My Button Art

More Button Art. This time I made one for me, that now hangs in my bedroom.
Same as before, I used scrapbook paper for the background and framed it with an inexpensive frame from Michaels.
A little history about this one. My Grandmother was a Newfie. A very wonderful Goofy Newfie. What's a Newfie, you ask? It's the nickname for a native of the Canadian Providence of Newfoundland. They are crazy unique and most of them are Irish.
That in mind, I decided to do a shamrock for me. I am proud of my Irish Newfie heritage and I thought it was an appropriate reminder of my Grandmother.

Abbey's Button Art

As told in the previous post, I inherited my Grandmother's sewing kit along with her collection of buttons. I being the eldest Granddaughter decided to make keepsake button art for all the Granddaughters and this was the second button art I made. This one was for the youngest Granddaughter, the adorable Abbey.

Button Art

Okay, So I am not really abandoning this blog. I am just going to post the more normal stuff here, and the spookier stuff at Horrorcraft.

Back to the craft. When my Grandmother passed away, I inherited her sewing kit. She kept it in an old hermit crab plastic cage. It was a scary mess. There was thread, safety pins, rusty needles, patches and random items thrown in. There were also buttons, lots and lots of buttons. I don't think she ever threw a button away.
So one afternoon, I braved Tetinus and I sorted the items in her kit and disposed of what could not be used. I soaked and scrubbed rust from most of the buttons, and sorted them by color.
Now what to do with all these buttons? I decided to make Button Art keepsakes for all the Granddaughters (I still need to do one for Ashley).
The first one I made was a butterfly for Riley (the second to the youngest Granddaughter). It was pretty easy using scrapbook paper for the background, wings and body. Then I use an inexpensive Michael's frame.

Recliner

We all have them, that one piece of furniture from our husband's bachelor days that he refuses to get rid of. In my case, it's a recliner and it has seen better days. The upholstery is a crusty old beige cord. There are little holes all over the fabric, along with one massive one that is more than obvious.

But he loves it. He sits in it every day and before we got the Sleep Number bed, he often would sleep in in it. Now it sits in our office with a Devil's Rejects throw blanket hiding the worst.
A couple of years ago, I stumbled upon jean covered recliner on craftster. That's when I knew I wanted to recover DH's recliner, and vowed that when I had collected enough old jeans it would happen.
Fast forward to April 2011, I finally had enough jeans! I cut 2 different size blocks, 5"x5" and 10"x10" and began piecing them together. This was the most time consuming and back breaking part of the construction.
I then took an old bed sheet and turned the recliner on it's side to get a pattern. I could have removed the old fabric and made a pattern from it, but it is such a poor condition I feared it would be more hassle than it's worth.


So in random moments of boredom, I tucked and pinned and sewed. I finally finished it yesterday, after carefully stapling and hot-gluing it onto the chair!



There's even pockets on the side for whatever he wants to stuff in there!


And of course, once it was all finished. I noticed that there is red spot on one of the squares on the front of the seat! Dead center. I racked my brains for what it could be (yes, it was from one of my jeans and no, it's not what you think) and remembered it was nail polish! Thankfully it's not noticeable in these pictures and it's not very large.


And DH's first comment after he saw the finished project? YOU RUINED MY RECLINER

Dia De Los Muertos makeup and headband

We go to a friend's Halloween party every year. Every year we are told it's a costume party. DH and I dress up only to discover upon arrival that we are the only ones in a real costume. This year, DH said he wasn't going to do it and I agreed.
However, 3 hours before the party I decided that I wanted to dress up and began raiding my closest for a costume.
I found a Dia De Los Muertos tshirt from Hot Topic and a black gyspy skirt. Hmmm... I googled makeup options and since I don't have a steady hand I did a basic makeup job.

Then I grabbed my trusty glue gun, some fake rose petals and some dollar store skulls, a headband and five minutes later I had:

Easy Bathroom Decor Update

Okay, when we moved into our apartment we failed to notice that we did not have linen closet. Only when we started unpacking did I realize this not so great fact.

We bought the one of those crappy Target Over the Toilet Cabinet and dealt with it's boring yet functional appearance.
A few months later, I bought a hanging Cabinet at the thrift store for $1.50. They didn't really match and there was wax stain all over the front of the door.


