Secret Pie Shoppe

Hasta luego!

2011-09-17T23:37:00.000-05:00

I'm all packed and ready for Spain!

I leave tomorrow (aaaahhhh) and will be returning home early July.

As soon as I find an apartment and get settled in I'll try to find some craft stores and keep my blog updated!

DIY Travel Blanket

2011-09-05T15:40:00.000-05:00

While shopping for stuff I need for my trip to Spain I saw this travel blanket at REI and I realized that a travel blanket would be a nice thing to have. Not wanting to spend $30, I decided to make my own.

Supplies:
Grey fleece (2 yards. Cost: $8.98)
Velcro (6 inches. Cost: $1)
Black ribbon (2 yards. Cost: 1.98)

I trimmed the edges and then cut 1 foot off of one side - keeping the length at 2 yards.

Next I added a pocket at the bottom for my feet. This way if I'm using it on an airplane or wherever, I can put my feet into the warm pocket instead of having them on the cold floor. To make the pocket folded the bottom edge up 13 inches, pinned and sewed the edges.

After sewing the two sides, I flipped it right-side out and then sewed a straight line down the middle (you can see where I sewed in the above photo with the pins).

Using the extra material that I cut off of one side, I cut two 9 by 8 inch pieces for the pockets.

I sewed the velcro onto the pockets...

...and then I sewed the pockets onto the blanket. I sewed one on each side - a foot or so from the top of the blanket. After sewing the pockets on I put on the other piece of velcro and sewed it to the blanket.

The original blanket folded up into a pocket but I decided I'd rather roll mine and tie it with the ribbon. This way I can shape it to fit in my luggage, Either I can fold it up and tie it or roll it very tightly.

Some close up shots of the finished blanket.

I put the pockets on the inside of the blanket. This way I can put anything small (A phone, keys, etc) into the pockets and not have to worry about anyone taking them. Not that that will be a problem...sometimes I can be paranoid. :-/ Since I will be using this blanket when I stay at hostels it will be nice to have the pockets to keep anything secure and with me.

What the pockets look like on the outside of the blanket.

Another photo of the pocket.

The foot pocket:

The foot pockets are my favourite part of the blanket. I've been using it just to sit on the sofa in our basement because it's so comfy and my feet are nice and warm.

I'll definitely get a ton of use out of this blanket and as a bonus it was cheap and quick to make.

I didn't get a picture of it rolled up with the ribbon tied around it but it rolls up pretty small and I don't think I'll have any problem fitting it into my carry-on bag.

Hola España!

2011-08-31T13:28:00.000-05:00

Sorry for the lapse in posts!

I've been busy trying to prepare for an upcoming trip to Spain.

I'll be leaving in 19 days and won't return home until the end of June.

19 days!

I probably won't be able to post much before I leave but once I'm there and settled I'm hoping I can find some craft stores and do some crafting in my spare time.

I'm open to crafty suggestions. Feel free to leave a comment with crafty ideas that don't require a lot of supplies. I'm sad that I can't bring my sewing machine with me. :-( So far the only craft items I have on my packing list are my crochet hooks.

Life preserver pillow

2011-08-16T20:46:00.000-05:00

My mother-in-law's birthday was at the beginning of August and we made her a life preserver pillow.

Her dad had owned a sailboat named the Scarlet Queen and we based the pillow off of the original life preserver that was on the boat.

Off to the store we went to buy a cream coloured fabric and rope. I used extra fabric from my amiga's wedding date pillow for the tan bands and I already have a red fabric marker.

We bought 20 inches of fabric and magically we have a fan with a base that was just under 20 inches in diameter. So we put the fan on top of it and I traced it.

Then we found a bowl that we thought looked good, centered it and traced that.

Then I cut out the two circles and pinned them together (photo includes tan fabric and rope).

After a lot of figuring out - we realized that we needed to keep the inner circle open so I sewed all the way around the outer circle.

And then flipped it right side out.

And then realized I needed to pin the inside circle. :-) So I flipped it inside out again and pinned around the edge.

Then I hand sewed the edges....

...and left two openings (on opposite sides) for stuffing.

Next I drew on the lettering. I used my laptop as a light board again and lightly traced the letters with my red fabric marker. After I finished tracing I put a piece of plastic in between the two layers (shoved through one of the openings left for stuffing) and coloured in the letters.

Done with the words!

I stuffed the pillow and hand sewed the two openings.

Next up - the tan bands and rope.

I cut the tan material. I'm not sure how long they were (I estimated and trimmed them down as I went) but I want to say they are 2 1/2 inches wide. And ironed 1/4 of an inch in on either side. Then I sewed along the two long edges.

I wrapped the band around the pillow (I wasn't too picky about where it was because I could move it around after it was sewn) and pinned the edges.

Then I sewed the edge. This was pretty tough and I'm sure there may have been an easier way....but this worked for me.

As you can see it's pretty lose around the pillow but after I flipped the band right-side out I sewed another straight line so there would be a small opening for the rope. Then it fit snugly around the pillow.

I used a safety pin on one end of the rope to help feed it through.

After threading the rope through all four bands, I trimmed the rope and taped/sewed the two ends together. Then I pulled the rope so that this part was hidden in one of the loops.

The pillow is done!!

Again, just for reference - the original life preserver:

And the pillow:

Honestly, I was amazed at how well it turned out. I love when I have an idea in my head and when I'm finished it is as good or better. This was definitely better than the one in my head. The rope was an afterthought and I'm so glad we added it.

A close up of the details.

And another photo of the pillow.

More bracelets!

2011-08-12T11:12:00.000-05:00

My sister came to visit and we made more fabric bracelets! We had a hard time finding a place to buy the bracelets but she found ID bands for beer bottles. The best part is that they're a lot smaller than regular bracelets like this so they fit our tiny wrists.

You can see the original post with tutorial here.

The original beer bands:

More bracelets!

We used random fabric scraps, an old pillow case and an old sheet.

I heart Spain

2011-07-29T07:56:00.022-05:00

I had two pillows in my living room that needed new covers. First I made a peace sign pillow cover and meant to make this one soon after. Other projects have been getting in the way but I finally found time to make the second cover!

Supplies:

-Fleece

-Felt

-Zipper

-Needle/thread

First I cut the fleece material down to size.

And sewed on the zipper.

Then I printed off a map of Spain and traced it onto the grey felt.

I cut out Spain and cut out a small heart from my red fleece.

I hand sewed the heart onto Spain.

I tried sewing it near where Madrid is located. It's...kind of close.

I pinned Spain onto the blue fleece.....

....and hand sewed it on using grey thread.

All that was left was sewing the edges of the pillow case and shoving the pillow in.

Finished!

Hamper

2011-07-27T08:15:00.005-05:00

I saw this hamper on marthastewart.com and decided to make one.

We don't have room for a hamper anywhere in our bedroom and have been putting our dirty clothes in a hamper in the guest bedroom...which is annoying. This idea is perfect because it can hang on the back of our door and won't take up any room.

Supplies:
-Pillow case (I bought 3 at a thrift store for under $2)
-Embroidery hoop, 10'' diameter (from the thrift store - 39 cents)
-Fabric scraps

I decided to add two straps to hang my mine from since I didn't think one strap would be strong enough. We also already had two hooks on the back of our bedroom door so that worked out well.

I cut the material to make the straps. I used t-shirt material from my box of scrap material.

Then I sewed the ends together to make a loop. I overlapped the material by one inch.

I wasn't too concerned about the look but wanted the straps to be strong so I sewed three lines.

I put the loops around the embroidery hoop and put the hoop on the pillow case.

Then I hung it up!

Now we won't have our dirty clothes living in the guest room and have a nice, out of the way, hamper in our room. :-)

Another wedding date pillow

2011-07-25T08:02:00.001-05:00

One of my amigas just recently got married (congrats!) so I made a wedding date pillow for her and her mate.

My original pillow and tutorial can be found here.

I made hers the same way but I made a square pillow and used a different fabric.

Inspired readers

2011-07-22T07:29:00.001-05:00

This post is far far overdue.

Two readers were inspired by my heart wall art and sent me photos of their projects. I'm too embarrassed to say exactly how long ago they sent me these photos...but it's been a while.

And of course this post would have been great around Valentine's Day (since both readers did their projects for Valentine's Day...) but time has escaped me and here I am posting heart projects in July. The end of July :-)

Tonya created her own version of the heart wall art for her two kids.

For her daughter she did sheet music with a red heart in the middle.

For her son - she printed off schematics for a computer and used a blue heart.

Here's a close up shot of the hearts.

Both of her kids loved their heart wall art!

Annette made a mini version in a photo frame. She used photos for the main hearts and then added a coloured heart. I love how the black and white photos look on the pink paper.

P.S. Have you made any of the projects that I've posted? If you have - I'd love to see them. You can send either photos or a link to a blog post. There's a "contact me" link in the upper left or you can just e-mail me at secretpieshoppe at gmail.com

Featured @ Polly Want a Crafter

2011-07-20T07:02:00.000-05:00

Cassity at Polly Want a Crafter is featuring my sun shade today! You can see the post here.

