ADORNit It Girl Makes Chalkboard Paint

I can't believe that my reign as an ADORNit It Girl is coming to a close. I didn't get to make NEARLY enough pretty things, so you'll probably still see me blogging with more ADORNit goodies, especially since I just scored this bit of fabulousness when I was on Amazon today. 

One of the things I loved most in my Swag Bag of Awesomeness were these plain MDF shapes. I made my own DIY Chalkboard Paint to make this lovely thing. You mix a couple big spoonfuls of cornstarch into plain old acrylic paint (of any color) and go to town with your foam brush. Let it dry completely between coats. I sanded mine with a fine sandpaper between coats, and put on a good four coats because apparently I'm an over-painter as well as an over-gluer. I used E-6000 to glue this gorgeous ADORNit necklace to my chalkboard as the hanger for my project. I love the idea of jewelry, but I don't often wear it, so this seemed a better solution than letting pretty things hang out all alone in my closet! Then I seasoned the chalkboard with a piece of chalk by rubbing a piece of my kids chalkboard chalk over the whole shebang before trying to hand letter this sign. You should buy the good chalk to letter a sign. Cheap dollar store chalk is not the most fun to work with, but I'm still please with my first attempt. I still love my sign, and plan to letter on new quotes when I buy me some better chalk!

I have so enjoyed my time with ADORNit, and my swag bag of goodies too. I've made a ton of adorable projects, and a bunch of my CTMH peeps even went with me on a field trip to visit the Logan store and warehouse while we were in Utah last month. If you are ever in Utah, go - it's seriously more cuteness than any store should be allowed to carry. Perhaps applying to be an It Girl and then deciding to move two weeks later (and commencing trying to make said move a week later amid five weeks of the worst Portland snow I've evah experienced) wasn't the wisest idea, but it sure was a blast. ADORNit is now taking applications for a new It Girl team, and I highly encourage you to apply. 

  

Sparkling New Year Hop!

Welcome to the Blog Hops with Heart Sparkling New Year Hop! You might be arriving here from STEPHANIE'S BLOG. This month we are featuring any project with SPARKLE...so for me that meant glitter all the things!

I scored this sparkly gold heart in the Target Dollar spot for just $3. It was already glittery and gold, though my Target also had pink and mint colors too. I used strips of Shimmer Trim (and red glitter gel because somehow I'm out?) to create the rainbow band. The shimmer trim strips made it pretty easy to create even stripes. 

Then I pulled retired Fundamentals stickers and old chipboard resist letters from my overflowing box of letters I can't seem to let go of and added that sentiment. Instead of inking the resist letters I filled them in with sparkly diamond glitter gel. I coated the black plain letter stickers with Liquid Glass so they too could be as shiny as everything else on this wall decor piece. I'm linking this project up to the Heart 2 Heart Silver and Gold Challenge and the Paper Issues Stash Busters Challenge.

Next up on the hop is SHELLY'S BLOG. Be sure to stop by all these amazing blogs to soak up all the sparkly goodness!

Merry and Bright Blog Hop

Welcome to the Merry and Bright Blog Hop! You might be arriving her from BECCA's BLOG. On this month's Blog Hops with Heart we made you some fabulously merry holiday projects!

For me, holiday crafts are the most fun. I love that holiday decorations are never too sparkly! This year I added a sweet Holiday Banner and an advent tree to our entryway. I used some rhinestone covered push pins to hold up my new decor creations.If you want a closer look at that triple block decoration hanging from what is normally just key hooks, you can see that ornament up close HERE.

 I found the banner in my to be decorated project drawer. Perhaps it originally came from Michaels? I can't be sure. I painted most of the banner pieces with a dark red acrylic paint and swiped the edges them with the green. I flipped the colors on the dividing banner.  I outlined every letter with glitter gel, and embellished the banner with wooden snowflakes, sequins, rhinestone and bitty sparkles, and more glitter gel. Lemme tell ya, that was a lot of Liquid Glass, Stampin' Friends.  I tied the banner pieces together using baker's twine and topped the bows with more rhinestone sparkles.

