Fall Specimen Art

The other day I came across this pumpkin specimen art from My Blessed Nest and thought it was so super cute! I wanted to make my own, but I don't have a pumpkin punch. But I just purchased a large heart punch on Ebay, so when it came in the mail the other day I had my first project for it all figured out!

Months ago a neighbor gave me a huuuge stack of magazines when she moved, and I've had that stack just sitting around under one of our side tables. 

Because I didn't have any cute scrapbook paper, I flipped through the magazines looking for designs and images I could punch out. There's TONS of pretty designs and images you could use from magazines! So before you throw them out make sure you get all the prettiness punched out of them!

I bought my cheapo frame from the dollar store and hot glued some burlap material to the back of the frame, glued my tiles on, then picked out 12 hearts I wanted to use and lightly glued them down. I didn't use the glass piece at all. I'll just throw it away.. or something. With a crafter nothing is trash, right? :) 

I couldn't be more pleased! 

So cute! 

And I decorated my piano last night all Fall-ish. I don't have a mantel to decorate, so I use my piano! But I'll share that later on. I'm still finishing up on it. 

Master Bedroom: Mirror Makeover

Several weeks ago when Hubby and I were driving out of his parents' neighborhood I spotted this mirror in someone's junk pile out on the curb. Shoved it in the car and took this beauty home! 

It's perfect! I love these swirls and designs on frames.

I wasn't sure what I was going to do with it yet, but a new paint job was definitely on the "to do" list for it's future! Finally, after a couple weeks of sitting in my craft room I made my decision! It got a nice makeover in white {after it got a good scrubbing down in the tub- boy was that thing dusty... that old sticky dust!}

And here it is now! ... 

I really really like it.

... F.i.n.a.l.l.y there is something on our bedroom walls!

DIY Cork Board and Thumb Tacks: Craft Room

I've been turning our spare bedroom into a little craft station for myself. .. Right now it's a mess! That's my "stash everything in here" room! haha! Anyway, when I have it more set up how I want, I'll do more posts about it :) For now I'm just going to show you my pretty corkboard I put together for my wall. 

I found this big wooden frame at my thrift store for $2. 

The backing looks like cork but it's not. So I had to buy some sheets of cork, which I found for $2 for a pack of 2 squares at the dollar store! I picked up two packs since one wouldn't be enough. 

I just hot glued the cork right to the frame backing. You can see how it hangs over the side.. so I used my little exacto knife to cut the edges off.

To cover up the obvious lines I bought a fat quarter of fabric at Walmart and glued the sides down to the back of the backing. I guess I didn't take a photo of this part, but you can just imagine this process :) Pretty simple and easy. I wanted fabric that wouldn't stand out and be distracting from the pretty blue that I painted  my frame, so I picked some out that look super close to the color of cork. Here's an up close look at the fabric. You'd think it was cork from seeing it father away, which is what I was going for.

And here's my new pretty corkboard! 

I just used a plain ole bottle of acrylic craft paint and painted about 3 layers on. Then painted a couple layers of a clear coating. 

 Ready for more F.U.N ?! 

I made my own cute thumb tacks too! 

I took all these little odds and end..

{buttons, tiny crochet flowers, fabric covered button,

and a glass marble that I mod podge to some fabric} and hot glued them to some plain thumb tacks I had.

cute, cute, cute! Right?!

I'm throwing my sister a baby shower when we go home to California for Christmas! 

{by the way, my sister finds out today if it's a boy or girl! eek!)

It's super nice having my own little area for all my craft stuff! Usually it's ALL OVER the apartment! I'm definitely going to be working on this little area {I call it my craft station}, so there will be more posts to come!

p.s... today has been the most beautiful fall day!

... again with the romantic-y dreamy mood.. 

Handmade gifts for baby!

My best friend is having a baby, like REALLY soon! So last month I made a few sweet things for her little girl. I love how it all turned out. She's already received the package so now it's finally safe to show it all! 

My second ever little owl hat! I just LOVE the little bow I added for that sweet girly touch.

{I'm planning on making owl hats to add to my Etsy shop once I get it going!}

I created a darling little print using my Microsoft Word program. I printed it out as 5x7 and framed it for her. Wasn't sure about the colors she had picked out for the room, so I used several light colors and I love how it turned out.

I also made her one of my crochet flower headbands : )

{these will also be in my Etsy shop for sure!}

{no, I didn't send the teddy bear. It's my little model!} 

All packaged pretty for the happy couple! 

{I totally enjoy pretty-ing up gift packages! I think I'll really enjoy that part of selling on Etsy!}

Congratulations to you my dear friends! I'm super excited for you and can't wait to see pictures! 

Framing my necklaces

I used to never wear much jewelry before, except for earrings. Without earrings on I feel naked and not completely put together. Necklaces are something I enjoy more so now. I find them here and there, thrift stores, dollar store (hehe I know..) My collection seems to be growing, which I like! So now I need a place to put them all and preferably create a pretty display too! 

