2011 - Page 18 of 24 - Crap I've Made

Meet the Epic

March 14, 2011 By Char @ Crap I've Made 3 Comments

First of all, if your name is Lisa or Kelly, you should check this post to see if you’re one of the LUCKY pillow pattern winners.

Second, I’m closing down the GiftCardRescue giveaway around noon MST. GO ENTER NOW if you haven’t already.

***************

Lifestyle Crafts contacted me recently and asked if I’d like to review their Epic Letterpress and Die Cut machine. I love crafty gadgets, so I jumped at the chance.

My box was missing a cutting mat, so I haven’t tried the die cut function yet. Hopefully I’ll be able to talk about that later this week! Today we’re talking about letterpress.

Letterpress is so fancy, right? And I am so not! What’s a girl to do?

Well, I checked out the Lifestyle Crafts blog and read up on how to ink.

I love the little legs on the brayer so you can set it down!

And then, I recruited help. I put Macy in charge of the Epic.

She took her job VERY seriously. Note the tongue sticking out of her mouth.

Our first attempt was pretty good:

See that part where the arrow is pointing? My printing plate actually had a little plastic chip missing. None of the others did, so I think that was a fluke.

After the purple ink had dried, we used some charcoal ink and added a “THANK YOU” along the bottom.

And then since we already had the charcoal ink all rolled out, we made some envelopes to match.

WAY cute with the recipient’s name in that little shape, but you’ll have to trust me. I didn’t manage to take a picture of that.

So, are you intrigued?

Stick around for a couple more Epic projects this week.

Have you had your eye on the Epic?

Lifestyle Crafts is offering all Crap I’ve Made readers 25% off March 14th-20th using code BLOGCRAP.

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Filed Under: Epic, letterpress, paper

You might spend too much time blogging if…

March 12, 2011 By Char @ Crap I've Made 21 Comments

Your latest plan for your living room color coordinates with your blog header.

I’m thinking about making one of these pillows, just for comedic effect.

Image from infmetry.com

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Filed Under: home decor

LUCKY pillow pattern winners!

March 11, 2011 By Char @ Crap I've Made Leave a Comment

Winner #1

#9, Mandi @ CRUSH

Winner #2

#5, Lisa

Winner #3

#38, kelly

SHOOT ME AN EMAIL ASAP ([email protected]) WITH YOUR MAILING ADDRESS SO KIRSTEN CAN GET THE PATTERNS IN THE MAIL!

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Filed Under: Uncategorized

Feature Friday

March 11, 2011 By Char @ Crap I've Made 7 Comments

There’s no Flickr or Facebook involved this week. There is, however, FrogTape. Maybe I should have called it FrogTape Feature Friday? Too late. Winking smile

Sara (who is blog-less) emailed me after I posted about how I painted this mural with pretty much no artistic talent whatsoever and some FrogTape.

Part 1, Part 2

Sara took this $5 dresser (jealous…I never find anything that good for $5)

added some FrogTape

and turned it into this:

Thanks for sharing, Sara!

Friday features usually come from the Flickr group or Facebook page but feel free to email me ([email protected]) like Sara did, too!

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Filed Under: FFF, paint

Giveaway: GiftCardRescue

March 10, 2011 By Char @ Crap I've Made 234 Comments

Hey there! Happy Thursday! You’ll be glad to know that I can actually stand fully upright today. Woo! I’m looking forward to a long and (hopefully) productive weekend with the kids, who have no school tomorrow. If you haven’t already, go enter to win one of 3 pillow patterns from my neighbor Kirsten. That puppy could close down at any second!

Have you heard about GiftCardRescue?

The premise is simple…you sell your unwanted gift cards and get cash in return (or an Amazon credit, if you’d rather, get all the details here). This idea really appeals to me.

Why?

I seriously just pulled all of those out of my wallet.

Yikes.

Some of them have been there for ~~three or four~~ a couple of years.

And the best part about GiftCardRescue? Many of the cards sell for up to 30% off face value!

So, what’s in it for you?

A $50 credit to GiftCardRescue, that’s what! Cool, right? $50 to pretty much anywhere!

TO ENTER:

Click on over to check out GiftCardRescue’s inventory. Have a look around. (Seriously…click over and look at their list. I see some people posting stuff that’s in my picture and NOT on GiftCardRescue at all. They’re offering you $50! You can make one click, right?) See which card looks the best to you. Come back and leave a comment ON THIS POST (not on Facebook or in response to your email subscription) saying what card you’d get with your credit.

Giveaway is open to US residents only and will run through the weekend.

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Filed Under: giveaway

Giveaway: LUCKY Pillow Pattern X 3 !!!

March 9, 2011 By Char @ Crap I've Made 76 Comments

I’m ~~glad~~ relieved so many of you have craft room issues, too! I swear to you I’ll finish, but not today. My back’s out and even pushing the accelerator to drive my kid to preschool made me wince ~~and curse~~.

So, Neighbor Kirsten to the rescue!

I’ve mentioned before that some of the best women on Earth live in my neighborhood, right? Remember when I was on TV and a whole bunch of them showed up wearing “CRAPPY FRIEND” shirts?