I found a blank tree wooden decor piece at Craft Warehouse. I painted it with the same dark red and green acrylic paints. I outlined each tree "branch" with silver glitter gel. I stamped the numbers on for a guideline, and then I filled in the letters with a sharpie marker. I found a very vintage CTMH rhinestone circle frame sticker, which I mounted on Ruby cardstock and topped with a gingham bow to create the Advent marker. It moves along with the help of a glue dot behind the bow.

I coated the entire piece with a glitter acrylic paint topcoat. This isn't the greatest picture, but can you see the bling? It might just be the sparkliest paint ever! I adhered a glittered kraft star diecut to the top of the tree for one last touch of sparkle. I know there wasn't a lick of paper on my projects today, but almost everything (but the tree base) came out of my stamp room stash, so I hope you'll still enjoy my glittery decor items!

Next up on the hop is AMIE'S BLOG. Happy Hoppin' Holidays!

Tricks and Treats Blog Hop

Welcome to this month's Blog Hops with Heart Tricks and Treats Blog Hop! This hop has lots of creatively awesome Halloween treats for your craft loving heart. You may be arriving here from BECCA'S BLOG. A complete list of hoppers can be found at the bottom of this post.

I made some super sparkly pumpkin decor using cream colored craft pumpkins and Cricut cut paper flowers. I used washi tape to create a dip line, then painted the pumpkins with mod podge and coated them with chunky gold glitter. I added a second coat of mod podge and sprinkled on some tiny gold sequins. A third coat of mod podge sealed in the sparkly goodness!

On top of each pumpkin I used Liquid Glass to secure a variety of rolled paper flowers cut from Sweet Leaf, Glacier, and Thistle cardstock. I inked the edges of each flower before rolling and securing with Liquid Glass. After the flowers dried then I attached them to the pumpkins, tucking in sprigs of leaves cut from Whisper cardstock as I felt the need. 

Next up on the hop is KATY'S BLOG. Happy hopping!

Complete October Hop List:

Amie

Becca

Wendy (You are here!)

Katy

Stephanie

Life is Better with Friends Frame

One of my favorite parts of traveling with my team for Convention each year is the exchanging roomie gifts. I often make something for all my traveling ladies instead of just my roommates, because it's just too much fun!

This year we are in Orlando, so I went with a gold glittered Flamingo frame! You might remember me posting on Instagram a week ago about running out of gold glitter....now you can see why.

I used the new Tickled Pink stamp set, which has a coordinating set of Thin Cuts dies. I also gave up a bit of my wide gold stripe hoard from the May Happy Times special. That's how they know I really {heart} them! I can't wait to pass these out to my peeps today!

Easy Star Wars Kid's Room Wall Art

So this week I've been devoting myself to unpacking and reorganizing my whole house. I've missed my every day crafting time, but I had bookshelves to paint, boxes to unload, a guest room full of randomness, and some projects I had promised to the kiddos that were taking up valuable desk space.

If you are on Instagram, perhaps you saw that before we moved I scored a fabulous Star Wars calendar in the Target Dollar Spot. Ben had already decided he wanted Star Wars stuff in his new all-him-alone-space room, so I had been looking for some star wars swag. However, which ubiquitous, Star Wars swag is also cha-ching, especially considering in three months he could decide he only like Ninjago or Minecraft or Pac-Man*. This calendar had a great look and an awesome price so it was perfect for this project!

And thus the shiny new calendar was packed away carefully never to be seen again. On our inaugural trip to IKEA when we got back to Portland I found these Fiskbo frames for $1.99. (Does anyone else always read that name as Fisbo as in clowns? Too much Modern Family for me? I digress...) Twelve frames were purchased. Husband may or may not have been rolling his eyes, since at the time we had literally unpacked like nothing. 

Today I mounted each flimsy Dollar Spot calendar page onto crisp 8 1/2 x 11" cardstock for sturdiness, then framed them up. I hung them using my favorite Command Velcro picture hanging strips so I could just eyeball the grid. When he's tired of Star Wars, we can just pick up a new calendar in whatever the next love turns out to be. I can't wait for Ben to come home and see his new display!

* The Pac-Man reference isn't as far fetched as it might seem. The boys recently discovered the old cartoon series from the eighties on Netflix, and while their mean mom won't let them truly just binge on it, their enthusiastic love for this Pac-Man cartoon is only exceeded by how much I cannot even understand why it's so appealing to them. Apparently the Pac is ba-a-ack.

