Hand Painted Oil Bottle

Although I'm not a big user of oil dressings or the use of oil for a whole lot in general, I love the look of oil bottles...and I loved this one in particular even more when I found it for a dollar at my local craft store! To decorate it, I simply chose four colors of acrylic paint that I thought would complement each other, in this case black, white, light blue, and red. Beginning with the lightest color (white), I used the tip of a Q-tip, dabbed it into the paint and created small dots around the entire bottle. I then repeated the same process with the light blue, followed by the red, and finally the black, until the bottle appeared completely covered in dots. After the paint dried, I sprayed a clear sealant all over the bottle to keep it protected from chipping. Although it sounds like a lot of monotony, it really is a very quick project and creates a really neat effect!

How To: Simple Baby Booties



Sweet little slippers for our upcoming arrival


Since I have FINALLY had some energy and free time this weekend (this whole developing a life inside of you thing is NO JOKE!), I decided I would do some crafting. Some crafting turned into a marathon day of gluing, painting, jewelry-making, photographing, brainstorming, organizing, sewing, you name it! All in all, my idea of a fabulous day!

My first project was finishing up the baby slippers I had started weeks and weeks ago. I have wanted so badly to make baby slippers similar to the ones my cousin, Kristin made for my nephew around Christmas time. After I found the pattern and instructions online (which I will happily share with all of you!), I got started with pinning and sewing and making a few of my own adaptations. Here is a great webpage that will take you through the process step-by-step and also includes a pattern for the slippers themselves.

Since I am not the most gifted hand-stitcher, I decided to match the thread I used to sew the slippers to the color of the fabric as best I could and create smaller stitches than those shown  in the instructions (in other words, the less people able to see my stitching, the better off we all are!). In addition, since I am having a girl and she will be the recipient of these slippers, I decided to sew ribbon along the upper edges of each pair of slippers to create a cute bow that could be tied in the front.



Black and gold slippers for baby girl to rock out during Steelers football season




Sweet little pink booties with white ribbon




Probably my favorite pair-gray felt slippers with purple ribbon.







Organza Flower Hair Clips

Organza flowers

Now that my favorite local craft store, Pat Catan’s, has begun selling organza fabric, I have been obsessed with making organza flowers, which look much more complicated than they actually are! There are a million different ways to create these types of flowers, but I simply cut out organza circles in 4-5 different sizes and singed around the edges using a lighter (be careful to not leave on too long, as the fabric will burn!). The circles naturally curl up when singed, creating a flower petal look. Using a needle and thread, I sewed each of the circles together with the large circle on the bottom descending to the smallest circle on the top. I then embellished the flowers by hot-gluing various beads into the center of the flower. Easy peasy lemon squeezy! Flowers can be adhered to hair clips, headbands, pins, household decorations, etc. The sky is the limit!

Organza fabric used for this project

Children's Craft-Panda Visor

Make new friends, but keep the old (sing it if you know it!) one is silver and the other’s gold. As a child/teenager, I had the privilege (yes, privilege!) of being a Girl Scout for 13 years. Scouting allowed me to meet people from all walks of life, try activities I would never have tried otherwise, perform community service projects for those less fortunate than myself and experience the joy of giving back, and travel around the country and world (That’s right, kids..my troop went on a two-week journey to London and Paris!). About a year and a half ago, I decided that it was time for me to start giving back to the Girl Scout program. I met up with someone from my local council and, before I knew it, I was the new troop leader of a Daisy (Kindergarten-1^st grade) troop!

One of the events held by the council was Thinking Day, which teaches the girls about Girl Scouts and Girl Guides in other countries. We were asked to represent a specific country at this event, so our troop chose China. With one week to plan and zero kimonos in my possession, one of the moms suggested having the girls dress like pandas…Done! I told the girls to wear a black and white outfit of their choosing and simply decorated white visors with black, hardened felt, and a black Sharpie to transform them from girls to China’s most well-beloved animal!



