Canvas Art Fun

First of all I'd like to show all of you the snow that fell yesterday where I am from. Can you believe it! The Mountains are covered! I love to look at those mountains from my porch. Aren't they beautiful?! It would be even better if there were no houses in that view wouldn't it?! But still I do love them! Now back to reality!

This is our latest project: Canvas Art! I am pretty picky about what goes in my kids' rooms. I wanted to let go of that a little and let them do something in their rooms that was just them. So I decided what better thing to do than to capture their cute little pictures they draw for me daily. So we headed off to the craft store and bought these 20x23 canvas'. I had them draw what they wanted to paint on a piece of paper before we began. Then we picked out the paint colors, put them a paper plate and they went to town! I supervised so that there wasn't a huge mess, but other than that I just let them do their thing. I think that this is one of the funnest things we have done together and the most special to me. They turned out just precious!

This is my daughter's canvas

This is my 3 year old son's

(We are still waiting on my 7 yr. old son's)

A custom lamp for a custom craft room!

I needed a lamp for my craft room because my lights in there at night are ridiculous. I make my jewelry a lot at night and it is really hard to see. So instead of buying one at the store I went, you guessed it, to the thrift store. I found this little beauty for $5. Look at the nice shiney chrome at the bottom of it! The only down side was the shade. Instead of buying a new one I thought that it would be fun to cover the old one to match my craft room. So this is what I did!

Supplies:

To make a cover the old shade I had to trace it on a poster board. You could also use news paper. You start at the seam on the shade.

Then you just roll it and trace. I used marker and as you can see it got on the lamp shade. Not so smart. I should have used a pencil, but learn as you go I guess!

This is the finished trace

Next you will want to cut it out and pin it onto your fabric.

All cut out!

Next, you want to use the spray adhesive and attatch the material. Start at the seam. This can be a little tricky, but not bad. It was easiest for me to hold it up like so and spray and then smooth. Make sure your material is going on right. You can adjust it a little bit as you go.

Spray:

Smooth:
Done smoothing:

Next you want to cover the seam with ribbon of your choice.

Make sure you cut it long enough to overlap

I put the ribbon on the top and some beaded fringe on the bottom, and there you have it!

A custom lamp for a custom craft room!

Love of photography

My husband and I went to San Francisco last summer. I had never been there before, so it was a fun place to visit, especially for photographs. I love landscape & scenary pictures. So here are some of the pictures I took!

The famous Golden Gate Bridge:

Lombard Street (very cool!):These next few pictures were taken on the island were Alcatraz is! This is one of the main reasons for the vacation. I love history and really wanted to see this! These old building were fantastic!

This is just a street in San Fran, but if you notice in the background you can see Alcatraz!

We went to Monterey and on our way I saw this huge field of artichokes growing! I honestly never thought of how they grew and I thought this was pretty neat!

Sorry I can't remember the name of this stop, but this tree is around 150 years old! It just grew there all by itself on that rock!

Door chalkboards

I have seen a lot of chalkboards in kids' rooms & kitchens that are really cute! Well I of course wanted to do some of my own. I have done chalkboards before on things and just used the spray chalkboard paint, but since I was doing this in the house spray paint wasn't an option. The latex kind is a little more $ ($4 verses $12), but you also get more too. Which to me means that I could do lots of chalk boards. So here are is one that I have done so far on my pantry door. I did one in my daughter's room on the inside of her closet door and I have one more to do in my son's room! I spent $20 on the supplies.

Supplies:

Tape the area! Make sure that the tape is pressed down firmly! Otherwise you might have some leakage, which is a pain in the you know what to fix!

Paint a few coats:

Wait a few days for the paint to cure. Then rub chalk all over the painted area.

And then you are set! I thought this might be good for writing list's on or cute notes for the kids! You'll have to excuse my handwriting. It never quite advanced beyond the second grade!

V-Day Frames

This is my entry table for V-Day. Now if your wondering if anything is from the thrift store, then YES, it is! I got the candles from the thrift store and wrapped tin foil on the bottom of them! I got the antiqued silver holders 50 percent off at a craft store. The frames I had at home. The white one I just put pink paper in and stuck a flower on it. The black one I wrapped material around the insert and added some letters and a heart!

More Valentines Day Crafts!

Here are some finds from the dollar store.

This plate I got 80 percent off last summer, so it ended up being about $4!

Here is the end result! The cute little white glass dish I got from the thrift store for a dollar! I also got these roses at the dollar store!
I put them together with some red ones I already had and put them in this glass jar I already had! It's a fun center piece on my dining table! Cost effective and cute!

Valentine's Day Crafts

I wanted some letters just like this to go on my mantel for V-Day! After not finding any one day I bought the XOXO (below) to on the mantel instead! Then what do you know, but a couple days later I found these letters that just happened to be L-O-V-E, wrapped up in some cellophane at the thrift store, for a dollar! The same letters at the craft store are almost $2/piece! $10 for all verses $1. You can't beat that! So this is what I did with these little beauties!

OK

Before spray paint

BETTER

After black spray paint

BEST!

After scrapbook paper

More of my thrift store finds

This is my latest thrift finds! I know they look like nothing, but thanks to www.joysofhome.blogspot.com I knew they could be something! Thanks Joy! My tin shelf in my family room with the little wreath above it was looking a little lonely. So I spray painted these black, one of my favorites, then I added some greenery I already had! And there you have it!

These are just wooden bowls, spray painted black, turned over and the candle sticks are set on top!

My new thrift shop pedastool table

Here is my latest thrift shop find! Iwas thirlled to find it! I have been looking for a round pedastool end table for a few months, but just didn't want to spend what the retail stores wanted for them. I picked this one up for $25! It looks great in my living room, if I do say so myself!

BEFORE

AFTER

25 Random Facts about me

1. I love being a stay at home mom
2. I love bedtime, even though I go to bed way to late, I sure enjoy sleeping!
3. I love looking at my kids when they are sleeping! They are so precious!
4. I am a germ freak! I carry lysol in my purse!
5. I hate to do the dishes!
6. I have seen my sister and sister in law both have their babies! What a beautiful experience!
7. I wanted to go to school to be an OB!
8. I love to clean
9. I love to excercise, although I do not do it near enough
10. I love to decorate
11. I love to refurbish things from the trash, thrift shops, etc.
12. I hate to get ready for the day! It just seems like such a waste of time!
13. I love babies! I really miss those chubby cheeks and little toes!
14. I love being in the Primary! I feel it suits me best!
15. I like alone time a lot!
16. I am very stubborn
17. I can cry at any given moment for any given reason!
18. I am very proud of Zackery! He is very good in school!
19. I would love to live on 5 acres or more in a white house with a big front porch and pretty scenary to look at!
20. I don't like being wet!  Weird I know!
21. I love to travel!
22. I love to buy clothes for Avery! She is just too cute!
23. I hate being the center of attention! Like when people sing me Happy Birthday it makes me want to climb under a chair!
24. I love to do hard manual labor! (especially yard work in the hot sun, crazy I know)
25. Most of all I love my family and my great husband who works so hard and puts up with my stubborness!