Iron Craft # 5 - A is for ....

So I've take a bit of a break from the last few Iron Crafts, but I am back! 

This time around the challenge was called, 'A is for...' Crafters were given to task to do something either inspired by the alphabet or something that begins with the letter A. One thing I love about these Iron Craft Challenges is that they are open to interpretation. So I went with A is for applique! 

I recently got the fabric blade for my silhouette machine. I was excited to be able to put it to good use! It was incredibly easy to use and the results are pretty amazing. 

This challenge was coincided with distaste for my couches throw pillows. I was sick of them so I decided to make a few new ones. I wanted to make one featuring my two favorite dopes, Gyspy and Bmo. I also made one featuring a stag head, I just think its an image that looks cool. 

I still have two more pillows to replace. I've got a few ideas of what I can do, I'll be sure to tell you all about 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....

Frosted Vase

I've been in the house for almost a year already, can you believe it?! I'm haven't been sewing has much (sewing table has been under construction) However this time has allowed me to work on some home decor projects. I've been posting pictures here and there but this time around I present to you a nice a tutorial!!!!

A while back I bought a bunch of hurricane vases from the Dollar Tree. They were nice, but after sitting around for a while they needed some pizazz! I bought some frosted glass spray and decided to do some experimenting. I made a stencil out of contact paper, slapped it on there and gave it a good coat of frosted glass. My first attempt was a semi-failure. I learned that day that not all contact paper is created equal. I had used this old ugly wood print stuff we had lying around and it was really low quality type stuff and it reacted weirdly to the spray and crinkled up.

I broke out the good stuff and used some black contact paper I had. (F.Y.I. - this stuff is so versatile! its one of my favorite craft supplies!) Using the better quality contact paper did the trick and resulted in some fabulous new vases. 

Here are the steps I took to transform these vases and how you can to! 

Materials & Tools 

• Clear vases, candle holders (even old wine bottles) 
• Frosted Glass Spray (I used Rust-oleum)
• Contact paper (make sure its good quality) 
• Exacto Knife 

Instructions 

• Think of some sort of design. This can be a trick party, but luckily is tons of inspiration out there (scour the internet, check out a home decor store etc) 
• Once you have a design your happy with, trace it on the back of your contact paper and cut out with the exacto knife. If you are the lucky proud owner of a silhouette machine, just make your stencil on that. 
• Peel off your contact paper stencil and gently stick it to your vase
• Find a nice well ventilated area and place your vase on top of box. Spray a nice even coat and allow to dry 
• Drying times can depend on the type of frosted glass spray you purchase. I'd say give it at least 30 minutes. 
• Gently peel off the stencil to reveal your beautiful design 

June is here!

Hey guys! Summer is just about here! Wooo!!! I can't believe that its been a year since I graduated and this time last year I was a Parisian princess. This time around I've been getting ready for impending summer doom at work, finally doing some house projects and having some fun. Here is a little recap of what I have been up to lately.

House stuff....

So I've taken a bit of a sewing break and have been concentrating my crafty efforts on beautifying this house of mine. I started with adding some flair to some plain candle holders I got from the dollar store a while back. I made a stencil with my silhouette machine on contact paper than gave it a good spray with some frosted glass. They came out pretty snazzy!

I also used some canvases and made some snazzy wall art. My entry way was really blank and I needed to put something there. After all its the first impression visitors get! Again I used the silhouette to make stencils and sprayed them down with a coat of paint.

Also adding to our decor is this awesome Game of Thrones poster! Tim has been determined to snag a really cool mondo poster since we moved in. He set up his phone to get a notification when new designs were announced (because they sell out really fast) after a few fails, this was such an epic win! Its bran and his dire wolf, Summer. The wolf bears some resemblance to my pup Gyppers, don't ya think?

my own dirt digging dire wolf

Speaking of Game of Thrones, :::WARNING SPOILERS::: I was so devastated by last week's episode. Billy called me right after and it felt like someone non-fictional died. We were like "yeah I just saw them, they were gonna save Westeros and teach Joffery a lesson." I had trouble sleeping that night. What really freaked me out was seeing Rob Stark's pregnant wife get stabbed in the stomach so violently. It was also a big huge lesson, ALWAYS LISTEN TO YOUR MOM (I'm looking at you Rob Stark! way to screw it up for the North!) I'm reading the book, Storm of Swords, at the same time so its interesting watching the show along with it.

