dream big.

Semi-Handmade Vintage Book Box

My oldest LOVES the Harry Potter series. Just about everything she asked for this past Christmas had something to do with Harry Potter. She wanted the entire series in hard back that were packaged in what looked like an old wooden chest. After reading reviews about the chest, I discoverd it was made out of a thick cardboard or book board and looked way cooler than it actually was. So, I decided I would make one for her instead!

I found a wooden trunk/chest at Ben Franklin, my favorite local craft store in my area. I started painting the large trim with gesso. I smeared some Vaseline on the hinge before painting the gesso on. This made cleaning off any accidental paint drops on the hardware.

How do you like my make shift wall to keep prying eyes from peeking while I work! We call it the wall of shame. It would be a shame to look over this wall.

After the gesso dried I opened a bottle of Tim Holtz Espresso Color Wash and applied 3 coats on all of the painted edges.

After the color wash was dry I dry brushed on black acrylic paint to give it more of a worn aged feel and look.

I adhered vintage paper to the sides and top of the box...I am loving the way this is turning out.

I lined the interior of the box with her favorite House colors from Hogwarts. Anyone know what house this is?  I filled this box with all of hardback books from the Harry Potter series. Oh, and made a super cool wand too.

She was one HAPPY girl and loves this box book set!

Thoughts on a Saturday Morning.

Today I am thinking about what makes me happy.

• going for a walk
• quite mornings for reflection and prayer
• evenings with my husband
• creating art, projects and gifts
• watching the scale drop a few pounds
• spending time with friends
• watching live theatre
• observing my kids grasping new concepts for the first time
• laughter
• skiing

This is my quick list. This is what I want to do more of. How about you?  What makes you happy? How can you do more of what makes you happy?

Fairyland Inspiration + Free Download

(Photo from Lil' Blue Boo)

I was so excited to find this sweet Box O’ Princesses @ Lil Blue Boo! If you have never been to her site it is a MUST see! I thought it was a perfect gift idea for Ella who is six. So, I grabbed a tin I had and painted princess dolls. Then I printed the FREE download and voila a perfect gift that is well loved!

I wanted to do something similar for Natalie, who is almost nine and definitely BEYOND princesses. So, I thought I would create something similar, but with FAIRIES, because Natalie loves fairies. I illustrated the fairy homes and printed it onto white cardstock and then painted a set of wooden fairies. I used tulle for the fairy wings and made a few leaf sleeping bags that I had seen. It turned out super sweet and Natalie loves it. She has colored in the houses and today had her fairy village set up in front of her computer making a fairy movie! Too stinkin’ fun!

Just another set of two semi-handmade gifts that were made for Christmas this past year.

Here is the FREE download for Fairy Land if you want to create a fairy land of your own! Download Fairyland

Happy New Year + Semi-Handmade Gifts

Happy New Year! I gratefully say goodbye to 2011 as it has been one bumpy ride. We finished off the year with our furnace and water heater going out in the same week. Yes, the same week. To top that off it happened two weeks before Christmas. Oh, and let’s not even discuss the dollars that had to be poured into it. Yes, I am happy 2011 is over. I am ready for a fantastic 2012.

I have been busy over the holiday. I created a semi-handmade Christmas this year. I am thrilled to report all of the handmade gifts are well loved! Yeah! Now that Christmas is over and I have no more surprises to keep I thought I would share the gifts that were made this past holiday at my house.

The first two gifts I want to share have to do with the two old suitcases I shared in December. Well…one of those suitcases smelled VERY musty. I am working on getting out the musty smell, but thankfully had an extra suitcase at home that I could use in place of the musty one.

I was inspired by a dollhouse suitcase I saw on Pinterest, that was made for a dolly. Ella LOVES Calico Critters, and really wanted a house for them for Christmas. I just couldn’t see spending over $100 for a house made of plastic, so I created this dollhouse suitcase for her critters. The best part is that it holds ALL of her little furniture and critters, plus fits under her bed when she is finished with it! Needless to say this was a complete hit at my house.

I created the little house by cutting a piece of cardboard to fit inside the lid of the suitcase. Then, I covered it with batting to make it soft and squishy. I just did a rough cut and stapled the bad boy to the cardboard. Easy peasy.

Next, I placed the covered cardboard onto my background fabric and cut out the back ground fabric. I left enough fabric to later wrap around the cardboard and staple in place.

Then I cut out strips of fabric to create a door, windows, and curtains. After cutting them out I stitched them onto the background fabric. I planned to add more details, but Christmas was coming and I had lots more to create!

Next, I created a floor for the house. I did this the same way that I created the house detail insert. I just used some fun fabric and core board instead of cardboard, because it is what I had on hand.

Also, I wanted to use the suitcase as storage for Ella's little Critter's, so I used coreboard and made padded siding for the base of the suitcase for the floor lid to rest on.

