This is the last day of re-posts, I promise. It's what I did before I had a Cricut. It was a pain.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~June 3, 2009~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I have been more and more crafty lately. (In a good way...) With Doctor's orders to slow down, and dump some of the perfectionism/responsibility that I heap onto my own plate, taking the time to be creative has been therapeutic for me. And for our budget.
I needed a little something to go over the slider in our dining room. Here's what $1.50 can get you.
3 white plates from the thrift shop (.50 cents each)
A favorite scripture (well, sort of a scripture) and the image of a couple birds, printed off of the internet, cut out with and X-acto knife and Mod Podged onto the plates. (Free. A great price.)
And yes, I know that pictures at night are bad... oh well. (If you strain your eyes, you can see the plates up there...) Pictures during the day were so back-lit that all you could see was the backyard.
$1.50 works for me.
Click here or here for other Mod Podge projects I have done.
Check out the bottom of the blog for buttons to some great link parties, and I also link up here:
I am so excited! Wine Enthusiast contacted me and told me that my Wine Cork artwork has been selected as one their favorite cork projects of the year.
You can see their post here at Wine Enthusiast Blog. I am a little disappointed that there isn't a photo, but I am thrilled that they noticed little old me in the first place! :)
I am pre-scheduling posts, as I am about to leave on vacation. My kids are making me crazy. Forgive the repost, but they inspired it. This was from July of 2008. The then-16-year-old is now graduated from high school and almost 19. Not. Much. Has. Changed.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~Originally published July 13, 2008~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You are almost 16 years old.
You are taller than your mother.
You don't understand why your mom gets all screechy for no reason.
You have just eaten your weight in tortilla chips.
The preferred method for cleaning greasy hands is:
a) thoroughly washing them with soap and water.
b) making an attempt to wipe them clean with a napkin.
c) trying to smear the grease off of your hand and onto the furniture while your mother is not only watching you, but she is talking to you.
The answer isnot C.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Reminder to enter the giveaway for My Memories Suite digital scrapbook software! Click HERE to read my review and to enter the contest (through July 1, 2011).
If you aren't feeling lucky but want to buy it, instantly download it AND get it for $29.97 instead of $39.97, click HERE and use this code at check out STMMMS8203 (code good through July 3, 2011)
Last week while on twitter, I met a lovely couple who are recently married and just moved into their home. They are adorable and crafty. And thrifty. And DIYers. And basically all the things that we like in a blogger, yes? You can follow their journey at Joe And Laura's House
I am taking a quick vacation with all my boys and they jumped through hoops and bent over backwards to help me out with a guest post while I am away. Thanks guys!
Hey Everyone, I'm Laura and my husband's name is Joe. First we have to say, we are
excited to be a guest blogger on The V Spot Blog!
:)
A little about us:
We are your normal early twenties couple. We have been married since June of 2007 and have been living in an apartment for 2 1/2 years. We have recently moved into a house again and are so excited that we want to share it with our family and friends who live in different states and can’t see all of our projects and life happenings!
We hope all of you enjoy seeing the many projects that come with young life in an old house : )
My kitchen is.. well... quite small. So I wanted to draw the eye up a little to make the room seem a little bigger. I'm doing a couple different things but my next step in the kitchen came about because of a little treasure hunting at the local thrift store.
First, let me remind you of how our kitchen started out... (if you are Irish perhaps you will appreciate this)
Now don't get green with envy... haha :)
We have taken it to this so far...
Still a lot to go (counters, sink, flooring) & maybe even an updated microwave at some point or just replace it with a nice stainless hood. (We don't use the microwave anyway!) Anyways, I'm getting ahead of myself and my budget...
So I took the time to add another small touch to the room by making it feel taller and even more open by adding some art to an empty space above the kitchen sink
Now to the thrifting! I found a couple cute shadow boxes at our local thrift store and I really wanted three but looked and looked for another and never found one..but oh well..I can work with two. (You already know where I'm going with this!)
The yellow & sunflower filled shadowboxes...
