A blast from the past

In an effort to orgnanize and back-up hundreds of my photos, I came across a few crafty projects I never got around to blogging about.

 

This is from almost 3 years ago. Holy cow. They're bottlecap magnets that you use a circular hole punch and decorative scrapbook paper then glue them to the bottom of a bottlecap. Then, you pour this apoxy-type substance over and fill it to the top of the bottlecap. It hardens and dries clear and you are left with a cute little magnet!

 

 

 

One of my favorite ones:

 



 

 

I made this with my BFF, Jessica! I think we made these together right before I left for Japan? And my awesome friend, Kimberly, made Jessica's adorable bow headband! [etsy shop here!]

 



So here's to crafty throwback days. 

 

I hope you're having a wonderful week! Happy Wednesday!

Reduce, Reuse, Organize

Let's be honest, it's quite comical that I'm about to share an idea about how to organize something.  Organization has never been my strong suite.  Don't get me wrong, I actually prefer to have things organized, it's just I have a lack of motivation to actually get whatever it is that needs to be organized, well, organized.

But when I can make something cutesy to organize stuff, I'm all over it.  And these chalkboard jars are the thing my cupboard needed.

I usually buy all my grains from the bulk section of the grocery store.  I can never quite remember the grain to water ratio needed to cook the grains.  I think I remember but always have doubts, "Wait, was it 1 cup quinoa to 2 cups water, or 1 cup?!" Then I always end up googling it to make sure I remember correctly (and good thing I check, half the time I'm way off).

That's why I love the chalkboard lids of these recycled glass jars.  I just write which grain is in it and the corresponding grain to water ratio.  And since I use my rice cooker to cook all my grains I didn't write a cooking time on mine. But if you use a stovetop to cook your rice and grains, you could easily add the cooking time to the lids as well.

These are super quick to make since you're just painting the lids.  It took me a couple months of saving up my glass jars (and my sister's - thank you!) until I had enough to fit all my grains.  

I picked up a little pint of chalkboard paint at my local DIY shop (there's a chain here in CA called the Do It Center) for $10.  And I have tons leftover that I am planning to use in an upcoming project - stay tuned!

Once all your jars and lids have been thoroughly washed and dried, lay them out on your work surface.  Get your paintbrush and chalkboard paint ready.

Paint all your lids.  Follow your specific paint's instructions for adding additional coats.  I ended up doing a total of 3 coats.  The yellow lids especially needed that third coating.

Once set for 48 hours, write on your lids with chalk.  Label and organize it up!

You could use these glass jars to store anything really, Ryan stores his whole, dried chili peppers in one of the smaller jars.  The options are endless, enjoy organizing!

Reduce, Reuse, Have Fun

Ever since I started canning again, I began to save all my glass jars from pasta sauce and the like.  Unfortunately, you can't safely use those jars for canning, but I've been finding many other ways to make good use of them!

I began storing my grains and dry beans in the glass jars in my cupboard.  It makes things look far more organized, plus  it helps save on space since we don't really have a pantry at our apartment (oh the joys of LA apartments...).  Then I figured, why not use them for decoration?  So I threw a tea light in each of the jars and put them out on our back porch table.  

What to do next?  Maybe pour wax in the jars and make giant candles?!

Easy Knit Pillow Tutorial

This is the project I have been working on this past week. Knitting away during my free time, it only took one week to finish knitting the front to this pillow. And I wasn't knitting very often, it went quite quickly. I love that it is a bit softer to lay on when I'm zoning out on the couch reading a magazine (November issue of Real Simple, anyone? So good.) and they are a bit bigger than the last pillows I made.

If you don't know how to knit it's no problem, you can repurpose an old wool sweater or buy one from a thrift store. If you do knit, I recommend using larger needles so the lining fabric can peek through.

Ok, let's get started! Gather your supplies:

One 17 x 21 inch stockinette stitch knit swatch
(I used size 15 needles, cast on 65 stitches and knitted until it measured 17")
One 17 x 21 inch piece of lining fabric
(I used white flannel)
One 17 x 21 inch piece of fabric for the back
Stuffing for the pillow
Needle/thread

1. Cut and assemble your layers of fabric. Lay your back piece of fabric right-side up and place your knitted swatch on top, wrong-side up.