Aside from house stuff, although I say sewing break, I have gotten some in. After getting a few extra Etsy sales I decided to treat myself to my very first Spoonflower purchase! I made some purdy headbands with this TARDIS print and I couldn't resist getting this Doctor doll! I got number 10 but I was excited to see the same designer also has a #11, so I will be making another purchase soon! (Side note - I'm really devastated that Matt Smith has announced his departure)

Last Saturday I hung out with Caitie. We did serious wedding talk and were planning out her invites! After an afternoon of craft, we met up with Joe, Laura and Peter and went to the Brookhaven Fair. I haven't gone to it in years because its usually a rip off, carny folk are cantankerous and those rides are creepily unstable. However we had a lot of fun. We splurged and bought the unlimited rides wrist band,  we were all gung ho about getting our money's worth and going on as many rides as possible! We went on swings that went really high up and Caitie freaked out, it was awesome. Then later all of the spiny rides took their toll on Tim and he decided to go wait in the car and sleep. Caitie and I just needed to go on a few more rides, including the haunted mansion!!!! The scariest part was a carny guy walking around on his cell phone that bumped into us on accident. I didn't expect it and it scared the crap out of me.

Iron Craft Challenge # 10 - Home is Where the Heart Is

I'm back on the Iron Craft band wagon. I missed a challenge or two, but I'm back making some cool things. This time around the challenge was Home is Where the Heart Is, making something for the home or something with a house shape. I liked this challenge a lot because we've been in our house for almost a year and I've been constantly making house stuff. So I thought I would feature one of my recent creations.

I love my house!

The front door is boring and white. I stuff a wreath on it with the intention of adding more stuff on and changing it out every season. Well life has gotten in the way and it really hasn't worked out that way. So I wanted to put something on it and I came up with this...

It looks great and it gives the front door some much needed pop of color. I am eventually going to paint the door a kelly green with black accents so thats what dictated my color scheme. I used a block of light wood I grabbed at Michael's. I gave it a coat of green and let it dry. Afterwards I used my favorite new toy, the silhouette machine, to cut out the letters on contact paper. I stuck the letters on the block and spray painted a coat of black and let that dry. I peeled off the contact paper to reveal my green letters. I only had to do a little bit of touch up. I hot glued some wire on the back of the block then hung it on the wreath. Now everyone coming at my front door will know they are at the Sicurella's! 

I'm working on a more detailed tutorial so be sure to look for that in the future! 

Home

This summer has been quite a whirlwind for me. I have been extremely lucky to have been able to check off plenty of things that were on my bucket list. One of the major items on that list was buying a house and it feels so amazing to say that my husband and I are homeowners. It has been a long process and moving is always a drag. We waited and saved up a bunch and we are so happy to be home.

Every since getting married there has been some pressure to buy a house. We heard it from every friend and family member, "Now is a great time to buy" and "interest rates are so low!" Well I was gonna take the next big step in my life when I was damn well ready. The thing that really freaked me out was the cost of a house. Not just the mortgage payment but fixing things that break, because its not a question of IF something breaks, its WHEN something breaks. So it took me about two years to get over that fear. In January I felt it was time so I found a real estate agent and Tim and I were on our search.

We saw a lot of interesting houses. Some horrible and some magnificent. Of course the magnificent homes were out of our price range and the horrible homes did not even have potential! Which is what we were looking for just potential! We even went to one house that was owned by hoarders. We passed on that one big time. Then in May we came across a listing online that was only up for about two days. It looked great based on the listing so we told our agent we need to see it ASAP! We were amazed by this place, everything (and I mean EVERYTHING) is done! The best part ? It was in our price range, actually towards the lower end! There really was no catch, the sellers are retiring and wanted to leave as soon as possible. We put our offer in on a Thursday night and continued to have the most nerve racking weekend of my life. We went through a bit of a bidding war but to our surprise we won, the house was ours! 

We moved in at the end of July and are still getting ourselves settled. I am really pumped to start decorating. I started a few minor things and have had to restrain my self from purchasing too many house things, because now that I have a mortgage to pay we are on a budget. However now that I have a garage I have a space to experiment with D.I.Y. projects. 

Last week I was excited to host our first guest, my little brother Billy! He is about to start his first semester at the University of Florida at Gainsville. I am so proud of him! While he was here we had some fun and he himself is not stranger to D.I.Y. In fact he is an accomplished knitter of mustaches and he has made his desk and a few other projects. So I called on his help for my first project! We are building a coffee table out of these crates and he helped me sand and stain them up. Aside from the coffee table we did some other little projects. I showed him the awesome power of the freezer paper stencil! He makes really cool star wars stencils but he does it the old fashioned way. We made this rebel alliance t-shirt. While going through my book of reference images he saw the shape of Long Island and asked me to make a patch for him.

As he was leaving he said how much his misses Long Island and that for him it would always be home. I thought it was a little interesting that I am in the midst of establishing my home while Billy's sense of home is scattered between Long Island, Florida and now school. Whatever the case he always has a place to crash when he is on the Island.