At a random visit to Michaels, I found black wrinkled scrapbook paper and knew I had to buy every sheet they had. 8 sheets for 19cents a piece!

My husband was suspicious when he saw me break out the white glue and started measuring the cabinets and cutting up the paper. He then followed me into the bathroom and watched as I glued them onto the doors.

15 minutes later, and with only one coat of white glue for protection I was done.


Technically I still need to change the knobs on the bottom cabinets to match the upper, but I otherwise I am very happy with it.

Almost a year later, they are holding up really well, and you can't see where I had to piece the paper together. I don't think the paper on the doors are going to survive the move, so I will probably remove and then re-apply later.

Special Request Tissue Box

DH asked me if I could make him a tissue box cover to go with the Budweiser coasters on our coffee table.

I told him to peel the labels off the bottle of Bud and I would accommodate his request.

I started out with an empty Budweiser box. Then I used an existing tissue box to trace the pattern. I then cut out the pattern 1/4 bigger then the original.


A little bit of painters tape was used to assemble the box.

I then decoupaged the Bud labels randomly all over.

Super easy!

After wards, DH decided it looked better in the office, where he shows it off to his friends when they visit. I have several requests from his friends for more, but they need to provide me with the labels.

Shot Glass Shelf

I've been lazy in updating the various crafty things I do. Here is one I did for DH around Xmas. He requested a shelves for his ever growing shot glass collection.

Pretty simple. I just repainted a spice rack in black paint and decoupaged some vintage Budweiser ads that I found on the internet.

He was pretty happy with the results, and looks like I may be commissioned to make another in a few months.

Not So Normal Tub

DH and I decided that we need some of those anti-slip treads for our crappy fiberglass apartment tub.
So off to Target we went, were the options were pebbles, frogs, feet and DUCKS!

A few devil ducks already reside in the bathroom, so we decided to continue with that theme. So with some Sharpies we got busy:

Pirate Duck

Buckshot Duck

Vampire Duck

Roadkill Duck

Ninja Duck

And Zombie Duck?


Were going to let them dry 24 hours, but hopefully they don't require any sealer.

Another gift for Amanda's twins

I found these wood signs at Michael's for 25 cents each!
I can't remember what they originally said, but I knew what I was going to do with them immediately!
Anyway, several coats of paint and varnish later, with some store bought lettering, they have their own name plates.

Onesies

I found some uber cute iron-ons at Joann's made by Plaid. I tried them out on Onesies for the Newman girls.

First off were the "Does this diaper make my butt look big?"
And then there were the "Arrgh Wipe Me Booty" and "Arrgh Kiss Me Booty". Notice that the "Arrgh" is missing on both. They were horribly mangled when I removed the transfer, but the rest of the iron-ons were fine. I'm not sure if I did something wrong, or if they were defective. I had to pick out the lettering that did transfers, thus the little black spots at the top of the images.

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Diaper Cake for the Newman Twins

This diaper cake is for the twin girls of a good friend of DH's. They are due in June and this is my second diaper cake.
Close up of some of the accessories. There is two different colors of the Pacifier Clips. I also don't have the supplies to make the sock bouquets, so I just open them up like butterflies

Some notes on this cake:I used a giant cardboard spool (like Rex's cake) for the base. Someone suggested using a full roll of papertowels instead of just the tube. Not crazy about this idea at all.

I had to tape the papertowels to the spool base, because it just slid around. Next time I will use just the tube again.I hand tied every diaper with ribbon.

32 1's and 35 2's.

And use more ribbon to loop each diaper together, so they were stayed in put.

This "It's A Girl" ribbon SUCKS. It slides like crazy. I thought the ribbon was fabric, but no such luck. I fear I am going to have to ruin a few diapers taping the ribbon to them. I

Rex's Diaper Cake

My first diaper cake. Made for Rex. Niles and Bronnwynn's son.
Back:

The base-in progress shot.
The second layer in progress.

Universal Monsters Canisters

Purchased some Santa Canisters after Xmas on Clearance at Walmart. Promptly went home and turned them into something I will use all year round.

The Horror of Country Crock

I started keeping the empty Country Crock containers to hold small items in my pantry.They looked boring, so I slapped some acrylic paint on, decoupaged some B-Movie Horror Posters onto them, and gave them a few extra layers of Modge Podge to seal them.

Anyway, they keep my pantry neat, and keeps the containers out of the landfill.