Quote Frames

I remember when I was getting ready to move into a new apartments,  I had a design book, ok I had a college ruled note book that I used to collect my inspirations. I had this idea to keep one wall of my bedroom for just quotes, words of inspiration that might keep me on track or perhaps start a whole new track. I love words, I abuse words and sometimes over use word. They are lovely little things.

For my birthday, my beautiful sister gave me an etsy gift card. Oh, JOY! I searched for the perfect something, just for me. Being an etsy seller myself, I do understand the intense amount of labor that can go into creations. But, being the thrifty chick that I am, I struggle paying a lot of money for something that I can possibly do myself. If it involves a skill I don't have, I am happy to pay for it.

Here is where my love of quotes and crafting join in a joyous game of ring-around-the-rosie and they all fall down--- in fits of laughter. I found a beautiful etsy seller who creates graphic downloads ( instant gratification!) and bought two of her designs. I wanted to frame one to place near our front door--Come & Stay, the other--would hang in our living room to remind me to be in the moment--Be Here.

These are 8x8 prints, very trendy right now ( Hi, Instagram!) and as previously mentioned, I am cheap...err..thrifty! I searched around for cute 8x8 frames and just kept finding black and pricey ones. No, thanks.
Then I discover unstained boards at Michael's. My brain kicked into gear and here is where we all fall down!

Here is what you will need:

- 8x8 Photo or Artwork

-8.5x8.5 Simply Surfaces Unfinished frame ( Michaels)

-Wide Paintbrush

-Acrylic Paints

-Thumb Tacks

-Ribbon

-Glue Gun 

A few tips before we dig in here:

-I mixed my own paint colors to get them to match the prints. To thin out the blue I used, I added a small amount of left-over Martha Stewart Crafts Wood Stain in Wedding Cake. This gave the blue a more sky-like appearance.

-Make sure your art or photograph is something that you can replace! I had to reprint a copy because when I was checking to see if the colors on the print matched the frame, I smudged paint ON the print. uugh and oh joy, could just print it again ( use card stock)

That should do, let's party.

Paint the frames with acrylic paint, I wanted a weathered look so I left a few areas with natural wood showing. Paint the edges, don't paint the edges. Your call. I did it both ways. 

 Let them dry and take a moment to say "Hi!" to my assistant, Tucker! Isn't he the sweetest thing?

 Good boy, back to work.

 I tried something that sort of worked ( What? I am not afraid to share my mild failures.) I wanted to try painting the thumb tacks white. It didn't dry very well so they are a little sticky. If you want white thumb tacks, just buy em that way. I used a painter pen on mine.

Next, Line up your prints where you want them on your frame. EVER so carefully press the tacks into the 4 corners, leaving enough tack sticking up so it doesn't poke all the way through. While this won't hurt anyone ( it will be against the wall) it will hurt your wall ( it will be against the wall). I got all Incredible Hulk and pushed one in too far, I just tapped it back through. Make sense?

Now they look all pretty but gravity will stop these beauties from sticking to the wall, let us help the situation. I took a length of ribbon ( maybe 7.5 inches) and glued it on the back. It's running across the back with the smallest amount of slack, to allow a nail to grab on.

Now, hang them up and enjoy! I think this would look adorable with a family photo or child's artwork. 

Cost Break Down:

 Unfinished wood $4/each ( I purchased mine on sale $2.39/each)

Acrylic Paint $1.50 bottle

Tacks $1.00

Quotes  $6/each

For me, this project was very inexpensive. I have a large jar full of acrylic paints I have used for various projects. The few things I purchased just for this project would be the Art,  unfinished wood and tacks. Mind you, there are 300 tacks in that box, I am set for tacks. Plus, my sister gifted me the quotes ( and the seller was running a sale--BONUS!)

Gratitude (Free Printable)

I certainly didn't see myself being one of THOSE moms who often starts a rant with, " When I was your age/little..." but more and more often I am hearing complaints, from my 4.5yo about not receiving exactly what she wanted. It wasn't the right color, scent, or just the right size!
After a very frustrating trip to Toys R' Us, in which I had her try out several bikes before guiding her to the one that didn't have the fancy purse strapped to the front, she still was fussy about only getting a bike. How could I deny her in the land o' toys?! I was not thrilled with dropping money on a bike and getting the pout lip over not buying a toy. Oye and Vey me!

Frustrated and uncertain how to teach my children gratitude--- I did some research and found this amazing quote, it's a take off of "You get what you get and don't cause a fit".

I designed this, printed it off and will have it hanging in our home.

My daughter has already started quoting it back to me, progress!

