Fifteen minutes of crafting {polka dot clothespins}

Before I left school for the year I quickly decorated clothespins to use this fall. My first year I covered them in decorative duct tape. That was a pain. This year I just wrote had Niki write my kids' names on them in colored sharpie. That wasn't near enough fun. So for next year I decided I was going to paint them polka dotted! 

It was super simple! I used regular paint from school and an unused pencil.

 

I made sure to make some of my dots whole and some going off the edges so they looked like "real" polka dots. I let them dry for an hour or two then flipped them over to do the other side.

*Side note* I had them numbered with colored sharpies before I did the polka dots.  My plan is to reuse them, but we'll see how they hold up.

 

 

What DIY projects are you working for home or school?

 

Fifteen Minutes of crafting {shower decorations}

I recently volunteered to be in charge of a bridal shower for a family friend. So I went to pinterest for some inspiration. Here's the ideas I wanted to use as a launching point for making my decorations.

 
I love the simplicity of these jars! I plan to use fake  artificial flowers to fill my mason jars.

pin 

 

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 and here is my gifts and party pinterest board.
I love these jars too! Too bad I have tea lights and not floating candles, but I love how they look!

I didn't and didn't intend to exactly copy either of these, they were just inspiration.

I had some clearance burgandy tealights and a few bigger burgandy candles and bought some burlap, ribbon, lace, and pennants and I was set.

And then I convinced my mom to help to me.

We got our materials and trusty glue gun and set to work wrapping our mason jars in the burlap/lace combo. Worksite: Mom & Dad's kitchen table. Super neat crafter, I am not.

  The burlap with lace ribbon was purchased at Michaels, it was a little pricey at $11.99 per roll, but luckily it was on sale!

 I started my momma on making pretty bows, because she makes them quite well, and I unfortunately cannot make them at all.

 We planned for 8 round tables, and 3 rectangle tables. I don't plan to put jars on two of the rectangle tables, so we are doing 9 jars.

We borrowed some sort of snips from my brother to cut the artificial flowers and it worked like a charm.
It was making me a little crazy that I didn't measure the placement of the burlap on each of the jars, but I went with the theory that they weren't going to be near each other so it would have to be okay.

 My momma also gets credit for the floral arrangements. I, on the other hand, mostly just rock the glue gun.

 I think we worked for probably an hour and had a nice little assembly line going on.

 Little brother, the photographer of this event, forced Momma to pose with her wonderful creation. She did a great job with the flowers!!

 A garden of fakies :)

 We made a bigger jar for the bride's table.
Added lace to the large candles.
8 jars for guest tables.
Decorated an M to display next to their engagement photo and guest book.
(This was another one of mom's great ideas!)

I am super jazzed with how these decorations turned out! We didn't spend a ton of money and didn't have to spend much more than an hour working on them. Thanks for all your help, Mom!

fifteen minutes of {washi} crafting

 Anyone that follows my on pinterest can verify, that I am fully embracing my new love for washi tape. I considered giving washi tape is own pinboard, but decided that was a bit much and put it in with crafts. for now.

I had to stop at WalMart to get more {hazelnut} coffee after work, so clearly I had to swing through the stationary isle. While I was there I snagged some binder clips and a clipboard. Spent a whopping like $3.50.

I grabbed my supply of washi tape (stashed in a flower pot from the Target dollar spot), scissors and my purchases and curled up with my favorite fuzzy blanket and some DVR'd Law & Order SVU. It was snowing like crazy, so it really seemed like the best idea for the evening.

so pretty!

The width of my washi tape just happened to perfectly on the smaller clips so I just stuck it on one side, rolled it over and trimmed it off. super simple. The ability to stick, unstick, and restick the tape as many times as I needed to, to get it straight was awesome. You know I was sticking and resticking until I got it perfectly straight on each one :)

love that nasty chipped nail polish don't ya??

The bigger clips didn't fit quite as nice. I tried a few different ways and never really found a way that I liked. But I ended up just overlapping the two pieces of tape and calling it good enough. I thought about cutting it so it fit evenly, but I really wasn't interested in getting that OCD. They are just binder clips that I will probably loose or someone will "steal" off my desk at school.

 Here are the completed smaller ones. adorable!

 And then I just added a few strips to the clipboard, just to brighten it up. I didn't want to crazy and cover the whole thing. And my OCD brain wouldn't let me mix colors. So it's staying a pink clipboard until I can get brave enough to add another color.

