Personalized "China" - Dollar Store Craft!

I saw a photo tagged on Pinterest that gave a very short, easy description on how to personalize a mug:

http://www.abeautifulmess.com/2012/06/his-her-sharpie-mug-diy.html

Of course, I HAD to try it! So very addicted to the Dollar store now *sigh*. It keeps my crafting costs down though! So here are the supplies you will need to do this at home:

1.) Sharpie Marker
2.) Plain white dollar store ceramic mug or plate
3.) Small bowl of water
4.) Cotton pad
5.) Oven

The first thing you want to be sure of is that the plate is free from fingerprints, dirt, and/or smudges. Next, preheat the oven to 350 degrees, and pick your design. I am in the midst of slowly redecorating my kitchen/dining room into an Alice in Wonderland theme, so I chose an image and phrase from the book.

Next, begin to draw out your design. If you mess up, dip the cotton pad in a bit of water and wipe the marker off; if you do it somewhat quickly, it "erases" quite easily. If you are a bit further along and decide it isn't right, you may have to scrub a little more, but the cotton pads are great at taking the marker off.

Once your design is in place and you are satisfied with how it turned out, bake it in the oven at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. I went out and mowed the lawn and accidentally left it in the oven longer than 30 minutes, but it still turned out beautifully:

I haven't tried using other colors of Sharpie yet, but I am thinking I need a mug to match so I am going to try them. I would imagine it would work the same way, and Sharpies come in lots of different shades which means this project can be personalized in lots of ways. This would also be a great gift idea and is something most children could do with supervision.

I have a few more crafts to post including more of the stuff I found in the shed, so stay tuned!

Easy-Peasy Book Holder

So today I had an amazing find! When we bought this house last summer, the old ladies who lived here left a lot of stuff when they moved out. Most of it is in a shed in the back yard, so since I was putting in the air conditioners today (Please, summer, get here already so I can use them!) I stumbled on some fantastic stuff!

A picture frame with no glass, an old story book, a frosted glass globe from a ceiling light, some rope, clothes pins, and burlap! I have so many exciting crafts planned, but first on to today's mini make over part one.

Em home schools and has had some difficulty in claiming a space for school. She was using the dining room table, however it proved to be too much of a distraction - Jay loves to ride in his plastic car around the island in the kitchen, and you have to pass through both rooms to go from the living room to the bedrooms or the bathroom. Also, it appeared the allure of the TV was a bit much for her at times as well.

Our den has a built in desk and it is usually piled up with crafts, toys, books, and junk the girls don't want to put away. I have been going through each room of the house systematically attempting to recycle, donate, upcycle, corral, or trash the constant flow of junk that seems to continually threaten our home. The den was pretty much last on my list, being that it is out of the way of the rooms we use every day (and the ones company sees, hehe). Frankly it seemed a bit too over whelming and I had other places to clean first, but giving Em a place she can work is now a priority.

First of all, I cleaned all the junk out of the room. It took three garbage bags! One bag for DI, one bag for recycling, and the last bag was split between garbage and craft items we didn't need anymore that I donated to the church.

Second, I looked at the walls and tried to figure out something fun to do there. We had STACKS of board games that Jay had gleefully pulled apart and lost pieces to, so I grabbed my trusty hot glue gun and assembled as much as I could of the game boards, then hung them on the wall.

I wasn't thinking about showing the step by step when I did these so there are no "in progress" pictures, but basically it was just an act of a girl and her glue gun. Very easy-peasy.

Now, Em needed a place to keep her school work where it was organized and safe. I saw this idea on Pinterest somewhere, but evidently didn't pin it but I did remember it. It's really easy though!


First, you need a cereal box, then you need ModPodge, a craft knife, scissors, ruler, black marker or pen, and cool paper/pictures. I measured up 3 inches on the corner of the box, then made a mark. Then I took the ruler and lined it from that mark, across the cereal box, up to the top corner.

I repeated this step on the other side, then connected the two lower lines with one straight line across the thinner end of the box. Then I took my handy craft knife and followed the lines, slicing the box apart.

I cut off the last box tab left then went back with scissors and evened out all the edges so they were smooth. Next I cut some of Em's favorite pics out of this old book I found in the shed:

...then added ModPodge to the backs and pasted them onto the box. I also used some cute scrap book paper Em picked out, then put a label at the top so she could write her name on it. The finished project:

Now Em has the perfect place to keep her school books, and a place to work in peace without Jay and Bea bothering her. I am going to keep working on the den, and promise I will add pics of the room as it continues in its transformation.

Have a great weekend!

Super Easy T-shirt Vest

I found this amazing blog through Pinterest (so addicted to that site) called Wobisobi and the blogger there, Ann, has this incredible fashion sense that she has used to create tons of tutorials for making and upcycling your own clothes. From one of her tutorials I made this:

This vest took about 10 minutes to make, start to finish. Ann's tutorial is here. If you are super fast you can make this in 5, but I went back and redid some of the cutting to make it fit better. One of the great things about Wobisobi is that Ann really takes the time to explain it step by step, so even the most craftily challenged among us can tackle this project easily.

The shirt was bought at Walmart for less than $4. My husband seriously thought I was out of my mind for cutting up a brand new shirt, but he was impressed with how it turned out and admitted it was a good idea. Did I mention this project has NO SEWING involved???

You can personalize this a little more by dip dying the ends, or adding buttons or fringe or some cute fabric stamping, or even lace trim. The possibilities are endless! One small alteration I made to the tutorial was to cut the hole a little more to one side than the other; I wanted a slightly wider back and smaller collar. You could, if you wanted to do a bit of sewing, add a back panel of some stretchy lace (if you don't want to sew, use fusible webbing and an iron to attach).

Do yourself a favor and stop by Wobisobi, you will be so glad you did!

ModPodge Luv

The only time I have ever used ModPodge was one time in college to decopage a picture frame. But lately I have been seeing all these amazing crafts people were doing with the stuff, and inspired I felt the need to go to the craft store and pick some up.

Of course I needed a project to work on, and I found this sign for 60% off (!) so decided it would be my first victim subject. I also picked up some more scrapbook paper and accents (also on sale for 40% off!) to help add more embellishments and fancy it up. Plus, some of the paper had glitter on it and I can never say no to glitter.

I am really digging the vintage, cottage, shabby chic look and birds, so I chose a piece of paper that had that feel to it. First I positioned the sign on the paper, then I traced around it to give me a cut line. After I cut it out, I played with it a bit to get it just right on the sign, then using a brush laid down a coat of ModPodge.

I wanted to be sure the birds were on the sign, but they were at the edge of the page, so I had to get a little creative with the placement. It worked out ok still because I was able to take some of the scrap left over from the rest of the page and fill in the gaps. A few more embellishments over the seam and some more ModPodge and you wouldn't be able to tell at all (unless you read my blog since I totally just spilled it there).

Then I took a black marker and scribbled over the raised lines of the word "Welcome" to draw more attention to them. The finished sign:

It totally came out cute and so one of a kind! And since I had the ModPodge out anyway, I made the necklace at the same time. The cost of making the sign was about $7. Total crafting nirvana found - bliss!

You can do the same with a regular piece of wood or tin - maybe even redo/upscale one of those dollar store ones.