Split Canvas Tree Painting

I know…I’ve been a total blog slacker this week, but with good reason! I recently changed teaching positions from working as a consultant in early intervention, where I traveled to various preschools, daycares, and homes to work with children with a huge array of delays and diagnoses, to a self-contained classroom of students aged 9-13 with varying severities of Autism. Needless to say, my life has been more than a little consumed by this teensy little change!

Split canvas tree painting

I absolutely LOVED creating this next project, not only because it was easy and looks awesome in my organic/nature-themed room, but also because it cost me a grand total of around $2!!! I don’t think they have sold them in a while, but the Dollar Tree used to sell small canvases in packs of three and, at the time, I stockpiled them to have for future projects just like this one. I taped the backs of four of these small canvases together so that they looked like one large canvas. Using a tree I had cut out of cardstock (you could use a stencil of virtually anything and wouldn’t necessarily have to cut it out yourself), I taped it onto the canvases and used a light green acrylic paint and foam brush to cover the canvases completely with paint. After the paint dried, I carefully peeled off the cardstock to reveal the tree then sprayed a sealant over the entire painting. Once the sealant was completely dry, I removed the tape from the backs of the canvases and placed each canvas about 1” apart on the wall.

The options for this project are truly limitless! Any sized canvases could be used and you could use as many or as few as you please. An alternative to painting on canvases would be to use Modge Podge and an exacto knife to blow up your favorite picture or print, lay it across multiple canvases using Modge Podge, let it dry, and cut each canvas apart using an Exacto knife to display on your walls. Here are a few other pictures of ways in which others (far more artistically talented than me) have used the "split canvas" technique.

A LOT of printing studios offer this type of canvas now...How cool is this?

I may have to make something like this for my British grandparents!

Very pretty enlarged and cut photo

Blossoming Tree Centerpiece



I am all about designing on a dime, so I decided to borrow from the bounty of free items Mother Nature has to offer. Using a square vase that I have had forever, I filled it with a variety of “river rocks” (that I couldn’t find in nature, so I bought from a dollar store) and placed three of my favorite branches found outside into the vase. To make the flowers, I used five sheets of tissue paper that I folded like a fan and cut into 4” pieces (for smaller flowers). I used jewelry wire to wrap around the center of each tissue paper fan, leaving a tail of wire to be used later. Carefully pull each layer of tissue paper toward the wire in the center on one side and do the same to the opposite side. Once your flower is completed to your satisfaction, use the wire to twist around any part of the branch you would prefer. Repeat this process until your “tree” is decorated the way you want.

In case you’re as much of a visual learner as I am, here is a link showing how to make a variation of tissue paper flowers somewhat like mine. http://www.wikihow.com/Make-Tissue-Paper-Flowers

Easy to Make Accent Pillows Using Upholstery Samples

Awesome accent pillows using fabric samples

I have zero shame in admitting my love for and possible obsession with craft stores, but my most recent trip to Joann Fabrics proved that my constant observation and shopping was not done in vain. My husband and I recently bought new bedspreads for the bedrooms of our new house but were not willing to spend the money on the accent pillows that went with the bedspreads. On my trip to Joann’s, I spotted a huge area in the middle of the store with fabric samples. I high-tailed it over to the samples to see if they would work for the pillows I wanted to make and to check on the cost, only to find that they were $2 each. Not bad! As I began to dig (‘cause the good stuff is ALWAYS at the bottom), the fabulous salesperson informed me that they were all 50% off, making them $1 each. Score!!! I snagged three samples that would match one bedspread, three to match a second, and a few I thought were too cute to pass up, despite not knowing what I could use them for.

Here is a picture of what each fabric sample I picked up looks like



I bought two yards of gray fabric for the backs of the pillows and cut out and pinned the fabric to the samples as soon as I got home. After running the sewing machine around the edges of the pinned fabric, leaving a gap of about three inches, I used Poly-fil for stuffing and hand-sewed the pillows shut. I could not be happier with the result!

Completed pillows with bedding in bedroom #1

And in bedroom #2