March 29th, 2012
I work with one very talented lady in my office, who just so happens to have the cutest of cute granddaughters. After a dry conversation concerning work, the subject our hobbies came up (she is a photographer and I a paper crafter, see my blog The Bald Dragonfly…). She had been searching for a long while for a simple, colorful photo prop and I knew right away that I could help her out.
My husband got to work framing out a sturdy box from 1/2 inch plywood and after about 30 minutes he presented me with the unfinished prop (he’s the best, isn’t he!) I had to ask him how he did it and here’s what he came up with: Cut two 12×2 inch panels, two 12×11 inch and two 11×11 inch panels. Attach one each 12×11 piece flush to the edges of the 12×12 pieces with screws, making sure the 12×12 pieces match up. Complete the cube with the 11×11 pieces. (Sorry, no pictures of the assembly or unfinished piece… they were accidentally deleted from my camera!)
The next step was to sand the surface area of each side of the cube. I then started covering the exposed sides with papers from the My Mind’s Eye Lime Twist Collection by Jen Allyson, being careful to keep boyish patterns and hues on three visible sides and girlish patterns and hues on the other three sides (although either could work for both sexes!). I did so by dredging the plywood with Mod Podge as well as the side of the paper not being exposed. After carefully removing all air bubbles from the surface, I added few more layers of the sealer, drying between each. I finished by distressing the box by sanding the edges and swiping a thin layer of satin stain on each side of the cube.
Karleen from Starlight Productions, Auburndale, Wisconsin was so pleased with the end result. Here are a few more pictures of the Lime Twist Photo Prop in action!
This photo prop was so quick and easy to make, and what a great way to showcase the fabulous and diverse designs from the My Mind’s Eye Lime Twist Collection by Jen Allyson. Even if you don’t know a professional photographer, why not make one of these for yourself? It would be a great constant prop to document the growth of your child, or you could even change up the paper in a few years too for a whole new look.
February 21st, 2012
Since the kitchen has been finished, we’ve taken a little break from house projects. This has been a nice respite after 7 solid months of house projects. It’s also been nice to just enjoy the house. We love our little house and how comfortable and beautiful it is.
We’re really done with most of the work (yay!) with the exception of a few things…
The fireplace mantle.
It’s boring and was just old dirty brick when we bought the house, here’s a before:
Once we were finished with the majority of the renovation, Mr. Project took out the wood stove and primed the existing brick:
Which took a much longer time than we thought it would… and a lot more primer. Then we dove into painting it a dark charcoal gray…
And apparently decorating it for Halloween.
This is how it’s looked (minus the Halloween decorations) for the past 7 months.
But we have a vision for what we want it to look like… we want to create a big white mantle and then built-in bookshelves next to it. I drew some rough sketches, and Mr. Project translated them into this illustration:
So… if all goes well in the next several weeks, we’ll have a beautiful hearth area which will turn the existing blah fireplace into a beautiful focal point in the house.
Next up after the built-ins are the closet organizers. Right now we’re living with a $15 ikea clothes rack. I’ll be so excited when I can actually organize my closet and unpack my coats!
So that’s what we’re up to on the house. Hopefully I’ll be able to update sooner rather than later.
February 18th, 2012
Thanks everyone who entered! We have two lucky winners – Amanda & Rhonda! I’ll contact you for your address so I can get those shipped out next week! I hope everyone had a lovely Valentine’s Day!
amanda says:
02/14/2012 at 12:21 PM
LOVE those colors!!!
Rhonda says:
02/17/2012 at 12:10 PM
Love this line of fabric; thanks for chance to enter.
January 25th, 2012
Don’t mind me, but you will be seeing some Christmas in this post. 
One of my Christmas presents was a little organizer, typically intended for use in a shop or garage.
But my mom had a grand idea. She thought it would be great for me to store some of my crafting ‘stuff’ in it.
And she’s right!
Check it out.
Space galore!
I liked it and all. Great storage for buttons/brads/clips/etc.
But….. it still seened too shop/garagish for me.
So I jazzed it up using some of Jen’s fabulous fabrics.
I believe the fabric I selected is from the Lost & Found line.
Really, making over this organizer was easy!
I cut a strip of material so it would would fit around 3 sides of the organizer.
I then applied Mod Podge to the organizer. {1 side at a time until it was dry}
After I got the material attached to the 3 sides, I tried to trim any loose threads.
In the end, I decided to add more Mod Podge to the edges to make sure it won’t fray.
Had I thought ahead, I would have used some stitch-witch and folded the rough ends under.
Mental note for next time!
Just wait!
I have one more craft involving this material.
How about a custom mouse pad?
Yup. I made one of these for myself for the office, as well as one for my mom.
You can find the original idea for this HERE, via Pinterest….of course!
What fun crafts or projects have you done where you use material in a way that isn’t typical?
January 23rd, 2012
I totally missed the whole sharing of holiday cards this past year so I was determined to make up for it in the form of a sweet Valentine. Most of the cards I received were from family and close friends so I decided that a photo card of my boys would be just the trick. Jen has some lovely digital collections available from Design House Digital and I grabbed the Vanity Fair: Persimmon and Aubergine and Nostalgia collections and decided upon a few images that would work with my photo. I like to go with the standard 4×6 photograph size so each Valentine will only cost pennies to produce.
In my digital editing program, (I use Photoshop) I cropped my image but still making sure I kept the dimension to the original size of the photo from my camera, 3000×4000 pixels. This way I know when I upload the flattened image to a digital photo processing site there won’t be any unusual cropping surprises. (At the ages my boys are now, it was difficult to get a great picture so I had to count my blessing that I got an almost decent image of both of them!) I then layered the two tape accessories from Vanity Fair Aubergine in the bottom right corner and then the Love button from Nostalgia on top of that for a quick message. I felt that I needed to bring the brown from the background down as well, so I recolored the border stamp from the Persimmon Vanity Fair and brought that in as a layer behind the button. Just be sure to leave enough “border” around your main images and design to allow for any cropping during the photo process. I flattened the file and after a bunch have been printed I will have my boys write their names and we’ll send them out before Valentine’s Day!
With just a few beautiful digital elements available at Design House Digital and simple skills in photo editing, you can create put a smile on someone’s face when you send them a special hand designed photo card! The most difficult part is getting a good photo!
