Words of Wisdom
Got 2 Minutes? Make A Bracelet!
I spotted these on Pinterest, but couldn’t find a tutorial (mostly just lots of links that didn’t go anywhere or were from somewhere in the UK and I was NOT paying international shipping for one ).
You know why there’s no tutorial? Because even a monkey could make one. Get some ribbon clamps (I picked mine up locally at Robert’s on 50% off day, so I think I paid $1 for enough for 3 bracelets) and a tape measure.
Cut a piece of tape measure to fit your wrist. I did about 7”. Put the clamps on the ends.
Wear it with dorky sewist (it’s better than sewer, remember?) pride!
What’s your favorite super quick and easy project you’ve made lately? Share a link, if you’ve got one!
Did You Know?
I’m not sure how regularly we’ll do this, but I thought from time to time it might be fun for me to share stuff I’ve discovered.
So, we’ve discussed my love of Tulip Soft Fabric Paint before. We’ve also discussed the happy little accident where I discovered that the velveteen line puffs up when ironed.
I busted out my paint stash this weekend to make Keller some shirts (freezer paper primer here) to wear over his pads to football practice. The kids that have played before all have jerseys, but it’s his first year so he just had t-shirts…plain old boring t-shirts. We needed a forest greenish color, but I only had a bright green. I mixed it with some black and some navy and got a color I was happy with.
After painting the shirts, I noticed that the green paint was the velveteen variety. The other 2 were not. I decided to see if the paint would still puff, and it totally did.
So, if you want fabric paint that puffs and they don’t have the color you’re looking for, try mixing and use at least one color that does.
A couple of randoms and HOLY CRAP I MADE STUFF
First up, if your name is Vicki, you should check your email because you might be the winner of the $75 basket of crafty goodness from Pick Your Plum. By the way, they have vinyl for a buck a sheet this morning, if you’re in need of any.
Next up, my friend Emily from Is This Really My Life? was kind enough to let me participate in her Mad Libs Monday series. If you want to hear when Macy thinks I’m the uncoolest, head on over and check out my post.
And, I made some stuff this weekend. Like, a lot of stuff: Uncle Jesse (from Full House, not Dukes of Hazzard) necklaces with one of my favorite teenagers, freezer paper stenciled shirts with Keller’s team logo to wear over his pads to football practice, and a ruffled maxi dress for Macy using the Make It & Love It tutorial.
If you’ve been thinking about making this dress, DO IT. It was under 1.5 hours from start to finish (and that would have been considerably less had my model been less prone to dancing every time she put the dress on).
So, yay for Monday?
Giveaway: $75 worth of crafty goodness from Pick Your Plum
You guys remember Pick Your Plum, right?
I introduced them as a sponsor a few months back?
If that’s still not ringing a bell, here’s the lowdown…
Pick Your Plum offers a different crafting supply type deal (at an INSANE price) every morning at 7:00 MST. I’m a little bit addicted, and most days I’m not even awake before they’re sold out (my PayPal balance is thankful). Let’s discuss a few of the things I’ve personally purchased: outdoor vinyl ($1 per sheet), heat transfer material (50% off), and most recently personalized name stamps for the kiddos ($6.50 each…and when you name your kids weird crap like I do, you know how expensive custom personalization can be).
(I heard a rumor that today’s deal is related to this picture ^)
I’m still kind of mad I missed the day they had jumbo ric rac. I LOVE ric rac. If these have already been featured, I’m mad about that, too:
And do you have any idea how hard these cupcake pop things are to find?
Not on Pick Your Plum, baby.
So, why am I talking about Pick Your Plum again?
Because they have a $75 crafting supply kit (full of ribbon, Mod Podge, paint brushes, wrought iron, ric rac, buttons…all sorts of goodies for a crafting goddess) for one lucky Crap I’ve Made reader, that’s why.
Awesome right?
