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!

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

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!

 

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!

 

Kids story craft with download

One of the projects I was working on last week was a craft project for my almost 6yo to go with a story we will be reading when we start school next week. The story isTiger Gets Stuck from the book The Lion Storyteller Bedtime Book.

 

The story is about a tiger who tries to be tricky and catch a rabbit from within his hole, but of course he gets stuck! Funny story. We are going to make a Book of Books this year featuring art pages about stories that we read. Should be fun and I will share more of the book as the year goes on...which means I have know idea how I am pulling this together yet, but as time passes I am sure it will come to me!

The first thing I did was sketch out the main characters in the story.

Then I created the background for the project out of paper scraps...LOVE finding ways to use up scraps!

The shapes here are easy to cut out and simple for beginning cutters. The grey cave is a template that can be traced and cut.

I colored the characters with colored pencils...it is always fun to use new school supplies. Ella likes to paint, so I am not sure if she will color or paint, we will find out what she wants to  do next week. After coloring the pictures I cut them out. I cut them close, but if Ella wants to cut them herself, she can cut them out with white around the edge...this is good practice for her.

After gluing the characters down I glued on black beans for tiger stripes and rice for crocodile teeth. This is good fine motor skill practice.

Here is the final project.

This will be an easy fun story craft project.

Here are the character files for you to print! Happy kids crafting!

Download Tiger_1

Download Tiger_2

Monday Chalk Board Calendar Tutorial

I have calendar tutorial for you today. The best part is that it is fun, easy, and a great way to dress up the walls of your home!

I finished a project this weekend that I have been thinking about for over 2 years. I know long time, but I was never quite sure exactly how I wanted to pull it off. I bought this calendar a couple of years ago with my only thought being: I want to do something with this!

I LOVE calendars! I only really knew that I wanted to cover the frame with patterned paper to coordinate with my kitchen walls. I measured the edge of the frame and cut strips of paper to 1.25 inches and using ModPodge I adhered them to the frame. I added a coat of ModPodge to the top of the paper as well.

I like to use recyclable material whenever I can on projects! I thought I could do that for what I had in mind for each calendar square. So, I gathered several boxes of packaging from my kitchen that were the thickness of a cereal box.

I used my Slice to score 2.5 inch circles out of this material. Doing this made these boxes really EASY to cut through! I cut 31 circles for the days of the month. Measure the days of the month squares before choosing the size circle to cut.

When I was picking up spray paint for my daughters birthday I grabbed some chalkboard spray paint as well, for this project.

I sprayed both sides of my 2.5 inch circles with the black chalk board paint.

I adhered a magnet to one side of each circle and then selected 31 pictures from my fall photos. Using the circles as a template I cut out 31 circles from my photos and adhered them to the magnet that is adhered to the circles. That makes sense right? I now have a magnet sandwiched between a photo circle and a chalk board circle.

Using chalk I wrote the numbers of the month on the chalk board circles. I LOVE the way this looks!

I wanted a calendar that was both art and fun for my young kids to learn the days of the week when we school this fall. They already totally enjoy turning the days over as they pass. The only thing left for me to do is hang it on the wall! Super fun and easy project to make and a great way to use your photos!

One last thing! I plan on making a set of circles for each season of the year...yes that makes 3 more sets of circles and 93 more photos. Super cool!

Party + Green Dessert Stands!

We had a successful party for my oldest last Friday and then left for the BEACH! More on the beach later, today I wanted to share some party decor pics and an alternative to cake.

This is the birthday girl who is not fond of cake. I know, who doesn't like cake...I never said my children weren't weird! So, instead of cake this year she decided she wanted pie. Cool, I LOVE pie. Her party was at the lake, so I had just a small table to add decor and I needed a way to dress up pie. Here is a peek at the party decor table.

I have been placing plates on top of glasses for a quick cake stand for years, but I wanted something more festive. So after a quick trip to Goodwill for plates and glasses and picking up some spray paint I quickly created some sweet little dessert stands.

I set the plates on top of coordinating glasses and I was finished. Now, if I had been worried about the stand being wobbly I would have hot glued the two together, but I live dangerously and wanted these to be stored easily as well!

Oh all of this cute little jars are pies in a jar, from the cookbook Our Best Bites.

They all had a great time, friends, cousins and relatives. Love when fun and decor come together like that!

Canvas Art and Home Decor

Over the past couple of years I have been slowly creating a series of 3 canvas art pieces that I can change with the seasons. This is the summer set! I LOVE how these look side by side on the wall.

Super easy and the trio can be made in a weekend.

I have to make a fall set this month to put up in October and then I will have all four seasons created.

Would you like a tutorial on line? Let me know what you think!