The little space

Our little one's space is finally ready for him.  I am greatful for all the help and creativity that went into his little place.  And yes I said space for he is sharing the room with his 3 year old brother.  One side owls the other is Toy Story.  Hope it works out.;)  Now all we need is him!

Creating with Canvas

If you wanted a bit of help making these wonderful decorations!

http://youtu.be/Prm9WPVkDvg

Crafting the Winter Blues away.

I know Spring is struggling to get here. Honestly I have been okay with that.  It has given me time to complete a list of projects/crafts that I had wanted to do, before the beautiful weather played a siren song to lure me outdoors.  And besides a card I have been working on I have done pretty well completing said list.

 My first project was this Spring wreath, inspiration from Pinterest.  I actually got a kick out of my husband expression when he saw me working with yarn.  I think he was a little worried. lol.  But after adding the "fuzzy" yarn he was a little less nervous for me.  I don't work with yarn much ;)  This project isn't on my "FAVE" list of things I've made but it turned out alright.
I did wrap the wreath ( the cheapest I could find, a straw one) with inexpensive green yarn before I wrapped the yummy yarn around it.  It saved on cost, I didn't even use the whole skein of fuzzy yarn, so I have some for other projects, yay.

 

 My next project was a bigger one.  It was redecorating my craft space.  If any of you have been here before you know that it was a Twilight corner.  That being over and done with, at least for me, I was ready for something fresh.  So down it all came, sniffle sniffle.
I have always loved the pink and orange combo, at least since High School when I really wanted to make a prom dress with the combo, but didn't.  And the colors seem to fit the trends right now so that is where I went, with a pop of blue.  I had to work with the green walls because I was not up for the undertaking of repainting an entire room.  I am 7 months pregnant people.

Again having taken inspiration from Pinterest I decided to attempt my own canvas art. Again not a fave but glad I tried, you can always paint over it at some point right.  I used acrylic paint and just went with it.

Another Pinterest idea was the quote bubble frames.  I liked this idea for the fact that we all have quotes we like but there is always another quote that comes along that says something else to us.  This way you can use the glass like a white board and change up your quotes with the mood.  Hopefully inspiring ones, since it is a craft space.  I spray painted the frames and used a pencil eraser and white acrylic paint to outline the bubble.  I also painted a little clock I had on hand and added it to the grouping, I was quite pleased with it.

 Another project I had to try was the DIY canvas photos.  And guess what?  It worked!  I was leery and therein lied my mistake.  I actually redid two of the pictures because, not knowing how well they would turn out, wasn't picky enough with the original printing of the pictures.  So once I had them Modge Podged to the canvas, I was bothered by the imperfections (ink smudges on their faces).  So take it from another of my mistakes, do it right the first time.  I used the technique of printing the photo onto tissue paper.   NOTE:  make sure your tissue paper isn't a glossy tissue, this makes the ink bleed I think, second make sure the printed picture is just as you want it, I am a miser when it comes to my printer ink so I didn't reprint when I should have costing me two canvases, and third make sure your modge podge is painted on as smooth as you can get it.  If you leave ridges or clumps that will remain in the texture of your canvas.
I am missing two pictures, thus the empty corners, because I used two canvas' on messups. And have to purchase two more and finish the collage.

 I used the 6x6 canvases from Close To My Heart as well as their Claire paper packet.

 This was a use of two sheets of metal I had lying around.  Hung them and made button and flower magnets for them.  Easy peesy.

 This is the main corner so you can see perspective of size.  Sort of.

For another area of the room I have started my "word" wall.  This was fun, especially finding the wooden letters on sale when I was out shopping for them.  They are nice big letters too.  I stenciled additional words onto some of the letters "dream", "inspire" and "love".  I may add more words to the collage as time goes by.
I also (which I forgot to take photos of) recovered two old pillows with some fun fabric I found with pink and orange in the pattern.  I also used the same fabric, to basically make a "pillowcase" in which I used to cover one of the vinyl chairs in the room.  It just added a bit more color to the room.

These two projects are done by two wonderful women.  My sister Jaime made this adorable owl mobile for my baby's room.  Her new favorite medium is felt, is has made some really adorable thing from this unsuspecting material.  LOVE it.

My sister-in-law Arielle sewed this owl, again for the upcoming baby's room.  He is so fun!  She incorporated some material that was handed down from a grandmother (or great).  It is the orange patterned material on the bottom and wings.  So crazy fun. 

You can see how spoiled I am, cute stuff and I didn't have to make it ;)

 And last but not least.  My little boys birthday.  I will be honest.  I took the easy way out on this one.  But hey pregnancy is a good excuse right.  I had originally planned on making a truck out of cake.  That is all my little guy has asked for for the past month, a "truck cake".  But two days before I realized that I didn't want to spend my entire day on my feet in the kitchen and went for the dirt cake (crushed oreos and toffee bits on top of chocolate cake) placed in the back of a Tonka truck.   He had wanted a dump truck anyways and we didn't have anything else for him really so it worked out great.  A cake and toy all in one.  And it was so much easier.

Another simple but fun addition to the decor was the streamer.  I just stamped a pattern on a few pieces of crate paper and walla! Loved how it turned out.

Well thanks for indulging me on my craft download.  Don't expect much for a few months.  Baby is due in May and I don't see myself in the craft corner much, outside in the garden if children permit.  So have a great spring!  If you have any questions please post them or comment on my facebook page and I will get back to you!
Keep at that creative itch!

Canvas Art

Heart garland

You have seen them posted all over, at least I have.  This year I actually got around to putting one together.  Easier said than done.  Here is my list of do's and don'ts for making a stringed garland.

Don't-  use cheap paper, unless you are willing to work with the deficiencies.  I bought the pack of Valentine paper from Target in the $1 section.  Didn't plan on using the same garland next year cuz I figured it would get too easily tangled in storage  The down side of this was that the paper is one sided and very lite.

Do- use double sided paper, unless you like the white side in your arrangement.

Do- use a real sewing machine.  I tried to cut a big corner and use my tiny craft sewing machine and it was more trouble that it was worth.  The stitching is way obvious and easily comes unraveled.

Don't- sew through the middle.  Unless you were smart and used two sided paper.  Since the top of my hearts were heavier they tended to go to the bottom making it the upside down and back of each heart.  I remedied this by applying a dab of glue to the back/bottom of the conflicted hearts to weigh the bottoms down.  Being cheeper thin paper they then puckered from this but from a distance you can't tell.

So Do- sew across the top.

The one thing I do like about the lighter paper is that they flutter so much prettier when hung.

Storage- if you love it and want to keep it for years to come I am sure you could, with patience, fold them accordion style and paper clip them together to prevent tangling. )

Happy Valentines Day!

Wanted to share the love before it hits the mailbox.  Using one of my very first stamps sets (probably from 2006) and one my most recent sets.  Here is one of my Valentine creations.

Happy Valentines Day!

New Spring/ Summer CTMH Products

 The new catalog is out and not much else can get my spring fever started like this can. I've got my list of "needs" written up and am planning my strategy for the length of the book.   Take a gander at this beautiful Idea book.  Filled with not only great scrapbooking ideas but fabulous home decor and gift ideas too.

Not only is there new products but for the month of February you can get all caught up using Studio J.  Save on each layout this month!  What are you waiting for!