GTU

Pretty great, right?

I want you to meet another one of my neighbors!

This is Kirsten:

The one on the right…obviously.

Aside from being one of the happiest and most pleasant people I’ve ever had the privilege of meeting and a SUPER mom of 5, she’s INSANELY talented! Her kitchen cabinets are green and her piano is red. She LOVES fabric and is “semi new-ish” to designing patterns. She also works a little at her (and my) favorite quilt shop, Material Girls, to get her fabric fix in.

Want to see some of her stuff? Of course you do!

And, my personal favorite, her Mongo bag:

I’m leaving this next part in Kirsten’s own words, because it makes me giggle:

I’m giving away 3 “Lucky” burlap pillow patterns (a greenishly embellished burlap pillow, to be exact)–it is a fun and festive pillow that uses burlap, green fabric scraps, torn cream satin, a variety of green buttons, a big blingy dangling gem, and my favorite ginormous green pom-pom trim. (Any excuse to use what may be the best fabric of all time, the Amy Butler geen dot, has got to be a good thing.)

Kirsten is giving away THREE patterns to make her LUCKY pillow.

These are actual paper patterns, which will be mailed to you. So, for that reason we’re keeping it brief (actual giveaway end date will be plugged in here once I confirm with Kirsten) and US residents only, please.

TO ENTER:

Click on over to Kirsten’s (work in progress, she’d like you to know) site, Pieceable Pear and have a look around. Come back and leave a comment on this post saying which of her patterns is your favorite.

That’s it!

Ready? Set? Go!

If you want to buy the pattern ($6) or a kit to make the pattern ($28), you can pick that up locally at Material Girls, along with burlap, jumbo ric-rac and pom-pom trim, giant flower buttons, and all other manner of fabulousness.

And, $50 value giveaway that EVERY single one of you can use coming your way tomorrow.

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Filed Under: giveaway

Keeping It Real

March 9, 2011 By Char @ Crap I've Made 82 Comments

You know…because I usually don’t. Winking smile

I’m in the middle of a couple of projects that are not turning out as fabulous as they are in my head. And I’m annoyed. I’ve spent way more time on them than I intended to. One of them is not even for this site…it’s a guest post I’m doing elsewhere, which only adds to the pressure. And the annoyance.

So, in an attempt to clear my mind and do something else yesterday, I headed down to my sewing room. My sewing room is in the very furthest corner of the basement (sometimes I go a week or more without setting foot in the basement), so it’s out of sight and out of mind. Plus, you can shut the door and hide the mess. Usually.

View from the hall

I can’t believe I just posted that.

And it gets worse. Let’s start with this mess:

I had 2 lovely IKEA shelves mounted to the wall. Only my kids decided to use them for doing pull-ups. And they spontaneously (yeah right) fell off the wall, bringing all the contents down with them. Did I mention I had tiny little drawer units full of needles, sewing machine feet, snaps, etc on said shelves?

And then there’s this situation:

I know. I KNOW!

Someone dumped out my scrap bucket…

Really? That’s the least of my worries.

P.S. The remote for that TV is missing somewhere in the room, so I can only watch the one channel it’s stuck on (local CBS affiliate).

I spent 3 hours down there yesterday. I spackled. I vacuumed. I filled an entire big black garbage bag and 3 boxes for DI. And it’s still not done. Not even close.

I need IKEA. I need baskets and bins.

Or maybe I just need an intervention.

A bomb?

I WILL finish this. Hold me to it.

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Filed Under: home decor, organization, ramblings

Basketball Pillow

March 8, 2011 By Char @ Crap I've Made 15 Comments

***This is another project in the Utah Jazz Room we’re doing for my son. Click to see the others!***

I started with a basic zippered linen/cotton blend pillow cover from IKEA. It was $6. It’s really not worth making your own for that price, I promise.

Next, I printed off my basketball template (which you may remember from a freezer paper and bleach stenciled t-shirt last summer). I then folded the paper into fourths and ripped it along the fold lines. You could use scissors or some sort of paper cutter if the ripping bothers you.

I enlarged each fourth by 200% on my scanner/printer and taped them together.

I filled in any blank spots with a Sharpie, so it’d be easy to trace and then traced the pattern onto freezer paper. If you’re not familiar with freezer paper, go check out my freezer paper primer.

Get cozy with some sort of craft knife and cut out the basketball shape. Position your outer circle on your pillow cover and iron it in place.

I like the look of part of the ball hanging off. Do whatever you like! I also like to iron on junky old towels on my countertops instead of getting out the actual ironing board. Who’s lazy? Hint: me!

Cut out (if you haven’t already), position, and iron the rest of the pieces. I labeled mine, just in case (R1-R4 for the right half and L1-L4 for the left half).

After all the ironing was done, I put a piece of tape along the piping on the edge of the pillow cover because I didn’t want paint to get on the piping.

I filled in the shape using a foam brush and some Tulip Soft Fabric Paint. The color I used is Marine Blue. I let it dry for a bit and then peeled off the freezer paper.

(There’s a piece of freezer paper inside to prevent bleeding.)