Winter Gift Exchange

Last fall I once again participated in the Craftaholics Anonymous Gift Exchange. Basically you sign up, you are assigned an exchange partner, then you both make something and send it to the other person. Here is what I sent my exchange partner.

Here is a nice view of everything. 

 I made this lovely "JOY" banner for the holidays with some thin cardboard, DSP, a variety of dies, some Champagne Glimmer Paper, Gold Satin ribbon, and some gold baker's twine.

Each letter was accented with some Crumb Cake holly leaves and Cherry Cobbler Dazzling Details for the berries.  The sparkly gold baker's twine was a score from Pick Your Plum and looked really nice holding each letter of the banner together.

Next up I water colored this pretty picture. Not too bad if I do say so myself. After the water color paint was dry I doodled around the edges of the flowers and leaves. Then I spritzed the whole thing with some Vanilla Smooch Spritz to give it some sparkle.

The words "life doesn't have to be perfect to be wonderful" was stamped onto the water color paper and embossed in silver. The frame was another Pick Your Plum score and was gorgeous!

Next up, some earrings that are just like the Glam Earrings I made for my sister-in-law for Christmas. I really loved these and wish I would have kept them for myself...

Finally a wood slice ornament with a wood burned snowflake on one side and a stamped greeting on the other. 

All in all I think it was a pretty generous gift and were things that I would have like to receive myself. Unfortunately I did not get a gift in return from my exchange partner. But I had fun making these! Click HERE if you want to sign up to be notified when the next gift exchange party is. Click HERE to see a lot of the other gifts that were given and received. 

A Christmas Quilt for a Nephew

Here is yet another Christmas preset that I made. This quilt was for one of my nephews. It is slightly wider than a standard twin size blanket. I used the Tick Tock pattern from Growing Up Modern by Allison Harris. The pattern was super easy to follow. The fabric all came from Joanns. I used cheap batting so I kept the quilting to simple straight stitches on either side of the blocks.

When I was about an hour away from finishing this quilt a couple days before Christmas my sewing machine decided to start acting up. I only had one side left to attach the binding on then just wrapping the binding to the front side and stitching it down. Then the machine wouldn't work anymore. It kept saying there was a thread break error, but the thread wasn't broken, and it wouldn't keep tension at all. Grr...

Oh, I should also note that this was actually intended to be gift for Christmas 2013, but I didn't get it finished in time. I had the quilt top done and the back done, and partially quilted. Then it sat there until a week before this last Christmas. Procrastinate much???

So the next day I went to borrow my mom's sewing machine to finish it up and was able to get it done and still have some time to relax. I ended up taking my sewing machine in to be serviced and now it's fixed. I just have to drive to Kansas City to pick it up this weekend. Yay!

Anyway... my nephew seemed to like it even though a blanket isn't nearly as fun as all the toys he got Christmas morning. 

Tropical Flowers Painted Storage Box

I hope you are ready for an awesome project! I want to share with you how I changed a plain wooden box into a piece of art that will brighten up my desk space.

Before Christmas I'm on a run to Michaels to pick up supplies for some last minute gift projects and was browsing around the store when I saw this amazing oval shaped box and instantly thought that it would be perfect on my desk to hide all those pesky cords for cameras and phones and headphones. I'm trying to do what I can to make my home a little more organized but also throw in some pretty accents too. So I put the box and some paints into my cart and headed home. After all the craziness of Christmas was done I had some time to finally work on my plain wooden box.

It's cloudy, cold, and gloomy here in Kansas so I wanted to bring a little bit of bright tropical color into my desk space. So I took this plain but awesome wooden box and painted it up with some tropical looking flowers and some bright colors!



So are you ready to see the finished project??? I'm super excited about it! Here it is!

It's always nice when inspiration hits and a project comes out exactly how you saw it in your head. Now, lets get on to the how too part. Take a look below to see all the goodies that you need for this project. 

~ Supplies ~

• Artminds Oval Wooden Box from Michaels
• DecoArt Multi-Surface Satin Paints: Cottonball, Flamingo, Deep Turquoise, Chartreuse, Night Sky, Lemon Zest, Dark Scarlet, and Metallic Gold
• DecoArt Media Satin Varnish
• Painters Tape, Stylus, four wooden beads, hot glue gun, 5/8" angled paint brush, plastic container for a palette

I started off by painting two coats of Flamingo paint on the inside of the box for a fun and bright pop of color. 

Next up I painted two coats of Deep Turquoise on the outside and the rim of the box and lid. 