I found a few fabulous ideas on other blogs that I am working on. 

Blog eighteen25 has a great idea about a Thankful Book.

Second Chance To Dream has a sweet list of other ways to encourage gratitude.

grate·ful

ˈgrātfəl/

adjective

1. feeling or showing an appreciation of kindness; thankful.

   "I'm very grateful to you for all your help"

   synonyms:

   thankful, appreciative; More

   • archaic

     received or experienced with gratitude; welcome.

     "enjoying the grateful shade"

{DIY Personalized Art Kits}

My daughter started pre-primary Montessori this past fall, LOVES it! She has made some great friends at school; her teacher refers to them as their "school family". How wonderful is that?!

The invitations to birthday celebrations have started rolling in, she will be partying like a 4 year-old twice this weekend. 

Sugar rushes be damned, she is going to celebrate!

While my little peanut may know these children as her school family, I just know them by which mom picks them up. I know little about these children. So, I put my little brain to work and created these Personalized Art Kits! Cute, gender-neutral, and age appropriate. Heck, I am in my 30's and would love one (Oh, I know what someone is getting for Christmas *squeal*)

Art Kit Supplies:

Sterilite Large Clip Box in Green (Target) or other box with dimensions: 3.25 " H x 11.0 " W

Colored Pencils

Washable Markers

Stickers

Assorted Construction Paper

Pad of White Drawing Paper

Masterpiece Clips

The great thing about theses kits is that you really could put whatever art supplies you want in them. In the future,I would not use character stickers, I was shopping in a limited selection.

 I should have gone to the craft section and grabbed some googly eye stickers. 

Those are super fun to put on a piece of paper and create a monster/person around the eyes. 

Big hit at our house!

I swear this isn't an ad for any specific brand of art supplies, this is just what they happen to have at the store. They are good quality. I bought a large pack of construction paper and gave each kit 5 pieces of each color, nice variety. Not much more explanation here, I just loaded them up.

Now on to make it yours (or theirs)!

I use craft paper often in my business, so I had large sheets of card stock craft paper.  

I trimmed mine down to fit into the printer, 8.5 *11. Buying it that size would be a wise choice.

I wanted the names to be the color of the card stock, so when I made the graphic, I used white as the color for the nanme, there is no white ink so it just doesn't print that part, leaving the color of the paper to show through. Make sense?

So, grab one of these little cuties, open it in whatever software you desire 

(word, publisher, Photoshop) and pop a name in there. 

I needed to trim mine down a little as there are some irritating little bumps on the lid. 

A little tape and

  TA*DA!

ART KIT SUCCESS!

Click to open, right-click to save.

Click to open, right-click to save.

Click to open, right-click to save.

Leave comments if you need any help or want to tell me just how you used this idea.

Enjoy!

Rocky Road on a Stick

I am a sucker for a pretty dessert, typically when they are pretty they also taste amazing and that is a bonus. Pleasing to the eye as well as the belly. Cake pop have been all the rage and I am just not that into cake. I do enjoy cake but not enough to bake it and then proceed to shred the hell out of it in my food processor. But, I do like things on sticks! I wanted to try my hand at making something pretty for an up coming baby shower. I did learn a few things that I will share.

Brace yourself, it is going to get sticky in here!

For this mission you will need:

Wax Paper

4 Cubes of Candy Coating Chocolate

4 inch Lollipop Sticks

Mini Treat Cups OR Baking Cups

2 Ounces Slivered Almonds

One bag of Large Marshmallows

Blender

Yields about 25 Pops

Run the almonds through either a food processor or a blender. Leaving a few larger pieces to give the pops a nice texture. I used my small personal blender with the flat blade, worked great!

I started with just 4 cubes of chocolate and was going to see where this crazy ride took me. Those 4 cubes made way more coating than I expected, it was nice surprise. 

Melt the chocolate per the instructions on the container. I knew the chocolate was going to need to sit there for some time so I grabbed my fancy heating pad, threw a dish towel over it and set my bowl of melted chocolate on top. It worked! I left the pad on the medium setting and that seemed to be just enough to keep it from cooling off right away. I did end up throwing it back in the microwave once or twice to remelt but toward the very end of the process.

Dip the tip of the stick into the chocolate. This will help with securing the marshmallows on as well as coat the top making it easier later when trying to coat the whole marshmallow.  

             

Insert the stick into the marshmallow.

Once the chocolate has set you can start to dip the whole marshmallow in the chocolate.

I had my wax paper set as well as my small bowl of crushed almonds. Once I dipped the chocolate I dipped the bottom of the marshmallow in the almonds and rolled it slightly in the almonds as to cover more of the bottom and sides.

