Sunday, September 30, 2012

Trick or Treat!

I've seen a few Halloween shadow boxes on pinterest and really wanted to make one. I also want to make a Christmas one, but don't really want to buy 2 shadow boxes. So I tried think of some way to do them both with just 1 box. Here's what I came up with. Instead of putting the trick or treaters and words directly on the glass, I found a clear sheet protector. I measured the glass as best I could and cut the sheet protector to size. I thought I could just buy another piece of glass too, but that would cost more money and the class that comes in a shadow box is a pain to get out. I put my words and picture on the sheet protector and fit it on top of the glass.
The paper behind is easily changed out as well. So now, when Christmas rolls around I can just pull my little plastic sheet out and change the paper. Voila!

Saturday, September 22, 2012

Broom Parking

I love Halloween crafts. I'm not sure why, but I just do. So I saw this super cute idea on pinterest and really wanted to make it. You can check it out here. I whipped out my handy dandy silhouette and designed my vinyl. That was the easy part. I looked on line to find a broom that would work. They were all way over priced. I just couldn't justify $20.00 for a witches broom. So I tried to think of what I would do and decided I would just have to make one. It can't be that hard right? I live on the Palouse, which essentially means I live amongst wheat & garbanzo bean fields. It's harvest time, so all the wheat fields were recently cut. But, when they cut the wheat, they only cut the top off, so there is fields of great straw looking stuff. We pulled over one day and hopped out and cut some. (my friend Marilou saw us cutting it, and told me she thought, who is that cutting wheat? Then she saw me and thought, oh, it's Erin. That makes more sense. I got a good laugh out of it when she told me;-) I found a good looking broom stick down by the grizzly bear enclosure. Brought them home and started gluing. I think it turned out pretty good actually. I looked high and low for a toad and could only find this yucky orange one at walmart. You can't really tell with the flash on the vinyl but it says, One Hour Broom Parking Violators Will Be Toad.
Didn't care for it, so I spray painted that too. Got some hooks and put it all together tonight.
I love it!!

Coat Rack

It's been a while since I posted anything. This is for 2 reasons. First, I'm a little bit pregnant and haven't really felt like getting out of bed, let alone crafting. Second, the projects I've been working on have been kind of a long process. The process was obviously extended because the general nausea present at my house, but I've finally finished up a few things. Here's the first one. We had a little coat rack that was seriously overloaded ALL the time. It just wasn't big enough. Then I saw this pin on pinterest of someone using an old pallet as a coat rack. They painted it all sorts of colors, which I didn't really care for. And I wanted a shelf on top so it would have a more finished look. Now anyone who has been to my house knows there has always been this huge basket by the front door FULL of shoes. Overflowing with shoes is more like it. There were always shoes all over the floor around it. It's been driving me a bit mad. So when I was telling Daniel what I wanted to do with the pallet he suggested we build a box to go underneath for the shoes. GENIUS!!! My husband is super smart! Luckily, Daniel was working at SYG nursery for the summer and had access to as many pallets as he wanted. We went over and picked a nice one out. I rinsed as much of the dirt off as I could and then sanded the whole thing the next day. We got some wood from our complex who had just poured the foundation for a new shed, to use for the box too. Daniel built the little box and cut a nice piece of wood for my shelf and gave it a nice edge. We spray painted the whole thing white and then sanded some of the edges to give it a little character. Then I used a nice wood stain over top the white to antique it a bit. Seriously cheaper then the glaze I've been using on everything else. I ordered these vintage door plates with glass door knobs for hooks on the top. I REALLY wanted them, and paid way too much as a result. I couldn't find any on amazon or ebay that were cheaper. So if anyone knows where to find vintage door plates for a decent price, let me know. They finally showed up and were all the wrong color, so I spray painted those too. Daniel put everything together today and VOILA!! A new coat rack. I love it!
I especially love the shoe box. It works SO much better! I don't always have shoes all over the floor anymore. I LOVE it! And if I hadn't spent so much on the silly door plates, this project would have cost me $12.00. Not bad!!