Faux Bead Board Chunky Frame....

I have always liked the look of bead board. I've seen frames with bead board in them or made from bead board itself, but when I went to look at bead board at the home improvement store I realized I had a few problems. First, it comes in a big sheet, so I would need a big vehicle to get it home. Second, trying to wrestle it out of the truck alone once I got home. (I guess my 4 and 2 year old would be really helpful too) Third, it is really big and I wasn't sure how to cut it without having a table saw.

So, one night I was thinking about it and I came up with an idea. Make my own bead board look-a-like using paint sticks and bamboo skewers! I tried it and it totally worked! Here is a look at the finished product:

 This is an 8x10 frame, I pulled out the glass, then measured and cut the paint sticks. (I got these from Walmart, obviously, and the paint guy just gave them to me--he thought I was a little crazy, but I don't care.) I cut the paint sticks using a utility knife, just score each side and then break the end off. Same with the bamboo skewers (they come in a pack of like 100 for $1).

Then I lined them up in the frame; paint stick, skewer, paint stick, skewer.... and so on. The last paint stick had to be trimmed a little, but I just used the utility knife for that too. Then I glued them in using hot glue. Replaced the back of the frame. Then painted and distressed the whole thing.

I wanted the chunky layered frame look, but I wasn't sure how to attach the other frame to the front without making it too permanent--I like to switch out pictures a lot. And then I had a somewhat brilliant idea!

VELCRO! Yup, sticky back velcro dots. I put the scratchy side on the small frame and soft side on the faux bead board. It works GREAT! I can swap out the pictures whenever I want, the 2nd frame stays put and it was hard or complicated! I love how they turned out---I actually made 3 for our mantel.

The Sock Sack...

As our family has grown so has the abundance of lost socks. It drives me crazy to have all the laundry done and find I still have a basket of socks without their match. Likewise, it drives me crazy to find a dozen socks under my boys bed, behind the couch, in the sandbox, or in the bottom of my pantry! When have dirty socks ever gone in the pantry?! 

So, here is my new solution to the problem, The Sock Sack. Everyone has their own sock sack, when you take off your socks, you put both socks into your sack. When the sack is getting full, zip it closed and throw the entire thing into the washer and dryer. All pairs SHOULD be accounted for. Which SHOULD make for easy folding and putting away. And I can't even wait to try it out on tiny little baby socks!

We started this routine this week and so far it has been a hit. My boys even spent an entire morning searching for my dirty socks to put in their sack. I think I will eventually make a little fabric tag for each sack, but for right now this works great!

I found our sock sacks at Walmart in the laundry basket/ironing board aisle. These are the Mainstays Brand and they were 97 cents each. There was a Tide version, but they were like $4 each. I couldn't see any reason why these wouldn't work just as well and haven't had any trouble yet. 

Hopefully, this will simplify our sock problem, do you have any time saving laundry tricks? Have a great weekend!

Valentine Wreath....

I wanted to make a wreath for our mantel for Valentine's Day, but I didn't want to spend a lot of money or time or brain power working on something. I am really happy with how this wreath turned out and it didn't have to be 'perfect'.

Here's what you need:

Coffee Filters (They come in a huge package, this was actually left over from another project I did)

Fabric Dye (I used Tuplip Red and found it at Walmart)

Hot Glue Gun and Glue Sticks

Scissors

Wreath form, whatever size and shape you would like

FIRST: you need to dye your coffee filters. This isn't hard and it doesn't have to be perfect. I used a large plastic tub in my sink. I DID NOT use all the dye. Just a bit, until it was the color I was looking for. I put about a tablespoon of salt in the tub, then the powdered dye, and added about 2 cups of boiling water. I stirred until it was all dissolved.

You MUST WEAR GLOVES! I wore throw-away medical gloves, but it doesn't really matter what you wear, just wear gloves. I dripped some on the back of my hand and could not get it off, it is slowly fading, but still there.

Add the coffee filters to the tub of dye. Make sure that they are fully covered, move them around and let them sit for as long as you like. The longer they sit in the dye the darker they will be. I did 3 batches of coffee filters, the first I let sit the longest time, and then less time and less to get a multi-shade look. 

(Sorry there are no pictures of this, but I was home alone and I didn't want to dye my hands or my camera)

Over the tub ring out the coffee filters, they are amazingly strong and I just rung out all the excess moisture. And then place them in another dry tub or bucket (remember nothing that you love it might be dyed for a while).

