Happy New Years Eve!

Just wishing everyone a happy and safe new years eve!

Just a hint of sparkle

Part of being a girl and applying makeup is having all kinds of brushes. Whether they be for powder, bronzer blush or whatever for some unknown reason I find that storing these in a drawer to be gross. This is probably in part to them being dirty with makeup and I hate the idea of the drawer getting dirty and the brush just sitting in the filth, but I'm a weirdo.

So I decorated a small glass to hold all of brushes. It was super easy. I painted the outside a coral color. The best tip I could give is to allow time for each layer to dry before applying another because if you start painting while its still wet it will clump and look bad. After you get the look you like, I wanted a solid color so it took quite a bit of paint and time, I put it into a cold oven and set temp to 350 and started it with the glass inside. I let it bake for 30 min and then turned the oven off and waited several hours for everything to cool. Just to be extra save I applied two very light layers of modge podge as once everything was cool

My last step was to spray some aerosol glitter and let it dry. Than I filled it and it now looks gorgeous in my bathroom.

Finished product

Christmas Gifts for the Co-workers

Since Christmas is coming this means that I can use gifts as an excuse to craft. Unfortunately this means that most of my posts must wait until after Christmas to be posted but as far as I know my coworkers don't know or follow my blog meaning posting their gift should be safe enough and I don't need to worry about being discovered.

This year I had some difficulty coming up with gift ideas because I wanted something that was personalized but not too cheesy. Last year I got everyone a cute coffee mug (that I found at dollar store) and I filled them with little goodies. I bought pocket Kleenex packs, some hand sanitizer, candy (because everyone likes something sweet) and a packet of hot cocoa. I thought about doing something similar this year but I did not want to be redundant, plus with all the great gift websites I was sure that I could come up with something.

I began to think and one thing that my work is missing is cute little name tags for our desks. Not that they are truly needed since we are a pretty small business office, however it was something that we have joked about needing in the past. So I decided a cute, quick and cheap gift would be name tags or desk plates. My first stop, as with most of my craft projects, was Pinterest however I quickly found that most of the pins were for desk plates that are sold on etsy and although they are adorable, I was looking for something cheaper. Inspiration struck while I was perusing my local dollar tree and I came across some small picture frames. I figured that these would make the perfect name plates because I could decorate them the way I wanted and the people could change out the picture on the inside if they truly did not like what I came up with. Plus it helps that they could be used to sit on their desk or hang it up on a wall or board to avoid taking up desk space. I am not sure about anyone else but I hate having things just sitting on my desk, maybe that's my OCD/organizational side coming out but at work if I can hang it I do.

The frames I used from Dollar Tree

Now that I had the basic structure of my name plate down it was time to make it pretty. I started with the frame. I decided to leave that alone since I wanted to go crazy on the inside, plus again, if people wanted to reuse the frame for something else that is easier if it is just a plain normal frame. Since the frame was so bare I needed to spice up the inside of it. I found some cool and different fonts online and used those to spell out everyone's name. I really wanted to make this a more personalized gift so taking the time to make them all slightly different I think accomplished this. I than traced the person's name on a piece of cute and funky scrapbook paper, put them in the frame and voila an instant name plate.
See pictures for more complete details.

Cut the Paper to the correct size of the frame

Using tissue paper trace the name from the screen onto the paper

Place tissue paper over scrapbook paper

Trace image using a sharpie to transfer from tissue paper to scrapbook paper

What it looks like after transferring. I used a sharpie to darken the image

Finished project.

I also baked some cookies to place on top of the picture and wrapped them with a pretty bow to make it a complete gift, and of course add to the adorableness because I wanted the outside to look as adorable as the inside.

Storage made adorable

Keeping with my bathroom theme, my next project was the drawers that I use to store makeup. I had bought a black plastic set of 5 drawers. I love storing my makeup this way because I could divide the different aspects and layers of makeup. For example, foundation, powder, blush, face primer and things of that nature are in the top drawer. The second drawer contains my eye shadows, the third the mascara and curler, fourth odds and ends like mirrors and fifth has hair ties and bobby pins.

I bought a black one to make it look a lot cleaner and nice than the plain white ones. It also had the added bonus of being very hard to stain or look dirty because it's black! However, I still wanted to spruce it up and help it to fit better with my bathroom colors and design. I figured the easiest way to add a little color to my storage would be the paint the drawers. Originally they were just the clear plastic. Although they were thick enough that you couldn't see what's inside them, unless you were really looking, they could still use a little color to spruce them up.

It was a simple fix as well. I just took the drawers our and wiped them down to make sure there wasn't any dust or makeup or anything else that would make the paint appear bumpy or not stick as well to the actual plastic. I than used plain acrylic paint to color my drawers in similar colors to both my shower curtain and the canvases I had recently completed (see previous posts). After several coats of color I applied a few coats of modge podge. Since these were functional pieces as well as decorative I didn't want to worry about the paint chipping or smearing or anything as I used them. I also only painted the sides of the drawers and didn't worry about the bottom since the bottom wouldn't be seen unless the drawer was in use and pulled out.

