Bubba jug

So if you know me, or as any of my friends will tell you, I kinda have a cup addiction. I don't know why but I am constantly buying new cups and tumblers and water bottles. I think most of it is because I am addicted to Crystal Light (wild strawberry with energy to be exact) and after a couple of months of use no amount of scrubbing or dishwashing will get a layer of not exactly scum but some sort of sugary residue. Now I am not a dirty person. I regularly wash my cups and change them out but it happens so to combat this I buy new cups to use. This is not as easy as it sounds since I drink a lot of water each day so I need to have cups that are at least 32 oz, otherwise I just find myself filling the cup way to much and the crystal light flavoring is too strong and sweet.

  This lead me to my newest cup addition, a bubba jug. I have become obsessed with them because they are easy to transport, with a convenient handle and have this handy metal portion that is super easy to paint and customize and that is exactly what I decided to do.

I approached it like I would a cooler although I did not think sanding it was a very good option. So I skipped that step and went to priming. After a light layer or two of that I painted two coats of white paint to give me a neutral background to start with. 

I decided to do the background as stripes since I think it is cute a simple so using tape as a guide I taped off a part and painted the non taped parts yellow.

After some primer and white paint

Taped portion and yellow stripes.

I then removed the tape and painted the now white portions blue, completing my striped background. I then went for the designs. I kind of love anchors right now and a monogram is always a good choice, so that's what I went with. I used a picture from google and adjusted it to the necessary size. Once it was correct I used tissue paper and traced the design using a pencil. I placed the stenciled anchor on the jug and traced it again using a sharpie. I did the same thing with the mongram. Then it was just a matter of painting and sealing using a couple layers of modge podge and waterproof minwax sealant. Now I have a great new cup and it's personalized.

Who says good hygiene can't be cute!

While going though some of my craft supplies I realized that I had quite a few mason jars just sitting around doing nothing. I decided to put one of them to work by making a mason jar soap pump. This is something that I have wanted to do but just haven't sat down and did it, so the other night I finally committed. 

I started by looking on pinterest to see how other people did it and quickly decided that most of those tutorials were quite a bit of work so I decided to wing it. 

All you need is a mason jar (I used a small one), a soap pump (I bought a dispenser from dollar tree, although apparently you can use one of the plastic ones and spray paint it whatever color you want but I eliminated a bunch of steps by simply buying one that was already silver plus it was only a dollar!), than I used a hammer and a nail. Some tutorials called for a drill and pliers but I found all you need is something to poke and enlarge a hole and I found that a hammer and nail worked perfectly for me.

Now to actually making it! The first step was the hammer the nail into the middle of the lid of the mason jar. I made several small holes all around the middle and then used the claw side of the hammer to combine them into one large hole. 

Once your hole is made insert your soap pump into the hole, fill the mason jar with soap (or whatever else you are using, I think it would be super cute as a hand sanitizer dispenser too) and attach your lid.

Voila you now have a super cute way to help wash your hands!

M-I-Z.....

So found this great article floating around facebook and I just had to share it with everyone because I am so proud to be a Tiger!!!!

http://www.buzzfeed.com/danoshinsky/m-i-z



Here's hoping the boys do us proud this weekend during homecoming.
Just remember

M I Z!

I Just Love Giving Presents

   So my boys birthday was this past weekend and one of my favorite things is to give people presents because that just gives me an excuse to shop and/or craft some really great things. In this case I did a little of both.

  Now the boy is great on so many levels however he is kind of lacking when it comes to the fashion side of life. Not that I am complaining because he doesn't ever look bad but he is very much an old tshirt and jeans kind of guy. And by old t shirt I mean most of his shirts are from when he was in high school, complete with holes and slightly too small for him. So I quickly decided that new t shirts were going to be one of his gifts. 

  I shopped around on the internet because I know his style tends to favor the funny or band type of shirt. Now since his taste in music is not at all similar to mine I did not want to risk buying a shirt for a band he hates or does not favor, so funny it was.

  I couldn't really find a site that I liked that was reasonably priced, because although I wanted to make sure that I bought quality shirts I also did not want to spend a fortune, especially since we have only been dating a few months. This lead me to Etsy where I found this great shop called Ice Cream Tee's. Not only were the shirts reasonable priced but there were many funny/witty shirt designs to choose from as well as colors to choose from.

 I choose the following four and the great thing was she has a promotion where if you buy 3 you get a 4th free. Shipping was quick and efficient so all in all I was more than pleased with my purchase and highly recommend her shop for any t shirt needs.

Here is the link for anyone who is interested.
https://www.etsy.com/shop/IceCreamTees

And no I am not affiliated with this shop nor do I even know who owns it however I just had a great experience and I thought I would share.