Once I had all the coffee filters rung out, I threw them in the dryer. Yes, my clothes dryer. I adjusted the temp to be low-medium and then let them tumble around. But watch them, this is probably a no-no and a fire hazard, so don't leave your dryer unattended. But it only took a few minutes for the coffee filters to be fluffed and dry.

Now it is time to make the ruffley-flower things for the wreath. First, fold a coffee filter in half.

 Then cut it along the fold. Now you have 2 halves.

 Fold one half in half like this.

 Then in half again.

 Then twist the pointed end. If you don't want your wreath to be real fluffy, twist it more. If you want fluff, twist less.

 Snip off the pointy part with scissors.

 Then hold the twisted part and pull apart all the the different folded layers to look like this. Then glue it to the wreath form with hot glue. And repeat until your wreath is full. 

I added a small piece of ribbon to the back for hanging and you are done! Enjoy!

Butterfly wall decor

Oh Pinterest. Who really can be bored today now that we have Pinterest? You don't even have to do any of the crafts. You could just oogle all day long at things that you could, would, want, hope, to do. I do this thing where I try to hold out as long as I can when I really want chocolate (I always hope to make it after the kids are in bed....) and I find myself doing the same thing with Pinterest. How long can I resist before I go back and spend the rest of the afternoon sifting through the goodness?!

And on that note here is a craft for my wall that I found on Pinterest. When you're renting you're so limited and have to be clever in how to make your home more livable!

I saw this idea and thought I'd give it a try. In the picture I found they made their butterflies out of soda cans. I don't drink nearly enough soda to attempt this any time soon so I made my butterflies out of card stock. I chose white although I preferred black. I would suggest picking a color and sticking with it because I cut out about 50 butterflies and that took several days. I painted about half of my butterflies black when I had this idea to paint half of them black and look like the white ones escaped out of the paint. I kind of like how it turned out. I may make some of the escaped white ones colored as well and make them a bit wild. If I do I will post the updated version. But anyway, this is pretty straight forward. I printed off some butterfly shapes I liked and had about 8 different shapes. Then I traced 50 butterflies, cut them out and pinned them on the wall with sewing pins. (Poke right through the paper and into the wall) I let them stick out a little to give them a little dimension. In the future I would have glued them to the push pins first because they had a tendency to tilt downwards when I didn't want them to. To get the design I wanted I used a pencil on the wall to draw it out and then pushed the pins along the design. Overall I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out.

Tissue Paper Pom Poms

I'm back everyone! I took a little break from blogging to deal with all the Christmas chaos but I made a resolution to keep up with this blog so here goes. My baby turned one this month and we had a little party at an ice cream shop to celebrate. I made these pom poms for decorations and they were super easy. This would be a great way to use up recycled tissue paper... or am I the only one that keeps tissue paper?? Anyway- The original instructions are from Martha Stewart, go HERE for those.

All you need:
1 package of tissue paper
Floral wire (I used twist ties)
Scissors

 Pull the tissue paper right out of the package and straighten it out, all 8 layers stacked on top of each other. Begin folding it like an accordion, each fold being about an inch and a half.

 It should look like this when finished. Pinch it in the middle and either tie your wire or cut the edges to be rounded or pointy. I rounded my edges with the scissors and then tied my twist ties in the middle.

 After that, begin gently pulling out each layer of the tissue paper one at a time forming a ball.

 That's it! Super easy. They are pretty big too, at least a foot and a half across.

We tied ours to the ceiling with fishing line. In retrospect I would have made more, but they added a little extra fun to the party anyway. Afterward, I hung them above my daughters crib and they look so cute!

Boredom Buster

***Be sure to check out Keri's Guest Post at Darling Doodles***

It has been really cold at our house, which means that our 2 (very active!) boys have been stuck inside and we are all driving each other a little crazy. This is actually something that my grandma would let us do when we went to her house and we always loved it. 

All you need is a rimmed baking sheet, pint mason jar, a straw, dish soap and water. 

Fill the mason jar about half way with water (I used warm water because it is softened and makes TONS of bubbles) then add a generous amount of liquid dish soap. Place the mason jar in the middle of the rimmed baking sheet and start blowing with the straw. Make sure and remind them to BLOW not suck. My 2 year old did a great job and I think he only tasted bubbles once before he realized that it was for play not eating.

 The bubbles will spill over the side and they can see how tall they can get them to be or who can make the biggest bubbles. The bubbles on the baking sheet will eventually pop and then you can carefully dump the soapy water back into the jar and do it again.

