We've Been Wednesday...

We've Been...

Trying to preserve this fall forever

(like pressing a fall leaf and framing it for quick and easy autumnal art*)

Making Christmas gift lists and checking 'em twice

Catching a lovely dinner and play with my MIL

Planning our contribution to Kiki's Thanksgiving

Remembering why I love having a wood burning fireplace

*I pressed the leaf between two sheets of parchment paper under a stack of books for two weeks, then used a light misting of spray glue to attach it to gray card stock

What have you been up to?

Valentine Labels for Your Beer Lover

Of all the fun crafty things I have done in my soon to be twenty-years of life, this tiny little project may actually rank among the most fun. For one, brainstorming beer related puns is an enthralling challenge on its own, and two, I got to play with paint, ink, paper, scissors, and a six-pack, all while writing a blog post and creating a gift for my significant roommate – Score!

For the most part this is a relatively easy craft and could easily completed in just an hour or two. Really you can bring any supplies to the table, I chose a large assortment of paper, including scrapbook, card stock, and crepe paper. As far as pliability, crepe paper was obviously the most eager to mold around the bottles, although with sufficient amounts of tape, anything is possible so I ended up combining all three for most of the labels.

I also raided my craft closet for (as afore mentioned), acrylic craft paint, black india ink, scissors, and exacto knife, scotch-tape, glue, assorted brushes, oh- and you may need a six-pack, though I don’t usually keep that in my craft closet.

I used the scrapbook paper as my base, because I knew that it would hold the glue the best, and then layered the crepe paper on top. I made six, and then let them dry. There weren’t exact measurements, I just kind of eyeballed it honestly, I think the labels ended up being about 3” high and about 6-7” across. I didn’t mind if the edges overlapped because it gave my tape more leverage.

Then, the fun part. Puns! Not as easy as it sounds but, I made a list of beer related words and played around with them until I came up with a list. “Barely Contain Myself Ale,” “I Love Brew,” “Hopposites Attract,” etc. Not gonna lie, I felt pretty clever.

Now summon all your artistic abilities and create your labels.

As soon as I finished my “six-pack” I slipped them back into their original box so that they will be an aww worthy surprise whenever man-pal reaches for his next brew.

Only a week away from Valentine’s Day! Have you come up with any love-inspired projects? Sharing is caring.

Hearts

I like a good quick and easy craft for the "smaller" holidays-- something that can be done over an hour or two on a winter evening.  It Happened One Night on the telly, a nice glass of wine, a fire in the hearth, handsome husband reading on the couch and the living room transformed by the time the credits roll.  Perfect.

I'm a big fan of large punches and fancy scissors--  time savers, as long as I use them.  And I do, frequently.  Add some glue guns or sticks, card stock in pretty colors, a little tape and string.  Done and done.

I got the poster above the mantel from Zazzle. My new favorite thing is to design our own decorative art as I did for our Comfort & Joy Christmas-- very affordable, customizable and perfect for those of us who like to mix things up.

Add in a few wooden skewers (does anyone not have those lying around?  We always seem to have handfuls scattered in various drawers for no apparent reason) and anything can become a seasonal decoration.  

Easy peasy lemon squeezy.  All set for Valentines and Bayley's birthday. Ssssshhhh.  Despite what she said earlier, she still thinks the whole world celebrated her birthday.  

Eat, Drink & Be Merry! Bottle Opener Valentine's How To

When I set out this week to start one of my V-Day gifts and subsequent tutorials, I thought, gosh this wall-mounted bottle opener is going to be way too easy to make a full tutorial. Lies! Prepare to set aside at least an hour and a half, but it’s well worth your time, I adore the finished project!

So, what you will need, is about 6-12 inches of wood, I used a foot long cut of 2x4, however this would be the perfect project to utilize any piece of found wood of that approximate size. I just happened to have this scrap from when my roommate made me our dining room table! (You’ll see from the photo that it has a splotch of stain on it). You’ll also need a bottle opener, I found mine at Bed Bath and Beyond for $4.99, though I’m sure you can pick them up just about anywhere, you’ll also need a screwdriver or drill. Now this is where this project becomes completely customizable. I chose to use a brown paint that I have been using on quite a few pieces of my furniture, just to unite the pieces in my open concept kitchen. However, I also considered using chalkboard paint, for fun messages, (or keeping a tally on how many you've opened). But you could go with any color, or stain that you like to temper the finished result to your personal preference.

After laying out a drop cloth, I painted the wood with two coats of the brown paint and let it dry completely. And then using the screwdriver and some help from my roommates muscles (those screws were really long!), I attached the opener to the top half of the wood. Using a pencil, I sketched out the wording I wanted on the bottom of the plank.

I grabbed a small bottle of white acrylic paint and bordered the plank on the top and bottom just to give it a sense of unity, and then using a fine tipped brush, I wrote out my quote – a little homage to one of our favorite Dave Matthews Band songs (‘Tripping Billies’).

One or two coats later, I had my finished product!

If you do give this one a shot, I’d love to see how you decided to customize your piece. I think my roommate loves it, despite tightening the screws for me; I think he’ll love the final piece when he acts totally surprised to see it on Valentine’s Day. Now the real question…where the heck to hang it….

Valentine's Day Craft Ideas from Bay

Some of you may not know this, but when the rest of the world is celebrating Valentine's Day, in reality and often unbeknownst to them, they are celebrating my birth. Everyone seems to think it has something to do with love and the sale of Hallmark cards but I beg to differ. 

