Iron Craft Challenge 8 - Spring has Sprung - Teired planter

Spring is finally here!!!! This means I can start sprucing up the outside of the house. The front of our house needs a serious pop of color. It is very white. I thought a painted planter would help! 

This planter project also meets the requirements of the latest Iron Craft Challenge # 8 - Spring has Sprung! The task for this challenge was to make something inspired by spring or Easter. 

Since big planters can be kind of pricey, I thought about making a tiered planter. Since terra cotta planters are inexpensive, I bought three of varying sizes. I took them home and spray painted them with some color. I painted the top rim gold and the bottom a dark green. After I put it together I realized it looks like a Zelda inspired planter which was no my intention. 

After painting, I began to layer them together with soil and plastic planter turned upside down. That way you don't have a ridiculous amount of soil. After putting it all together it didn't seem very sturdy. I was worried about the wind blowing it over. So I had a dowel in the garage and was able to use that to keep it all together. 

It came out pretty fantastic! Now I just need to put some flowers in it! 

Decorative Plates

I've gotten really sick of stark bare walls and I've been trying a few different things to really liven up our dinning room. I found this mirror for 20$ at Marshall's (score!). It was a little cracked and boring white. So I gave it a goat of gray to really spiff it up. I hung it opposite some windows. That is a design trick that is supposed to make the room feel bigger. I have our Parisian street art pictures hanging on another wall, along with a little flying birdie my friend Margaret got me. However that still left some blank spots in the room. What to do?

Originally I had planned to start collecting graphic plates and hanging them on the wall. That hit a snag when I did not like anything I was finding, either in the design or price. So I decided to put my own DIY spin on it and made some plates of my own! I abandoned my plan of an entire wall of plates and decided to hang them on each end of the windows. It makes it look balanced and we now have plenty of visual interest in this room!

Materials & Tools

• White glass plate 
• Spray paint (two contrasting colors) 
• Contact paper 
• Exacto Knife 
• Plate hanger 

Instructions 

• I recommend purchasing plates from the Dollar Tree because they come in different shapes and sizes and they are only a dollar so if you make a mistake its not a big deal. 

• Plan out a design, make it simple and not too intricate. Trace and cut out the design on contact paper (or if you have a silhouette machine just use that) 

• In a well ventilated area, spray paint a base coat. (this should be the color you want your actual design to be) Allow design to dry. I recommend letting it sit over night.

• Peel out your design and stick it on the plate

• Spray a top coat of a contrasting coloring and allow to dry. (don't wait too long because you run the risk of peeling off the paint from your design) 

• Allow the paint to dry for at least a day before you hang it up. (otherwise your house is going to smell like paint fumes) 

Linking up with: 

Craft-o-maniac 

End of Summah....

It's Labor Day which means summer 2013 is over. I for one and happy because this summer was a crazy one for the record books. I know it sounds weird, but I guess librarian's run on an opposite schedule and now that Fall is almost here I can finally relax! Here are some things that I have been up to lately...

I've been riding high off of the excitement from the Harry Potter celebration. I was even excited to see that I made the cover of a local paper (it is a tiny little box towards the bottom of the front page, but still!) I still am so proud of myself and the other staff members that helped to pull it off. I can't wait to do something epic like this again!

It seems since moving in, I have been switching up the front door wreath every season. I'm just never happy with it. However I finally found a little arrangement that I love dearly! I drew some inspiration from pinterest and found some fake white floral (it looks like baby's breath) and I picked up some burlap ribbon to make the bow. It came out so good I think I will be offering the custom name plate in my Etsy shop quite soon. I love the combo white on wood stain. Thanks to my friend Megan for helping me think of it!

This is my costume last year! 

With summer officially over, that means Halloween planning can begin! After last year's Halloween bash, we didn't think we would do it again (it was a lot of work) but after seeing some stuff in stores on display already, Tim and I can't deny our love of Halloween! So we are having another par-tay! I'm using the lesson's learned from last year's party to apply to this year. For example do not kid yourself into thinking you will make absolutely everything from scratch. Also I don't have a civil service exam looming over my head.




Futurama farewell
This upcoming Wednesday will be sort of sad. It's the last episode of Futurama ever! Futurama has been one of my favorite shows for a while. When it came on the first time, I hated it. I was young and I didn't really get it. Later, like many fans, I rediscovered it and have been a fan ever since. I became so obsessed with it at one point that I made my own Planet Express Ship. When Billy West (a voice master genius) was appearing at ICON I freaked out and needed him to sign it! He was really cool and nice. I had heard rumors that the show would be coming back and when I asked him about it, he did indeed confirm it!
I was so excited when the show came back and there have been some great episodes. This time around I feel like the show has gotten its due and its time for it to go quietly into the good night. I'll always have a special place in my heart for Futurama (I have a planet express sticker on my car for crying out loud) but I'm glad its getting a chance to go out on top.


Well that is all for now my friends. Hope your end of summah was just as good....

Thanksgiving

This is my first time ever hosting a family holiday so I am trying to prepare as best I can. I am very lucky to have the chef master Tim (so I don't have to worry about screwing big things up!) However when it comes to decorating, yo I got this!

Even though its not a Holiday as festive as Halloween or Christmas, it still deserves decorating and here is some stuff that I did around the house.

I printed out this Thanksgiving subway art picture and framed it and it looks quite nice!

I made some bunting out of burlap from Halloween, but I had a lot of it leftover. So I broke that stuff out again and made small banners. Here is my Tutorial for the technique.




 I also used some candle holders and stuck some left over pumpkins on them.

I wish you all a wonderful Thanksgiving! 

ps anyone excited to get ready for the next Holiday?!

Halloween Potion Labels - Tutorials

So I have been doing some more bits of Halloween decor and this is one that I absolutely love and I am excited to share it with you! I remember seeing Halloween bottles at stores with all of the other Halloween stuff and I wanted them! Then I saw how much they cost... I rethought that and figured that I could make them. I used some inspiration from Harry Potter and most of the potions are from the magical world, with the exception of Frog's breath, that is from the Nightmare Before Christmas.

Here is how you can make your own spooky potion bottles!

Materials & Tools

• Empty wine/beer glass bottles 
• Bucket filled with water & dish soap
• Sandpaper
• Color printer 
• Mod podge 
• foam brush
• Glow and the dark paint (optional) 

Instructions

• Break out those bottles you saved with have those pesky labels on them! Luckily they are easy to remove. Let the bottles soak in the bucket filled with water and a bit of dish soap. 

• After it has soaked for about 8 hours, you can remove labels. It might be a little hard so use the sandpaper to scrape the labels off. Let the bottles dry a bit. 
• Go to your computer and go to the website picmonkey.com. If you are unfamiliar the site, it is one of the best and simple to use photo editors. Start with an image then ad a white overlay, combine layers and now you have a blank slate to make your labels! The best part...its free! So play around with it and you the special Halloween themes to make some great labels! 
• If you don't enough time to make your own labels feel free to use mine! 

• After all of your labels are printed out cut them out and decide which labels are going to be put on which bottles
• When you are ready to attach the labels break out that mod podge! Slap on a few coats then let it dry

Sit back and enjoy your spooky potion bottles! If you want to add a bit to it use the glow and the dark paint on paint over the labels, it goes on clear and will glow under a black light. 

- Sarina