Feel free to stop by and check it out along with all of the other great crafts features and posts on her site. She even has a link party every Monday.

Air Mail Curtain

2011-07-18T07:18:00.000-05:00

I've been slowly working on my air mail curtain and am happy to say that it is done and I love how it turned out! Painting is not a skill I possess and is something I usually avoid doing (I even avoid just painting rooms in our casa) so I was very happy with the curtain. I only messed up the paint on one spot and, of course, it happened at the very end. N tells me no one will notice and I pretend to believe him. :-)

A while ago I posted about making the drop cloth curtain. For a recap, here is what it looked like before I painted it. As you'll notice in the end photos, the light doesn't shine through the curtain as much. We had thermal curtains that we used before so I used them as lining for the air mail curtain.

I thought that painting it to look like an air mail envelope might look neat. And if not...at least it'd be unique?

I created an image in PowerPoint.

Image details:
The font I used is Fountain Pen Frenzy (which you can get for free on dafont.com).

The stamp was drawn by my ever-so-amazing mate. I found an image of a stamp with Queen Isabela on it and knew that there was no way I could paint that. I tried to change it in photoshop to a more drawable image but it wasn't working out. N offered to draw the stamp in a way that I could actually paint. I took him up on the offer and he came up with this.

Original stamp -----------------> Our stamp

(as you can see in the final curtain I did not paint the line under españa or the lines around correos)

We taped the curtain to the wall, set up the projector and began to trace everything. We used a red coloured pencil for the red lines, a blue pencil for the blue lines and a regular pencil for the black lines.

Then I clamped it to a table and began to paint.

And paint.

After days of painting (I had to let one area dry before painting another are so I was only able to do a section at a time) I finished!

As soon as the paint dried we bought it to the kitchen and hung it up. I love how it turned out and think it looks great in the kitchen.

All of the hard work and stressful painting = worth it!

Close up details.

More photos of the completed curtain!

Organzing the pegboard

2011-07-14T08:42:00.000-05:00

This has been organized for a while...but I was busy working on the sun shade and apparently didn't have time to post.

We bought a pack of peg organizers at Home Depot and then bought a few extra pieces that we thought we'd need to go along with that. We found a pack of three baskets too - these work great for all of the random things we had or the things that are too small to hang (the smallest basket is full of tiny screwdrivers)

A sun shade

2011-07-12T07:00:00.005-05:00

It has been unbearably hot here. Mega hot and humid. We like spending time on our deck but obviously don't enjoy spending time on the deck in 90+ weather with the sun beating down on us.

As a joint birthday present my mom bought us a sun shade so we could cover part of our deck. Unfortunately the sizing didn't work with a deck. We returned it and were inspired to make our own!

First we wanted to make sure we could even find a way to make this work before we went out and bought material. So off to Home Depot we went.

We bought two metal poles ($10 each), an assortment of hardware (around $15), pvc pipe and some pvc pieces (less than $10). The metal poles are 10 feet tall and are the kind used for chain link fences.

We have two hooks on the side of our house already for hanging a projector screen on so we can watch movies outside. We decided to use these for the sun shade and based the location of the poles off of that.

After my engineer husband figured out the details he got to work.

Here are the pvc pieces we bought. The metal pole fits inside of the tube perfectly.

The pieces got assembled...

The cap is on the end that is going into the ground. This way no dirt will get in.

These photos show the top that can come on and off. This way we can put the cap on when we're not using the sun shade and the pvc pipe won't get full of dirt, rocks, etc.

And then N dug a hole in the ground, put the pipe in and buried it in. He did a great job of packing in the ground/rocks around it. It is going no where.

Here is it with the cap on.

Next he put the brackets onto the deck.

And then put in the pole! They are easy to put in and just as easy to take out when the sun shade is not in use.

After we realized that the poles were sturdy and the spacing worked out with using the hooks we already had on the house we decided to get some fabric!

We found a great greenish and brown striped fabric (thick, in the upholstery section) and bought 9 3/4 yards of it. It cost about $70.00.

Since the fabric wasn't wide enough we measured and cut the fabric so that the seam would be in the middle. Then I got to work hemming all of the edges.

I sewed.. and sewed...and sewed.

Then I sewed the two pieces together. Magically I was able to work is out so that the stripes continue seamlessly, even with the two pieces sewn juntos. (side note: I used upholstery thread for this part and for sewing on the straps. For the rest I used regular thread)

After sewing the two pieces together we took it outside to figure out the exact sizing. One side would be straight but the other end needed to be angled so we used some hooks and mock-hung it up to see what kind of angle we needed. We marked on each side where it lined up with the pole and then connected the lines. We cut the fabric, hemmed it and just hoped it would work out.

Next came the straps. I cut the material and hemmed the ends.

Then the sides got folded in and sewn.

I got the metal rings ready to go.......

And sewed as close as I could to each one.

The straps are done!

We placed them on each corner and sewed them on. This was probably the most difficult sewing part.The corners were already pretty thick and after adding the straps too them it was probably more than my sewing machine could handle...but we got through it.

Here are what the connections look like.....

.....connected to the pole. The cap that goes on the pole has a circle at the top that the s-hook links into.

.....connected to the hooks that we already had on the side of our casa. These hooks were purchased in the gardening section of home depot. I think they're made to hang flowers from your house. We use them to hang our projector screen (which we bought cheap on craigslist) and a sun shade. :-) To attach the sun shade we just used an s-hook and something that the packaging tells me is a "quick link".

The first thing we did when we finished was go to starbucks to get two cold drinks and we relaxed under the shade. Sooo nice.

Here is it all hung up! Complete with the blanket we've been laying on/eating our dinner on ever since we finished the shade. When I took these photos it wasn't too sunny so you can't see the difference it makes but it definitely brings our deck from unbearable to amazing. :-)

Here's a closer shot so you can see the fabric.

Gardening!

2011-07-11T08:00:00.001-05:00

When we moved into our house there was a little area by the side of the deck with flowers growing and it looked great. The next summer only the tulips grew back. This summer after the tulips died we basically had an area of dirt with dead tulips, some weeds and some plants that we weren't sure about. After weeding and taking out the dead tulips...we had a "nice" area of dirt. :-\

We finally got around to fixing that and an area on the side of our house that was also full of weeds.

First let's look at the area of dirt, weeds and a few plants that we had planted earlier (I got them from someone at work). The plastic cover over the window basically served as a greenhouse and was filled with dead and thriving weeds. Yuck.

So we dug up the weeds...and grass.....

And then covered the area in weed block and planted our new plants.We planted citronella and hostas.

I didn't take any photos of this process but basically we just covered the area in weed block and used little staples to make it stay. Then we cut a little X on the spots where we wanted to plant something, dug a hole and planted away.

Then we replaced the window cover (which we had weeded, used weed block and filled with rocks), added a trim and filled it with mulch.

It makes such a difference!

Now we can see inside of the window cover and instead of it being full of weeds it just has rocks.

Here are some closer photos that show the edging a little better. The first photo is the citronella plant - it smells great. The second photo is a mystery plant - we have no idea what it is.

Now let's look at the side of our house...

There is a skinny area between the fence and the sidewalk that is part dirt/rocks and part concrete with a bunch of weeds added in.You can see a hosta on the side - we replanted this one on the side of our deck.

A close up of all of the weeds. Yuck.

We weeded the area and then put down the weed block.

Next we just filled it with rocks. Since portions of the area are partly concrete we didn't think it would work to plant flowers there. We put down two bricks to separate the lawn and the rock area.

We are so glad to finally have all of this done! We did the work over two days. Two very hot days. After we were finished we walked to a Mexican restaurant near our house and treated ourselves to dinner...and the biggest margarita we'd ever seen. :-)

Next we need to tackle the plants in the front. Blech.

Calendar and Lists

2011-06-27T07:33:00.001-05:00

We still use the meal planning menu to plan out our meals each week and I thought it would be nice to also have a calendar and a to do/to buy/grocery list.

I used the same colours, red and grey, and made a calendar and a weekly calendar, grocery/to buy/to do list in photoshop.

We had three 8x10 black frames handy.

The space right above the garbage can in the kitchen is long and skinny - the perfect spot for the three frames.

N put in three small nails and I jung up the frames!

And yes...we still have the decorations up from my mom's Fiesta Fifty. :-) Since Nathan's birthday was last week and we knew we were having his amigos over this past weekend to celebrate, we decided to leave most of them up. Now it's time for them to come down.

Pegboard

2011-06-22T13:40:00.001-05:00

N's birthday was on Monday and last week I had the great idea of putting up pegboard in the basement so he could organize his tools.

I didn't get off to a great start and ended up going to a home depot that didn't rent tools (I needed to rent a hammer drill). So I had to quickly drive to another Home Depot and got there just as they were closing. Luckily I had called ahead of time and they knew I was coming so they waited for me. I rented the drill and drill bit and an hour later I drove home with the hammer drill and all of my supplies.

