F4A253 Challenge

So I decided to have some ME craft time. Nothing to make for anyone in particular, just wanted to get inky and craft. I've been neglecting my stamps lately, so I headed on over to Splitcoaststampers (SCS) to see what the challenge was today. Today was a Free for all, "CASE of Admiration" (CASE= Copy And Share Everything).
Since I've been stamping, my absolute favorite stamper to follow was Faith Horfrechter, you can see the card that I CASED in her SCS gallery

What a fun challenge, I loved getting inky for it :)

Father's Day cards

Crackle background stamp, spritzed marker, made flag wrapped in twine, stamped sentiment, used Big Shot to cut it out, cut out sentiment in darker ink.

Used the Big Shot to emboss the lines, created a boy out of ribbon, stamped sentiment and cut out.

Used color spritzer tool and a marker on background, cut out multiple flags out of cardstock, stamped image, cut out, used crop-o-dile for eyelets and twine.

Used patterned paper to make corners and as background, sanded paper. Stamped sentiment on paper then used punch on bottom, added wrapped wire to side for a 'masculine' touch.

Love, love, love the SU wood embossing folder! Made flag wrapped in twine, stamped sentiment, used Big Shot to cut it out, cut out sentiment in darker ink. Happy Father's Day to all the dads out there!

Wedding gift wall art

Made this for a friend of mine who had some young family members getting married soon. She said grey, cream, & a deep red, gave me a couple of pictures, and set me free! I chose to use some old cedar planks as the base, it has a great coloring (almost grey) to it without me having to do anything.

I think this is my favorite part of it. I found this great old handle, sanded it, and put her on there. I love wall art with 3D stuff. When they hang this in their home, the tags (made from sheet music, stamped on, spritzed with a 'starfish' glimmer mist, then hung on the handle with misc. ribbon) will freely hang/dangle. Each tag says something different so depending on the angle you look at it, you'll see something different. I stamped the swirls & birds (SU) in black and found some great old buttons for the corner. The hearts are chipboard that I covered with paper and distressed.

Dominoes and a doily... can't go wrong! Throw in another great button, some hat pins, and pearls and you've got a stylish chic corner. I stamped and heat embossed the "MR" and the "MRS" in black, and did the "&" in white.

If we weren't friends, I wouldn't admit to busting up my finger making this project. I used beer & root beer bottle caps for this. I took them outside to flatten with a hammer in the driveway. Let's just say I missed the cap once. Ouch. I did mess up on this. Twice. Let's not play "find the mistakes" though, K?! I absolutely loved how it turned out, wish they were pictures of me & hubby so I could hang it up in my home, oh well. Congrats you two!!

Office Accessories

I took an old pair of shutters and did a rough job spray painting them white. Spray painted some wooden clothes pins green to match my other project (the "corkboard") and, VIOLA!! A message center!

I found this great rectangle frame at the thrift store. After taking out the glass, I roughly spray painted it then stapled this great fabric onto the back of it. I bought a roll of cork from Wal*Mart (cheaper there than Michael's, PLUS I got more if the cork!) so I stapled that behind the fabric. Woot Woot I made a cute corkboard!

Upcycled desk

This thing is so out of style ;)
I decided that I need a little home office to help run hubbies business (check it out! Teitzel & Co.) and I'm cheap, so this old thing is what I get.

The inside of the drawers needed help too, and since I love old paper, I decided to Mod Podge old book paper inside the drawers. Might as well make it into something that I'll love to use!

I used that same paint (different color though, I used a green on the desk) by 'Zinsser' called "B-I-N" (see previous post about my entry way for more info on the paint). Do you see the difference in the top left drawer than the others? I sanded it while the paint was still tacky, the others I sanded after they had dried. I'm a bit sad. I really prefer the top left drawer to all the others. But overall, I am pleased with the outcome.

The inside of the drawers turned out great. In fact, not only do I love to open them and use them, so does the baby. Great. I'm now looking for a yard stick to stick through the handles on each side to keep him from getting in the drawers and throwing all my perfectly organized stuff EVERYWHERE. Maybe I'll even paint the yard stick to match?