Unfortunately for me some people refuse to accept this and even my housemate insists we celebrate the fact that we kinda dig each other, so in honor of Valentine’s Day, (and my 22nd birthday…and coincidentally his 24th birthday on the 17th!), for the next few posts I will be doing three DIY Valentine’s Day gift projects! 

In truth, I'm pretty excited to put together some fun gifts for my man-pal. But, in case you loathe my choices, I’ve selected a couple of additional options, and hopefully you’ll be able to find a project you totally dig among the ones I’ve listed. Let me know if you prefer any one in particular because I haven’t exactly decided on all three of mine yet. Insert sheepish grin here. I look forward to your feedback, my lovelies. Xo.

Now, #1:

So, when I give you a complete and unchristmased tour of my humble abode you will see that due to the fact that my housemate and I both having names that begin in the letter “B,” we have amassed quite the collection of B’s around our home. So far we have 7, and when I came across this ‘pinspiration’ I couldn’t help but fall in love. A more personal letter full of pictures of the adorableness that is Bay & Bob – sounds like a winner to me.

Picture Monogram How To

#2:

Now I have seen this particular Valentine’s Day craft floating around for some time now and it has been stored up in the dusty confines of my brain for equally as long, so this year I thought it might be time to dust off the idea and give it a go. Unfortunately I don’t’ think the inability to pick up your shoes or start the dishwasher don’t fall under the 52 reasons I love my sweet roommate, or else this would be an easy list to make..

Things I Love About You How To

#3:

Quite honestly when it comes to his love of beer, food, and myself, I’m not sure my man-pal would be pleased to have to choose any one over the other (though he would dutifully choose me…right, Bobby?), so why not make the man happy and just wrap one around the other. I ran across this craft and couldn’t help but think how well it combined the masculine attitude with the sweetness that inherently accompanies the holiday. This craft, and a large pizza will certainly award me a gal-pal of the year award. 

Beer Label How To

Now, stepping away from previously tested craft ideas, the next two are from the mind of yours truly.

#4:

Luckily enough I have found myself employed at a home department store, selling exclusively in kitchen, bedroom and bathroom basics, and one of the many things they sell are wall mounted bottle openers, so without giving too much away and to make sure you come back for more, I will be attempting to craft a custom bottle opener, still wall mounted but with a little 2x4 flare…stay tuned..

And lastly, as my creativity is running short as of late,

#5

Music is one of the things that first drew my housemate and I together. Though we had different initial tastes (country vs. just about everything but country), it was our love for the story and meaning behind the words which led us to many a enthralling conversation. For him country music was one long love song, and for me, well. I’m an English major and love is everywhere you want it to be – swoon. Fortunately for him however, I saw the love in his language so to speak and as such I constructed a couple of paintings to reflect one of his favorite songs, as well as his personality in our living room which by my own fault s dominated by my own sense of style. So, I will be more than happy to show you how I created this small piece!

Now, the rest is up to you, what DIY Valentine’s Day gifts have you come across? Even if it’s not my Valentine’s day I’m always in need of a “sorry I spent that much on shoes” or “sorry I bought that bottle of red wine” gift! See you Friday!

Taking Note

Anyone else out there unable to shut their brain off?

Mine is always going-- pondering, plotting and otherwise planning something. I've written reams of papers, delivered dozens of passionate speeches, solved all the worlds problems and painted countless masterpieces all in my head, generally when I should be sleeping.  Insomnia is a real bitch, for lack of a less inflammatory word, and I'm getting too old to function on 3 hours of sleep a night.

Among my many personal resolution for 2015 is the determination to address my restless mind.  I have no delusions of grandeur and no cure all, I've been this way my whole life and truth be told I like the way my mind works.  I just want to get some of the ideas out of my head during the day so that I can sleep solidly at night.  

I have found that writing things down does help calm down my thought process.  See, I'll get an idea, then I'll analyze all angles of it, make a plan then in an effort to remember it goes on a loop in my head with all the other ideas, to dos and daily info I'm trying to remember.  Then it starts swinging around to the forefront of my mind every few minutes. The more ideas, the more things on the loop, the less likely I'll be able to sleep.  Jotting things down takes them off the loop. Make sense? 

I've never had a planner, electronic or traditional, and I don't intend to start now.  Writing everything down in an organized fashion ain't my jam.  There's just too much pressure to be organized and I'm too much of a flake. I can't do the cool color, washi tape art journal thing either-- again, too much pressure.  I start having debates whether or not the thought is worth writing in such a journal which ultimately results in yet another thing going on the loop. 

And that's how we get here.  Little notebooks.  Lots of them.  All over.  And its working.  Sketches, partial thoughts, amusing words, craft directions and ideas for a great paper to present at a conference next fall.  No pressure, no idea too small or strange.  Much better.

So.  How do you all stay sane?

Notes:
-I cut my filler roughly paper 5.5"x 8" and my covers 6" x 8.5"
-I used 10 pieces of filler paper per notebook
-Sewing on paper is hard on a machine needle, so be sure to designate a paper sewing needle and change it before sewing fabric
-I added a ribbon to keep some closed.  Just tack it down along the spine, then add a few stitches on the front and back cover to keep the ribbon from flopping around when untied
-This could easily be done by hand, using an awl to punch holes in the paper, and a book binder's needle with embroidery thread or floss