I wanna...DIT

I went back to work this week. School starts next week but this week I've had trainings and other needed meetings scheduled most of (if not all of) everyday. We've had no medical emergencies this whole summer...until I went back to work.

This was Tuesday. Five stitches external, three inside.

Thursday was another trip to the doctor's office when my children happend upon a hornet's nest whilst on a walk with my {poor, sweet} Sister-in-law. Picture a newlywed woman without children of her own yet, trying to calm and gather FOUR frantic- bee following children. THEN keeping them that way and getting them to a vehicle around the block. AMAZING. Perfect execution.

 

So...crafting has slowed for today. Next up:  This DIY Spoon Mirror....I have some ideas for it in my classroom. Pretty excited.

Here's the tutorial I'm going to follow.

 

Also getting ready for our upcoming BOUTIQUE! So excited- it's been a while!

 

 

 

Loverly to be Late....

Getting ready for school involves getting classroom procedures in order...and everything you need to make them happen, too. I want my students not to interupt the class when they come in late. I needed something that would hold a clipboard and a place for their admits. Well, well. I just happened to have this little item- I think it was a wedding gift, no less.

 I knew I would use it- one day! ;) I pulled it out of the garage, cleaned it up, took the hardware off and started painting. Our school colors are navy, blue and orange.

 I liked this color a lot. It's not too navy OR too bright. A couple of coats and we were good to go.

 I had a clipboard lying around (no joke. I'm like addicted to things with clips.) I taped the clip and spray painted it orange (obviously).

 After it dried I flipped it over, hot glued ric-rac to the back and covered it with felt.

 I had a piece of paper that was laminated- I put it inside the frame and made marks where the corners of the frame were, took it out and cut the rectangle out. Then I painted this laminated paper orange, too.

 I did the same thing with this piece of white vinyl. I printed 'Late!' on a plain piece of printer paper- and using my trusty razor I cut it out of the vinyl. I taped the printed word over the top and cut through both papr and vinyl.

 I printed "admits" out, too. I cut it out and fit it into the label holder.

 I placed the vinyl over the top of the orange-painted laminated paper. I printed 'sign in here', cut it out and simply taped it to the sign. (I free-handed the arrow...aren't you impressed?)

And here's the final project. A sign, a place for admits and a clipboard for them to sign-in with! One step closer to school starting as well!
 

Turning Into A Shopper...or Teacher.

As I get ready for school to start I decided to browse for some ideas for my classroom on etsy and share. Here's the first from Sprinkled Joy.

I thought it was a good reminder.

 

 

DeonnaWade has these VERY cool AND functional chair pockets. I happen to only have tables and chairs so these would be nice for holding student's things in my classes.

 

 

 

I thought this was appropriate. And cute. Well, let's be honest. It's also practical AND functional.

I am in love.

 

Aleta Ford Baker Design has this HERE.

 

Spray Paint continues over at our MMMblog and we'd LOVE to see you on Facebook!

Changed from TakingShape on Aug 13, 2012

 

DIY (Ikea) Tulle Lampshade....

 

I saw this super-cute lamp in my Ikea catalog. I really wanted it. It was such a neat looking lamp. Then I saw the price tag. $99.00. Dang. I don't think I've ever paid more than $10 for a lamp. It was a good thought.

 

 

Then I had an even better idea. I found a couple lamp shades at the last DownEast  sale. I took all the paper off of it and grabbed the tulle I had in my craft stash.

 

I began by cutting the tulle into 2-ft pieces. I cut the tulle so that it was enough to tie around the top with excess and to tie/glue at the bottom of the lamp shade with excess as well.

Once the pieces were cut, I combined four pieces together and then tied them at the top of the lamp- four to each "side" and then a group of eight pieces of tulle around each of the wires going down the side.

 As you can see- I have quite a bit of excess tulle. With one end of the tulle tied at the top, I let the rest flow down, in preparation for gluing to the lamp shade form.

 

 I tied the corner tulle (covering the additional form wires)  to keep it out of the way- it's purple mainly to differentiate the parts.

I pulled the tulle in sections (there were four- one for each side of the form) one-at-a-time through the center of the lamp shade form. I hot glued the INSIDE of the form first and laid the tulle flat against it- as neatly as possible. When that cooled I glued the OTHER side of the form and pulled/wrapped the tulle around that. This allowed the tulle to flare out to the sides of the lamp shade.

After I glued it all, I trimmed the bottom tulle so that it was approx. 3 inches long.

Here's the lamp with a trimmed bottom and untrimmed top/

Then I cropped the top. I cut the tulle down to match the length of the bottom.

Using the extra tulle that I had been trimming off I started to add more "poof" to the bottom half of the lamp.

I gathered approximately four-ish small pieces together. I folded them down, glued down the center (folded again, so the pieces were all glued together) and then glued this filler piece to the underside of the lamp.

It looked like this:

 I just repeated what I had done with the first tulle - just smaller 'chunks'.

After I added what I wanted I turned it over and trimmed it down {again}.

