crafty lady

I have always had a box or drawer with crafting odds and ends. I grew up with a room that was sectioned off into play room and craft room. My mom made so much from art supplies and scrapes of fabric from yard sales and thrift shops. Needless to say, I now have a crafting business of my own! I opened up a shop on Etsy about mid-November and have had some success with the items I've posted! A lot of product is from from my mom who has been cleaning out the house for about a year to downsize and move, the rest is just stuff I've had laying around forever and I finally had time, and the creative mind, to put together "product"! It's been great to spend a couple hours painting small pots from my wedding centerpieces {that have sat in my parent's garage since 2010} and create a little piece of lovely from something that another person would have trashed or donated! Yes, I had to spend some money to make some money since a lot of my paints have dried up or I was looking for a specific finishing, but in the long run I have made money which is a great feeling!

Some projects haven't been for the shop, it really wouldn't have sold, so I have a couple fun DIYs for you today!

Paper Towel and Toilet Paper Rolls -- Make a bracelet bar, Pen & Pencil organizer, donate to school {the teacher will love you for handing over a bag full of these!}, Wall hanging art, Painting utensils, Hot Wheels car storage, Extension cord holder, animals and puppets for the kids for all holidays!

Scrape Wood -- You know all those cute little signs that are everywhere nowadays, the "Bless This Mess" or "Family Rules" or "No Talkie Before Coffee"?! Well, they are super simple to make! Just go through your garage for some scrape wood and stain, it's there somewhere on a shelf you know it is! And tracing over printed out words is an easy technique that anyone can do, then paint. Or better, get a metallic sharpie marker and just write your own saying for a great little home decor piece!

Large Scrape Wood -- A few years ago I was trying to figure out a great place for Christmas stockings and decided we need a fireplace, plain and simple! Well, we don't have one nor do we have space for a fake one so I found four pieces of wood in the garage and a flat piece of plywood. Cut, sanded, and screwed them together to make a nice little fireplace! I painted the plywood with chalkboard paint and I'm so happy with the results and the kiddos like another chalkboard! Another large piece was used for the kiddos growth chart and all I needed was a marker to tick the measurements and clear coat sprayed on nicely.

Chalkboards are Everywhere -- I have a large framed chalkboard in the kitchen, a small one hanging on the front door, and a third for parties I host with my Young Living Essential Oils. Each one is easy to clean and I used one can of paint for all of the above mentioned projects, and there is a bit left over! That chalkboard paint goes a long way and I only needed two coats anymore would have been excessive. The tray I use for these parties was a cabinet door that I painted the insert chalk and the outer frame white for a really chic way to display the make & take sprays customers can enjoy!

Random Paper -- I took art classes in college and when S started art this year in kindergarten, I unearth a bunch of supplies from prism color pens, to oil pastels, to coloraid paper! I saved the paper because it was so expensive and I used so little of it throughout these classes! It's really great medium weight paper in all the colors imaginable and it almost feels like a paint chip you would get from the paint department at Home Depot {another great place to get a few colors for fun projects!}

 Other Randoms from the House -- I save clothes pins, sequence, corks, fish tank pebbles, chopsticks, any ribbon or thick string, straws, I think you get the idea! WHY!?! Why you ask, because I have kids and you never know what kind of project you might have to come up with on the weekend, spring break, or summer vacation to entertain them! My case in point, S got an Avengers action figure from my thrift store shoppin' mom and he was SO excited, but Thor did not have his hammer. Where it it? Nobody else can lift that hammer, why doesn't Thor have his hammer? So to solve this problem, we simply made Thor's hammer! I grabbed my paint, chopsticks, a wine bottle cork and some wire. Now it is not any kind of replica, but S thinks it's great and that's all that matters!

Cardboard! -- What can't you do with cardboard?! If it is a good sturdy piece, I keep it, and so does my mother-in-law! She once handed me a bag of cardboard, the kind from the back of a legal pad, nice 8x11 size, good thickness all in good condition, because she knows I keep crafty things and she thought she would do something crafty with these one day, but that was 15 years ago and now the front living room needs to be cleaned out. I kept them thinking the same thing, one day these will get used, and soon after, they did! Z wanted to make stepping stones because the floor was lava and she was using books. The books were starting to tear from the covers because as she stepped, she slide a bit, so I grabbed that bag of cardboard and they have been her lava floor stepping stones ever since! I have also made a doll house out of cardboard boxes and scrape fabric, a shelf for the front closet out of diaper boxes, and a nice little tablet case from a few of those legal pad cardboard pieces! Ductape is also cardboard's best friend and the two make useful things together! For all those items there are great tutorial online.

Family Memories -- I think my most favorite project with stuff from around the house, is using old family things like recipe cards, dollies, costume jewelry, and other items that aren't really heirloom quality but they are still family treasures! A lot of family members are turning recipe cards from the boxes into digital files or a bound book from a professional printing company, which is nice and an easy way to get all those together, but I really like the handwriting and notes on the sidebar from my grandma, as well as the sauce stains, those are things that you might not get with an updated version of the recipe or from a beautiful cookbook. So I found a really great frame at a resale store and bought some heavy weight paper to make my own mat, and put together a great home decor wall hanging that is a conversation piece!

I WAS CRAFTY WHEN CRAFTY WASN'T COOL

xo