 Even though it monochromatic, its still much more fun than a plain old masonite clipboard.
It will be great to keep on my desk at school!

What washi crafts have you done?? Any other brilliant ways of using this oh-so-functional-and-fun tape?

What wonderful ways are you using washi?? share your crafts with us!

my first washi tape experience

I finally joined the washi bandwagon, and I must admit-I love it! I wasn't too sure about the whole thing but when I spotted a package on sale at Target I decided that it was time to try it out. I made a blog planner for myself a while ago and it was all pretty and bound and then had these boring, blank, lame white labels. I knew this was the perfect place to try out my washi tape. I figured if it went well, that was great and I could show people, and well if it didn't, not too many people were going to be seeing my blog planner up close and personal.

 I gathered the few supplies that I needed--my blog planner, scissors, washi tape, and my trusty label maker.

It was much simpler than I excepted (although I'm not sure why I thought putting tape on labels was going to be like challenging or something?) All I had to do was cut the pieces to size and stick them on. I considered throwing them on there in a random order, but my OCD brain couldn't handle that.  So here they are after the first step was completed. So far, so good.

The next step was to make the labels to go onto my tabs. Perhaps the hardest part was trying to decide what words to put on there. Dumb, I know. But I wanted the tab to sort of reflect what was on the header but there was clearly not enough space, so I just have very vague and generic tabs. Which works out fine. 

Because of my dark colors, you can sort of see where the clear label is, and isn't. But you don't really notice unless you are inspecting them. If I were to do it over again, I might just label them with a sharpie. But that would require me to write pretty and we all know that I would end up re-doing it like 17 times and that would just not be good for anyone. 

So now that I am totally committed to this whole washi thing, I will totally snag up the other colors when they go on sale again at Target :)

What other wonderful uses are out there for washi tape? What projects have you used it for? I'm sure there are so many other great ideas out there that I haven't even dreamed of!!

Goodwill Crafts

Awhile back, Niki and I made a trip to Goodwill. Woo-hoo right? I was on a mission to find things to make "pinterest crafts".  I came away with a few different things and ended up with a couple different projects around the apartment. Some projects took more time and effort than others. I'll take you through a play-by-play of what I brought home and what I did with each item.

I brought home a mason jar, tea light candle holder, old picture/frame, lovely christmas tray, and a yellow basket. I think I spent a solid like $3.00. A good trip in my book.

The mason jar and tea light holder got combined and found a home in my bathroom. They now hold q-tips and small round cotton pads.

The yellow basket found a home on the kitchen counter corralling the few seasonings that we use on a regular basis. I'm not too in love when them being on the counter, so this basket might eventually find a new home too...I'll see how it works out.

The picture frame got transformed into a memo board and the tray got a facelift, but they started their new lives together with a new coat of paint.

I scored those cute little fabric squares at Walmart, along with the craft paint. I spent about $3 on supplies. 

Check out all the options I had when I wandered into the sewing department:

I started by taking the frame apart and found this newspaper as the backing-- 

Check  out the date on this baby!!

I removed the glass and backing from the frame and got ready to paint.

I gave the frame and tray a fresh coat of teal paint. I only painted the edges of the tray since it will be getting a pretty fabric along the bottom. No sense in painting what I'm going to cover up.

I was a little worried about the painting scraping off pretty easily so I took them outside and gave them each a coat of clear acrylic sealer. Hopefully that will keep them looking nice for a little longer.

I reused the backing that was behind the original church photo and wrapped it in the fabric. There was a little excess, but fit pretty good.

I made sure that it was pulled nice and tight and popped it back into the frame and sealed up the back.

 And then it found a home on the wall right after you walk in the door.

I just love this fabric!

Not to be left out, the tray got some pretty fabric of its own.

 I just cut it to fit the bottom of the tray and stuck it down with some spray adhesive.  Super Simple.

The color scheme in our apartment is well, nonexistent so I didn't really have to worry about making it match anything. I haven't decided where this little friend is going to live yet. I still have a few lingering holiday decorations that need to be put away before this guy can come out.

 I am overall very happy with the outcome of my first Goodwill Craft projects. I can't wait until the next time!
Have you made any pinterest or Goodwill inspired crafts? Leave us a link to your blog post or pinboard and we would love to check it out!