Saturday Market

This was my one and only attempt at a Saturday Market this year. I joined in with my in-laws in Tillamook- they sold polished rocks that they've gathered from Oregon beaches. I tried a few different things to sell: signs- made with paint, crackling medium, and Cricut vinyl lettering.

These were some of my favorite- I tried sets of words and phrases- with 3 two by four by 4 inch cuts of wood. Some I just painted with a base and top coat (contrasting) then distressed, others I used crackling medium. I then cut out the lettering with my Cricut.

I also tried these little easel frames (mentioned with the original idea and link to the owner of the idea in a previous links) with paper Mod Podged on and sanded around the edges. I did paint around the edges and backs of the wood first with a coordinating paint color, then added ribbon.

Here's a "group" shot. Right behind the signs are some roughly 5 1/2 by 5 1/2 blocks of wood, decorated in the same way as the easels. I cut up a 2x6 to make those. I like them because they can fit a bigger picture on them. I made almost $50 at the market, not too bad I suppose- sure beats a kick in the teeth! :)

Wood Wall Hanging- Having somewhere to go is home...

I found this quote on a wall hanging idea at Craft Warehouse. I instantly wanted to make my own. I used my miter saw to cut a piece of wood I bought at Home Depot into 3 even pieces, then used my power drill, (Woohoo, girl with a saw AND a drill!!! could be dangerous! ). It was a little bit tricky getting the holes the same distance from the edge, but I think that's due more to learning curve with the drill more than anything else. I then base coated the wood pieces in a dark brown, allowed them to dry, applied Weathered Wood Crackling Medium by Americana, let it dry, then used Italian Sage colored paint by Folk Art. When that was all dry, I used dark brown grosgrain ribbon to tie them together. I did this first to see if I could make it work, before going to the time and trouble of cutting and applying vinyl lettering and having it not work right. Well, call me happily surprised, (Thanks, God! ) it actually looked alright to me, so I was content to cut my vinyl out with my Cricut. There you have it. This project is going into the MOPS auction this Friday... and that concludes, I think... all my planned and unplanned projects contributed to the auction... whew!

Laundry Room hangers

I decided to make this board of hangers for the things like girls tights and other items that needed to be hung up to air dry- mostly children's items... I had been draping these things over the supports to the wire shelf above my washer and dryer, and thought there needed to be a better (and more attractive..) way to go about it. I bought a piece of scrap wood from Home Depot for 51 cents- yup, not even a dollar. I cut it into 2 pieces - one longer (which is this project) and one a bit shorter ( for the next project for lost socks that I'm working on). I used my handy dandy miter saw- my husband is getting his money's worth out of his Christmas gift to me :)- love that man of mine! Anyhow... I crackled it with brown underneath and Winter blue on the top, then distressed slightly around the edges. I bought 4 hangers at $2.57 a pair at Walmart in ORB (Oil Rubbed Bronze). I had to buy slightly shorter screws though, because the wood was not as thick as the screws were long. I dabbed paint over the heads of the screws to conceal the silver finish that stuck out like a sore thumb. I used my Cricut to cut out letters to come up with the little saying on it. It amuses me, since it's for my "hang ups"- oh, if only it were that easy to take care of our hang ups! :). I'm going to hang it up on my laundry room wall across from the washer and dryer. So if you're on the lookout for cheap(er) wood in the home improvement store, look in their scrap bin where they're selling partial cuts of wood for cheap. You can always peruse construction sites and ask for their scraps, or ask the home improvement stores for any scraps they might be willing to just give away. I'm holding out for some scrap beadboard... for another project...

"Father" mini album

This is a "companion" album to a mini album I posted last year of a "mother" mini album I made for a good friend. I knew as soon as she showed me the pictures of her husband with each of her 6 boys, that they should be scrapped as a companion album to the one I made her of herself with each of her boys. I stitched and distressed the pictures, along with inking. I looked up the father quotes online- I really love the last one about the grass. (Actually, I like all of them, since I picked them out from a bunch of father quotes...)