After getting home I realized that this was definitely not a one person job. There was stress. There were tears. I broke down and called N to come and help with his birthday gift. After he came home we started drilling - only to find out that the Home Depot man had given me the wrong drill bit with the hammer drill. The next morning I got to home depot as they opened and politely laid the smack down and did not have to pay for the drill rental.

We rented a new drill after work and worked together (this was definitely not a one person job...) to hang the pegboard.

Supplies:

Pegboard (cut to size @ Home Depot)

2x2s (cut to size @ Home Depot)

A hammer drill

Tapcon concrete screws

Construction glue

First we drilled all of the holes with the hammer drill. We put construction glue onto the wood and put it up to the wall. The construction glue isn't necessary but I was told it would help make sure the wood is secured to the wall.

I held the 2x2s in place on the wall while N drilled through both the wood and the wall at the same time (to make sure the holes lined up). After drilling the holes we put in the screws and moved onto the next piece of wood.

Basically we created a frame that we would later attach the pegboard to.

Then we put up the pegboard and attached it with screws.

Now all of the work on the wall was done!

To the side of the work bench we have a shelf. I thought it would also be a good idea to add pegboard to the side of the shelf. Seeing as we didn't need to use the hammer drill this was very quick and easy.

We attached the 2x2s and then attached the pegboard.

Sigh of relief. After much stress and me realizing that I can't do everything on my own - we now have the pegboard up! Next we just need to clean up the dust from drilling into the cement and to organize all of our tools!

Bracelets!

2011-06-20T11:21:00.000-05:00

The other day I saw a great tutorial on another blog for this but now can't find it anywhere. If anyone else has seen this tutorial please let me know so tat I can give the blogger credit!

This was very quick and easy to do. We took a mini vacation and I made this during the car ride.

Supplies:

Scraps of material

Needle and thread

Rubber bracelets

Cut the material into a long strip (my strips ranges from 1/2 an inch to 1 inch wide).

Then I sewed one end of the fabric to the back of the bracelet. As you can see - my bracelets are Harry Potter themed. :-) I got them when I bought the last Harry Potter book at the midnight book selling.

Then I just wrapped the material around the very-cool Harry Potter bracelets. Make sure to wrap the material tightly!

For one bracelet I did not have very long strips so I used three shorter strips. I just sewed the new strip onto the bracelet in the same way I started the material strip. You can't even see where one piece of material ends and the new one starts.

Once I got to the end I just sewed the material onto the back of the bracelet. When I sewed it I made it so that the thread is only visible on the back side of the bracelet. With the white thread it is only this visible on the red bracelet but since this is the underside you can't see it when you wear the bracelet.

All three bracelets are done! You could trim down the strings from the loose edges but I'm going to leave it - I like how it looks.

Two bracelets with Duluth in the background. :-)

The teal one is a for a friend and the red and green ones are for me. I'm wearing them both today and love them. Now I just need to figure out how to acquire more of these rubber bracelets so I can make some more...

Drop Cloth Curtain

2011-06-17T08:00:00.001-05:00

On the sliding door in our kitchen we've had randomly purchased thermal curtain hung on a crappy curtain rod. I've been meaning to fix this for a while and finally am getting around to it.

Since we always pushed the other two curtains to one side (towards the wall) I thought that instead of having two curtains it'd be better to just have one. Since I doubt stores sell curtains that wide I bought a drop cloth and made my own. It was pretty cheap (the drop cloth was $20 and I have plenty of material left for future things) and easy.

Supplies:

Kvartal single track rod from Ikea

Hooks for curtain track from Ikea

1 drop cloth

N hung up the track. We had to buy two and trim one down.

After the track was hung we measured how big the curtain would need to be. It ended up being 98 inches by 33 inches.

We laid the curtain on the floor, measured and cut.

I only had to cut to two sides so I didn't have too much sewing to do. I made sure that the hem on the cut sides matched what was already sewn and pinned the material.

Then I sewed the edges. The sewing was definitely the quickest and easiest part.

The curtain is sewn and hung up! When I bought the drop cloth I was expecting it to be one big piece. Unfortunately it was two pieces sewn together with a seam in the middle. I decided that if I leave the seam at the bottom of the curtain it will look okay. Once I line the curtain it might be a little less noticeable....

The sewing is done but I'm not done with the curtain. I had a crazy idea to paint it to look like an old airmail envelope. Feel free to give this idea the side eye - I'm not really sure how it will turn out...:-\

I have the curtain designed and now we need to trace it onto the curtain (using our projector), paint it...and find time to do all of this. It might be a while but as soon as it's finished I promise to post photos.

update: I painted the curtain! You can see the final curtain here.

Kubb

2011-06-16T07:33:00.002-05:00

N made us another lawn game! He did all of the hard work (cutting, drilling, etc.) and I stained the pieces.

Kubb, a Swedish lawn game, is really fun and easy to learn . You can even simplify the rules for younger kids (we taught the kids at my mom's fiesta a simplified version and they loved it).

I won't go into the rules but if you're interested you can visit the wikipedia page or you can watch this video on how to play. The rules we learned were slightly different it's more or less the same way we play.

First we bought a dowel for the tossing batons and 2x4s for the king and kubbs.

Here are the measurements we used:

1 king: 12 inches tall, width of two 2x4s

10 kubbs: 6 inches tall, width of two 2x4s

6 batons: 12 inches long, 1.75 inch diameter

N cut the wood down to size.

Next two pieces of wood were drilled together for each piece (the king and all kubbs).

We sanded the edges down...

and then I stained the pieces. I stained 5 kubbs red, 5 black and I stained the king black on two sides and red on the other two sides.

Waiting for the stain to dry

All done and ready to play!

We set it up in our yard and played.

I won the first game! We've played plenty more since we made it - it's great that we can play with just two people or in a larger group.

We even have a crate that will work perfect for storage.

Peace Sign pillow

2011-06-14T08:00:00.001-05:00

Supplies:

Pillow

Red fleece

Grey felt

Zpper

Peace sign outline

Sewing machine

I've had two pillows with metallic green covers sitting in our living room for quite some time. When I got them (for free from my sister) I had planned on making new covers for them but never got to it. I finally made one (and have supplies to make another)!

First I took the old cover off of the pillow and measured the size. Then I cut the red fleece down to size.

Zippers are not my friend but I decided to try my hand at adding a zipper to the pillow. I used an invisible zipper that I already had on hand.

I pinned the zipper to one side of the fleece and sewed it on.

Then I pinned the zipper to the other side of the fleece and sewed it on.

Zipper is done! It turned out okay - not the best but much better than anticipated.

After printing out the peace sign (I made it 11 inches around) I traced it onto the grey felt fabric.

I used a marker designed for tracing on fabric and after a while the marking goes away.

Then I cut out the peace sign.

I centered the peace sign on the fleece and pinned it on.

Then I sewed around the edges.

Sewing is done!

I put the case on the pillow and it fit perfectly!

I have one more pillow cover to make and then I'll finally have pillows that match my living room. Maybe one day I'll even get to the cushion covers...

Candle Wraps y Water Bottle Labels

2011-06-10T08:00:00.000-05:00

Using the same papel picado images from the invite I got from Aesthetic Nest's Fiesta Forty party I made water bottle labels and candle wraps.

Water bottle labels!

Supplies:

Labels, printed on regular paper

Water bottles

You can get a PDF of the water bottle label here. If you want the original file so it can be edited, let me know and I'll send it to you.

We never drink bottled water (we have plenty of reusable water bottles - Sigg, Kleen Canteen, etc) so I figured we'd make use of the bottles of water we'd gotten free with our grocery delivery and use them for the party. We also had plenty of iced water in pitchers for people to refill their bottles.

Because I'm party crazy I thought it'd be fun to make labels for the water bottle. I took the labels off of the bottles and measured one. Then I just used the papel picado images and the words Fiesta Fifty to design a label. I printed them on regular paper and cut them down to size.

Then I just wrapped the label around the water bottle and tapped the edge.

The custom water bottles were a hit at the party and were very quick and easy to make.

Candle wraps!

Supplies:

Candle wraps (printed on regular paper)

Battery operated tealight candles

You can get a PDF of the candle wraps here. Let me know if you want me to send you the original file if you want to edit it.

Another quick and easy craft I did was make candle wraps for battery-operated tealights (like the Christmas and Valentine's Day ones I made). I used the same font (Sala de fiestas) and papel picado images.

I cut the paper down to size (I measured one of the candle wraps I had made before to get the sizing).

And then I just wrapped the paper around the candle. N helped me with this part.

Candle off v. Candle on

I used these throughout the house - some near the wet bar, on end tables in the living room, etc.

Bunting, Circle Garland y Mini Papel Picado

2011-06-09T07:31:00.001-05:00

Mini papel picado!

Supplies:

Fancy paper punch

Card stock

Sewing machine

To go with the papel picado theme I wanted to make mini papel picado for the cake. Since it would be too hard to cut tiny folded tissue paper I decided to just use card stock and a fancy paper punch.