I really am pleased with the way it turned out. I must say that I really thought this was going to be a craft FAIL. So, my total for this lovely little lamp? Tulle: $7.00, Lamp: $3.50, Lamp Shade $1.50. Total {ish} $12.00! Far cry from $99.00- so I'm pretty happy about it.

Check out the AMAZING spray paint tutorials submitted this week over at MMMblog!

Just US...thanking YOU.

This picture was taken at Ikea- one of the few trips we've taken to do "fun" stuff. It's currently the best picture we have of the two of us together. Both showered. ;)

I wanted to take a minute to tell you...{because you're reading this} "Thank you". Courtney and I started this amazing journey together with the desire to be creative, to build relationships and to allow us greater control of our own lives.

Mindy Mae's Market has brought all of this into our lives because of YOU. I want you to know that we watch your status updates on Facebook. We celebrate with you and discuss your vents and concerns that you've shared.  We stalk your blogs. We talk about your darling posts and about the ways that you have become endearing to us. We love to see you "take the next step" and branch out. We "awww" and coo over the pictures you post of your babies...human or otherwise. ;)We check out how your giveaways are going (and enter...with hopes of winning). We oggle your projects and make plans to do them, too. We talk about how we can grow with you...how we might be able to help...ways we wish we could help.

 

Thank you for sharing with us. Thanks for letting our relationships be more than bubble mailers and postage stickers. We appreciate you. We appreciate you investing in us. We want you to know that we try hard. Every. Single. Day. 

 

We will continue to. That's what you do for people that you care about. :)

 

Fancified Frames....Via Individual Rivalry and a DIT (Do-It-Too)

My friend Sheena from Individual Rivalry made this incredible frame on her site. I had to try it! I was fantastic - a frame and some glue. I decided to try it.

I had this old frame- completely nondescript. I wanted to use it for a really cute quote I hope to print.

I took Sheena's advice on her site and decided to give puff paint a go. I happened to have some from a craft I started and ended up going in another direction...like THAT ever happens, right?! {Gee, can you GUESS which holiday it MIGHT have involved?}

 

 

I'm not a great artist. My designs are not fantasmic. I know. I tried to copy a frame that I found on the Internet. This is to inspire YOU, okay?

I did the whole frame...I found that the different bottles had different 'flow'. The red came out more prone to air bubbles and splatters. I recommend buying at least two so that you can cover the entire frame and so that you have other means in which to fix flubs.

After the puff paint dried I took it into my garage and gave it ONE {yay!} coat of spray paint.

I did a few more small touch ups- just in case. (Actually, my youngest decided to pick some of the puff paint off and I had to do damage control.)

So now I need to find my way to a printer... but meanwhile- start thinking up some neat twists to this here terrific idea- Thanks Sheena!!

 

Check out MMMblog for our upcoming boutique announcement!!

Water You Wearing????

The boys in my house had a baseball night. They all left. And what do the girls do when there are no males around? We craft. We get out all the glitter and glitz and fabric and glue and we make stuff.
We decided to make bracelets. I've seen more than a couple tutorials online for different ways to do them. Here's our take. Keep in mind my girls are 4 and 10...so you can gage them for own little ones.

 

 We started with drinking waters earlier in the day- in preparation for the evenings' activities. The girls took the labels off so that the bottles started like this:

 

Then I cut the top and the bottom off

(I kept these- for some future products, just in case you hate wasting 'opportunity', too.)

Then we cut the bottle open. This allows you to {sorta} lay it out flat so that you can cut it into the thickness you want your bracelets.

This picture looks weird...I was holding the camera AND trying to show you my cutting, too. Just know, you can determine the size you want to cut here. Put it around your wrist and measure it out.

 

 Also, you can determine if you want to cut it to size length-wise, too. I cut mine down to size...but you could wait til later, too.

We used duct tape to cover the bottle- it gives more texture: something for everything else to hang-on to. After I laid the smaller (the girls') bracelets down I was able to fold the tape over length-wise, so it was fully covered (the hot-dog way, my daughter would say). The larger bracelet I folded the tape over the top (the hamburger way...I have no idea).

After the bracelets were covered in duct tape, we decided what we would cover them in and what we would "make them pretty" with. Here were our basic tools:

We glued the ric-rac to the bracelet- be careful not to touch the bracelet, it will melt.

 

 Then we added a rolled-fabric flower and a cute button!

My bracelet was twice as thick as the girls'.

I used orange satin ribbon and the glue gun to attach it to the bracelet. I wanted to do something a little 'Anthropology-esque'.

I wrapped mine in a rubber band while I helped the girls finish theirs.

I won't lie. We got these really great enamel necklaces in this last week.  I took it apart. I wanted to use it as a bracelet. I still need to clip the loops off of the flowers, but overall I love the look.

 We had a really fun time. I think if I was to change anything- I would probably double-up on the plastic bottles for my bracelet. It was terrific recycling and re-using items to make something my girls wore all day today.

Stop into the shop to see what's new or pop over to MMMblog to see what's being featured today!