Day 342: Harry Potter Wall Decor

Speaking of Max's Harry Potter obsession, a little side project we've been working on this week for his new bedroom after the move are these awesomesauce Harry Potter style letters to add to his wall over his bed. He wanted them to look like the Golden Snitch...

I ordered our custom letters from an Etsy Shop called Ally's Custom Art. The price was reasonable, and she shipped out out pieces super fast! I had Max help base coat the letters with some gold acrylic paint front and back. I filled in the sides for him, and then added three coats of Gold Extreme Glitter acrylic paint, and two coats of Glossy Mod Podge. I love Extreme Glitter paint - the sparkle is outstanding, and it doesn't shed glitter everywhere.

I may retake these pics after we get moved in my shiny new Shot Box to see if that helps to capture how sparkly and gorgeous they are. Max was ready to hop in the car and drive to Oregon that night just to hang his name in his room. I'm sure it'll be mentioned as soon as we get out of the car at our new place Saturday night, lol. 

Day 339: Yoda Painted Tote Bag

So couple weeks ago Max and I saw the CUTEST tote bag on one of those Facebook ads, and they were offering to give it away for free. Score, right? Except when you looked at reviews for the company making the offer, lots of people were complaining about a variety of issues, and I didn't feel comfortable at all with handing over my credit card details to a company with such a shady reputation. Good thing we are crafty round here, eh? 

So I started with one bag for the youngest child, and then, as these things do, it snowballed into three bags, because every boy needs his own bag. Today I'm sharing Ben's bag. Ok, don't judge me too harshly, because I have never claimed to be an actual artist. I like cutting up pretty paper and gluing it back together - like quilting, but less work! I don't draw much, or even paint much unless you count splattering watercolor paint everywhere, but when your child looks at you with the big blue eyes, and you just finished packing all his toys into big boxes and are prepping him for a big unexpected move, then you get creative for him real fast. So I found a simple Yoda cartoon that thrilled him to pieces. Then I sketched with a pencil until my Yoda sort of looked like the cartoon Yoda. Did you know you can use an eraser on a canvas tote bag?

Once Ben had approved the Yoda, I painted him with standard acrylic paints mixed 2 to 1 with fabric medium. He was supposed to be on a white background, but them someone dropped yellow paint onto Yoda and he ended up hovering over a lake of (tie-dyed) fire. Luckily, Ben thought that was awesomesauce.   After you've finished your painting, you let the project dry for 24 hours and then iron it to heat set the painted areas...now you can imagine these canvas totes draped over moving boxes all over my living room... Although the project was a bit of a departure from the packing I was supposed to be doing, they will be useful during the move, as each boy will be carrying his own car toys and books for the long drive to Portland in their sweet new totes!

Day 328: Lego Wall Letters

My second Lego related project for the oldest child is a set of 3-D letters to hang on the wall in his new room in our new house in Oregon. I have already ordered these awesomesauce Harry Potter letters from Etsy for Max, which we will work together to cover with gold chunky glitter! And I found some amazing 2 foot tall metal Star Wars Letters for Ben's wall, but I couldn't find anything Lego related for Gabe that I a) liked, and b) wanted to pay for. So a trip to Hobby Lobby was made...I know, the sacrifices we make for these children...

I got some big chunky chipboard letters and painted them silver. Then I convinced the child in question to GIVE UP A SMALL BAGGIE OF LEGO PIECES PLEASEPLEASEPLEASE, which sounds simple when you know he has literally thousands of Legos, but in actuality was the hardest step of making these letters. I coated the top of each letter in E6000 glue (Phew!) and pressed the hard-won Lego pieces in place. I do have letters for each letter in his name, but Grumpy McFarland didn't want me to photograph his name either, so you get to view the "A". I'll post a pic of them when we get them mounted after our move to my Instagram when he's not looking if y'all promise not to rat me out. All lined up they are exactly what I was wanting, and now I don't have to pack my bottle of E6000, since I've used every last stinky drop. Two birds with one stone and all, because I think that makes this project part of my moving the studio project, am I right? 

Day 321: Scrap Much? Christmas Joy Layout

Welcome to another new Scrap Much? sketch day! This one is so adorable, I knew I wanted to use it for my ongoing framed page project. I got these 9x9 frames at Ikea forever ago, and they are only partially filled (though hung empty on the wall), so I had to get a little creative with the sizing to make the project fit my frame.