I punched the pattern around the edges of the card stock.

And then cut the paper into 1 inch strips.

Then I cut that into 1 1/2 inch rectangles. I sewed them together, tied the ends to chopsticks and put it on the cake.

Bunting and circle garland!

Supplies:

Paper (cut into circles or triangles)

Sewing machine

To make the house more festive I wanted to make some simple bunting and circle garland to hang in various rooms.

First I cut out the shapes. I made three kinds.

I cut out triangles for bunting...

...and circles for the circle garland. For this I did two styles - some with random sized circles and some where the circles were all the same size.

Then I got to work sewing them together. I measured some areas to see how long I needed the strand to be. As I sewed the circles I didn't space them all equally apart because (especially with the random sized circles) I thought it looked neat to have them randomly spaced. For the bunting I tried to keep them evenly spaced. That didn't always work out but it still looks nice.

Done sewing! (I spread the sewing out over a few nights - I'd sew a few strands each night so I wasn't trapped in the hot craft attic for an entire noche).

Ready for the party!

Random sized circles.

Bunting

Happy Birthday banner

2011-06-08T06:35:00.001-05:00

I wanted to make a Happy Birthday banner for the fiesta and kind of made this up as I went. I think it turned out marvelously. I am going to keep the "Happy Birthday" part for future use (along with all of the other decorations we made of course) and I'll be giving my mom the "Gayle" part of the banner.

Supplies:

Circle cutter (or template)

Paper

Ribbon

Hole punch

Using the same font as other party decorations (Sala de fiestas) I first printed the letters out on coloured card stock. I spaced them out so there would be enough room to cut circles around them.

I cut out 4 inch circles around each letter and then 5 inch circles of plain card stock. Next came cutting out the diamonds in each letter - I didn't trust my caffeine addicted shaky hands so N was entrusted to cut them out.

I used a 1/8" whole punch and punched two holes on a plain 5" circle. Then I used this as a template and punched holes on all of the plain 5" circles.

I bought the cheap 50 cent ribbon at Michaels - blue, 1/8". I threaded it through the holes of all of the circles (I did each word separately)

Then I used double-sided tape to tape on the letters.

A close up

Done and ready to hang.

Hung up for the party!

(we actually had it hanging on the garage by the streamers and balloons but I wasn't able to get a photo of it before the decorations were taken down so I just hung it on the fence later for a photo)

Papel Picado

2011-06-07T08:00:00.006-05:00

To go along with the Fiesta theme we thought it'd be great to have papel picado as decoration. I tried to find design templates online but couldn't find anything so we decided just to wing it.

Supplies:
Tissue paper
Exacto knife
Ribbon
Tape

We bought tissue paper in pink, orange, blue and green. I cut it down so we had rectangles that were 10" by 9" each. Then I made a crease an inch from the top to make sure that we didn't cut the area that the ribbon would go.

The tissue paper was folded like an accordion and then we just cut it using exacto knives. The first few I ended up recycling because I wasn't too happy with how they turned out but after I did a few I got the hang out of. N "got the hang of it" right away and his turned out much better than mine. When they're mixed together maybe it's not too obvious whose are whose. :-)

After they were done (we made 42!) we figured out where we were going to hang them so we would know how long each string of them needed to be.

The top edge got folded down and I put the ribbon under the flap and just taped it down. I also added a small piece of tape to hold the papel picado onto the ribbon so they didn't slide around.

Then we hung them up for the fiesta!

Fiesta Fifty!

2011-06-05T20:58:00.010-05:00

My madre is turning 50 in a few days so we threw her a surprise fiesta!

I was inspired by a Fiesta Forty party (as seen on Aesthitic Nest). She was nice enough to post her party invitations on her blog post so I was able to use the papel picado images for various things at my party. I just changed the colours to match our party colour theme (because regular people have party theme colours....)

N and I made a ton of decorations (I may or may not have gone overboard with the party fever) and my sister y brother-in-law came the night before the party to help with decoration and food preparation. I was glad to have the extra help as I was mega stressed and frantic the day of the fiesta. Luckily most of the relatives were fashionably late and everything was done and ready at party time.

All of the relatives came over and my mom arrived a little later. She knew something was up but we all yelled "surprise" anyways. :-)

We feasted on Mexican food (burritos and tacos in a bag) and drank margaritas while hanging out playing lawn games and talking. I was thankful that it didn't rain and we all dealt with the sweltering heat. We had our picnic table, a card table and another table set up for plenty of seating outside.

Later all over the 21+ went to the Shout House while N and I stayed at home to control the children. We played every game you can imagine plus a handful of made up ones and watched a movie. We ended the night wearing glow stick bracelets and running around the yard in the dark.

Here are photos from the party.

Updated with Tutorials:
Papel Picado
Happy Birthday Banner
Bunting, Circle Garland and Mini Papel Picado
Candle Wraps and Water Bottle Labels

Food and drinks!

The menu: Tortillas, tostadas, bags of chips for the tacos in a bag, tortillas chips.
Burrito/taco toppings: cheese, sour cream, guacamole, mild salsa, hot salsa, spicy taco meat, regular taco meat, lettuce, tomatoes, onions, pico de gallo, chili con queso, refried beans and chipotle black beans.

I made mini papel picado for the cake (purchased at Costco).

To keep food cold I had filled two tin container 1/2 way full with water and froze them. Then I added more ice go around the bowls. This photo was taken after most of the ice cubes had melted but the bottom layer of ice lasted the entire party.

At the wet bar we had a margarita machine on one side and a fridge stocked full of soda, vino, cerveza y aqua on the other.

Apparently I'm party crazy. Why else would I have made water bottle labels?

Decorations!

The TV in our kitchen is connected to our computer so we had mariachi music playing upstairs and downstairs. The tv also played a powerpoint that was just "50" with the background colour changing every few seconds.

This table was set up next to the wet bar. We had cups, straws and markers so people could write their names on their cups. The cooler was full of ice for the margaritas.

We made a ton of papel picado y bunting/garland.

Don't worry - we don't awkwardly have a frame hanging with matting and 5 black pieces of paper. This frame is our last name - we took pictures around town of each letter, printed them and framed them. I wasn't down with posting my last name so I just blocked it out. :-)

I made candle wraps with 50 and more of the papel picado images.

I made my mom this photo as a birthday gift but thought it'd be great to use as decor. :-) It's a photo of my mom y one of my brothers.

We wanted to cover up our ocho artwork so made this "50" to cover it.

Outside we also had streamers and balloons (blown up and strung to a string). hung between the house and the garage. Unfortunately I wasn't able to get a picture until after the streamers were all down due to wind and kids and the balloons were popped due to heat and kids. It looked nice for a while though. :-)

It took a lot of work to prepare for the fiesta but it was a huge success and my mom had a great time!

A very yummy cocktail

2011-05-31T08:00:00.001-05:00

Strawberry, Basil, Ginger and Gin cocktail

After someone at work shared this recipe I knew I had to try it. I made it (a couple times....) over memorial day weekend. The drink is spectacular.

When making the drinks I made a few changes to the recipe and it still turned out great. :-)

I used mint instead of basil.
I didn't use as much ginger as the recipe called for in the gingery syrup.
Since I used less ginger in the syrup, I added more syrup to each drink than the recipe called for.
I added tonic water.

Bean Bag toss + Numbers

2011-05-30T10:50:00.000-05:00

I just added numbers to our bean bag toss game for easier score keeping.

I couldn't find plain numbers so I bought stickers meant for a mailbox at Home Depot. They had had black numbers on a reflective background so I just cut out the numbers.

Bean Bag Toss - bean bags!

2011-05-20T06:11:00.002-05:00

We have the bean bag board and now we have ~~bean~~ rice bags!

Supplies:

Rice (or beans)

Material

Zip-lock bags (not required)

We wanted to put the rice first in zip-lock bags and then in material so we were sure they wouldn't break. We played a few rounds with just rice in the taped up zip-lock bags and definitely broke a few. I might have thrown a little overzealous in my need to win.

N put rice in the bags, cut the zipper off and used packing tape to close the bag and tape it into a square.

Next he cut the material down to size. Since these will be tossed around he doubled the fabric to make them stronger.

he sewed two sides with the sewing machine and left the top open to put the rice bag in. If you skip the zip-lock bag part you could just leave a small opening and pour the rice into it before hand sewing it shut.

We made five bags in each colour - red, green, blue y yellow.

N hand sewed the open ends....

...and we were ready to play!

I won the first round but with only one point so it wasn't very impressive. :-\

After a pathetic first round we moved closer and did much better.

Bean Bag Toss

2011-05-19T08:00:00.002-05:00

Since we have been spending so much time outside (thankfully we're finally having nice weather!) N decided to make a yard game for us to play.

Bean bag toss!

Supplies:

Plywood
Board
Paint
10 plastic bowls or cups

We bought the plywood already this size so we didn't need to get it cut down.

N cut the board down to make legs...

...and then he nailed them in.

Then he brought it out to the yard to paint it. We just used extra paint we had in our casa - extra paint from our bedroom.