The end result? My great little office space! I am pleased with the outcome and even more pleased with the time it took to complete. With this Zinsser paint, there is no need to pre-sand or prime, it does all that for you! Wal-mart does carry it, BUT so does Home Depot and they'll price match AND beat their price by 10%. Needless to say, I recommend you checking out the price at your local Wal-mart, then heading over to HD to purchase it. It is a bit more than other paints (my Wal-mart had it for $9 I think, so I paid about $8 at HD), but I didn't have to pre-sand and didn't need a primer. So worth it in my book!

Chalk board table

I always forget to get the "Before" picture. No exception here. I remembered half-way through painting it! Got this cute little Elmo table at the thrift store so cheap that I couldn't pass it up. Since my little guy is just learning to sit in chairs and wants to do it himself, it's the perfect time to get him his own little set!

I started by painting the chairs green and brown. I painted the edge of the table brown and the legs green. When that was all dry, I covered the top of the table with homemade chalkboard paint. It's got that great little bowl thing in the middle to hold more chalk in, too!

My new entryway

Found this table at a great little antique/thrift store. I knew it had potential, even with all the crap piled on top of it.
This certain store has an inside, which is decorated beautifully and artfully arranged. It also has an outer building, it's actually inside, but it's like a big garage or shop that is detached from the actual store. I L-O-V-E digging my way through that shop! So this table was covered in at least 4 or 5 layers of dust & dirt, plus piled high with other stuff.

Found this mirror at an old church turned thrift store. I was talking with the lady at the front about looking for a cool old mirror and she pointed me to this one. I looked at the price tag and said it didn't fit. She continued to tell me that she had had that mirror for almost a year and no-one would buy it. I usually don't speak my mind for fear of hurting peoples feelings or making them upset. I calmly stated that I wouldn't pay the price that she was asking and saw other items in the store that were similar and much cheaper. She was so shocked! --> at the price!! She asked what I would pay for it, I told her, and that's that!

I painted the table with this new paint that the lady at that antique/thrift store told me about. It's by 'Zinsser' and called "B-I-N". It's like a stain, but tintable, which means you can choose your color!! It's cream based so it will only do pastel colors, but I tinted mine yellow and am super in love with the outcome! It dries really fast, like in less than 45 minutes. I found that with doing the shabby chic sanding, I really had to use elbow grease once it was dry. I did one section while it was still kinda tacky and wish I would have done it all while still a bit wet, I like the look better.

The old crates I lightly spray painted white and added casters to bottom so as not to scratch my floor. I made some brown chalk board paint to use on the ends so I could personalize them for the kids (LOVE LOVE LOVE).
The mirror I spray painted white over then sanded so some yellow comes out. It will be hung, not leaning against the wall, once hubby has time.
I found that cool old painters box to use as my catch all. It's perfect! It's got a spot for keys, cards, misc, and a big spot for mail. It was a great old red, but that didn't go with my theme so I painted over it in yellow then sanded.
If all else fails, I've got a back-up dinner table :)

Crayon card

Watercolor crayon, that is! We stamped the flowers in Sahara Sand, the same color as the cardstock. We traced over it with the crayons then blended using the aqua painters.
We got the ink blotches on there using markers and the color spritzer tool. That's always a fun one for workshops!

Watercolor tag card

OMGoodness this turned out cute! This was another one that I did at a workshop, in hindsight, I wouldn't do it again for beginners. Lots of work for this one.

I just love the fact that you can stamp any image & sentiment on the tag, and viola! The card is now personalized! That part made it perfect for a workshop! We used SU watercolor paper and the inks/aqua painters for this tag.

The doily is easily my favorite part of this one. Also the most time consuming to put together, just throwing that out there. I recommend making sure you have a stylus close at hand when doing the doily, makes pushing out the pieces so much easier. I will also warn you that no matter how hard you try to keep the pieces on the table, in the garbage, or elsewhere, there WILL be pieces on the floor. Especially when you have 6 ladies punching out doilys.