The outside box was a pale yellow with green and tan inserts and yellow sunflowers... Doesn't really go with my style too well. So I knew I could change them up to look a little more modern..
First I took them apart and took the frames outside & used white spray paint to give them a clean, fresh look!
Next I got the glass cleaner and cleaned off the price that happens to be written in crayon on the glass front.
After the paint had dried, I started the process of filling them back up!
Looking super good so far!
I found some scrapbook paper that Joe's Gram had bought us a while back that matched the kitchen pretty well and cut it to the size of the sunflower picture and taped it in..
All it needed was a little update! LOVE it!
Done!
Next step was getting the hammer and nails out to start hanging these cute little shadow boxes above the kitchen sink and hoping it looks cute! :)
Since, I didn't have a third shadow box, and it looked kind of
off-balanced without something in the middle, I grabbed
up some of my fresh herbs and tied a ribbon around the
"bouquet" and hung it upside down to dry. It's perfect
decoration for the kitchen since they are herbs! :)
A step back confirms that it's a go! I love simple things that make you smile and this is one of those projects that was super easy, pretty fast and I am loving looking up at! :)
How much do you love them?! I am never surprised, but always amazed by the Power of Paint. Please go over and visit them. Joe and Laura, thank you, thank you, thank you for filling in today. :)
Give away Reminder:
Click HERE to read my review of My Memories Suite digital scrapbook software and to enter the contest (through July 1, 2011).
If you aren't feeling lucky but want to buy it, instantly download it AND get it for $29.97 instead of $39.97, click HERE and use this code at check out STMMMS8203 (code good through July 3, 2011)
It was my turn to host the bunco group a few weeks ago. I had been randomly picking up nice wine glasses at thrift stores or yard sales because I knew I wanted to have a personalized glass for each lady.... Why have wine charms when you can easily etch their names into the glass?
I started by using my Cricut and regular old contact paper to cut out the ladies’ names. You will want to use the negative space, so discard the letters and create a stencil. (Make sure you save the centers of the E’s, A’s, B’s, R’s, etc…)
Chances are that you’ll have to cut the letters apart to get them lined up just how you want them.
You will want to take little scraps and pieces to fill in any gaps to help protect the glass from getting any of the etching cream where you don’t want it.
Put on the etching cream and let it sit for as long as you need. (*Note: I routinely let the cream set up for 20 – 30 minutes, even though the directions on the jar say 5 minutes is OK….)
Wash off the cream and peel off your stencil…
You should have lovely, personalized wine glasses that your guests get to take home as party favors at the end of the night.
I guarantee that by the end of the night, we needed to have our names on our glasses.
It was also my friend Rose’s birthday. (Her son, Jake, is Grant’s BFF.) We have plenty of play dates that end with the mommas having a glass of wine.
I got her a bottle of wine and found a wine glass that was so big, it could double as a bathtub. I etched “sshhhh! Mommy’s thinking…” onto it.
I'm taking a few days off, but wanted to remind you to please enter the My Memories Suite giveaway that I'm having!
Click HERE to read my review and to enter the contest (through July 1, 2011).
If you aren't feeling lucky but want to buy it, instantly download it AND get it for $29.97 instead of $39.97, click HERE and use this code at check out STMMMS8203 (code good through July 3, 2011)
If you've been following along with me over the past week, you know I've been on a coral kick. And dough. A dough/coral kick. I made white coral, red coral, I even made starfish.
Out of dough.
But long before I busted out the dough, I busted out the acrylic paint.
This seaweed is all up and down the Southern California coast. I don't know what it's called. (Nor do I care, so there is no need to tell me. It's OK, really.)
However, if you find some and let it dry, you can make up a little mix of watered down red and orange paint.... dip the regular old, dried seaweed into the paint mixture and let it dry. Ta-Dah!
If it's sitting on a plate, or in an apothecary jar with a bunch of other beachy items, how accurate does it have to be?
Seriously?
Don't forget to enter the My Memories Suite giveaway!
