Pictures are worth a couple words anyway

I don't think I'm ready to reveal the decoupaged piece yet. It's turning out really nice and I want to kinda savor the moment. Plus, it doesn't have enough layers of finish on it yet.

Decoupaging is like a zen thing. You have to be patient to get through the process. You have to let it dry, go back to it, hit it again with the decoupage medium or other finish. Then wait. Then go back and hit it again. Then wait. Then go back again. Then wait some more. Sometimes I end up working on them for days until I get just the right amount of finish on.

If you recall my previous post, I gave you a hint as to what the jewelry armoire might look like in the end. The hint pic included a print of an Henri Matisse painting done very late in his life. Here's another pic to tease you. The Matisse print is now firmly Mod Podged to the jewelry armoire. I believe it's Matisse's wife in the painting, but I'm not positive about that.

As I said in my opening post, I am not an artist. I didn't go to school for art history and I do not lay any claims to being an artist of any sort. That does not mean, however, that I don't enjoy and appreciate art. And one of the artists that appeals to me is Matisse. The simplicity of his later work, particularly, and the fact that he winds up "cutting and pasting" in his advanced years, one of my favorite activities (thus the decoupage!), just endears him to me even more.

And when I look at Matisse's representations of women, I think he really must have loved women. His paintings and drawings of women seem so loving and generous.

So this print is what inspired the direction of this decoupage project. This print sent me to the basement to search for yellow paint, a very bright golden yellow paint. So this piece is definitely gonna be bright.

And it will have a name. It's going to be the Frenchmen Love Women Jewelry Armoire!

Check back tomorrow for the reveal!

Duck Tape Nirvana continued

As I think I've mentioned, I get distracted easily. I thought the next post would be about the decoupaged jewelry armoire. Fear not. The jewelry armoire is well underway. It has two coats of golden yellow paint on it and is going to get decoupaged today.

But just because I have one project started, doesn't mean I can't start and finish another one before the first one is completed. Remember, I'm the crazy thrifty crafter, not the highly organized, completion-obsessed crafter.

My neice Sydney owns an iPad I. We decided that the leftover Duck Tape Brand duct tape from the purse project, would make an awesome iPad cover. So, we consulted the internet for design ideas. The only one that we used is one we found on youtube by coregeek. We only partially used this idea. We used the 3-panels-so-we-can-make-it-into-a-stand idea from his design. But coregeek uses magnets to keep it together and we prefer velcro. It looks like he might have used corrugated plastic and we prefer recycled cardboard. Plus, I don't like measuring and planning so we winged this one on a number of features.

So once again, Sydney and I bring you our very own Duck Tape design, this one for an iPad I notebook cover and stand.

First, we gave thanks for cereal boxes, which can be used for a million different things.

We cut three peices of the cereal box for the body and then covered them in duct tape. The back piece is the size of the iPad, or maybe just a little bit bigger. The other two are for the front. One is a 2-inch strip of cardboard so the front cover can fold and become a stand when we turn it inside out. Here's where you can get creative with color. We used pink for the front and aqua blue for the back, and on the front just one zebra strip.

Now, don't get carried away because we have to tape together the 2 inch peice of card board that is covered in duck tape to the other peice of cardboard you want to be on the front, giving the front a natural fold that will make the stand when turned inside out.

Next we brought the back and front together with a "spine" made of one strip of duct tape fabric. We used aqua for the spine and just taped the spine fabric to the front and back pieces to form a book. The thickness of the ipad is about a half an inch so that's the distance between the front and the back, taping the spine on both the inside and outside of the "book" to make it stronger.

Now here comes the tricky part. We created a little pocket for the iPad to sit in so it would be secure in the case. We made one strip of duct tape fabric one tape-width wide. We then folded that piece longways in half, tucked the ends under to create a pocket, and taped the pocket to the edge of the back of the cover.

Now in order to close the cover and create a stand we needed one more peice of cardboard. We used the side of the cereal box and covered that with purple tape. You can see in the picture that we cut a pretty long piece. There's a reason for this. Running this connector piece all the way across the back of the book gives stability for it to bend both ways--to close the book and make a stand.

Then, before we taped this piece on, we tested to see where we would need folds going to the front of the cover and back when we create the stand. We taped this piece onto the back up to the point where the fold for the stand would be, reinforcing with a couple layers of tape.

Then, we attached a piece of velcro to the purple strip and the front (where the zebra strip is) And now when you fold the the front back under and attach the closing strip backwards it creates a stand.

My first attempt to link to Skip to My Lou's Made by you Mondays is with this post. Of course, I failed miserably because the thumbnail I tried to upload is not showing up, but there it is. I'll do better next time, I promise.

Here's a hint

Matisse . . . some leftover yellow paint . . .

Look out jewelry armoire, here I come!








Stay tuned . . .

Too many choices

I'm not good with having too many choices. I don't like restaurant menus--too many distracting images and too many delicious things to read and get confused by. Everything sounds good to me and it doesn't seem to matter what I order, i always end up coveting the dish that the person next to me ordered.