Now for the containers to catch the bean bags.

Originally we were going to spray paint yogurt containers but decided to stop by the dollar store instead to see what we could use.

We found bowls in blue, green and yellow that we thought would work perfect.

To add the bowls to the board, N used a washer and a screw and first made a hole in the bottom of each bowl.

Then he screwed each bowl onto the board.

We're trying to come up with a way to add numbers to each one for points. N is thinking about just drawing them on with a sharpie but I'm on the lookout for big vinyl number stickers.

Now N just needs to finish the beanbags so we can play (and so I can win). :-)

Cushion covers

2011-05-17T08:36:00.000-05:00

When we painted this furniture a long (long) time ago our plan was to quickly find a gray fabric to make cushion covers. Plain gray fabric was harder to find than we thought. I think it took us a year and a half to find fabric we were happy with.

Here is what the chairs look like – you can see on one we found a fabric that we thought we liked but it turned out to be almost identical to the wall colour so we decided not to use it.

Here is the fabric we found. I’m sure we could have found something better but after looking for over a year we decided to just buy it.

Now we just need to motivate ourselves to sew 8 cushion covers….

Does anyone know of a good tutorial for making cushion covers? We weren't too happy with the sample grey one we made (the one in the photo). We want to avoid zippers and tried using snaps but I'm sure we could do something better... Any advice is much appreciated!

Wall art : You + Me and Robots

2011-05-16T07:09:00.000-05:00

I saw this print and loved it but wished it came in different colours. I decided to try to recreate it in colours that would go better in my casa and decided on red a gray with a white background.

I made the heart in photoshop, basing it off of the inspiration print.

Then I thought it would look nice to have two smaller frames next to the big one so I went back to photo shop to create two more images.

I randomly decided that robots would be cute (and easy) so I got to work. I created the robots using basic shapes and added a heart to one and a tie to the other. The tie and bow are the only parts that are hand drawn and not made with basic shapes.

You can get a PDF of the robots here: Robot Girl y Robot Boy

I got them printed at Sir Speedy, put them in the frames that I bought at Ikea and N helped hang them up.

It's nice to finally have wall art up in the basement; now i just need new sofas...:-)

Bird's Nest Necklace

2011-05-13T13:31:00.000-05:00

For Mother's Day we made each of our mom's a bird's nest necklace. I'd never made one before but it looked easy enough and the nice woman at Bead Monkey even printed off the directions that they use when they teach a class of making them.

Supplies:

Wire (24 g.)

Beads

Metal loop

Necklace chain

First I made a spiral with the wire. After starting the spiral with a needle-nose pliers I held the spiral between my fingers as I kept wrapping the wire around.

After the spiral was large enough to fit the beads on it, I added the beads to the wire. I bent the wire in a loop so the beads lay flat on the spiral.

Then I just kept wrapping the wire around the beads to form the bird's nest. While doing this I looped the wire through the little metal loop so that I could put the finished nest onto a chain.

I had started off with 24 inches of wire but I think that the directions were meant for thicker wire. I ended up adding another 20 inches or so.

As I wrapped the wire around I kind of pushed the wire together to form the nest.

I put the charms on the necklaces and they were all ready to mail to our mom's for Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day!

Living room wall art

2011-05-09T09:08:00.004-05:00

A while ago I posted asking for opinions on some wall decor we were working on for the living room. It’s been done for a while and I’m finally getting around to posting about it.

Recap: We had three ceiling tiles and were trying to figure out a way to hang them on the wall.

N decided to build wooden frames for them and then we painted the frames. Making the frames was really easy and the wood cost less than $4. There was no cost for the paint because we just used paint we had at home.

To make the frames N measured out the size of the tiles and cut the wood. He cut the corner at a 45 degree angle so they would fit together to form a frame.

We were able to enough for one frame out of each strip of wood.

Then we put them around the ceiling tile to make sure it lined up.

N glued and stapled the corners together.

One frame done!

It took a while to decide on what colour to paint them. We debated between off-white, light gray and dark gray. In the end we decided to paint the frames light gray. We took the same paint we used to paint the living room and added some white paint.

All done!

Mosaic

2011-05-05T08:00:00.002-05:00

I took a mosaic class a while ago with Kate at Mercury Mosaic. We got a good deal with a Groupon and it was really fun. The class was about 3 hours long and they explained how to do everything, provided examples and helped with your design. They have so many containers just full of tiles to choose from. It took a while to decide what type of colours I was going to use and how to design my mosaic.

They also do custom mosaics in homes and the examples of their work I saw were amazing. It makes me want to do a tile back splash in our kitchen. Maybe someday.

In the class you could choose to either make a mosaic around a mirror or just a plain mosaic on a rectangular piece of wood. I chose the plain piece of wood.

It’s been sitting on the floor in my living room for a while; really need to figure out where to put it. Maybe in the guestroom once we do something with that room…maybe the living room? No sé.

Adding closet space

2011-05-01T11:41:00.000-05:00

When we moved into our house we knew that the lack of closet space in our bedroom would be an issue. Each bedroom has a tiny closet – not enough for just my clothes. After we moved in N fixed up the closet in our bedroom and changed it from one bar to two bars. Even with that my clothes filled the closet and an armoire in our room; N’s clothes have lived in the guestroom closet since we moved in.

Since eventually there will be a tiny human living in the guestroom we wanted to try to get all of our clothes into our bedroom. We moved the armoire out of the extra indent of space and moved it to the guestroom.

The plan was to figure out a way that all (or at least most) of my clothes could fit there and N’s clothes could go into our closet. We took measurements and took a trip to Home Depot.

I didn’t want to use the same shelving/bar system as we had in the other closet since there would be two big white tracks going up the wall. We decided on basic brackets and bars.

The first bar is up!

I wanted to make the best out of this little nook so we decided to put up three bars. This means that the top bar is pretty close to the ceiling but we made sure that it’s low enough for hangers to easily fit and I bought a tiny step stool just in case. I have only used it a few times and can easily reach the hangers to get clothes down.

All done! The bottom bar was cut shorter than the rest so that I can hang my dresses on the middle rack without them hitting the bar below.

All I have left to do is buy a curtain and hang it. I found one I want at Ikea but the last time I was there it wasn’t in stock. Hopefully I can get it soon.

Ocho!

2011-04-27T09:21:00.001-05:00

Eight has always been my favourite number and magically it is N's favourite number as well. So when we got married we decided to get married on 8-8-08 and now I like the number even more.

While we were out shopping at random antique and knick knack shops and came across a few cool eights. After finding more I thought it would be a great idea to use them in some decor project. After gathering a variety I decided that they would look nice in a frame so on the way home we stopped at a thrift store and bought a frame.

I spray painted the frame black.

Once the frame dried I arranged the eights in the frame. It took a while to get it arranged and I think it still needs maybe a few more small eights.

Here are some close up shots of the eights. I love that we were able to find such a variety. Some of my favourites are the word eight, the domino and the clock.

It took a while to get the wights all in the frame on the wall.I moved the eights around a lot until I was happy with it.

Final project!

Easter Egg Garland - Happy Easter!

2011-04-23T09:38:00.001-05:00

I've seen a few bloggers that have made en egg garland using paint samples. I loved the look of it so decided to make my own!

I made an egg template and using a few pastel-coloured paint samples I cut out my eggs.

After all of the eggs were cut out I had to decide how to string them together. I tried sewing them together (like I did for my heart garland) but for some reason it wasn't working. I made a quick trip to Michael's for a 1/8'' hole punch and some ribbon and decided to go that route.

I made a template for the holes so I could get them all in the same spot and punched two holes on each egg.

Then I started stringing them together.

All done!

I'm excited to hang it up again for Easter next year!

Even more napkins!

2011-04-12T08:00:00.002-05:00

Here is another set of napkins that I made for another birthday - my sister's birthday.

I used the same method as before for these napkins but instead of using regular fabric paint and brushing/sponging it on I used spray on fabric paint. I think it worked much better and definitely will use the spray on paint for future projects like this.

I couldn't decide on just one image so I decided to put a different image on each napkin. Again, I just found these images online and altered a few aspects to make them stencil friendly.

All of the napkins together.

More napkins!

2011-04-09T22:26:00.000-05:00

I haven't posted in a while but hopefully I can get back to doing crafty projects and getting them up on my blog!

I made these a while ago for a friend's birthday and am finally getting around to posting. I used the same method as the dala horse napkins. My amiga really likes owls so I looked online until I found a cute one and then I edited the image so it would work as a stencil.

Next I ironed on the stencil.

I gathered my painting supplies...

... and painted two layers.

I waited until they dried and then I used the iron to heat set the paint.

All done!

Meal Planning

2010-09-02T08:10:00.039-05:00

We try to plan out our meals for the week before getting groceries. It helps save money and emergency trips to the grocery store. We order our groceries and pick them up (it's amazing - we just drive up to the pick-up door and they bring out all of the groceries nicely packed in bags) so it's nice to sit down and make our meal plan and order groceries at the same time.