TO ENTER (leave a separate comment ON THIS POST for each entry):
Like Pick Your Plum on Facebook
Sign up to receive the Pick Your Plum Email
Confess what you’ve already caved and bought from Pick Your Plum
***GIveaway closes Sunday night at 10 pm MST***
NOW GET OVER THERE AND CHECK OUT TODAY’S DEAL!
Removing A Bathroom Mirror
Subtitle: The One With The Illustrations
We had a few blissful hours on Saturday where the 3 little dudes were swimming at the neighbor’s. (Thanks, Jami!) With the lack of people likely to punch each other or break something, we decided it was the PERFECT time to attack the powder room mirror removal.
Here’s a little reminder of what we were removing:
I really, really, really hate broken glass, so I turned to Google. I came across a suggestion that sounded promising:
This is called cut out wire and apparently it’s used to remove car windshields. Or something. Anyway, BC picked it up at our local auto parts store for about $10. The idea is that you slide it behind the mirror and move it back and forth to cut through whatever adhesive is back there holding the mirror up.
So, I covered the front of the mirror with strips of painters tape (just in case) and we put on gloves and safety goggles (just in case) and started “cutting”. And then this happened:
The wire was stuck. So, we tried again.
And then we had 2 wires stuck.
We took a little break to regroup and BC decided to get a pry bar from the garage.
He carefully pried all along the edges of the mirror and the whole thing came off in one piece. When we took it down we discovered this situation:
The blob of glue we were trying to saw through was about the size of my face. And there were 3 more similarly sized blobs below.
So, does the cut out wire method work? It might if whomever glued up your mirror applied the glue like this:
It doesn’t work so well if the glue was applied like this:
(Stick figure face added for size comparison )
And because I love you, a cell phone quality sneak peek of what will be replacing that ugly old mirror…
Mirror courtesy of Bates Custom Glass
That frame is fabulous with a little Krylon Blue Ocean Breeze, no?
Mod Podge Silhouette Canvas
This project was originally shared over at Tatertos and Jello as part of Jen’s Summer Social. I’m sharing it here in case you missed it!
My kids just finished up their first year on a traditional school schedule. We’d been on year round before that, which means summer break = 3 weeks. This is our first real live 3 month long summer. I’m loving it, but there are days when “I’M BORED!” comes out of people’s mouths. So, I wanted to come up with a project we could work on together. We came up with this silhouette canvas.
Supplies:
Canvas
Old magazines & scissors
Mod Podge
Acrylic craft paint
Stain (optional)
Sandpaper
First, you’re going to let your kids go nuts cutting up magazine pages.
(The kid on the table in pajamas in the middle of the day in the background is totally optional.)
We tried to pick pages with a lot of color (as opposed to black and white text), but that was really the only direction I gave them.
Once you have a whole bunch of cut up magazines, you’ll want to Mod Podge them to a canvas. There’s also no rhyme or reason to this, just make sure you cover the entire canvas.
No need to have a panic attack that everything’s not smooth…some lumpy/puckered/not perfect parts are encouraged!
Once it’s good and dry, trace your silhouette with a pencil on the canvas.
I went with this bird on a branch design from the Silhouette library. I think a big initial or monogram would look fabulous as well. Or how about a chevron pattern on the whole thing? (That was for you, Jen )
Once you’ve traced, you’ll want to fill in the rest of the canvas with craft paint. There are no pictures of this step because my daughter/back up photographer and I were both doing the painting.
YOU CAN ABSOLUTELY STOP NOW. I like this look and I probably would have stopped now if our silhouette had been something more graphic.
I decided to take some sandpaper to the painted area so that some of our magazines would peek through.
Again, YOU CAN ABSOLUTELY STOP NOW! There’s really no wrong way to do this…just go with what you like!
I applied some stain next.
I put it on streaky and wiped some off.
YOU CAN ABSOLUTELY STOP NOW.
I, however, did not. I watered down a few more shades of acrylic paint and did some more streaking (not that kind…what kind of blogger do you think I am?) and a little splattering.
YOU CAN ABSOLUTELY STOP NOW…because I totally did.