7 chances to enter and a 25% off discount if you're not feeling lucky and just want a sure thing...buy this fab digital scrapbooking software!
Check out the bottom of the blog for buttons to some great link parties, and I also link up here:
Let me say first and foremost that I am not a scrapbooker.
In fact, the way my blog got started in the first place was because I needed a place to write down the funny things the kids were saying and doing. (Especially Grant) My kids’ baby photos are still in shoeboxes, and I do buy scrapbook supplies… but I use them to make cards and invitations.
So when the nice people at MyMemories.com contacted me and asked me to review their scrapbook software, I told them they probably had the wrong girl for the job. They assured me that even a Lazy Scrapbook Doofus like me will like this.
I was a bit skeptical…
OK.
When I’m wrong, I’m wrong. THIS SOFTWARE PROGRAM IS AMAZING! I am having so much fun playing with my memories suite! Yes, it is digital scrapbooking software, but it is so much more than that!
You can create an online scrapbook and insert a video clip, a voice over and add music. They call this adding a Hot Spot and I think it is so cool!
A picture may be worth a thousand words, but it’s still nice to have video and music, right? I can add in a video clip of the guys laughing while they’re making s’mores on our camping trip last year.
There is an auto-fill feature that will make your photo album in about 2 minutes, and then you can add in the Hot Spots later. I don’t have a video camera, I only take little snippets of video with my still camera or my phone and then never do anything with them (unless I vlog them…)
This digital scrapbooking software can also be used to make cards (yaay!) kids can use it for school reports (double yaay!) and on an on and on. I’m really impressed by the range of projects and I feel like I’m still only seeing the tip of the iceberg as to what can be done with My Memories Suite. I have been playing with this for days now and keep tweaking things because I can! I would love to be able to show you something I made… but I have gotten so wrapped up playing with this stuff that I haven’t finished anything yet. (Including my laundry!) I had no idea that there is so much you can make and do!
I am a convert... I believe.
These nice folks also have a video you can see that I think can illustrate how fabulous this is. Be prepared to get inspired.
I told ya! Amazing, right?
Want to win the My Memories Software? They are giving it away to one of my readers!
MANDATORY for entry:
Visit www.MyMemories.com and come back and leave a comment telling me what your favorite digital paper pack or layout is.
For extra entries (leave a separate comment for each):
Follow or subscribe to The V Spot (buttons on the side bar)
Follow me on twitter (buttons on the side bar)
Like me on facebook (buttons on the side bar)
Leave 1 comment per entry method competed for a total of up to 7 entries (7 comments).
Must complete the mandatory entry first.
The contest will be open until noon PST on July 1, 2011
What if you don’t win…?
You can take $10 off and get the software for just $29.97
Click here and enter promo code STMMMS8203 at check out.
This promo code expires on July 3, 2011
Oh, and by the way? You buy the software package and can download it instantly to your computer. No shipping charges, no waiting for the mailman. How cool is that?!
Thanks! I’m off to keep playing with this software! Good luck!
A few weeks ago, Craftberry Bush did a tutorial on how she made a cute garland out of clay starfish. Super cute. The other day when I was making my faux coral out of dough, I remembered her tutorial and used up some extra dough to make a couple of starfish.
I took the dough and smushed it into a little disk. I pressed a star-shape into the disk which left me with 5 fairly equal pieces of the dough.
I rolled each of the 5 pieces into little sections, then placed them in a star shape, connecting them at the middle. Smooth your star into, well, um, a star shape… Insert toothpicks or skewers into it if you want to make your starfish a bit more durable. (I am lazy and wasn’t too worried about it.) Take a skewer and poke little holes all over it for texture.
Once they were dry, I took them outside and sprayed them a gloss white, then I took Rustoleum’s Heirloom White and gave a light mist over the top of the white.
When they're dry, bring them in the house and, um, stick them somewhere.... I have a feeling these will get moved around a lot as I decide where to put them.
But in the meantime, this'll work.
You might also like the "red coral" I made using this dough.
Have you made anything using salt dough?