In the past I would write down our general meal plan but we always strayed from it, forgot what we wanted to make (sometimes I lost the list), etc. I decided I wanted to put the meal plan on the refrigerator so it would be easier to follow. So far we've had it up for 1 1/2 weeks and have managed to follow the meal plan. :-)

I found this cute meal plan online that the you can download for free (or you can buy a different style in her etsy shop) and decided to use this.

I had a frame that I had purchased form a thrift store and painted black but never used. It is really lightweight and I can write on the glass with a dry erase marker so I decided that it would be perfect for this project.

I took off the flap on the back that makes it stand up.

I had a bunch of magnets laying around so I grabbed six and used epoxy to glue them to the back.

Then I put in the weekly meal plan template and was finished!

I thought it looked nice on the refrigerator and I think seeing the meal plan will really help us keep organized and know what we plan on making and this way we only buy what we need and have less food go bad. I only write dinners (sometimes lunches on the weekends) on the calendar since for lunch we bring either leftovers or other basics (bagels, sandwiches, etc.).

I'm hoping to make something similar so we can write down shopping lists, to do, and our weekly schedule. Hopefully I can fit that all into one frame...we'll see.

Old T-shirt = New Bag

2010-08-30T10:05:00.001-05:00

While collecting white t-shirts for my latch-hook t-shirt rug (I still need so many more...) I acquired a few t-shirts that I don't need but won't work for my project. Not wanting to just get rid of them I decided to try my hand at making bags out of them.

I've only done one so far but might start making a bunch of t-shirt bags - a few for each car, some for the house, one for my purse, etc. I always make sure to bring a bag shopping and these are pretty small so they'd be handy to bring.

Supplies:
-T-Shirt
-Scissors
-Sewing machine or needle/thread

To start I cut off the sleeves (to form handles). I cut right on the edge of the seam so that once the sleeves were cut off I had a raw t-shirt edge for the handles. To make the bag opening bigger I cut away an oval of material around the collar. I just cut and hoped for the best but you could also use a big bowl to outline the opening if you want to make sure it's even.

I flipped the shirt inside out and sewed along the bottom of the shirt. I sewed across the bottom twice for extra strength.

This bag was made from a small t-shirt but if you have a bigger one and don't want the bag to be too big you can trim off some of the bottom fabric to make the bag shorter.

To make the handles look a little nicer I cut two short strips of material from the sleeves and sewed them around the tops of the handles. I think it added a nice touch. :-)

Here is the finished bag!

I've already used it and it worked well. I bought two bike seats and a candle - everything fit into it and the bottom was strong. The nice thing abotu t-shirt material is that it stretches so you can fit more in the bag.

I am definitely going to make more out of the random old t-shirts I have laying around the house.

Jewelry Holder

2010-08-26T08:00:00.003-05:00

I've seen tons of great recycled jewelry holders online made out of old photo frames with mesh used to hang earrings from. I really wanted to make one but decided to try to find something for storing both dangling earrings and studs.

I scoured thrift stores and finally found this (for only $5!)

It had a wire grate to hang earrings AND little drawers for stud earrings, bobby pins, hair binders, etc - exactly what I was looking for!

I removed the wire grate off of the back so I could paint the wood parts.

Since the drawers were plastic with wood fronts I taped off the plastic parts. Here are the drawers all ready to be painted.

First I sprayed it with a primer and then painted it with leftover Heirloom White paint that I had.

Done with painting!

I put the drawers back in and stapled the metal grate (but apparently after I took this photo..) back in.

Then I hung it up in the bathroom, hung my earrings and filled the drawers. I have a drawer for hair binders, bobby pins, stud earrings, safety pins, earrings that are broken or missing a partner and one to spare. Marvelous. I don't use the top drawers that often so they work well for hanging necklaces that won't fit in the little necklace cup (lower right corner).

A closer shot.

I can hang rings from the little knobs (I just have to be careful that they don't fall but so far I haven't had this problem) and I set bracelets on the top or in the little mesh cup.

Here you can see a drawer in action. :-)

I'm so glad I found this a the thrift store and love using it for jewelry storage! As a bonus I think it also looks nice hanging in the bathroom. :-)

Spoon Hooks

2010-08-23T08:08:00.002-05:00

A few weeks ago a friend and I saw hooks made out of silverware flattened, bent and nailed to a piece of wood. We were inspired and decided to see if we could recreate the look.

I didn't take photos as we made them (I have a habit of forgetting my camera...) but I have photos of the end project and the "how to" is pretty straightforward.

Supplies:
-Spoon (purchased at a thrift store for 99 cents each)
-Paint (purchased at Michael's for under $2)
-Wooden squares (purchased at Michael's for under $1 each)
-Hammer and/or rubber mallet
-Drill
-Nails

First I'll show you finished project so you can see what I'm talking about as I go through the steps.

We put a towel down on the cement outside and started hammering away to flatten the spoon. I tried a rubber mallet at first but a regular hammer ended up working the best.

Here you can see the two flattened spoons.

Then the spoon handle was put over a bar on K's chain-linked fence and was pounded down (this time with the rubber mallet) until it looked like a hook.

To get the nails through the spoon we drilled two small holes with a regular drill bit and then just pounded the nails in so that the spoon was attached to the wood block. As you can see I painted the wood (purchased at Michael's for eighty-nine cents) red.

I haven't figured out where I'm going to hang them yet but here is an "awesome" shot of me awkwardly holding up the hook so you can see how it would look if I had actually hung it up and hung a towel on it. :-) (and apparently this photo is pretty blurry. Lo siento! I didn't realize until I posted it. I think it still gets the idea across so I probably won't retake it)

P.S. You can check out my friend's blog to see her spoon hooks.

Bowl of Paz-ta

2010-08-21T10:00:00.001-05:00

I love painting pottery (at places where you paint pre-made pieces and they put it in the kiln for you) but have never actually loved the end product - my creative skills are lacking in the painting area. However, I went with a friend a while ago and am super happy with the results.

Since I'm so proud of the bowl (though it's nothing original...) I thought I'd share it on here. As of now I have it sitting on my kitchen table. I'm not sure where it'll end up but I think I'll keep it out; maybe I can put fruit in it.

I'm glad it turned out - it was pretty questionable for a while. After painting on two layers of light grey and speckling the bowl with dark grey I noticed a few area that needed to be touched up. Without thinking I grabbed a grey, touched up a few areas....and realized I'd painted with the dark grey.

Dios mio!

Three layers of light grey later I finally covered up my mistake and added more speckles. I was worried the dark areas would show through after it went through the kiln but luckily they did not.

(side note. Paz means peace in Spanish - knowing that might help the title of this post ~~mildly amusing~~ make sense. Though I'm not even going to use the bowl for pasta so I suppose it doesn't really make much sense anyways.... )

Wrapped Wine Bottles

2010-08-19T16:06:00.001-05:00

I had some hemp twine that I wanted to use for a crafty item. After seeing some other bloggers wrap twine around a wine bottle I decided to give it a try. Since I had the hemp twine, hot glue and wine bottle this turned out to be a super cheap (free!) craft. :-)

Supplies:
-Wine bottle
-Hot glue gun and glue
-Rope, twine, hemp, etc.

First I soaked the wine bottle in warm water and removed the label.

To glue on the twin I started at the bottom of the bottle and worked my way up. I put down some glue, put the twine over it, put down more glue, etc. etc.

When I got to the top of the bottle I coiled the twin in a circle as I glued it down. I left a hole in the middle and cut the twine and put the end in the circle (held by a small amount of glue).

The thick hemp twin was super quick and I think I finished the bottle in one episode of Arrested Development.

I found some thin twine at home too so decided to make another bottle. I didn't take any photos during the process since it was done the same way as the first one. The only difference was that it took longer (about two episodes of Arrested Development :-).

Here are the finished bottles side by side. I could have made the twine tighter but I liked that you can see the bottle through the cracks. The bottle on the right is green and it looks neat with a little green peeking through.

Here they are sitting in our wet bar area. I love my new globe cork holder and I think the bottles look nice next to it. I think I might make a third one with a smaller bottle and maybe a different type of twine.

Working On: T-Shirt Rug

2010-08-05T09:08:00.010-05:00

I decided to try my hand at a latch hook rug made out of t-shirts. I have spent many many evenings watching cutting up white t-shirts - about 30 t-shirts....and I still need more. :-\

A few of the t-shirts were purchased at a garage sale or thrift store for fifty to seventy-five cents a shirt but luckily most of them have been free. I had a few white shirts that I never wear (think ugly promotional shirts - white with a huge logo) and I got a bag of free shirts from a lady off of craigslist (thank you random lady and craigslist!). Most of these seemed to be shirts from soccer camp or various other soccer events. Apparently that family likes soccer. :-)

Here is a picture of the cut up shirts so far - hopefully I'll get more shirts soon and can continue onto part two of my rug - dying the material.

The t-shirts are being cut into one by four inch strips.

Can you guess how many strips I have? About 5,700! I'm not sure how many more I'll need since I haven't decided how big the rug will be.

