress.

I considered making it puckered, but there is little need to make this dress any louder than it already is.

So I stuck with a (vaguely) straight cut across the top.

Here she is once cut.  You better believe I will be figuring out something to do with the top fabric as well.

I used some "On-a-string" elastic beading cord in white and wrapped it around my waist to determine how long I wanted to cut the cord.

I was going for one that would be long enough to tie (a faux drawstring if you will) and that I could add beads to the end.

I then started sewing the cord in, rolling the fabric over the cord as I went to form a pseudo hem.

Because again, I literally have no idea what the appropriate way to do this would have been.

But the people who know the least have the most to learn.

I put my stitches really close together, because at first I did not and I ended up popping some of them when I went to try it on.

After I got the whole thing stitched (twice) I raided my bead supply to find a few that would look good with the print and colors in the skirt.

I think these two kinds do a decent job, no?


I double knotted the ends, and pulled them extremely tight.

Here is my finished product, and I think it is much more wearable now for a longer season than it was as a halter dress.  The elastic cord mechanism seems to work just fine.

My mom says there is elastic thread you can buy that would have worked out easier on this.  Who knew?  Heads up for anyone who may try this, go look for that stuff.

This skirt looks really good with a plain black shirt, and inspired me to make a large statement necklace sometime soon to go with it.  So keep your eyes on the horizon, because more shenanigans will spawn from this I am sure.


Now if only I could learn how to turn things into perfectly tailored pencil skirts...

Day 6- FREE!  Thank goodness I had such an extensive Mecca before this began.  But seriously, raid your house, there are all kinds of great things waiting to be crafted. Pin It Now!

Day 5: ICE CREAM (you scream)!

I finally broke in my ice cream maker.  I bit the proverbial bullet and tried out my new toy...erm I mean tool.  We had a lot of strawberries left over from a cake we made recently, so strawberry seemed like a good way to go.   The recipe goes a little like this:

-A minimum of 3 cups of strawberries (really up to you on how much you like) cut up with 1/2 cup sugar and 4 TB lemon juice poured on them (let it sit for around 30 min so it starts to get juicy)
-2 Cups of Heavy Whipping Cream
-1 cup sugar
-1 6 ounce carton of Chobani yogurt (I used strawberry)
-1.5 cup of milk (higher fat milk yields creamier ice cream)

Cut your strawberries up and let them sit in the sugar/lemon juice for a while.  If you want your ice cream sweeter you can leave out the lemon juice.  Mash them with a potato masher (or put them in a blender for you fancy folk) until you get them to your desired consistency.


I personally like mine to have bits and pieces in it, but it is perfectly acceptable to puree them completely. 

If you choose to, I would err on the side of fewer strawberries as it will be more liquidy.


Anyway, back to the process.

Mix the remaining ingredients and chill it a couple of hours until cold.  Chill your metal canister in your ice cream maker as well.

Plop all of your ingredients in the canister and follow the instructions for adding salt and operating the machine and whatnot.

Look at the pretty ice crystals that formed on mine! I wanted to get a cool picture of the smoke that was coming off of it, but it did not pan out.

Oh, and ice cream salt is located on the spice row in most cases, with the other salt, just so you know when the guy leads you to driveway melting, 40 pound bags of rock salt.

Anyway, churn churn churn, 30 minutes.

When the ice cream maker is done working it's magic, transfer your ice cream to bowl you can plop in a freezer and give it a few hours.

Or eat it on the soft side right when it comes out of the machine, there is no judging here.


This has so far been my tastiest craft yet!

Oh, and if there are only two people in your household...be prepared to share unless you just really eat a LOT of ice cream.


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