See the "ribbon" across the front? That's actually a piece of cardstock that we wore down using our bone folders. When you break all the fibers in the paper, it starts to separate. We peeled the paper apart and that's actually the 'inside' of the paper. Neat, huh!?!

"Don't be a chicken" birthday card

Unfortunately, this is the most manly stamp I have. I know, shame on me :(

I have other "guy" stamps, like a BBQ, some ties, and... I'm sure I have something else... Nope. Nothing. I'm so disappointed in myself!

My goal for the next few months: To get a couple of manly stamps
If you have any suggestions on CHEAP stamp sets, pass them on! This girl needs some help!

See my little chicken? I fussy cut him from a magazine and plopped him into the back of the truck. LOVE him!

"King of the day" card

All this, out of my crafty junk drawer?! You betcha!! Went for the playing card first, then went digging for red stuff to accent it with. I came across this great page in a book, put that away for later use ;) but decided to use his sister page as a background, inked, of course.

A friend of mine needed a birthday card for her brother and masculine stuff is almost never in my stash. Thanks for inspiring me to create today, Ruth!

Scrappy Card

Just a simple card to use up some of my extras. This would be a great card to mass-produce just to use my scrap pile up! I didn't get all inky on this one, I used a sanding block instead ;)

Old Door Headboard

So this is how my room looks now with the latest addition of the old headboard from an old door. I absolutely LOVE the outcome!

My handsome little booger is the main attraction in this! He kept trying to get in the action of picture taking so I decided to just take his picture :)

You can't see them, but the door actually sits on legs that I stapled to the back of the door. I didn't want to hang such a heavy door on the wall. I took two 1"x4" cedar planks per side(excess from our business, see our business FaceBook page HERE), spray painted them white, then measured for height and width before stapling to back of door.
ACTUALLY- I only had one leg per side at first. Got the door inside (by myself, had to show hubby that I didn't need his help), got it positioned behind the bed, and CRAAAAACK the door fell forward towards the bed, splinters shattering everywhere. Rockashawna to me. Since my room was already covered in splinters and wood pieces, and the door was laying on my bed, I decided to finish up the project in my room. Went out and spray painted new legs (two per side this time), brought them to the sliding glass door on the patio outside my bedroom (thank GOODNESS for a sliding glass door in my room! Especially one that is only feet from the back garage door!) along with all the tools I'd need, and with a confused baby watching and wanting so bad to use the staple gun, I finished my project ON my bed.

After cleaning the door, I spray painted the interior of the rectangle a chocolate brown. It's a really rough paint job as my 13 year old was "helping" me.
I took a lace tablecloth and laid it over the door centering the design that I wanted to highlight and used unwanted planks to go around the edges of where I didn't want paint to go. After I had the edges blocked off, I spray painted the lace onto the door with a pale yellow. I peeled off the lace after about a minute (didn't want it to dry in place) and set aside (it'll be a great table cloth for our picnic table. Crusty from the paint so it won't fly away, the edges are still lacey for that delicate look).

A close-up of the design

I took pictures step by step to post, then my phone broke. I lost over 1,400 pictures. Talk about heartbreak.

We have 2 other doors that we are working on, one for each of our girls. Will post pics when they are completed.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!

Family Command Center

This is how our family of 5 (currently 8) keeps it all together. We have our calendar up and i put everyones activities on it. Guess what? COLOR CODED!! I assigned a colored marker to everyone so at a glance I know who has what.

Got the boards from Wal*Mart and guess what... they're magnetic!!

I hate to hear "What's for dinner" at least twice per kid, per day. That's at least 12 times per day!! Sooo, dinner is planned out in advance and all I have to do is point.

This is a 12x12 shadow box that I found at a garage sale. I painted it white, distressed it, added a lovely piece of paper as a background, and viola! Ready for my menu! I printed the menu out on regular printer paper, tore and inked the edges, then straight pinned in place.

Found this big ole frame also at a garage sale, SUPER cheap. I created a mat around it with scrapbook paper so my regular printer paper would fit inside it. I printed off the kids daily, weekly, and monthly chores on one side, the other side is for miscellaneous stuff I want them to get done. With the paper under the glass, we get to use it as a dry erase board!!