I'll post an update after I get further along....right now it's just a slow process of obtaining and cutting up shirts.

Dala Horse Napkins

2010-08-02T11:47:00.000-05:00

As a birthday gift I made dala horse napkins to go along with the dala horse cake pan that I bought for my mother-in-law.

Supplies:

Cloth napkins
Freezer Paper
Fabric paint
Paint brush

It took a few stops to find freezer paper but finally found it at Rainbow. I bought Tulip brand fabric paint (matte) at Michael's. You can buy a small container for under two dollars. The napkins are from Target.

First, find a shape. You can draw something or find an image online. I found a general outline of a dala horse and added simple details in paint. You can either print on the freezer paper or print on regular paper and trace it onto the freezer paper. Make sure to print or trace onto the dull side. I taped a piece of freezer paper to a regular sheet of paper and it went through my printer just fine.

Now you need to cut out the image. Once it is cut out you can lay it on the material and iron it on. Be sure to iron all of the edges really well or the paint might seep under the freezer paper - you can see this in the first napkin we made. :-\

I let it cool and then started painting. Since I was painting white on red it took three to four layers.

After the paint is dry, peel off the freezer paper.

Once you're all done and the paint is completely dry, lay a cloth over the image and iron over the paint (you can look at your paint bottle for directions on this).

This is my first time doing this and I think it turned out pretty well. There is only one napkin that is mildly embarrassing - the paint seeped under the freezer paper in a few spots. Hopefully my mother-in-law won't mind. :-)

Andy Warhol inspired photo

2010-07-29T20:43:00.000-05:00

Our anniversary is coming up and I wanted to make N something to hang on the wall and decided to make an Andy Warhol inspired picture.

I'm not very familiar with photoshop so it took a lot of work and a lot of tweaking. I worked on it for a big portion of two days. Figuring out the colours was taking a long time and finally I just decided to stop fiddling with it and leave it as is and am content with how the colours turned out.

This turned out soooo much better than I thought it would. I was so excited that I gave it to N today...over a week early for our anniversary. :-) He loved it!

Here is a close-up and a picture of it hanging on the wall in our basement.

It is 16 inches by 20 inches and I put it in a "frameless" frame (basically just glass and a back with little clasps to hold the glass in place). I debated between this and a black frame and am so glad I chose this one.

Swiffer Cover

2010-04-20T11:12:00.000-05:00

I found a tutorial to make a swiffer cover on Berlin's Whimsy and really wanted to make one. Using a reusable cover is much better for the earth (no more throwing away a swiffer pad after each time) and much cheaper. I bought the towel for about $2 at a thrift store and only used half of the towel to make it.

I don't have a swiffer so I offered to make one for my sister. I offered to make it a long long time ago and just now got around to doing so since I'm going to see her this weekend. I haven't added the velcro yet (in the tutorial I linked she used buttons but I decided velcro would be much easier) and am going to add it once the cover it on the swiffer so I make sure to put it in the right place.

Since I don't have a swiffer I just used my imagination and pretended it looked really nice on a swiffer. :-)

I'm going to give it to my sister this weekend and add the velcro. I'll be sure to post pictures!

New shelves = organized office supplies

2010-04-07T08:00:00.001-05:00

Near our office area in the basement we have this cabinet.

We've never really understood the point of it so it's been empty since we moved it. When we toured the house and opened it in just had a telephone book in it - so apparently the previous owners didn't put it to good use either. It's just an empty cupboard with a plug in and a phone jack.

Our desks were getting out of control with office supplies everywhere so I decided we were going to make use of the random cabinet space.

We measure the inside and went to Home Depot. We bought a piece of wood and metal brackets.

N did all of the cutting (and painting.....so he did most ~~all~~ of the work).

N put the brackets in - two on each side.

We made sure that the shelves fit before we painted them white.

Then N painted the shelves white (we had a random can of white paint) and painted on a clear glossy coat and then put the shelves in!

I was super impressed with what a good job N did. And now instead of an empty cabinet we have something useful. :-)

Then I filled it with office supplies!

We placed the shelves so that we that the battery charger would fit plugged in.

We had a few random boxes that I used (the clear and blue containers are from Ikea) and I also made a bunch of origami boxes out of thick card stock. They worked perfect and are filled with rubber bands, binder clips, thumb tacks and paper clips. I think I might make labels for the boxes.

This is a blurry picture but you can see two boxes in the corner. The stacks of paper are scraps of paper with "Notes" and "To Do" for notes. I keep a stack of each on my desk and use them constantly - I just printed on the backs of used paper and cut the pages into fourths.

Easter Eggs!

2010-04-05T20:20:00.000-05:00

We always try new things when dying Easter eggs so this year we cut out shapes with electrical tape and used some vinyl stickers.

N made these Mario themed eggs - he used electrical tape for the mushrooms and the star.

He also made this "3-D" egg - I took a photo of each side.

I made two polka dot eggs with q-tips dipped in colour.

I used electrical tape on this one.

I used a vinyl J sticker - it worked the same as the electrical tape.

N made this face - apparently it's a Behelit

Some more eggs that my in-laws dyed.

Happy Easter!

2010-04-04T08:10:00.000-05:00

Happy Easter everyone!

The weather is getting nice and it's starting to feel like Spring is finally here! We moved into our house at the end of the summer last year so we weren't sure what kinds of plants were planted outside.

We say some green leaves start to come up in the back and were excited to see a daffodil start to bloom.

When I went to check the mail yesterday I even noticed some flowers coming up in the front yard - around the base of a tree. I'm not sure what type of flower this is but i love the purple colour.

I'm excited to see what other types of plants and flowers start to grow.

Last year we hung out on our deck a lot (ate dinner on the deck, read books, relaxed, etc.) but we didn't have any patio furniture. We usually just brought out blankets or our card table/chairs. We decided we needed to buy something right away this year.

I love just laying out on the deck so joked that I just wanted a bed for the patio. We were at the store and found a comfortable swing. N was looking at it and realized it folded down into a bed! We bought it and N is working on putting it together.

We've had quite a few bees flying around so I bought a bee trap to hang by the flowers and hopefully keep the bees away from the deck. We'll see how well it works.

Well I'm off to dye Easter eggs (I'll post pictures soon!). I hope you all have a great Easter.

Blog? What blog?

2010-03-09T07:15:00.000-06:00

It's been quite some time since I've posted but don't worry, I haven't abandoned ship!

With work and school I have had zero time to do anything relatively fun and that includes crafting and blogging. My classes end in two weeks and then I'll be back to my blog!

Happy Valentine's Day! Treats!

2010-02-14T13:00:00.005-06:00

Happy Valentine's Day!

What are your plans for Valentine's day? N and I are planning on going to dinner and a movie tomorrow. There is a great theater near us that serves food while you watch the movie.

I got together with an amiga (you can see her blog here) the other day to bake some treats for Valentine's Day.

We definitely went over board with the amount of treats that we made! I went over to her house at 4:30 and left a little after midnight. We took a few breaks for grocery shopping and dinner but spent the majority of our time in the kitchen.

First we started making the cake balls from Bakerella. They were supposed to be made with red velvet cake but when we couldn't find that at the grocery store we bought devil's food cake instead. They turned out pretty good - very tasty. I think I just need to work on my dipping and decorating skills. :-) The recipe said it would make 45 - 50 balls....we made 84. That means we each got 42 each!

We covered half in white almond bark and half in chocolate almond bark.

We made some of the almond bark pink and tried to decorate them...

Censational Girl posted about making chocolate covered caramels and they looked amazing so we decided to make them. The original recipe was from Smitten Kitchen. After gathering all of the ingredients we realized that the original recipe was for salted chocolate caramels...not chocolate covered caramels. We decided to stick with the recipe and made chocolate caramels. They were interesting but good. N decided that out of the three treats I brought home these are his favourite.

The last thing we made were brownie/cookies. This recipe is also from Bakerella. The recipe called for regular chocolate chip cookies but when we didn't see that at the grocery store we decided to use oatmeal chocolate chip cookies instead. It turned out great and N and I have each had one as a breakfast dessert for the past two days. :-) Mmm.

Valentine's Day - Chocolate of the Month Gift

2010-02-13T16:52:00.004-06:00

N got me these pink roses a few days early so I gave his gift on Friday.

I tried to think of something N would really like for Valentine's day and I immediately thought about chocolate. He loves, loves, chocolate.

I decided to get him a "membership" to a Chocolate of the Month Club. And by "membership" I mean... I'll be buying him a new chocolate bar at the start of each month for the rest of the year.

When I gave him his first delivery with a chocolate bar for January and February he thought it was "the real deal" (a real chocolate of the month club) until he started reading my job answers to the frequently asked question page that was included in the envelope. :-)

I designed a membership card and a punch card and laminated them both so they looked professional. Packing tape worked great for lamination. I used the font Nite Club which I downloaded from dafont.com.

Front of membership card:

Back of membership card:

Front of punch card:

I even put the months in Spanish on the back just for fun.

