Jewelry Display

My MOPS group recently had a speaker who really inspired me. She wrote a book called Beautiful After Baby http://www.beautifulafterbabybook.com Part of her talk included how easily you could feel more beautiful with just a little jewelry. I already have a great system for my necklaces but needed something for my rings & earrings. I do have a plethora of beautiful scrapbook paper I'm afraid I will never get around to using so this is what I came up with... 

 I took a shoe box lid & a bunch of toilet paper & paper towel rolls. (I do have a stockpile closet where I save stuff like this because you just never know!)

 I cut the rolls all down to size to fit in the lid. 

Then I picked out some pretty pretty paper!

I believe that a woman can do anything with a hot glue gun & a drill so I pulled out my trusty glue gun and glued paper onto the lid. 

And then onto each of the rolls.

 Here's what they look like all cozied up together. 

And I know it's hard to see but here it is with my rings and earrings. LOVE!

Flower embellishment

Presentation is everything right? I think so. Anyway now that I mainly used the Project Life system to "scrapbook" http://www.beckyhiggins.com I have a lot of scrapbook paper that I just don't think I'll ever use. I have been using it as wrapping paper which is cool but I wanted to jazz is up a bit. 

This is what I came up with for a flower embellishment. 

So I took my trusty circle template & cut different size circles out of a few different plastic bags. I didn't have any  cool colors so I went with white. 

I held the circles over a candle to curl up the sides.  I found out you can hold them pretty far away...they melt fast! And the thicker the plastic bag the better the effect. The Target bags didn't turn out great so I didn't end up using them. 

My "melted" circles.

I took a bit of embroidery floss in a contrasting color and put it in the middle of my circles once I stacked them all together. 

I used a button behind the flower as an anchor to attach the floss and I knew I wanted to hot glue the flower to my present and didn't want it to melt so the button was ideal.  

 From the front. 

And my finished flower embellishment on my scrapbook wrapped present. 

Making your very own art

I recently gave my kitchen a facelift by spray painting/painting a few key items. I went from bright reds to blues/greens. I had found this picture, well two of them actually, at a garage sale for $1. While it worked with the red theme it didn't look so hot with the blues/greens. I kept looking for something else in my new color scheme to fit in the space but had no luck.

Then I thought what if I just re-painted this perfectly usable canvas that doesn't match my decor any more anyways?

I got my inspiration from The Nester-www.thenester.com/2012/01/handmade-wall-art.html.

I spray painted on a coat of primer...

...then hit it with a coat of the blue I used in the kitchen.

Just started sponging on different shades of blues, greens, golds & browns. I used spray paint,  acrylic paint & leftover latex paint.

Picked this guy up at Hobby lobby & spray painted on dark blue swirls. When those dried I sponged some more to blur the swirls a little

 

Finished product! All with a recycled canvas & left over paint.

Jewelry display

I have saved a ton of old picture frames from other houses that just don't fit into my current decor. My mom needed a jewelry organization system. She is really into her jewelry & changes it everyday. I thought it would be cool to display it like a piece of art. I went to pinterest to get some inspiration and it all seemed relativity easy.

Here's a picture I will NEVER hang again! I dry brushed some white paint over the gold but made sure to leave some of the gold peaking through.

The picture was mounted on foam core poster board so I up-cycled it. I hot glue gunned fabric to the poster board.

I went to Hobby Lobby & picked out drawer pulls that I thought were cute and screwed them right into the board. Then I popped the whole thing back into the frame and there we go up-cycled jewelry display!

I liked how that turned out so well that I decided to use one of my bigger frames for a bulletin board in the kids playroom at my moms house to keep all of their creations off of her fridge but still displayed. I turned a drawer pull upside down to hold the tacks. 

Went looking for a nightstand...

So I wanted to make my youngest a play kitchen out of a nightstand. Got the idea on Pinterest, big shock I know. Anyway  I headed over to Tiffany's, aka the Goodwill, and there were no nightstands in stock...but I ran across this beauty for $15.

It needed a little elbow grease, I sanded the whole thing down, primed it, panted the base a black gloss & the top a flat white. I did flat on top so the stenciling would adhere and sealed the whole thing when I was done.

I got the stencil online just by typing in train track stencil. I painstakingly traced out the track design I wanted onto think plastic "paper" and used a stencil cutter to cut out my design. http://www.plaidonline.com/stencil-decor-accessories-stencil-cutter/118/34008/product.htm

Then I laid it all out on the table and started stenciling my tracks. Except for the cows all the other details I did freehand using stencil paint.

To the right of my "helper" you can see a smaller version that was my first attempt. It was just to small for my kids to play on at the same time.

So in all I spent $15 for the table, about $10 for the cutter, $5 for the plastic, $20 for paint.  So the table cost me $50 in all and I have the satisfaction of knowing I made something for my kiddos!

For Daddy

So this year my husband and I decided we have everything we want/need so we weren't going to exchange gifts this year and just focus on the kids. Somehow that seemed a little sad & I wanted to have something under the tree for him to open. So I started browsing Pinterest for homemade gifts for Dad and got some inspiration.

I decided to make him a picture of the kiddos. I have this super cool software called FX Home, http://fxhome.com/, that uses a green screen. I wanted to use an old barn door for my background so I typed that into google images. Soooooo easy!

I cut the letters out of scrapbook paper, which I have an abundance of now that I primarily use Project Life to document but that's a whole other story!

The boys were good sports & I think it turned out pretty darn cute!

Elf on a Shelf

Is there anything better than the magic of Christmas? I don't think so. My grandmother recently taught my boys all about Leprechauns and they couldn't get enough. I thought it was a sign that they would really enjoy Elf on a Shelf. I was right! We named him Candy Cane Gingerbread & he gets into tons of mischief.  Before they even rub the sleep out of their eyes they want to see what ol' Candy Cane was up to in the night. My hubby & I fight over who's turn it is to come up with an idea. This is what w've done so far...