I was given the chalk board clip board as a birthday gift and decided to use it with this project. We have 4 hanging clipboards under the big board to keep individual papers from getting lost in the shuffle. Everyone has their own board so they are responsible for keeping track of their own papers. LOVE the accountability!

Plank Sign

I found these fabulous metal letters at my local Michael's store in the dollar bin. YAY!!
Took the most rustic looking cedar planks I could find and lightly spray painted them white. I attacked them with a hammer and screwdriver (on the ends) to make them more rugged.
The staple gun that I was using was going right through the metal, no matter the setting, so I decided to go the old fashioned route and use a hammer and nails.
After I got the first one in half way, I missed the top of the nail head and bent it down. LOVED it!! Needless to say, I continued in that fashion for the rest of the letters.

Home Made Smash Book

At one of our last M.O.P.S. meetings, the craft was "Smash Books".

I teach the class using the books from K & Company at my local Michael's store, but honestly I prefer this kind.
This is what I call the "Cram-What-You-Can Book"

Seriously. To save money on scrapbooks, make your own. Head to the craft store to get some rings (like $3 for 6, I think) and then just use scraps!

I decided to go for texture. I got canvas pieces, rope, twine, netting, magazine paper, cardstock, envelopes, cardboard... anything that I thought might not get used, I used. A lot of the pages are made with 12x12 paper cut into fourths (so 6x6 squares) and glued to each other. I only glued 3 sides though, make every page a pocket! Give me glue, a paper trimmer, a pile of junk mail and a Crop-o-dile, I'll give you a Smash Book!

This has been in the works for months now, I wanted to get as much in it as possible before giving to hubby for Father's Day. I got all the ticket stubs from our outings (Plays, Seahawks & Mariners games, Museum trips, etc), included family pictures of us & our parents, and found miscellaneous stuff that I know he loves. I found a great vintage koala bear postcard at a garage sale for next to nothing, also found some vintage Father's Day cards that just happened to say the perfect things :)

More Fathers Day

Fathers Day Card

This is one of several cards that were made this year for the guys in my life who are great fathers.

And to my dad, Bob, you are an incredible man. You stepped up to the plate when it wasn't necessary, but I needed it, and you filled a hole (a rather large hole). I don't know who I would be without you having made such a HUGE impression on my life, and I wouldn't want to know either. You are a wonderful husband to my mother and showed me what a good guy should be. You have been, and always will be, the line in which I compare other men. I have found an awesome man of God to be my husband, and I am so lucky that he possesses similar qualities of yours.
I just want you to know, I love you.
Happy Father's Day!!

Whoooo's birthday?

I made this card for a lady in my community. I believe it's for her nieces 1st birthday :) So many layers, so much texture. i LOVE it! Some fun things I did on this card: --distressed using sandpaper and razor blades --paper pieced the owl (stamped him in pink first, cut out his eyes & belly, then glued them on top of a brown stamped image) --made a paper medalion (maybe this will be the next tutorial I do?) --threaded a (very) cool button with patterned paper instead of thread

altered canvas

This is a new class that I am offering at my local Michael's store. The student can start with any size or style of canvas that they would like, i used 8x8 plain white, with a bit fatter of side pieces.

These are two of my finished canvases (Is that a word? Is it spelled correctly? Is the plural of "canvas" like the plural of octopus? Is it canvi?) alongside what I started with.

I'm not really a pinky kinda girl, but I think I actually like the pinky one the best.

This one has great colors, love the vintage look that it's got going on.

Almost all of this is just patterned paper that I fussy cut a design out of.

I also used lots of diffrent punches, and of course, ink distressed EVERYTHING!! It seriously felt so good to walk away from a project with my hands just filthy. LOVE it!!

This is my new friend, Cheryl. Come to find out, after spending all afternoon together in this class, she knows my father from about 15 years ago! Such a small world!

Cheryl is new to the world of paper crafting, and you wouldn't be able to tell it from her finished products.

She brought the neatest things to incorporate into her projects. Seed packets, an old flower guide, and vintage sheet music. If you ask me, she's on her way!