Valentines Craftiness

My friend, Audrey and I had one of our craft days yesterday - so fun! Just wanted to share :)
After I took the above photo I realized I hadn't put anything in the frame. This is a detail of the final product.

A close up on one of the hearts. We LOVED the glitter! Isn't it great?

And this little baby will be put away until I pull out my spring stuff.


A couple tips I thought I'd point out.
-at the wood place where we bought most of our supplies, Audrey had the prescience of mind to ask them how they got the glitter on their finished products. The trick? Dip the object INTO the glitter (we put wax paper over a cookie sheet and sprinkled the glitter onto it. The wax paper made getting the glitter back into the jar easy) while the last coat of paint is still WET. Then when it's all dry, spray with a clear coat of GLOSSY glaze.
-for any sort of decoration that has a stick and a stand, glue only the TOP to the stick. That way you can remove the base and they'll fit in your storage totes more easily.

I've had a lot of fun working on my little Valentines vignettes today. Still need to find something suitable for those apothecary jars! I'm betting they stay empty for this year and hopefully I can find something on sale for next year.

Gift Box Tutorial

I had a couple of requests for the tutorial on this gift box and since I wanted to make another one anyway...here you go! (because honestly if I knew where to find the original tutorial for this I'd just point in the there right direction)

You will need:
cut from cardboard (cereal boxes worked well)
-4 - 2 1/4" x 5"
-1 - 1" x 5"
cut from patterned paper (any combination of colors/patterns you want)
-1 - 12" x 6" (this is the outside of the box)
-1 - 4 7/8" x 10 1/4" (this is the inside of the box)
-1 - 7" x 7" (this is the box top)
-4 - 6" x 6" (these are the smaller boxes inside)

Step 1: on the back side of the 12" x 6" paper, draw a line along the top 1/2" from edge. Draw another line along the left side 3/4" from edge.

Step 2: use the lines you just drew to start placing the cardboard pieces on the back of the patterned paper, spacing each cardboard piece approx 1/8" apart. Glue the cardboard onto the patterned paper.

Step 3: cut the corners off the patterned paper (as shown)

Step 4: fold all edges of the patterned paper over and adhere to the cardboard

Step 5: cover the back of the patterned paper/cardboard with the 4 7/7" x 20 1/4" piece of paper. Glue down, making sure it's smooth. Fold between each piece of cardboard.

Step 6: Take one of the square pieces of paper and draw diagonal lines from corner to corner (on the back of the paper, obviously)

Step 7: Fold a corner to the center point

Now fold the folded edge to the diagonal line. Crease each fold well. Unfold. Repeat this on each of the corners

You will now have a grid like this.

Step 8: cut along lines as shown, making sure to stop as indicated (sorry this is the hardest part to explain. Hope the photo illustrates it well enough)
Step 9: Take the larger, triangle-shaped piece and fold the point into the center. You will notice that this folds along a crease you already made.

Place the point of the second triangular piece on the center point as well

Step 10: Fold these pieces up to form 2 sides of the box. Now the ends of each piece form little tabs. Fold those tabs in to make the 3rd side of the box.

Step 11: Take the point of the 3rd side and put it on the center mark. You will notice that this completely covers the tabbed side.

Repeat with the remaining side.
Adhere all points into the center and there you have your box!

Step 12:Repeat this process with the rest of the square pieces.

Step 13: Adhere one side of each of the smaller boxes to the back of your cardboard part. (as shown - note the stairstep pattern.)

Fold up the box and add the lid and voila! Now you can embellish any way you like. Fill each little box with goodies and give to someone you love.

Progress (not perfection) Report

February already? Wow that went fast!
I'm pretty sure I say that phrase to someone every time we flip the calendar to a new month. But I guess that's a side effect of keeping busy, right? And yes, busy we have been. I thought I would participate in the Progress (Not Perfection) Party over at My Insanity and do a quick run down of our progress so far on our revamp/reorganize/try-to-make-this-house-more-livable-and-appealing quest.