She loves it and actually is playing with it as I type right now!

The whole idea of a suitcase being the storage container for a toy or project inspired me to create a crocheting kit for Natalie. I included the super cool Kids Crochet book and bought her all of the supplies that are listed in the book to get her started. She LOVES it and is happy to be crocheting beyond a simple chain!

The book fits inside at the bottom and everything has a home. Just got to like that.

These gifts were fun to create and are well loved by my kiddos. Who said a semi-handmade gift couldn’t thrill a child?!

Today's post will be taking part in the following link parties: Fireflies and Jellybeans, Homemaker on a Dime, Made By You Monday , Today's Creative and Tatertots and Jello.

Creating Christmas Gifts + Vintage Finds

I have one more project that we worked on during Art Week. We created sculptures and worked on them for three days and they still are not finished, but we will be finishin them during our next Art Week. I will show you pics of our process to date later this week.

I wanted to share a few vintage finds I picked up yesterday to create Christmas gifts with.

Super cool, huh?! I am very excited to get to work on these gifts and then I will reveal what they will become. A hint...one will be a gift for my 6 year old and the other for my nine year old.

I just finished making these pillow mats for my kids, and nieces and nephews in black, green, and blue. This is totally not my idea, but one I LOVE! I followed the blog instructions and added personalization with felted names on each. These have been my late night projects to keep out of view of the little eyes. I think they will love them. Each pillow mat cost $15! Whoohoo! The online price for them is listed at $145!

 

Creating Christmas Gifts + Vintage Finds

I have one more project that we worked on during Art Week. We created sculptures and worked on them for three days and they still are not finished, but we will be finishin them during our next Art Week. I will show you pics of our process to date later this week.

I wanted to share a few vintage finds I picked up yesterday to create Christmas gifts with.

Super cool, huh?! I am very excited to get to work on these gifts and then I will reveal what they will become. A hint...one will be a gift for my 6 year old and the other for my nine year old.

I just finished making these pillow mats for my kids, and nieces and nephews in black, green, and blue. This is totally not my idea, but one I LOVE! I followed the blog instructions and added personalization with felted names on each. These have been my late night projects to keep out of view of the little eyes. I think they will love them. Each pillow mat cost $15! Whoohoo! The online price for them is listed at $145!

 

Art Week - day two!

Inchie art is everywhere! I LOVE the simplicity of it and the fact that it allows for playing with new and different art techniques.

This was created by That Artist Woman and we may do another inchie project for our next Art Week and focus on winter. She has some great art ideas for kids and heck, even adults can have fun playing with some of the projects as well!

This is the fall inchie project one of the girls created for art week. For some reason I didn't get pics of everyones inchie art. We worked with LOTS of water color techniques and used some mixed media as well.

We created the art on two inch squares and then mounted them onto black book board. The girls have stated that this water color project was their favorite from the week.

I highly recommend this simple, fun, and creative art project for kids and adults of all ages!

 

Art Week - day one!

I am back. I know completely MIA for a while, but I needed to live life in real time and focus on my family. And today's projects are created by my family and students I work with.

So, I figured out my uploading issues, and want to share what we have been up to.

Part way through the school year I decided I needed to spend more time creating art with my kids. I decided that about every six weeks we would take a week off from our normal school work and spend a week creating and learning about different art styles. This kids LOVED it. This week I want to share our first official ART WEEK.

On the first day of Art Week we created self portrait collages. This was perfect for using up my scrapbooking scraps and the kids really loved the results. I found the idea at Better Homes and Garden.

Olivia created the portrait above. The girls each drew an outline of how they felt their face is shaped and then started gluing torn pieces of scrap paper in the correct color hues of their skin, hair and eyes. They then did the same for a shirt.

Next. we cut out the final portrait and using dimensional squares adhered the portrait to some patterned background paper.

This was a great project to kick off Art Week, because everyone felt super successful.

 

It took some patience, but because we had an entire day to work on it the kids didn't feel any pressure and ejoyed the creativity.

Tomorrow I will show you some of the mini art pieces we made.

Completely frustrated with typepad as it will not upload pics for me.

Maybe it is frustrated with me for being MIA? I am ready to change blog providers. Suggestions?

What am i up to?

Today I am working on my 100 moments pages. I am doing two at the moment one about the first play I was ever in ( I found the newspaper articles I was looking for!) and one about losing my mom.

I always start with the journaling first and work my design around my story, and I have yet to write a story for this project that did not affect me emotionally. It is an incredible feeling knowing that I am getting these important stories onto paper!

Oh, one last thing my Chalk Board Calendar was featured @ Home Maker On A Dime!

You should check out this site and the cool blog party hosted there! A HUGE thanks for the feature!