Friday, March 16, 2012

Trash Electrical lantern to Candle holder


So I was taking a walk and found this awesome, im assuming broken, lantern at the curb on trash day! along with these super cool dresser drawers! I walked past it once but on the way back around I couldnt pass it up again!




So I removed the electrical part that holds the light bulb


Then I removed the glass


Its so DIRTY!!
so i gave it a good scrubbing!!


I washed it, gave it a few coats of black spray paint, and a candle.


so glad I saved it from the landfill!



:-)

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Pallet Art

Pallets are easy to aquire, and most of the time free. I love reusing pallets!! FREE lumber!! I use them for tons of projects, I even built a sofa table out of them! Heres a fast dollar store project!
  I used the 1x6 and a 1x3 scrap to make the two blocks.
the hardest part is taking apart the pallet without breaking the boards, but this time I just cut it off
between the supports cause thats all I needed anyways. I sanded down just enough to get rid of the splinters, I wanted the old beaten up look.
I got this decal at dollar tree, they have a bunch to choose from in the craft section.


I used and old rag and some stain and rubbed it on the wood keeping it darker around the edges and lighter in the middle. I also burned the edges to make it really stand out. I let that dry.

I used my fleur de lis stamp and rolled on some beige paint, the board isnt totally flat, so it didnt go on even, which is fine, I wanted that look. Then I centered and pressed the decal on, ta dah! easy
This coast me only $1!!!!! but if you dont have the supplies on hand the stain is about $4 or you could paint, or leave natural, or just burn it, and the stamp with coupon is $4 at Michaels, and the decal is $1. still only $9 give or take a few.
I LOVE IT!! this took about an hour to make! happy pallet crafting!

Thursday, March 8, 2012

St. Patricks Day wreath

Heres a cheap holiday project made from cereal boxes, glue, scrapbook paper and a dollar store wreath.

start with a wreath that looks like this


I spray painted it, because really its the easiest way to paint.
Then I went online and found a shamrock shape I liked and printed it off in 3 sizes, I ended up only using to bigger two.
Then I gathered up my green scrapbook paper
and boxes

open the bottom, and cut up one corner to flatten them out.
then I just traced and traced and traced, then cut out and out and out.

same thing with the scrapbook paper.
Then I used mod podge to glue the paper to the cardboard. Then I hot glued the cardboard to the wreath. To make the smaller ones stand up, I cut a strip of cardstock 3/4 in wide and folded into a box (like a box kite with 2 open ends) and hot glued the open box part to the back of the sharock, and the other open end to the top of the other shamrock. doing it this way makes it more stable and it wont fold flat.
Attach a ribbon, or just hang from the hanger, and there you go.





Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Date Art



Do you have picture frames laying around like this?


they have great lines and a good matt? they just need a little tlc.

remove the staples.
after i got it all appart, i spray painted the frame black.

this frame is an odd size, so this matt was a keeper, it just needed some paint.
first i took the inner matt off by using a knife and carefully sliding it between the matt and the board.
(excuse the dishses lol)
ok so its off
i just used regular laytex paint and a roller.
ta da!! dont waste your money buying new matts!

while the frame and the matt where drying I went on Word and created my date art.
since the opening of the matt was 7in by 11.5 i made sure to keep the text inbetween those in the ruler. I printed it off on scrapbook paper since its 12x12 i just cut it down to the standard 8.5 width and left the whole 12in length. centered it in the matt and hung it up!




the top dates are our birthdays the red is our wedding day, and the bottom is our first date, and engagement date.