Christmas wood decor

I've continued to play around with wood, paint, crackling medium, and Cricut vinyl letters, and came up with this Christmas decoration. I like it so much that I want to make one that isn't in seasonal colors because of what it says about God and how I relate to Him. To me, He is my source of hope, joy, peace, and so much more, and He is definitely my Saviour. I used leftover pieces of 2 x 4's cut from the wood photo holders posted recently (from the http://www.howdoesshe.com/ site). I used a narrower piece of wood cut from a long board purchased and cut at Home Depot. I was originally going to put "Believe" on the long piece of wood as a separate decoration for Christmas, but then decided to use it with the 3 smaller pieces of wood. The whole thing was an experiment- I was going to put holiday words on the smaller pieces, and wasn't sure what all I was going to do. I'd also run out of the green and red paint, so I couldn't use the eight inch piece cut from the 2 x 4's that I had left over to put "Saviour" on, so I tried the one I'd originally intended for "Believe".. I'm really happy with how this turned out, and I can arrange the wood pieces however I want. I don't think my infatuation with wood, paint, and crackling medium is over yet... :)

More "Joy" wood photo holders

These are just a slightly bigger version of the "joy" block photo holders I posted recently. I made them the same way- paint, crackling medium, more paint, then I used a metal stem wire wrapped around the edge of needlenose pliers to make the spiral of sorts. I sanded slightly around the edges to distress it a little bit more. I used a finishing nail to make a hole the same diameter of the wire in the center of the wood, then pushed the wire in. Ta-da! Super easy secretary gifts for the ladies in the office at the boys' school. :)

Wood signs, Crackling, and Vinyl

I got to playing with 2 x 4's after getting them cut, and then fiddled around with paint and crackling medium. In a previous post regarding my breadbox, I talked about my struggles with crackling medium. I think I've found a kind that I like- the Weathered Wood crackling medium. You allow it to dry completely before you put your top coat of paint on. I have discovered that the biggest trick to it not dragging when you brush the paint on, is to thin down your top color of paint with water so that you can get it on without dragging the brush- for once you don't want super thick coverage of paint. I also figured out that the other trick for me was to use a bigger brush, so the combination of the thinner paint with being able to brush it on fast, before it interacts with the crackling medium (and then drags.. and frustrates you quite a bit) and the bigger brush so that you are done faster, it seemed to work really, really well.. Yes, this makes me very happy, because it's very aggravating to work so hard on something, having it look like it's got great potential, and then have the last details snag up on you... So I painted and crackled the wood, then distressed it a bit more around the edges with sandpaper- which also reveals the base coat.. I'm really enjoying how this looks.. :) (yes, my inner craft geek comes out big time here...). All that was left was cutting out vinyl with my Cricut. The "Keep CALM and CARRY on" quote I found on a talented lady's blog (which I can't remember or find at the moment)- only she also added a crown on there, which totally adds more to the look, but alas, I have no crown- only the ones in my mouth, and those won't do me any good here.. Add a metal hanger on the back and some ribbon to finish it off.... The "Est." idea for the last name I also found in several places in blog land. I'm glad I finally got around to making it. Oh, and for the record- the Gratitude sign, I didn't crackle, I just distressed, but I'm lumping it in with all my signs for the day...

Laundry sign

Have I mentioned that I love what you can do with a piece of wood? What I did: took a piece of wood and painted a base coat (bottom), then crackling medium, then a white top coat. I then used my Cricut to cut out vinyl words to go on the sign- this idea I've gotten from several blogs, so I can't specifically say which one, because I've seen it done in a variety of ways. How could you make it easier? Forget the crackling step, and just paint your wood the color you want. You could sand it a little to distress it, but that's not even necessary unless you really want to. I think I might donate this to our MOPS auction that we have in the spring.

Recipe box redo

As you can probably see by the pictures of my recipe boxes (the brown, torn, sun faded ones), they're kind of hurting in the "appeal" department. I've had them forever, and they've served me well. The other day I was looking at them though, and thinking, gosh those things look ratty! I had several more in my closet being used for pictures (which I think is their original "purpose"- but since my recipe cards are bigger than the average recipe box, I went for the picture boxes), and since these are on their last legs, I took some of the ones in better shape and lightly sanded them (since the paper was glossy), and then took my trusty acrylic paint and went at them. I used crackling medium with one, and went for a "plainer" look on the second, thinking a) if the crackling doesn't go as I liked, I didn't do the work on 2 boxes for naught, and b) it's a nice 'contrast' to the crackling to have the eyes rest on. I played around with the lids, and I think I like using the crackled lid on the solid colored box... The beauty of it is that I can switch them around if it starts bugging me. I used my Cricut to cut out some red vinyl numbers for the boxes, just for whimsy. Anyhow, I didn't spend a thing- I already had the supplies that I needed right here at home, and now my kitchen is starting to look a little more coordinated with the colors. I don't know why I'm on that color combo kick right now of that aqua-ish with red... I think scrapbooking paper has inspired me. I suppose the bonus of painted things like that is that if I want to change things up, I'm not committed to those colors, I can just repaint or cover with paper....anyway, I hope you might have gotten an idea or two about changing something up without having to go out and spend money to do so...

