Sunday, January 31, 2010

Awesome Quote

I just got an email from one of my best friends and she had this quote on the bottom that is just awesome so I thought I'd share with all of you! Here it is...

“Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.”
~William Morris

That's hopefully what I'll be accomplishing with this blog. Why would you have something in your house without it being useful and/or beautiful? I mean, I know that life gets busy and things get cluttered, my house definitely gets like that. But I hope that through this project I can get to a point where the things in my home (at least for the most part) are either useful or beautiful. And hey, who says useful things have to be ugly? Let's beautify!

A New Month!

Tomorrow is February 1st which means I get to go spend money again! Hurray! I had 85 cents left from January so I have 10.85 to spend :) I have some new ideas and am so excited to get started! I have some pillows that I want to recover, pictures I want to resize, a bulletin board I want to make and then your average pictures to hang up.

I found an awesome site yesterday that has some way cute crafts on it! You should all check it out
Look at her pillows and her adorable shoes! I didn't even know making shoes was an option! I love people who can totally think outside the box!

Well...let's see what February brings :)

Monday, January 18, 2010

Feather and Candle Block Frames

Haha, sorry I don't have cool names for any of these! This one was so much fun though! I found these block frame things at DI and knew they'd make a great craft. So I bought them and went to Hobby Lobby to figure out what to put inside!

Materials:
~2 block frames (do these have an official name?)
~2 feather flowers (again--do these have an official name?)
~candles
~paint
~paintbrush

I wanted to paint these block frames brown but I only had $1.36 left in my budget so I bought some paint for 71 cents and then used a sponge as my paint brush! It actually ended up making it look kind of like a stain which was cool. The original color was pretty, it just had some dings and I wanted it a little darker to match my room better. I think the sponged on paint worked quite nicely :) Next I cut the stems off the feather flowers so they would fit inside the block frames and I even had to trim one to fit inside the smaller frame. The candles I bought were the perfect size but they came in way ugly aluminum covers. So I took them out and threw the cheap aluminum covers away! I decided though, that without the wick (which came out with the aluminum), the candles looked like small bars of soap. I needed to somehow replace the wick. So I cut up the stem that I had taken off the feather flowers and stuck them in the middle for my homemade wicks :) All I had left to do was drill everything in place! So I got my husband's drill bits and started making the holes. I stuck everything in and voila! Beautiful new frames to put on my walls! What do you think?






Don't they look SOO much better painted?!



That cheap aluminum HAD to go!

Aren't they absolutely beautiful! I LOVE them! I hope I'm not bragging, I'm just so excited they turned out so well!!

Cost:
Block frames: $2.00 for large, $1.50 for small
Feather Flowers: $2.12
Candles: $0.77
Paint: $0.71

Feather and Candle Block Frames ~ Total Cost: $7.10

Saturday, January 16, 2010

Composition Notebook Journal

Some of you may have seen this craft before. I learned it from my mother-in-law who did it at a church event. It ends up looking really cool! It's a great, cheap present.

Materials:
Composition Notebook (any color, it will all be covered up anyway)
Scrapbook paper
-two pieces 12 in x 6 in each
-one piece 4 in x 6 in
-two pieces 9 in x 7 in each
Ribbon or slim piece of paper
Pre-cut letters (or you could use markers or something to write the name if you wanted)
Glue-stick (this takes anywhere from 1/2 stick to a full stick)

(FYI: This will look better if your 12 x 6 pieces are different than your 4 x 6 piece. The 12 x 6 pieces are your front and back covers and your 4 x 6 piece is your spine). Take the composition notebook and both of the 12 x 6 pieces of scrapbook paper. Line them up so that you have about 1/2 inch or so hanging off the side. You will be folding this onto the inside of the cover. Place the papers so they line up front to back. Glue them onto the front and back covers. Open the notebook and fold the corner of the paper in followed by the top bottom and side edges. Glue it in place. Do this for both the front and back covers. (You may need to let it dry before going on.) Now take the 4 x 6 piece and line it up so that it's even in the front and back. Cut small indentations on the top and bottom so that you can fold the extra paper up inside the front and back covers. Glue this paper in place. You will be left with a small gap between the 4 x 6 piece and the 12 x 6 pieces. This is where you will either glue your ribbon or slim piece of paper. Open the notebook and glue a 9 x 7 piece inside each cover so that you can't see the folded over parts of the paper. Now glue the letters (or write) anywhere you want. Place the book under something heavy while it dries and sets. You are done :)





Here is a picture of the indentation you should cut so that you can fold the "spine" up inside the covers. Sorry it's blurry.

Here's the 9 x 7 piece in place. Now you can't see all the folds that I made before. It looks a lot more professional now.
Cost:
Composition Notebook: $1
Scrapbook paper: I got these from my mother-in-law so they were free for me
Ribbon: same--from my mother-in-law
Letters: same--from my mother-in-law
(none of these things are very expensive at your local craft store)

Composition Notebook Journal: Total Cost ~ $1.00

Saturday, January 2, 2010

Christmas candle decoration

So I actually made this about a month ago, and I know it's past Christmas, but I thought I'd post it anyway :)

Materials:
~old Currant Juice bottle (sparkling cider or champagne would work too)
~dryer sheets (crazy sounding, but it totally works!)
~glitter spray paint
~ribbon (left-over ribbon from another project)
~candle
~fake cranberries

So I had this old currant juice bottle that I wanted to use somehow but I didn't know what to do with it. So I kept it in my bedroom for about 2 months until I came up with this idea. I went and bought a branch of fake cranberries (you know those cranberry Christmas decorations?) at the craft store for something like $4.00, a candle for 25 cents, and a can of glitter spray paint for $3.00. I knew I wanted to put the cranberries inside with something that looked like snow so I was looking around for ideas of what I could use when I saw an old dryer sheet in my garbage! I grabbed it, scrunched it up and put it inside the bottle and it totally worked! So I cut stems off the cranberry branch, glitter sprayed the dryer sheets and the candle. The candle was a tiny bit too small so I wrapped a rubber band around it so it would stay in place. Then I tied the ribbon around it :)

Here are the pictures of the progress and the beautiful end result!



Christmas Candle Decoration ~ Total cost: $7.25