My Fiancee is Brilliant!!

So today my parents came over to help me make some more paper flowers for the upcoming wedding.  Of course no crafty expedition is complete without wine, so the man poured my mom and me a nice glass of wine. We are lacking in wine charms (I've made loads for other people, but of course, none for me!) so instead he grabbed the dry erase marker from our grocery list and drew on the glasses!!!!

Seems so simple, one of those, "why didn't I ever think of that??" things!

Here's his beautiful artwork:

Mine is the heard (of course) and mom got a star ("because she's a star" he says)

Mom also says you can use a Sharpie marker, you can scrub it off with a scrubbie.  I'm too chicken to try this on my *new* wine glasses though.  You should try it and let me know in the comments how it works!!

Crafter's block

Ever have those days when you just don't feel like doing anything?  Like, nothing at all?  Yeah, me too.  Today is one of those days.  I was uber productive yesterday, although sadly none of it was crafty or fun stuff, just those everyday run of the mill tasks. Actually a big part of yesterday was getting the shower so close to being done.

So, a week ago last Thursday, the man got all his supplies together and gathered the energy to re-grout the nasty tile in the shower.  He was so close to being finished (of course!) when the grab bar on the wall decided it didn't want to grab the wall anymore!!  When it fell out, it took about a dozen tiles with it.  And then we saw the true nastiness of the shower tile... NONE OF IT WAS ATTACHED TO THE WALL ANYMORE!!!  We could just pull the tiles out with our fingers.  No need for scraping and hard work like you see on those remodeling shows, nope, they just popped off when we merely touched them.

Since half the tiles were already in a pile on the floor instead of securely on the wall, we decided to just redo the whole shower wall area.  Probably the right decision for the house, but definitely not for my sanity!!

Ten days without a working shower, ten days with a pile of tools on my kitchen table, ten days with random construction dirt/dust all over the only bathroom in the house....Yeah, it wears on ya!

So, my creativity is suffering.  Very soon I plan on posting a more fun, crafty, picture filled post.  Maybe even before and after pics from the shower!

Yellow Yarn

I found (via Pinterest of course!) a great tutorial for making yarn from old T shirts. See it here on the Polka Dot Pineapple (I just love that name!!). I just *happened* to have a few shirts around from that the man just wouldn't wear. And he's a big guy, so it was perfect for making yarn from!

I'm too lazy to actually measure or use a straight edge or anything, I just started cutting away!! So the yarn's probably not even in...thickness...I'm not a knitter or crotcheter, so I have no idea what the *correct* term is, sorry to all you yarn snobs out there!

Anyways, the final yellow product is here. It found a home with the oranges on my kitchen table until I could find it a new home. A home where it could be loved for it's true calling.

So now sister has the yarn and as soon as she does something with it, she will be my very first guest blogger!! She may also be the only reader of my blog....but, whatever. It's all good!

Oh Baby!

I recently made 3 different bibs for my new niece for Christmas. I wanted to give her something 1. homemade and 2. unique. So I went to my local craft store and bought 3 plain white bibs. While I was there I saw a really cute iron on transfer, so I bought it.

First, I washed the bibs. I really hate this step because it seems (when I have to do it) like a waste of time. I have to remind myself that if I don't do it, then whenever the thing I'm making gets washed, it'll get all messed up and all my hard work will be for nothing. Ok, that's my pre-washing rant for the day :)

So the first one was the easiest, all I had to do was follow the directions on the iron on and....iron it on. So this is what the final product looks like:

Then I wanted to try out stenciling using freezer paper. That's one of those, "I saw that on Pinterest and I NEED to try it on *something*!!" crafts. My sister is in love with elephants, she and her husband even went overseas and rode elephants, so cool! Anyways, baby niece has elephants on her crib bedding. For sister's shower I copied the elephant graphic, put it in Word and used it on the invites. I still had it saved, so I printed it up again to use it on a bib.

After I printed it, I taped the paper to a south facing window (any window with lots of light shining through will work), then a taped my freezer paper over it and traced the outline. Because of the ear, I traced two. Then I cut to make my stencils and got this:

So freezer paper sticks to fabric when you iron it, shiny side down. I did the body of the elephant and the outline first, using plain old acrylic paint. I did 2 coats, letting it dry between. After the 2nd coat dried I peeled off the 1st stencil and then I did the ear in the same way.

Voila! Look at how crisp those lines are!! I am amazed!! Freezer paper is my new best friend!

For the last one, I used the same 'window-as-light-box' technique. I found this amazingly funny bib that I knew was *perfect* for baby and family. So I found a font I liked, measured the bib and printed to size. Taping the paper to the window was easy, taping the bib was a little more tricky, but not impossible. I used my handy dandy fabric marker to trace it lightly, as it was pretty awkward to write at a 90 degree angle on fabric that kept wiggling around. So I got the basics down, took the bib off the window and finished making it all nice and pretty on th

e table where it was WAY easier!! My fabric marker needs to be heat set, so that was my final step and I ended up with this