Is it bigger than a breadbox? No, it IS a breadbox!!

I found this breadbox in a thrift store near our house, and it was 2.99, and a lime-ish green. Not particularly shabby, but I knew it had potential. I played around with some paint- a Caribbean blue color, with some crackling and an undercoat of brown paint. I decided it was a bit too bright for me, not to mention the crackling medium was dragging in places and didn't look good. I think the problem was that the paint was too thick. So, I mixed a bottle of the blue with a bottle of white and it was a bit lighter, and then added some water to thin it down enough so I could get full coverage with one stroke of the brush across and not have the brush drag and mess up the crackling medium. On this project, I tried a different brand- Americana weathered wood crackling medium, in which you allow it to dry. I had previously used DecoArt brand crackling medium which requires you to NOT allow it to fully dry. I think I'm just getting aggravated with crackling at this point (at least on bigger projects), but I have figured out that the thickness of the paint used on the top coat can make a big diference in the success of the attempt. I haven't yet tried the spray crackling medium from Valspar- I so want to try it, but it's 6.50 a can and you need a base coat and top coat color, meaning, a little chunk of change for something you've never tried before and not sure what success you'll have with or like. The advantage of the spray would be that you don't have a brush dragging through the medium and smearing it..... Okay, I'm seriously rambling here. So after repainting/crackling the whole thing, I'm happy enough with it to put in my kitchen, but NOT for bread- I'm going to use it for my dish towels. I'm glad I changed out the knob too, those suckers are expensive though! I have a little set of wood drawers that I need to switch 3 knobs out by the time I'm done and I don't want to spend that money on them, and I need smaller knobs.. but I'm digressing again... Anyhow, I think my distressed little breadbox is a happy distressed at this point...

"Brotherly Love" Layout

This a layout I made as a gift for one of my friends- I've been working on a mini album for her with pictures of her and her boys in it, and had extra pictures left over. I'm still working on the album, but I thought it would be fun to incorporate these "brother" pictures into a layout with the same papers. I hand stitched around the pictures (before I matted them), and then stitched around the papers of the layout. I really like the effect of the stitching- it's my newest "ooh I like this" technique. I painted brown on the chipboard and used crackling medium on it, then painted the top color of paint over it when the crackling medium was tacky. I added Aleene's Paper Glaze over the top of the chipboard when dry to add that glossy look, then used stick on pearls for a finishing touch. I can't believe I've gotten more than one layout done in less than 2 weeks, I'm usually pretty few and far between.

Distressed Cigar Box with Mini Album for MOPS auction

This isn't the original cigar box I painted and crackled for the MOPS auction... I got a bit stumped with not having any embellishments in those colors at the moment and hitting a creative block with it too... So fast forwarding a bit, I painted the other one I had in the pink and brown crackling scheme and did a mini album to go inside of it instead. It isn't even decorated that much and I have to admit I struggled with it... have I mentioned it's painful being me sometimes? :)

Plaything of the day

I'm feeling restless today, and in honor of putting off something that I'm not enthused about doing, I'm altering a cigar box... My buddy Katherine gave me a couple more from her dad, and I feel that I'm accumulating more stuff to alter than I should have. I also have no more room to store this stuff, so I'd better get cracking already! Gosh I should really work on some layouts this week... but right now this stuff is begging for me to do something with. It's a shallow box, so I'm thinking that I'm going to make a mini album to go inside it and make it a combo gift. I'm using a French Grey Blue for the base, and I'll use Crackling Medium on it and then put a cream color on top which will then crackle. I think that will be a pretty combination. I don't have enough dark brown paint right now to cover another cigar box, and I really want to do another pink and brown crackled one... Maybe this will help me relax today and distract me from aggravating things...