-painted the living room RED. Still need to finish the touch ups - see, Not Perfection! (yet) :)
-made it through Sam's 30th birthday
-fabulous new coat hooks in the laundry/mud room. lots and lots hooks!
-cleared off the 6 foot high clutter pile known as a desk in our bedroom and gave away the desk

Dang. That list looks really short. Better include the other organizing stuff we did at the end of December
-completely rearranged both kids' bedrooms including: getting rid of a LOT of toys, switching dressers, and reorganizing the toy storage
-cleaned all the carpets and upholstery

Nope. Still a short list. But it FELT like a lot of work. And lots more to come in February. We'll see how much I can get done on my own since the husband won't be around to help.

Card Night - January

This month the focus wasn't actually on cards though. We wanted a bit of a change so we all brought our own supplies to make this fun gift box. The plan is to fill it with treats of some sort and give it to someone special for Valentines. Cute huh? And easier than it looks to make.

(I have no idea where the instructions originated but can do a How To if anyone is really really interested.)

Latest Projects

It was a very busy weekend. Not only did I throw a big party (see previous post) but we took advantage of my husband being off work a couple extra days and painted the living room. Just had to share. I'm in love with the red. It makes me feel happy. And I love the contrast between the red walls and the white trim. It gives everything such a nice, clean, new feel.

Look how good the clock looks next to it!

And there's my little model. He kept jumping in front of the camera as I tried to take photos :)

I've found the same style is coming out in my scrapping lately too. Lots of high contrast, fun/funky colors and patterns along with clean lines and simple layouts. I did these just last week. Thought I'd post since I rarely take the time to share my layouts.

Checkered Flag Birthday

My husband turned 30 last week and you can't hit a milestone like that without a party right? So of course we pulled a big group of family and friends together for it. I have to admit I was doing my best to keep this one streamlined. I'm a bit partied out at this point (and have to admit that is shows in the photos too, sorry. I was more interested in playing hostess than taking photos). So I enlisted a bunch of help with the food and kept the theme really simple.
Sam is really into NASCAR, and since I had some black and white stuff left over from the last big party I decided to go with a checkered flag theme. A package of flags and a plastic checkered tablecloth is all it took to pull everything together. And I have to say, Sam walked into the party room and was impressed, so that's all that matters. And he said he had a great time - yay!

The decor:
-white tablecloths with a small piece of the checkered tablecloth (I cut it into six 18" squares for the tables, one large square for the buffet table, and used the leftover strip on the cake table). Then I alternated centerpieces. Some were black and white balloons tied onto a wooden block and others were altered paint cans with flags stuck in them.

The food:
-I wanted to go with a tailgate theme so we had hot wings, pigs-in-a-blanket (biggest hit of the party, I need to do these more often), chips, veggies, pasta salad, chinese chicken salad, and a nice selection of drinks. I set the drinks up on their own table, with the beer (that my hubby snuck in) in a big metal bucket. The cake (Boston Cream Pie) got it's own table, along with the other goodies.

The entertainment:
-well it's a grown up party so everyone is pretty happy just sitting around visiting. The only planed entertainment was singing happy birthday and having Sam blow out the candles. But I did grab a big race track game from the party store to keep the kids occupied.

Coat Racks

The lastest in my 2010 Quest to Get the House in Better Shape - coat racks. See where we used to have the coats in the laundry/mud room?

Pitiful right? Just be glad I didn't think to take the photo BEFORE we moved all the coats off because that just looked like a big ole' pile of coats and boots and backpacks. Ugly. And not enough space. Most of the time the kids stuff would fall off the hooks and then the wet dirty shoes would end up on top of them. And the stuff that didn't fit on hooks ended up hanging on the ironing board. Not good.
So as I stood looking at that mess a couple weeks ago I thought, hey there's LOTS more space on that other wall, wonder if we can move the coats? Turns out we can. And did. (hehe) Check out my new Wall of Coats.

Custom built by my wonderful handy husband. He was going for "sturdy" instead of "cute" but that's ok, I'm still in love. Because guess what - everything has it's own hook! And in such a prompt fashion too - probably less than 2 weeks ago it was that I mentioned I wanted new racks. And here we are - you all wish your hubbies were that on the ball doncha? :) That was due in part to me being lucky that he got MLK day off and had the time, but mostly he's just that good!

Stay tuned. I know exactly what I want to do with that space where the coats used to be. And Sam has a 4 day weekend this week!