Now it's time to add some flowers. I put together a video for you so you can see how I painted all the flowers and leaves. It would have been way too difficult to try to describe it with text and it end up making sense to anyone other than me. 

After the flowers were all nice and dry I put two rows of painter's tape around the lid to leave about 1/4" line around the lid. Then I put another piece of painter's tape about 1/4" up from the bottom of the box. After the painter's tape was pressed into place real well I covered the stripes I wanted to paint with some DecoArt Media Satin Varnish. Why you ask? Well, no matter how well you think you have the tape pressed down there is always a little that bleeds underneath. If your first coat is a clear sealer then what bleeds underneath is clear and it seals up all those gaps to keep your color from seeping under the tape. That and if I didn't use the painter's tape I would have a really wavy line of gold rather than a nice straight line...

After the sealer dried I added four coats of Metallic Gold. I wanted to have a really solid gold stripe around the lid and the bottom of the box. Four coats seems like a lot, but it dries really quickly so I was able to put the second coat on the first line after finishing up the first coat of the bottom line. All in all it probably took about 20 minutes to apply all four coats then remove the painter's tape. I had a couple places where the gold still bled through the tape so I just touched that up real quick with more Dark Turquoise. 

As an afterthought I decided to grab some wooden beads from my stash and paint them with a few coats of the Metallic Gold paint. Then I just hot glued them onto the bottom of the box for some gilded feet.

Once all the painting was done I finished it up with a coat of the DecoArt Media Satin Varnish just to protect all my hard work. Now I'm ready to put it on my desk and fill it up with all those things I want to hide in my pretty box!

I am so very happy with how my flowers came out! (Squeal!) All in all the project only took about 3 hours total including drying time. This paint goes on so smooth and dries really fast so it makes it easy to start and finish a project the same day.

The pop of pink on the inside is just so much fun!

Now a look at the before and after...

Don't be afraid to pick up something that needs some love and use some paint to brighten up your space with fun colors and functional storage! Americana Multi-Surface paint is available in Michaels. Visit the DecoArt Multi-Surface website for more crafting ideas and inspiration. Did you know that you can use Americana Multi-Surface on glass and metal? Or use it to brighten up an organizer, or create a fun sign or canvas to hang in your home!

Disclaimer: This is a sponsored post. The project, photos, and opinions are entirely mine. 
Linking up to these parties. 

Glam Earrings

Today I have another Christmas gift to share with you! This time it's jewelry related. I wanted to make my sister-in-law a pair of pretty high end looking earrings. I should have taken some pictures of the process, but I didn't. Anyway, I used some nickel wire and formed the tear drop shape then hammered it to give the hoops a bit of texture. Then I used head pins to add some crystal pearls, cracked glass beads, and those lovely dark blue glass beads that look like crystals.

To package it up nicely I quickly whipped up a little tag with a scrap of ribbon, a punch, and stamp. Then I just pierced holes through the card stock for the ear wires to go through and added one of the little backs onto the ear wires.

My sister-in-law loved them. Heck I love them. I may decide to do a tutorial when I make a similar pair for myself! I think I succeeded in getting the high end look I was after. What do you think?

Linking up to these parties. 

DIY Custom Monogram Art

Sometimes it can be difficult to think of awesome gifts for my sister. She is pretty awesome so I wanted to make sure that I had an awesome gift to give her. However, the budget for Christmas was pretty tight this year so I knew I wanted to make her something. She had a custom monogram on her Amazon wish list for a while so I thought I would give that a try. This is the end result. I would say it was a success! Time consuming, but a success. 

I took a scrap of 1/4" thick plywood and drew some fancy curly swirly letters on it in pencil to create her initials. I made sure that as many of the swirls came in contact with another portion of the wood as much as possible so there were fewer weak areas in the wood. Then I took a cordless drill with a 1/2" drill bit and drilled at least one hole in inside each of the areas I wanted to cut out. You have to have a way to get the jigsaw blade into the wood after all. 

Then I carefully used the jigsaw to follow the curved lines. This took quite a bit of time. Since I was using 1/4" plywood I had to hold the wood out past the edge of the table to cut it and support all the weight of the saw with my hand rather than letting the weight of the saw rest on the wood. 

Let me tell you it was pretty scary when I got to the K. I knew it would be the weakest point so I started from the M and worked towards the K. But cutting out the pieces that met in the center of the K I was basically holding my breath hoping and praying that it didn't break at that point. I was several hours into cutting this thing out and I would have been so irate if it broke then. But all was well! Here is the finished cut out. A little sanding and I was ready for paint!