My niece and I want to do an experiment where I commit to not ordering my own food in any restaurant. This is how it will work: When the server asks us for our order I will say to him or her, "I would like you to order for me." I'll give the server a couple of parameters, such as letting them know how hungry I am, whether I might enjoy a large salad or whether I'm in the mood for chicken, that kind of thing. Then I will shut up and eat whatever I am served and like it.

If you get overwhelmed by too many choices, you might understand this idea, and you might understand why it is sometimes difficult for me to get moving on a particular project.

This jewelry box has been sitting on my dresser for more than a year. When I bought it at a thrift store I had every intention of re-working it with paint and decoupage.

BTW, I LOVE to decoupage! (See how easily I get distracted?!)

A couple years ago I did decoupage projects for everyone's Christmas gifts.

Here's the tray I did for my mom using a French toile wallpaper. It was a wooden bed tray I bought at a thrift store for $3. I took the legs off of it, painted it black, shabby chic'd it up a little, put some nice pewter-finish drawer handles on the sides, applied the wallpaper and then layers and layers of matte-finish acrylic polyurethane. Now it's the centerpiece of my mother's living room--a $3 item from a thrift store and some leftover wallpaper! [NOTE: I used acrylic polyurethane instead of Mod Podge cuz it's more durable and I knew mom would put drinks on it.]

Anyway, I need to get going on the jewelry box project, but I can't decide which direction I'm going in. Should I paint it black and use something like the French toile?

I was thinking about black paint and leopard print paper for the decoupage but I haven't been able to locate any cheap (READ: FREE) paper for that idea.

I always comb thrift store book piles for coffee table books and other picture books to use for decoupaging. Coffee table books have big glossy color pictures that are great for re-use in decoupage or even for framing for wall art. Right now I have some TIME/LIFE books on modern art, including a book on the impressionists and one on contemporary American painters. I also have a big sailboat book, a book on national parks, and a picture book on gardening.

So now I'm thinking maybe a garden theme where I paint the jewelry box a nice bright color and then use pics of annuals and perennials to cover the sides and top.

What do you think?

Any excuse will do

I don't need much prompting to bake something. Valentine's Day is as good a day as any to spend in the kitchen instead of the craft room. So while I stuff my face with iced sugar cookies, I'll just post some pics of my day's accomplishment (which, you'll be happy to know, will not include pics of my ever widening arse, an inevitable by-product of the baking that goes on in my kitchen time and time again).

These are not my own recipes. Although i do not enjoy watching Alton Brown, I do tend to follow his advice. So these are his sugar cookies and the cream cheese filling I used comes from the Food Network also.

So I won't bore you with any superfluous how-to's. You can hop on over to the Food Network site and get the recipes you need.

The recipe takes traditional sugar cookies and makes sandwich cookies with cream cheese filling out of them. They are delicious and a nice contrast to traditional sugar cookies with butter cream frosting. So I made both kinds for some variety.

Since these cookies are intended as gifts for family and friends, the crowning touch is the final packaging. I got some plastic candy bags at JoAnn today with a Valentine's theme. It pays to wait til the last minute to shop for seasonal stuff. All Valentine's stuff was on sale 50-70% off today.

I made heart-shaped bookmarks for each of the recipients, an idea I got from Helena at Craft and Creativity through Pinterest, attaching each one with a ribbon around the bag.

I put about a half dozen cookies in each bag. Now I'm off to deliver my Valentines.

Happy Valentine's Day ya'll.

Kitchen craftiness

Those that know me on FB know that I get a little crafty in the kitchen too. So although it's not a "craft" here's my idea for a Valentine's Day Breakfast for your lover.

First off, fresh blueberry scones, recipe courtesy of Cooking Light Magazine.

For the main dish, you can call it a frittata, a crustless quiche, or a strata. Whatever you wanna call it, mine is made with yukon gold potatoes (cooked in the microwave first then cubed), sauted red bell pepper and onion, and turkey smoked sausage. I use fat-free evaporated milk instead of milk or cream with the eggs, thus making it a tad less fattening (albeit a tad). You could use more egg whites than yokes and take this a step further. For this one I used 5 eggs and about 1/4 cup of fat-free evaporated milk. 

I coat the casserole dish with spray to make sure it doesn't stick. Put all the ingredients in the casserole, sprinkle with low-fat mozzarella cheese and a little bit of a good hard white cheddar for flavor.

Then bake it at 375 degrees Fahrenheit for probably 30-40 minutes, depending on how deep a dish you use and how much you fill it. I just keep an eye on it. When it becomes that wonderful golden brown color all the way across the whole top, you know the sides are a beautiful deep golden brown. Yumminess!

I sliced up an orange and made a nice pot of chai tea.

This is how I repay my lover for a beautiful evening out dancing the night before. Thanks baby!

Need help with kitchen colors

My dear friend Kathleen has brought some fabulous tiles back from her mideastern travels. She is incorporating them into the backsplash above her stove. Apparently she has a great eye for picking out tile, but says she did not get the color gene. So, now she needs help with choosing paint colors for the kitchen that complement the tiles. Any ideas on what colors she should go with?

My idea: strip the wood cabinets, paint them black, then paint the walls red.

What do you think? Let us know by your comments.