Next I made a welcome letter... (PDF of letter)

and a page of frequently asked questions (PDF of frequently asked questions).

I put the letter, frequently asked questions, membership card and punch car in an envelope.

I went to the co-op and bought the first two chocolate bars. I was holding a handful of chocolate bars trying to decide when a man came up and commented on how many chocolate bars I had. I explained that my husband has a chocolate problem (addiction) and I was buying him some for Valentine's Day. He laughed and recommended two bars. I thanked him for his recommendation and bought the two bars he suggested.

January's Chocolate bar

February's Chocolate bar

As an added bonus, this bar has a love poem inside. :-)

I put the bars in a box, wrapped it with a paper bag and put a sticker on it.

Then I used ribbon to tie the box and envelope together to give to N.

He loved the gift and is excited to receive a new chocolate bar every month for a year. I'm excited for him to share the chocolates with me....:-)

I have uploaded the membership card, punch card and letterhead. For some reason the text on the membership card looks pixely...it didn't look like that before I uploaded it so I'm not sure what happened.

PDF of the letterhead.

Front of card.

Back of card.

Punch card.

Craft: Cards

2010-02-10T21:31:00.002-06:00

I started making some cards to go in my magazine envelopes that I just made (see previous post). I'm hoping to get some time to make more this weekend though that might not happen. Whenever I get time I'll be sure to post picture.

Supplies: card stock, stamps, magazines, shape templates

I had card stock that was 8 1/2'' x 11''. I cut each piece in half (8 1/2'' by 5' 1/2'') and then folded that paper in 1/2. It fit perfect in the envelopes that I made. I used a bone folder to score and fold the card stock.

I printed out various shapes on card stock and cut them out. I'm trying to think of more shapes - any suggestions? I'm going to try to find a simple tree and bird silhouette.

Then I traced the shapes onto magazine pages and cut them out. I just used double sided tape to tape the shape to the card. I already had alphabet stamps so I used those to stamp words on the insides. I need to get better at stamping the words but I'm happy with how they turned out.

******************

This is my favourite one.

Green Craft: Envelopes made with magazines

2010-02-08T21:09:00.002-06:00

I have a stack of old magazines and was trying to think of ways to use them. I'm making a list of magazine crafts - my list so far: envelopes (check), cards (in progress) and gift bows. Do you have any other ideas? Links to tutorials?

Making the envelopes was super easy to do and I've already started making cards to go in them. :-)

Supplies: Envelope template, magazine, scissors, scorer (to score the folds)

I made a template for an envelopes that will fit 1/4 piece of paper - so the cards I will make will be half a sheet of paper folded in half. You can download my template here. I printed it onto card stock and cut it out.

Then I went through my magazines and pulled out pages that I liked.

I put the template on the back of the page and traced it - I did not trace on the side I wanted out the outside of the envelope.

I had a stack of magazine pages ready to be folded into envelopes.

I used a straight edge and a scorer to score the four fold lines (you can see the fold lines in the template).

First I folded up the two side flaps.Then the top and bottom flap

I put double-sided tape on both of the side flaps and then folded the bottom flap up - making sure that the paper was smooth once it was taped together.

Next you just need to fold the top flap down and you have an envelope. Once you are ready to mail the envelope you can either use double-sided tape or a nice sticker to seal it shut.

When I mail the envelopes I plan on writing or printing the address on a white mailing label and sticking it to the front of the envelope.

Here is the stack of envelopes I made...

and here are some of my favourites.

I have a coffee problem. Mmm coffee.

Envelope Template

http://secretpieshoppe.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2010-02-10T21%3A31%3A00-06%3A00&max-results=8

Update: PDF tutorials posted

2010-02-04T15:11:00.000-06:00

PDF tutorials have been created and posted for the following projects.

The link to the PDF is found at the bottom of each post.

Valentine's Day Wall Art

Felt Heart Wreath

Cloth Snack Bag

Cloth Coaster

Craft: Fabric Flower Earrings

2010-02-02T19:47:00.004-06:00

I had some small scraps of material left over from my quilt and wanted to try to find a way to use them. I saw fabric flower earrings on Happy Together and decided to make them. I made them a little differently so here is how I made them.

Supplies: Earring backs, hot glue gun (or other glue), pearl beads (or other small beads), fabric scraps, small button to trace

First I traced the button on the fabric and cut out circles. You can see how tiny my scraps were - you don't need much fabric at all. This scrap, not even 3'' by 2'' made 10 circles.

You'll need 7 circles for each earring - 14 circles per pair of earrings.

The earring starts with one circle. This will be the bottom layer of the earring.

Fold two circles in half - with the right-side on the outside.

Put them on top of the bottom-layer circle - side by side so they completely cover the bottom-layer circle and create a circle of their own. Sew them onto the bottom-layer circle.I just sewed in two spots near the middle. You can use the same piece of thread to sew all of the layers on so make sure it's long enough.

Take the four leftover circles and fold them in half and then in half again, right-side facing out.

Place one on the earring circle and sew it to the layers (one full circle, two 1/2 circles) at the very point....this picture might make more sense.

Grab another folded circle and place it right across from the first one. Sew it to the earring layers at the point.

In the same way, sew the remaining two folded circles between the already sewen ones - so that all four 1/4 circles make one circle. Tie off the thread.

Now the tough part is done. Sew your pearl (or any bead) to the center of the flower.

The two finished flowers.

Next I used a hot glue gun to glue the earring backs to the back of the flower.

Three completed pairs! I used a dime for the grey flowers but thought it was too bit so I used a small button for the red and blue flowers and liked them much better.

PDF Tutorial

Featured on:

Craft: Valentine's Day Wall Art

2010-02-01T07:12:00.009-06:00

I loved how my Valentine's Day garland and wreath looked so I decided to make another Valentine's Day decoration. In our living room we have a big blank wall that is patiently waiting for us to finish the wall art we plan on hanging. I decided to use that space and try to make a simple, cheap wall art.

Supplies: Card stock, pattern to print (I did sheet music), scissors, tape
Cost: $0 (I already had all of the supplies)

I started off by printing off sheet music. I printed two pages on each 8 1/2'' x 11'' sheet of paper.

Then I found a heart shape that I liked (via google images). I used this heart and edited the biggest heart in paint (very sophisticated...) so that I just had the outline. I made the outline light grey. I printed the hearts on the back of the sheet music - I was able to fit two hearts on each page of music so since there are two pages of music per sheet I was able to fit four hearts on each 8 1/2'' x 11'' page. I also printed out one red heart.

I cut out the hearts by hand - I'm very jealous of people with cricuts or other similar machines that do it for you. :-)

I had originally planned on just taping the hearts to the wall (I was going for very simple wall art) but decided it might look neat if the hearts stood a little bit off of the wall. To do this I cut out strips of paper that were 3.5'' long and 1/2'' wide. I folded the strips of paper so that it would create a little square - each side was 3/4'' long and there was a 1/2'' overlap on one end - where I taped the square together.

Does that make sense? no? Here's a picture that might help explain it.

I printed the outline with the folding lines (light grey) onto card stock and cut them out.

I folded all of the strips of paper and taped them together.

Then I taped them to the backs of the hearts.

All of the hearts.

I laid the hearts on the floor to figure out the layout. I didn't keep track of how many hearts I made but when I decided to make 8 rows of 8 I magically had the exact number of hearts needed. :-)

Then I started the slow process of taping them all to the wall. I used a level to make sure the first row was straight and for the other rows I ued a mix of the level and just eyeing it.

All done!

(please ignore the cushions - we're working on making new covers but have yet to find a fabric we like)

A close up of the "3-D action"

I think it turned out great. It'll stay up until we finally finish the frames we are making for the ceiling tiles that we will hang on this wall.

After I take them down they'll be carelfully packed away until next Valentine's Day.

N liked this project and decided to make his own version for the basement.

(dark basements aren't the best for photos...)

Any Zelda fans? :-)

PDF Tutorial

Craft: Bandana Apron

2010-01-28T09:23:00.000-06:00

A friend and I have always joke about making things out of bandanas. In high school we saw an idea to make bandana skirts. The photo looked cute so we decided to try. Let's just say it didn't work out and we've joked about "the bandana skirt" since.

I saw a picture of a bandana apron and decided I had to make one for her. It was easy and cheap and I thought she'd get a kick out of it.

Supplies: Bandana, ribbon (enough to go around your waist and tie), thread

Cost: under $5

I folded the ends of the ribbon and pinned them.

Then I sewed across the fold so that they ends of the ribbon wouldn't be exposed and fray. I did this to both ends of the ribbon.

Next I folded the ribbon in half and the bandana in half. I matched up the folds (so that the excess ribbon for tying would be even on both sides). I pinned the ribbon to the top edge of the bandana. Make sure to pin the ribbon to the right-side/front of the bandana.

I sewed along the top edge.

Next I sewed along the bottom edge of the ribbon.

The finished apron.

Modeling the apron - not the best picture but it's the best I could do by myself. :-)

PDF Tutorial