I mounted everything on a kraft cardstock base. The papers are from the Simple Stories Cozy Christmas 6x6 pad. 

The snowflake is wood veneer from American Crafts, and the doily is Doodlebug. I think this tree is one of my favorite images from the pad!

There's also a super lovely page that has these ornaments as a border across the top...and yes, I did fussy cut each element out and rearrange it across the top of the page to fill in the banner element of the sketch. I used the second sheet of the print to help me place the border back together. I added a gold foil overlay for the title, and lots of bitty rhinestone sparkles and glitter gel pen accents.

Here's the original sketch. I hope you'll hop over to Scrap Much? to play along with this new challenge!

Day 315: Harry Potter Birthday Party

Today we hosted a super fun Harry Potter Themed birthday party for my youngest dude, who turned six and is completely cuckoo for all things Hogwarts. We made pretty much everything for the party using my printer, a hot glue gun, and acrylic paints. If you missed it, here's a link to our OWL party invites, which were as much fun to deliver as they were to make.

When the guests arrived the first stop was Diagon Alley to pick up their supplies. Each child got to choose a wand (bamboo chopstick, glue gun, plus acrylic paints from my stash). Each one was slightly different and it was a difficult choice for the Hogwarts students. They also grabbed some Harry Potter glasses, but we made them wait to visit Honeydukes until they were leaving the party. You can find the printables I used (plus much more Harry Potter goodness) on my Partytime Pinterest board. You can also see where we added signs to my unfinished wall projects to let the guests know it's ok - Muggles can't see those photos. 

Next stop was the Azkaban photo booth where we took these cute Have You Seen This Wizard? photos of each of the party guests. I'm planning to use their photos on thank you cards soon, and the kids' faces were priceless. We presented two mini Hogwarts classes. One was a potions class (where we made balloons magically inflate using chemistry and slime to take home). The other was a charms class (with a Hogwarts themed freeze dance that included a spell to make everyone dance uncontrollably) and the classic Wingardium Leviosa charm to make balloons stay in the air with our wands. Then we repaired to the Great Hall to feast!

Max specifically requested Hagrid's birthday cake for Harry in the first novel. He helped me bake three layers of our favorite Quinoa Chocolate cake, which we adapted to be gluten free and dairy free to make sure all our guests could have some cake. I know the writing was supposed to be green, but I didn't have any green coloring agents, and Max was okay with the white writing, done with a ziploc baggie. I cannot tell you how hard it was to stack up that cake so nice and tall and then squish it down and cover it with the messiest frosting job ever...but it did make the job quick since it was supposed to look like someone sat on it! Behind the cake you can see the Indoor Quidditch ping pong ball game we built for the kids, since there currently snow up your knees in the backyard, so my hula hoop Quidditch plan got shut down. That was a huge hit with the party goers! 

Almost every surface in my house had a bit of Hogwarts magic: notices from Filch to the packing paper Devil's Snare we built onto the stair case, paper spiders the boys helped me craft (requiring a ton of wiggly eyes) to show the way to Aragog's lair, and even signs pointing the way to the Ministry of Magic...if you know what I mean. My fussy cutting skills came in handy, as you can see here in my selfie with Moaning Myrtle. The party was a hit, and now I'm gonna hit the hay!

Day 313: Top Posts for 2015

Time flies when you are having fun, Stampin' Friends. I'm 313 days into my 365 day blogging challenge, and I hope you've been having as much fun as I have!

I poked back through my (almost) year of blogging to see which posts were most popular, then picked out my favorites of your favorites to share once more today. I hope you'll forgive me for not posting a new project, but today was my littlest son's birthday and he needed me more than I needed to craft, so I only got to work on my project for tomorrow's Blog Hop in between cooking all his favorite foods and cleaning and decorating for the Harry Potter shindig we are hosting Saturday. There's only 52 more days to go in my challenge, and I can't tell you how grateful I am to each of you friendly readers for following along and supporting my creative exploration this year. Crafters are the best!

We just found out that we are moving back to Portland, which brings for me a confusing mixture of joy and tears...and a wee bit of panic as my hubby needs to be there to start his new adventure in just two weeks, leaving me to manage the whole caboodle until we can get the family move organized too. I'm looking forward to my nightly crafting sessions as therapy and rest from the crazy days ahead!