I Picked up a huge cheap frame the other day at, none other than, the thrift store. It was just a the wooden frame part and for a buck. Cool. I can find something to do with that. It's kind of a plain boring frame though, but oh well. So I sanded all the stain color away and painted it a nice yellowish color {I'm really into the mustard yellowish color lately}. I used some little cup hooks that I found at Walmart. I had Hubs handle the drill and hooks.. I just like to watch the drill part ;) I adorned a corner of the frame with some fancy schmancy fabric rosettes. 

I rather like it :) 

I was thinking about making this up and just selling it.. that would be kind of fun, picking up cheap frames and turning them into jewelry holders to sell :) But I think I might just keep this one for me. 

 Say "cheese" Hubs :)

I'd kind of like to pretty up a frame for some of my earrings, but I already have something for my organizing my earrings and I actually really like it.. even though they aren't out on display. You can see what I use for my earrings here. 

Oh, and this little guy will soon be hanging up with the rest of my necklaces :) 

I bought him on ebay the other night! {.99 cents!} Such a cutie. I'm falling for little owls lately.

Wall Collage part 2 FINISHED!!

Yes that's right! I have been diligently working away at my wall collage over here. All other projects and fun things, such as crocheting, have been on total pause. I was determined not to take a break from this wall collage and move onto something else. I'm SO excited to share my wall collage project now! 

Here's everything! 

{See part 1 of wall collage here}

As you can see, I finally came to a decision on what color I would paint my frames! 

And here are all 14 of them painted.

Each frame got a little bit of sanding down, and painted with acrylic craft paint. I did have some white Krylon spray paint, but it was definitely too cold for spraying out on the balcony.. I did try it inside though! haha! Shhhh, don't tell! {I have a big old gross blanket thing that I pinned up in our storage room/closet and and did a little bit of spraying, but it did NOT turn out nice at all! I don't like that white spray paint. So using cheap dollar store sponge brushes with a large bottle of white acrylic paint was the way to go! And they turned out nice. It took SEVERAL coats to get complete coverage. I used a couple coats of polyurethane and the painting part was done! 

Then on to printing pictures and filling the frames. 

Walmart is where I print my photos. I had a few 8x10's of Hubby and me, and a really cute free print that I found on someone's blog, and I also made up a couple of my own prints on picnik. Those prints {the ones form blog and what I made} didn't print out the right color at Walmart. I was so bummed! So I asked the Hubs if he would let me buy some colored ink for our printer just for this project! They printed out in perfect color from our printer! 

I also framed fabric pieces. I already had a few of the things that I was going to frame, and just went out to purchase some mustard-ish yellow colored fabric. Walmart sells little fat quarters of fabric, and I had one already that I wanted to use, and I bought another one to fill a frame {I wanted something more black and white}. 

My round frame that I used is a little different, and it doesn't have a glass or backing. 

So this is what I did for it:

 my salad sized plate was an almost perfect fit inside the frame. so I traced it onto both sides of a pizza box and cut them out a little wider then the trace line. Taped the two together for a thicker stronger backing.

Found a bird shape online and traced it right from my computer screen to paper. Cut that out then pinned it onto white felt and cut out the design. Then I used heat and bond to secure the bird to my fabric.

Used thumb tacks to poke into the sides to hold down the cardboard since there was no backing or prongs to hold it down. 

{this is actually before all the above, I was just seeing what it would look like if I went with this idea}

And here are all my frames filled and awaiting their new home on the wall! 

I love the colors!

I forgot to take pictures of how I did big "M" monogram. I picked a font from my computer, enlarged the screen as big as I could get it and traced it right from my computer screen, lightly with a pencil of course. Then I filled it out with a pencil on my own to make it have volume and thickness and look normal, and then cut it out. Then I took a piece of black cardstock and traced that M onto it. Perfect! For the M frame I had to get another 8x10 frame just to use the glass as a backing- I wanted the M frame see through. The M fits tightly between the two pieces of glass. 

Last night I traced all my frames onto newspaper and wrote on papers which paper went to which frame. Then I turned over each frame, laid the newspaper on top of each frame and poked a whole through where the hanger was on the backs. This is for knowing where to put the nail in the wall when you put the newspapers on the wall. I arranged my newspapers on the wall, and did some arranging all night. At first I had the layout a little too bunched together, so I spread them out over the wall a little more. 

I have been SOOO nervous about actually getting everything on the wall! So Hubby put the nails in the wall for me, and I hung everything up! 

And now, here's is our new photo wall collage... 

... what we've all been waiting for.. 

.... what I have been working on for these past few weeks .... 

... hehe, here it is folks! .....

I couldn't stop squealing with happiness after seeing it all on the wall! It actually turned out as beautiful as I have imagined, and the plans that I made up on the word documents! Yes, I'm calling my own project beautiful.. I'm not boasting or being prideful, just so excited that I was able to put together something this nice looking for our home. Photos of the collage just don't do it justice. It looks so much nicer in person. And it doesn't look like a little pile of pictures on the wall in person either. Our living room is small.

I love it.