After everything had dried I replaced the drawers into their proper places. I love the look and the impact that they had on making the plain plastic storage look a lot nicer, however the plain black top of the container now looked too plain for my taste.. Using a stencil and some white paint I applied a cute little design to the top and also sealed that with modge podge.

My drawer was now complete and ready to look cute on my bathroom counter.

After everything is painted.

Sitting in my bathroom with my brush holder (tutorial to come)

Get Naked

As you can probably figure out by now Pinterest is one of my favorite websites. In fact, if I could only choose one type of social media to use for the rest of my life it would be Pinterest. Considering my crafting addiction it's pretty easy to see why. One day during a perusal of Pinterest I found this adorable chevron print sign that had Get Naked written rather largely on it. I immediately fell in love and knew that I needed to make one to go in my bathroom. Cause lets face it what could possibly be classier and cuter with my inspirational beauty quotes than a sign telling you to remove your clothing?

Original Pinterest link: http://www.pinterest.com/pin/75646468714621560/

Off to hobby lobby I went for supplies. Luckily I had plenty of bright colored paint, from my earlier bathroom art creation, so all I really needed was a canvas. I decided to stick with the rectangular one that was in the picture I found, partly because I thought that the spacing on the rectangle was adorable and it would look awkward in a more square pattern, but also because above my toilet I had a rectangle shaped piece of wall that the sign would fit perfectly in.

I abandoned the chevron print, partly because I could not get the spacing right where it did not look awkward and weird, and partly because once I had the print drawn I realized that it looked too busy and clashed with my paisley shower curtain. I decided to go with a much simpler and cleaner diagonal stripes. The plus to this was also that the execution of such would be easier. All I did was use painters tape to mark my stripes. I wanted to incorporate more of the colors in this wall hanging than in the previous one and the stripes helped to do that as well. I picked out four colors (the coral and yellow that was previously used) as well as a teal and gray. The teal matched a color that was also present in my shower curtain and the gray not only matched as well but had the added bonus of adding a color contrast to the other brighter colors. I don't know about everyone else but I always like when a light gray or brown or white is included with multicolored patters to balance them all out.

With my striped pattern laid out in tape, I simply alternated painting the open areas. The was the easy part since every other stripe was covered with tape I didn't have to worry about making my lines super neat, the tape helped do that for me. My only concentration was in making sure that I alternated my first two colors. This may sound easy but I assure you if you are like me sometimes you get a little distracted and can end up using the same color rather than switching. Thankfully I did this step in light yellow and teal thinking that the coral and the gray would be able to easily cover any mistakes made. After applying several coats of the first two colors and letting them dry, I removed the tape creating new white stripes. Since I did not want these to remain white, I painted the white areas with the two remaining colors. I now had a multicolored stripe pattern on my rectangle canvas.

Now it was time to apply the lettering. I made a copy of the wording on my computer with the font that I liked. I than placed a piece of tissue paper onto the screen and traced the image using a pencil onto the tissue paper. That traced image was than placed onto the canvas where I retraced the pencil marks with sharpie which bled through the tissue paper onto the canvas. I than used a paint pen to color in the image. After everything has dried it is time to hang it and enjoy!!!!

Bathroom art

One of my favorite things in life is to decorate, so when I realized that my bathroom was sadly missing some artwork I decided to remedy that situation. Off I went to Hobby Lobby to buys some canvases because who can beat the two pack for $8! I than bought some paint in bright colors (at least bright colors that I didn't have) and a couple of paint pens. At this point I wasn't exactly sure what I was going to make only that I wanted it to be on canvas and it needed to be bright colors to match my bright paisleyish shower curtain. 

I knew that I did not want to do anything with pictures of people. Not that pictures aren't great but I had so many put up in my actual room already that I was worried that it might look slightly narcissistic if I also had my face plastered all over my bathroom as well. After a little deliberation I decided that I wanted to do some inspirational quotes, so that whenever I am getting ready I feel a little more inspired. I also figured that since it was located in my bathroom I wanted them geared towards makeup and making oneself look pretty.

After a quick Google/Pinterest search I settled on two quotes:

Happy Girls are the Prettiest - Audrey Hepburn

Make is not a tool meant to make an ugly thing beautiful, it is meant only to magnify the beauty that already exists.

With my quotes decided I now needed to really narrow down my design idea. I quickly decided to stick with my makeup theme and wanted black and white outlines of specific makeup pieces (a lipstick and a compact) with a bright color surrounding them with the quote written overlapping the image. Originally I wanted the lettering in a bright color as well, however after doing a rough draft of the design with color on my computer I realized that the lettering did not stand out as much when done in a color and it looked a little cluttered for my taste. I really wanted these to be simple so that when I inevitable moved I could easily transfer these to another space. I also decided to forgo sealing the canvas after it was painted because if for some reason after I moved I no longer like the paintings I could easily paint over them reusing the canvas instead of throwing these away and purchasing more.