2. Place your lining piece on top of your knitted swatch.

3. Pin in place. Leave a 3 inch gap in the bottom of your pillow.

4. Sew around the pillow using a 1/2 inch - 1 inch seam allowance. I used quite a big seam allowance here to allow for the knitted piece, feel free to adjust accordingly.

5. Turn right-side out through the gap you left in the bottom.

6. Stuff with filling. I start stuffing with the four corners and add gradually from there. Distribute evenly and keep in mind that it will flatten out a bit after use.

7. Pin the gap closed by folding in both sides 1/2 inch. Sew either using your machine or hand stitching with an invisible stitch.

Enjoy your soft and comfy knitted pillow!

Pin It

Funny Valentine

After making the tutorial about repurposing old newspapers into your own homemade paper I go this idea to do a little decoupage on them.

The cut out letters reminded me of a ransom note so I put "Be mine, or else" on the first one. Then just "love" on the next one. I think it would be cute to do conversation heart words on them like "You're sweet" and then write your own message on the back for a very personal (and dirt cheap) Valentine!

Happy Valentine's Day, again! :)

Paper Hearts from Newspapers Tutorial

I've been wanting to try my hand at making my own paper for a while so I finally just did it. I used some flyers that came in the mail and recycled them into heart-shaped pieces of paper.

It's quick, cheap, easy and pretty darn fun!

First, round up your materials. You'll need: a tray, hot water in a bowl, newspaper or any type of paper you have laying around, tulle (or anything mesh-like would work in a pinch), and some paper towels.

Tear up your paper into thin, small pieces and dump them into the hot water bowl.

Push the pieces down into the water.

Mix it around and knead the paper together with your hands. Kids would especially love this step! After about 1 minute it should look like this:

Continue to mix and knead the paper together until the pieces start to disintegrate and are sticking together. It takes just a few minutes more. It should look like this:

Prepare your tray. Cut a rectangular piece of your tulle and lay it down on the tray, leave about 6 inches hanging off of the tray...You'll need this to fold over your wet paper. Also add a piece of paper towel underneath your tulle, I forgot to add it for this pic, oops!

Make sure your paper is ready to form into shapes. Test a piece by squeeze a small amount of the paper to get rid of any excess water, if it holds it shape it's ready! If not, continue to stir and mix your paper.

Lift out enough of the paper and squeeze it out. Leave some water in so you can shape it.

Set your glob of paper on the tulle/tray and shape. You could even use a cookie cutter if you wanted to make more elaborate shapes!

Fold tulle over and gently press to remove all excess water.

Check to see if enough water has been removed, gently peel pack the tulle and if it easily comes off it's ready! If not, continue to press out more water.

Set on a paper towel to dry.

Let dry completely, about 12-24 hours, before writing on them.

I added a grommet and made a Valentine's gift tag.

Use your homemade paper hearts for a Valentine's gift tag, card, ornament or just a decoration!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Birthdays and bow ties

Someone I know has a big birthday coming up! That's right, Ryan's birthday is right around the corner and I am busy putting together a variety of fun little trinkets for his big day. Trinket number 1: old tie transformed into new bow tie. The tutorial over at Make It and Love It was great!

Ok, by "old tie" I really meant $1 tie from the dollar store. Because this is a surprise for Ryan, I chose to buy a tie (for $1 yeah!) instead of taking one from his closet and chopping it up. I thought he might get suspsicious. But if you have old ties laying around, they would be perfect for this project.

It was a quick project and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. I won't be able to give my full opinion until I see how it looks on him, but I think he'll like it!

And...I've finally started a cross stitch piece! I like cross stitch better than embroidery, maybe. I sometimes like the look of embroidery better on things, but cross stitching is way easier. Still a slow-moving project though. I'm using a pattern from my new cross stitch book, Revival Designs. Hopefully I'll finish before the summer's over.