Set them on your sheet of wax paper and let them cool. 

I decided that since the bottom of the pops would look nice I didn't want to use tall baking cups so I found treat cups. They are just shorter but will keep them looking complete. They are new and don't come in pretty colors, just white.

I played around with some other items I had on hand. I had some cocoa pearls I bought at Trader Joes. I also used blue sprinkles. Tasty and pretty, score!

I had planned on topping them with something pretty but ran out of time and patience ( as did my daughter)

Here is an example of one of many things you could do. I just knotted some brown and pink ribbon.

This was fun and easy. I like they way they turned out and would certainly do them again.

enjoy!

Manicure Kit

Please excuse my absence, my computer is ill. Nothing too serious, I hope! I had planned on sharing our fun Valentine's events but will perhaps blog that early next year. I have limited computer access so for now, I am low-tech and creating fun things for The Vivid Peach and figuring out the details for our out-of-state move *yikes*.

This is something I have had at the shop for sometime and finally spent more time refining it and making it easier ( and less expensive) to ship! These are manicure kits, in a lovely jar. This is my new favorite design, I call it "Hello, Sunshine!". I have one sitting on my nightstand, so pretty. My daughter will bring the jar to me and ask me to paint her "tootsies". I have small bottles of nail polish that fit so well in mine. 

Enjoy! 

<3

Flower Button Hat {DIY}

Hats are like cookies, they disappear quickly when you give them to kids! I bought 3 at the start of the season and I know where one currently sits. I am sure they will all show up at one point, most likely when I need them least like around the 4th of July. I will be digging for her swimsuit and will find all the mates to her socks and hats

.
Now that hats and mittens are on clearance I thought I would grab a few hats for our dwindling collection. I saw knit caps at Target, they were in the adult section but both my daughter and I have large heads. I tried one on and it covered about 1/3 of my massive skull. Juice, on the other hand, was able to pull it down to her ears. SCORE! I grabbed 2 at $1.50 each. I knew I was going to do a flower on the plain pink one but not sure what I was going to do with her striped hat. I went to work playing with my large stash of buttons and threw together many option before finding the one I loved.
How to do it all
◘Thread a length of ribbon through two buttons and tie a knot in the back to keep them secure until ready to glue to hat.
◘ Position button stacks leaving about 2 inches of extra ribbon hanging off edge of hat.
◘ Apply hot glue to the back of each button stack and attach to hat. Making sure, when attaching the glue, you don’t apply too much or you risk gluing the hat together. Once I glued down each button I made sure I could still open the hat.
◘ Once buttons are secure flip the hat inside out and glue the ribbon down to the inside of the hat. I keep one sewing needing for placing small items on hot glue, it saves my fingers from burns. I place the glue and use the sewing needle to press the ribbon into the glue.
 
◘ Trim the ribbon

I made two hats and this is my favorite, I will try to write up a tutorial on the other at some point. For now you can just see how cute Juice looks in her hats!

I believe she had grown tired of the flash

Ok, mom, NO. More. Flash!

Hat number 2.



Enjoy!

Yarn Heart {DIY}

Valentine’s Day is fast approaching and my Christmas wreath just can not swing working two holidays, so that baby needed to come on down! Don’t get me wrong, I love my Christmas wreath, it took me so very long to make. The only part I don’t like is the bow, too small but I had other things to deal with at the time so left it as is. I was also foolish enough to think I could make one for each of my sisters and my mother for Christmas! As if my husband having back surgery and my daughter turning two wouldn't keep me busy enough! 

Green Christmas Wreath with Bells and Mini Bow

I found this great idea over at A Little Tipsy. My problem is that most of the fabric  I have just wouldn't work so I grabbed my yarn. 


♥ I cut out a heart from a scrap of cardboard

I took the thick pink yarn and tied a knot on the back of my project. I used my fancy glue gun to attach the knot to the back, a little added security. I started wrapping the yarn around the heart and would double back at some points to give it a more random look, this also helped mask the fact that I had to go over the points of the heart many times to get full coverage on the heart. I would suggest you make sure your ball of yarn fits through the opening in your heart ( sounds like you might need to see a doctor) you might have to make small balls of yarn and use several of them to make this. I didn't use a whole skeen of yarn, maybe 3/4 of one. 

When I got to the humps on the heart I fanned out the yarn and went in more of a random fashion, those humps are tricky! I did this to stop it all from sliding down and would also stop and drop some hot glue on the back to keeping it in place.
Once I was done, I tied a knot and glued  down the tail of yarn.


A lovely length of bright white ribbon and a smashing bow and you are done!

Enjoy!