Whimsical Washboard

  Whimsical Washboard

 

Before                                        After

I got this washboard from Goodwill for $0.99

This will now hang in my kitchen :)

Refurbished Wooden Plant Pot

Refurbished Wooden Plant Pot

This is a hard piece to photograph. The flash washes it out a bit, but you get the point. 

I added fine glitter and then glued on jewels to give it some dimension and shimmer.

I added beads to the rim of the pot.

I didn't think to take a before picture (silly me!), but it was a drab brown plant box with a hideous flower printed on it before I repainted it. I bought it at goodwill for $0.50.

:)

Leaf print pumpkins

Spray paint pumpkin decorating is addictive...

 

For the leaf patterns, I pasted green leaves onto the pumpkins using glue sticks, then sprayed the regular or glitter spray paint over them. I waited about 3 minutes then removed the leaves. I wiped off any residue left from the glue sticks after the paint was completely dry (~7-10 min).

The glitter paint is just neat to use on all sorts of pumpkins. Certainly more detail could have been used, but I was decorating these for a Fall party happening in the next hour! It's a fun, super easy, quick way to add a twist to pumpkin decor.

 Happy Fall decorating!

Beer Bottle Cap Coasters

Beer Bottle Cap Coasters

 Here I show two ways of making awesome coasters from your leftover bottle caps.

**Glitter is optional :) **

 

 

Option #1 Cork bottom

Clear silicone was used to attached the bottle caps to the acrylic.  

 

These cork circles cutouts are from Hobby Lobby and are already coaster size (3$).

 

Option #2 Clear bottom

 

The bottom of the coaster has three felt pads attached

Here is how you make them.

 

Start with a square of clear thin acrylic about the size of the coaster (Lowes). I used a dremel tool to cut it into a circle and sanded the edged so they wouldn't be sharp.

 

Any old diecut plastic sheet works. A metal die would probably be better and I will be trying that later. 

Cuttlebug Type A mount

 

Rubber mat

 

Cuttlebug Type B pad

Above is the four components that make up my cap flattening sandwich. This all comes with the Cuttlebug except the mat.

 

The Cuttlebug is no cheap piece of machinery, however Michaels always has coupons for 50% off one item (hint, hint).

 

The Cuttlebug works great to flatten the caps. There are million ways to flatten the caps, and how you choose is up to you!

 

The sandwich I use to crush the caps flat.

 

The caps come out relatively flat. If you where to use decorative caps bought from a craft store they would come out perfectly flat. I have even tried taking out the plastic inside the cap to get them totally flat but to no avail.

 

 They still look quite nice though!

Beer Label Table

Beer Label Craft

Don't waste those beer labels... We decorated our old table using interesting beer labels.

 

 

We used a clear acrylic sheet cut to fit the table to cover the labels. We got the acrylic from Lowe's (they cut it as well)!

 

 

Close up of some of the labels we chose. Still more room to put more cool ones!

The video that shows how we did this.

This was my husbands idea!

Making the giant paper mache Hercules beetle

Making the giant paper mache 

HERCULES BEETLE

I made this for a educational event at my school. It turned out wonderful and it is now on display in a museum at my school!

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First I used insulation foam to make an outline of the beetle. I tried to keep the design directly proportional to the real Hercules beetle. I used a real Hercules beetle and photos of the beetle for the design.

 

The foam outline of the beetle will serve as the template for the whole statue. 

 

 

Next I started adding paper balls and masking tape the structure to give it girth.

 

 

 

I did three layers of paper mache to make the core more solid.

 

 

I made the legs from wood then covered them with masking tape. I reinforced every joint with metal wire. Then covered that with more tape and then paper.

 

The legs are made!

 

 

 

I made the horns out of paper and masking tape then taped them on to the body. I also formed the eye out of rolled up paper.

 

I attached the middle brace and finishing the legs. The entire bottom half of the beetle is a tomato cage that I cut in half and opened. I attached this to the core/body of the beetle after the final coat of paper mache was dry. I covered all parts of the cage with paper mache and lots of tape.  The metal wire sticking out of the beetles butt are the anchors that I used to attach the beetle to the base that it sat on. 

 

Covering all of the surface with a white primer paint to cover up the paper. 

 

 

Its all primed!

 

I’m naked! Base painting is done.

 

The beginning of all of the details.

The outline of all of his spots.

 

 

Finishing all of the spots. Life is given to the beetle through the tiny details.

 

Put his fringe hairs on and painted his eyes gold! 

 

The finished product! Thanks to my helper Anthony!!