Christmas Ornaments

Growing up with 8 siblings required our family to be a little creative when it came to finances. One thing my mother did was make our Christmas ornaments. I really enjoy having a very beautifully decorated tree (that matches) and looks gorgeous but sometimes it is fun to have a very personalized Christmas tree. The great thing about looking at a very homemade Christmas decorated tree is that floods of memories and good times come back when you look at it every year. So for this post I'll be showing you how to make your own group of choir singers from soda pop cans. The other cool thing about this particular ornament is you can make each individual choir member look like each member of the family. I didn't think of that until after I made these so they don't really look like anyone I know-they're just and interesting group of people!

I started with a 6 pack of sodas. The easy part-drink them. They must be empty. Then rinse them out.
Then, step on them sideways like this. (above) They work best if you can manage to get the bottom of the can to not be seen but I really can't give any tips on how to get them to turn out any specific way (as you can see...)
Then I painted them a solid color. If you want the choir to match that is fine. I went with Orange, black, green and brown. I painted the faces peachy color for skin.
Then using a sharpie I drew in facial expressions. I also colored hole that you drink out of pink (or red) to mimic the inside of the mouth.
Then I added hair (all brown yarn). You can use whatever color you choose for hair.
A last detail I added was choir books complete with a song and notes.
I planned to give these to some friends so I wrote 'Merry Christmas from our family to yours, Dec. 2011' on the outside of the choir book.
I also used green felt to cut out circles for their hands (they are wearing green mittens)

This is a fun project, I let my 3 yr old paint her own but the older kids get the more creative they get with their details. It would make a fun night of family time! I hope you enjoy. Happy Holidays!

Eye Ball Frame

I had another organization post planned for this week, but I got the flu and have been SO sick. I'm finally feeling better, so here is quick Halloween Frame.

I used:   a wooden from from Walmart
                 craft paint
              lots of plastic eye balls (I got the variety pack, but you could use all the same size)
                hot glue and gun
1. Paint Frame
2. Start gluing on eyeballs.
           I started on the inside and then worked my out. I just wanted to have as many eyes as I could get on it.
3. Slip a favorite Halloween photo inside or anything Halloween sign.

DIY Fabric Art

I found this fabric a while ago and I LOVE the colors. I have been trying to decide just what to do with it. I knew I wanted something for our living room, but I wasn't sure what, until this idea came to me. 

All you need:
         A frame
         Fabric strips
         Sewing machine or your could use hot glue or fabric glue
       
The first thing I did was paint and distress my frame, it was boring old black, so I painted it red, distressed it and then finished with a glossy clear coat.

Then I cut a piece of cardstock that was same size as my frame and I cut strips the width of the cardstock. My fabric was already in strips because it was part of a jelly roll pack, but I did cut some of the strips thinner. Then lay out the strips so you can get the look you like.

Then start sewing (or glue) the fabric strips to the cardstock. Layer the next strip and sew and so on until the cardstock is covered.

Slip it into your frame and you are done! This could totally be done with just scraps and what it in your stash. Hope everyone has a great weekend!

T-shirt Makeover….

I found this T-shirt at K-mart for 50 cents, I loved the color, but it was too big, but I thought I could do something with it. This is what I came up with.
The first thing I did was fold it in half and press with the iron, then I unfolded it and cut the front along that line.
Then I took fabric from a jelly roll that I had on hand, measured the length of the cut front + seam allowance and cut 4 pieces that length. With right sides together, sew two together the long way, and then the other two together the long way and press open.
Press over a little bit (I did about a 1/2 inch) toward the wrong side of these then fold wrong sides together and press the long way. This helps everything lay better in the next steps.
I wanted to have another little accent piece so I measured another length of fabric, then pressed it in half to make the orange stripe.

Now you make a sandwich using all the pieces. First, the first the large accent piece, then the edge of the shirt you cut, then the small accent piece, and finally the other half of the large accent piece. Then pin everything together and sew along the edge of the large accent piece. I sewed 2 lines because I like how that looks, but you can do whatever you would like.
Then repeat with the other half of your shirt.

I wanted buttons the entire way down, it is just a preference. You could do 2 buttons like a cardigan or use snaps or just leave it open if you want, but I really REALLY like using my button hole foot on my sewing machine and I like sewing on buttons on my machine, it is so fast and fun. (I need to get our more, I know.)

I measured where I wanted button holes, then used my sewing machine to sew them.
Then I marked and sewed on my buttons, trimmed the threads and all done. I like how it turned out, it fits nicely now that I took a little out and the button flaps overlap. Keep an eye out for clearance shirts…. I bet this could be used on a sweater too…. I let you know if I try it, have a great day!