I planned it out on my computer first, making sure all the spacing was correct. I then measured the canvas and adjusted the zoom on my document so I could trace the image. This sounds complicated but really all I did was cut a piece of tissue paper slightly smaller than my canvas, since I did not want the design to go all the way to the border and did a rough estimate of how much I needed to zoom in by placing the tissue paper on the screen and making small marks to show where the lettering would match up at. Once I had it to the size that I wanted, I simply traced the image directly from the screen onto my tissue paper using a pencil. I found this method the easiest because I could adjust the zoom to change the size of everything rather than worrying about printing and spacing and margins and of course wasting paper.

Once I had traced the image from the screen, onto my tissue paper I placed it onto the canvas. I only traced the background image (so the lipstick on one and the compact on the other) first since I wanted to do different colors. I used a black sharpie to trace the image onto the canvas. 

Just the background images traced on using tissue paper and a sharpie.

Once that was done I painted the surrounding areas a solid color. I choose coral and yellow due to them matching the colors on my shower curtain as well as thinking them to be really pretty. After a few layers of paint I used a black paint pen to trace the outline of the makeup image. With that complete I than placed my tissue paper back on the canvas and traced the lettering using a black sharpie. The thinner lines I just slightly darkened with a thin sharpie. The thicker letters I used a combination of paint pen and sharpie to get the desired effect.

I used a thin paintbrush to clean up my edges and after everything was dry I hung them up in my bathroom. The bright colors help the small space to look more cheery and bright I like not looking at blank, white walls while in there. If you are making these as more permanent fixtures I would recommend applying a few layers of Modge Podge or other sealant on top of the paint and sharpie to help make the image last. Since mine may not stay permanently this way I skipped this step.

Ugly Christmas sweaters

With Christmas upon us the most popular theme party of this time seems to be the ugly Christmas sweater party. Now It used to be that you would go to your local thrift shop and find the ugliest sweater that you could and that would be the end of it, unfortunately due to the popularity of this theme sometimes ugly sweaters are actually hard to come by. In face a recent search online, and a visit to my local Wal-Mart has shown that companies are actually starting to create ugly Christmas sweaters on purpose. I guess some people just don't like to get things second hand.

This Christmas season my roommate and I decided to make our own ugly Christmas sweaters rather than buy them. Now this seems like an easy task but as we soon found out there are a lot of variations that we could go with. After some research we decided to go with a puking Rudolph. Part of the reason, at least for me, was that we were going to wear said sweaters to a Christmas party weekend celebration thrown by an organization of boys so I figured they would find the puking Rudolph completely acceptable and possibly even hilarious.

First step was deciding what kind of sweater we actually wanted to use and procuring one. We decided to do a light brown/off white color as our base or sweater color. This would make it neutral so that when we attached other things to it they would stand out more and wouldn't clash with the color of the sweater. We also decided to forgo the traditional sweater/sweatshirt and to use a long sleeve shirt instead. This was a comfort decision because the place where the party was happening would be very hot and neither of us felt like sweating the whole time and being uncomfortable.

Now to gather supplies. While searching for shirts we could not find one in the color we liked for the price that we were willing to pay. Neither of us wanted to spend a lot of money on this project so instead of buyings a shirt in the color we wanted we opted to buy a white long sleeve mens shirt and dye it. The dying process actually turned out to be pretty fun and easy. Instead of buying a brownish colored dye we decided to use tea bags, it also happened that we had a lot of cheap tea bags lying around the apartment so this option turned out to be the cheaper one as well. I remembered when I was little using tea bags to dye paper to make it look older but had never thought to use them to dye fabric. My roommate found a how to online and after boiling about 8 tea bags in a couple cups of water we let the shirts soak in this tea water. Now the longer you let the shirts soak the darker the color you get so ours only soaked for about 45 minutes to an hour. You than dry the shirts on high heat to set in the tea stain, which is effectively how this is colored. Some parts of it were a little uneven since we were dying two shirts in one bucket but it didn't look bad. 

The next part is the fun one, gathering all the parts that you want to glue onto the shirt. We started at dollar tree and then went to hobby lobby. Our main source was the ornaments that are made for the mini desk and table trees. These seemed to be the perfect size to put on a shirt. We bought an assortment of items including pom poms, Santa hats, candy canes, bows, bells, ornaments and glitter stickers. We used brown felt to make the shape of Rudolph and a red pom pom for his nose. Than it was a simple matter of gluing the items in a haphazard pattern. I started with Rudolph at the top and used a V shaped pattern that started narrow at the top and got wider as it went down. You simply place everything randomly on the shirt until you get that look you desire. The last step is to glue everything down and let the glue dry. I used a hot glue gun and my roommate used tack/craft glue. They both worked the only main difference was the glue gun took maybe a minute or less to dry while the craft glue had to be dried overnight.

Now you are ready to have the ugliest Christmas sweater at the party! Because really what could top Rudolph puking Christmas?

After applying Rudolph. We tried it on and placed him while wearing it so that we could ensure it was placed where he could be seen.

The finished product.