I made this image of my oldest son's hands just before we decided to move to Spokane a little less than two years ago. I find it a helpful reminder today as well. 

Happy New Year, Stampin' Friends, and onward to new adventures in 2016!

Day 305: Easy Reindeer Kid Craft

Today I was supposed to get to sneak off and fit in some card making time with a crafty mom friend...but instead our neighborhood got blocked in by a bunch of cars who were stranded by the snow and a jackknifed semi truck. No one could get in, and no one could get out. So instead of crafty time, I got lots of kid time. We took a snowy walk, sledded, ate gluten free danish bread with homemade jam, and wrapped some presents.

The boys (usually) love to craft, so when I saw this pin on Pinterest, we had to make some. Obviously I made the center sample, and the other two were made by my youngest son, Max. The other two did not want to make anything (except these Disney Shrinky Dinks). We painted the mason jar lids with brown outdoor paint. Max made his first reindeer pretty much according to the instructions...but the second attempt was much more satisfying according to him. I try to encourage them to be creative and follow their own path. So I plan to punch a hole in the tops of these with my Crop-a-dile and hang them right onto our tree, 8 bazillion pom poms and all, once I get the artiste to sign his creations. 

Day 303: Easy Glitter Monogram Gift Tags

I live in a house full of boys. When it comes to holiday traditions, the boys care deeply about Christmas cookies and visiting Santa to drop off their list of demands share their wish lists. No one but me wants to decorate for the holidays. No one but me is happy about the new jammies on Christmas Eve tradition. No one but me cares how the presents are wrapped.  

Since no one else cares, I tend to go very simple and utilitarian on most of the gift wrapping. It breaks my heart a bit, because I'd love to go all fancy on the wrapping doo dads, but since everything gets unwrapped in 3.2 seconds flat, it makes more sense to chill on the frills. Items are wrapped with an easily read tag to show who gets to tear off the paper. No bows, no ribbons, no carefully crafted pretty paper tags that they will scrunch into a ball. But the Santa present...now that gets a bit of care. Extra hooplah and ribbons and specially crafted tags...but not too much like my normal style, because we can't out Santa due to excessive CTMH stamp usage.  

This year I found these inexpensive monogram letters at Target. They are thicker than chipboard, but pretty lightweight. I wanted to jazz them up a bit, so I coated them with Paper Mod Podge and a thick, chunky silver glitter, with an extra layer of mod podge to seal in the glittery goodness. Now they are so fabulous and sparkly! Better yet, the boys can add them to the Christmas tree as ornaments once they are done with presents this year, because they love monogram holiday ornaments (or anything with their name/initial that they can claim only they have the right to hang on the tree). Only four more sleeps!

Day 277: Snowman Candle Snowflake Ornament Craft

Today was a busy Thanksgiving prep day. I made a dozen each of tiny pumpkin cheese cakes and pumpkin pies, plus a couple dozen banana pumpkin grain free muffins. We finished the ridiculously messy tissue paper snowflake cutting activity, bought new sleds, and froze our toes off in the ice/snow. Stamping wasn't on the agenda, but the boys and I did make these adorable snowflake ornaments for our tree, using some of the battery operated tea lights from our Spokane windstorm power outage experience.  

The boys added googly eyes and sharpie mouths to the tea lights. We cut some hat shapes from an old shipping box and they colored them black. Then Mom (that's me) used E6000 to glue the lights onto some inexpensive glitter stars we scored at Target. so no one would be burned by the hot glue gun, with lots of advice from the peanut gallery. We added some resin glitter holly bits from my stash - I think I got them at Michaels.  Every boy was pleased as punch.

I know they won't glow forever, but I did use some scissors to trim out a segment of the snowflake so we can turn them on and off until the batteries die. I think these will be a good conversation starter when we trim the tree each year, reminding us how lucky we are, and how we sometimes take things for granted. Like power, or heat.  Sometimes the bad things can open your eyes to the good things you weren't really paying attention to before...

So tomorrow as I roast that turkey I've got dry-brining in the fridge that actually keeps things cold, I'll be grateful for my safe and healthy family gathered around me, for having enough food to feed us all, and for every little thing that I'm lucky enough to experience.