Cadillac

So for valentines day I decided to make Corey something I knew he would like and use. He loves his car... a Cadi... and he is always leaving his uniforms all over the house. So to kill two birds with one stone I made him a wooden plaque and attached two hooks on it so he can hang his uniforms from it. Sorry if the pictures are blurry I took them when I still had an iPhone4 :( have no fear though I use a Galaxy S3 now so they won't look like this ever again I hope.

So as I stated before I am a dispatcher. Between calls on my night shift I spent time practicing how to draw the Cadillac symbol.

I then practiced on the actual wood and used some crayons for color. I even drew where I wanted the hooks to go. To transfer the image I drew I placed my paper over the wood where I wanted it to be and pressed down hard over all my lines. I leaves an indentation in the wood so all you have to do is trace the lines with a paint brush.

So here is how far i got. I started with the black and then the grey.

I used painters tape to make the edges perfect. I also used the sharpie paint markers at first. NOTE TO ANYONE DOING THIS DON'T USE THE PAINT MARKERS!!! They bled out everywhere and it was such a hassle to try and fix. I ended up going to Michaels and just buying the regular wood paint and redoing it all.

This is almost finished!

I bought stencil letters at michaels and added his last name at the top to make it more personalized.

All colored in

This is the finished product! I hand painted in the dark grey accent leafs that cadillac has. We went to lowes the day I gave it to him and I had him pick out the hooks he wanted on it and we mounted it to our wall :) He uses this everyday and now I don't have to keep picking up his uniforms and he doesn't have to wonder where he last put them.

Halloween jar crafts

These are my finished product based on a pinterest find, mason jar Halloween decorations. I plan on making these to give out to family and friends with a battery powered tea light in them :)

These are the products I used. Acrylic Gloss paint in Green, Pumpkin, and Black. Make sure to read the labels that they are OK for glass. I used a white Sharpie paint marker. Halloween Googly Eyes. Martha Stewart Halloween Stencils. Elmer's Glue. 1 Neuman's Alfredo Sauce jar and 1 Classico Pasta Sauce jar.

This is the back of my pumpkin jar.

Now directions. I cleaned my jars out and let them sit outside for a few days just to make sure they were extra dry. So for the Frankenstein Jar i took my green paint and squeezed a decent amount into the bottom of the jar. Slowly turn the jar on its side and twist it to spread out the paint evenly. Start from the bottom and go up. Once you are about 1/2 inch from the grooves place your jar upside down on a piece of paper. Move it every so often so paint doesn't build up. For visual instructions just YouTube 'how to paint a mason jar'. honestly, that's how i figured it out...

So, once my paint was dry for Frankenstein I used a thin paint brush and dipped it in my black paint so I could give him a face. I painted on the hair later to cover up the sell by date. Once the black paint is dry use the Elmer glue and attach mismatched googly eyes so he looks put together.

For the pumpkin / trick or treat jar I just painted the inside pumpkin following my Frankenstein directions. After it was dry and all dripped out I taped the two stencils from the Martha Stewart Stencil set to the jar. I used the white sharpie paint pen and out lined/filled in the stencil. The paint pen worked wayyy better than a paint brush which i attempted on a different jar that didn't make it to this blog post based on it's poor quality. I do not blame the stencils or my painting abilities. The stencils are for flat surfaces and use of a sponge or rolling pin. Sharpie Paint Pens are your friend when it comes to these.

Honestly this was insanely cheap. No need to go buy mason jars when you can just slowly collect your pasta sauce jars and reuse them at no cost. The paint I found at Michaels Craft Store for .99 along with the stencils and googly eyes. I spent less than $15 total there and still have a good amount of paint. The stencils are reusable! Also I have figured out this paint peels off of glass so I am going to experiment painting some decorations on my windows with a sponge in a small area. If it comes up easy I will do a post on that as well. No more buying those sticky window clings that never last.

Update! These are a few more jars i made. These jars i bought from walmart :)

Imade

Fun With Wooden Letters

Another stolen Pinterest idea. Wooden Wreath from Michaels $4.99, Giant Wooden 'S' $3.99, Flowers $2.99. I had the paint and blue striped ribbon already from a pervious craft so I did not have to purchase any for this craft. I started off using painters tape on my big wooden letter. And by big wooden letter I mean the biggest they had. This letter was not in the section with all the other wooden letters it was across the store by these wooden wreaths. I placed the painters tape on my letter in a stripe design and painted the blue between the tape. After two coats of paint I let it dry for an hour. The problem I encountered was when i peeled the tape off. The original white paint (at least I thought it was paint) peeled off with the tape leaving these odd brown patched behind. Luckily I had white paint handy as well and simply painted over these brown spots. Next time I will be priming the letters myself prior to painting. After that problem was solved I took a yellow Sharpie Paint Marker and outlined my blue stripes and the entire letter around the edges.

I wrapped my blue striped ribbon around the top part of my wreath. Then i took a hot glue gun and glued the S to the wooden wreath. I took the fake flowers I purchased and just pulled them off the stems. You can choose to leave the stems and just fish them through the wreath, I did that prior to borrowing a hot glue gun to make them stick. Once I had the hot glue gun I just put a lot of glue on the stem of the flowers and pushed them through the sticks and held them til they stuck and the glue dried.

And wha-la! this is my summer wreath hanging on my door. :)

Below is a cute little decoration I made for our bedroom. Originally we had a large painting of a purple flower, but we were tired of it being on this wall so we moved it to another and my boyfriend left me to do what I pleased to make the wall look nice. Now, my first attempt at the above wreath a purchased and painted the S shown below. I realized it was way to small to fit on the wreath but I had already painted it and was sure i could find another use for it. So I went back to Michaels and bought a few wooden cut outs: C, heart, and a frame with hearts carved into the edges.

I painted the frame black, the heart red, and striped the C to match the S and just used blue paint for Corey. I rent my house so I use Command strips to hang everything so I don't put holes in my walls. Hanging this was easy-peasy. 3 .5lb Command strips on the sides and top of the frame and stuck it to my wall. 2 1lb Command strips on the tops and bottoms of each letter, and I stuck them to the wall in the frame. Last, 1 .5lb Command strip on the back of the heart stuck between the letters. I was more than pleased with my new 3D wooden art as was my boyfriend.

Corey <3 Suzie

Table Make Over

So I am currently renting a house that came with a decent dining room table in a not so nice color. I have two dogs, so a white table is no good in my house. Every time one of the dogs leaned against it they would leave dirt marks on the legs of the table and chairs. While browsing around on Pinterest one day i noticed a lot of people painting their furniture to make it look new again. My boyfriend and I went to Lowes and bought Velspar Black Gloss spray paint. In the picture below you can see we brought the table outside and laid it upside down on an old sheet. We then tapped the sheet with painters tape around the table (sorry no picture of that)

After it was all taped off it took about 2 cans of spray paint to cover the table and 1 can of spray paint to cover the chairs. We also taped off the chairs and used old pillow cases to cover the seats. This was the most tedious part, taping around the posts in the chair. We let them sit outside for an hour, un-taped it all and brought them inside.

This is the finished product and I can tell you it looks great in the house. The black we chose matched our entertainment center, couch, and picture frames in the room. No more nasty white table and we spent a total of $12 on 3 cans of spray paint. Way cheaper than buying a new table.