For the simple frame I bought some chair rail molding from Home Depot and used the router to cut out a notch for a plywood back to set in, cut the corners to a miter, then glued and stapled the frame together and clamped it up. I wish I had taken a picture of the frame all clamped up waiting for the glue to dry. Then I just cut another scrap of plywood and glued it inside the frame.

I would also like to note that I did this entire project on my own without the hubs. Although he had shown me how to use the tools on other projects.

The monogram letters got a coat of gold paint. I used DecoArt Elegant Finish Metallic Paint in Emperor's Gold. At first I thought it was too orange-y of a gold rather than a gold gold. But I kept on going (mostly because I didn't have time to find another color of gold paint and re-paint it. After three coats of gold paint it was totally gilded and ready to go. I really like that you can still see the wood grain of the plywood even though it looks like it was cut out of gold.

The frame got two coats of DecoArt Americana Decor Chalky Finish Paint in Everlasting then a coat of the Americana Decor Creme Wax. Once I set the gold letters on the white frame the gold looked perfect and you could practically hear angels singing (maybe it was just the Celtic Woman Christmas album that was playing... but it totally had the same effect). 

Now gold is one of those trends that goes in and out. So I wanted to make it easy to remove the letters and repaint them when gold goes out of style again. To attach the letters onto the frame I just put two of the Command Picture Hanging Strips (kinda like velcro, but not) together and cut them into about 1/4" wide strips. Then it was just peel and stick to add a bunch of these velcro like pieces and just press it onto the frame. 

A couple of hanging loops screwed onto the back and I was done! Thankfully it was nice enough (28 degrees and overcast but not raining) to take the finished project outside to get some photos. Then it was ready to be wrapped. 

All in all it was worth all the work to see how excited my sister was with her fabulous wall art. I was worried it would be too big since it ended up being about 28" x 40" but it works perfectly over her desk. Since we already had the plywood and some of the paint I just ended up having to by the chair rail trim and the Chalky Finish paint. That's what I call a score!

Linking to these parties. 

Fall Wreath

Here is the fourth and final card from the September Make and Take! This one features the lovely Wondrous Wreath bundle to make a fall wreath.

• Crumb Cake card stock 4-1/4" x 11", scored at 5-1/2"
• Early Espresso card stock 3" x 5-1/2"
• Pool Party card stock 2-3/4" x 5-1/2"
• Very Vanilla card stock 1-1/4" x 2-3/4"
• Mossy Meadow Ribbon 10"
• Very Vanilla card stock 3-1/2" x 3-1/2"
• Stamps: Wondrous Wreath, Hardwood, Sassy Salutations
• Ink: Coastal Cabana, Crushed Curry, Tangelo Twist, Mossy Meadow, Versamark
• Accessories: Stampin' Dimensionals, Wondrous Wreath Framelits, Pearl Basic Jewels, Gold embossing powder, Embossing Buddy, Heat Tool

Start off by folding the Crumb Cake card stock on the score line. Next use the Hardwood stamp on the Pool Party card stock in Coastal Cabana ink. I know, I know.... this is actually a retired background stamp, but I just love it! They were wrong to get rid of it! I just... can't... quit... using it!

Okay, back to the card. Stamp the greeting from Sassy Salutations onto the small piece of Very Vanilla card stock in Crushed Curry ink. Use glue stick to adhere this onto the bottom of the Pool Party card stock. Glue the Pool Party layer onto the Early Espresso card stock.

Now wrap your beautiful Mossy Meadow ribbon around the panel covering up the top of the Very Vanilla card stock and tie the ribbon into a knot. Use Paper Snips to trim the ends of the ribbon nice and neat. Then glue this panel onto the card front with more glue stick.

Next up is the wreath! Take the larger piece of Very Vanilla card stock and use a pencil or pen to place a mark in the middle of one of the sides. That mark will be where you line up the little tab on the stamps and on the framelits. So stamp the full wreath image in Crushed Curry ink. Then stamp the second image with just a few leaves in Tangelo Twist ink. Dry the ink real quick with your Heat Tool then rub your Embossing Buddy all over the card stock. Stamp the berries or dot image onto the wreath in Versamark ink. Cover the stamped berries with Gold embossing powder, tap off the excess, and heat it with your Heat Tool until it's nice and shiny. 

Now take your wreath to the Big Shot and use the wreath framelits to cut out the shape. Stamp the bow image onto a scrap of Mossy Meadow card stock in Mossy Meadow ink. Cut out the bow with the matching framelit then glue the bow onto the wreath. Add a large pearl into the center of the bow. 

Finally, stick the wreath onto the card front with a few Stampin' Dimensionals.

That's it! You now have a beautiful fall wreath card!