My Macklemore Challenge

I've been absentee for awhile.  Sorry!

Anyhow, today at Young House Love, they're having a thrift store challenge.  You're supposed to take a $20 to a thrift store and see what you can score with it.  Here's my take!

Madi and I hit up our local thrift store last Friday to get this thing done.  She wouldn't cooperate for pictures, probably because she didn't want to be seen with me sans makeup.  She's 19 months old, and I'm already subjecting the poor child to public humiliation.  : )

 Here's what we scored for $2:

This thing is HUGE.  The inside of the frame is 2' X 3'.  I knew I wanted to spray paint the frame ORB, but I didn't know at first what I wanted to put inside the frame, so I hit up Pinterest and found this:

Source: etsy.com via Kelli on Pinterest

It's for sale on Etsy for $16.  I liked it a lot, but it was only an 8X10.  And, like I said, it was $16.  So of course, I tried to DIY.  First, I tried using Microsoft Word.  What a joke!  Then I pulled up GIMP (a free but not very intuitive image editing/generating software) and played around for a while.  Once I finally figured out how to manipulate text, I was able to put this together pretty easily:

It's not perfect, but it's good enough for us, for now.  And if it's good enough for you too, feel free to take it/print it/enjoy it.  Especially if you give me credit.  Or money.  Money is even better.

Anyway, blown up as big as it is on our wall, I can see imperfections (like how "protects", "trusts", and "perseveres" don't line up perfectly on the left side *shudder*) that would probably put me in the loony bin if I let them, so I try to only look at it from at least five feet away.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.

I had it printed by Shutterfly for $8.64 after a $20 discount that came in our latest box of diapers, and was shocked at how quickly it arrived.

After spray painting the frame, I used the original "art" board to make a mat.  I just cut a rectangle out of the middle about a half-inch smaller both ways so there would be room to attach the poster on the back. 

Normally I love crisp white mats, but since the word art was printed on plain white paper and used a very plain font, I thought it needed some interest.  So I covered it in some fabric I had laying around from Madison's 52 week photo project.

I ran out of painters tape halfway through (I would have used something cheaper if I had it on hand, but I wanted to finish before Madison woke up that morning), so I switched to electrical tape, which was a complete pain in the boat to work with.

Thar she blows!  And yes, that is a fat joke.  This thing is HUGE.  I hung it to be centered behind our love seat/on the hallway. 

We are still in dire need of art for over the couch, but I've got plans.  For Patrick.  (Oh honey, did you really think I was going to let you watch the Superbowl?)  JK.  He can work on it during half time.  : )

So the total cost for this sucker was around $11.  I'll take it!

Happy flippin' Friday!
-Kelli

PS- I linked at these blogs:

young house love 

DIY Reverse Applique Stockings

 Ever since scoring this bad boy on Black Friday, I've been flexing my sewing muscles every chance I get.  I made Madison's skirt, a couple more similar skirts for nieces as Christmas gifts(shh, don't tell), and now stockings.

 For the stockings, I wanted to stick with the same color scheme I used for our toddler-proof Chrismas tree.  I also wanted to make them fully personalized.  Until this year, personalized stockings equaled puffy paint applied with terrible handwriting to the cheapest stockings Walmart had to offer, so there was definitely room for improvement.

I started where any originality/creativity challenged DIYer would: Pinterest!  I didn't really find much that struck my fancy until this happened:

Source: tealandlime.com via Kelli on Pinterest

It inspired me not just with the color (grey would/did look great combined with the ultra-bright colors of our tree), but also with the bold style.  Until I came across this pin, I never really considered putting the names on the stockings instead of the cuffs.  I had also never heard of reverse applique.

I decided to go for it, but failed to take many pictures of the during.  If you're looking for a tutorial, Jackie did a great job with hers (just click her picture above).

For font, I loved the way Helvetica looked for Jackie's stockings, but I wanted to use a font that I either already had or could get for free.  I found Lowvetica Extra Bold (sorry, don't remember the font website I used, just whatever came up first on Google) and decided it could work.

I used our old stockings to make a cardboard template, then used the template to trace and cut out six pieces (for three stockings.  Sorry Bella).  Then I traced each of our names(backwards) onto the paper backs of three rectangles of fabric interfacing and ironed them to the wrong sides of our stockings.  I carefully cut the letters out (using my fabric scissors on the paper with gritted teeth), then peeled off the paper backing and ironed colored fleece rectangles over the interfacing. 

I sewed fabric faux cuffs to the fronts of each stocking (pink houndstooth for us girls and green with blue poppies for Pat), then put the right sides of the stocking pieces together and sewed them all the way around.  I added tabs made of the opposite fabric (ie I used the pink for Pat's and the green/blue for ours) and matching fleece on the back. 

Then they sat on our kitchen table until last night when I begged Pat to build just one of the three shelves I want in the kitchen.  And here they are!

The shelf still needs to be painted (it came already primed), and we're going to add two more below it where the tape is.  Well, not exactly where the tape is, they'll all be the same width. 

Anyway, I used books and yarn to hang them.  I just strung one long piece of yarn through the books and the stockings.  Then I added the "NOEL" letters, made of cardboard wrapped with more...yarn.  Yeah, it's a very yarny Christmas for us.  That's also our "ribbon" for presents this year!

Oh, and if you look closely you'll see that the middle part of Madison's "a" is missing.  It fell off, but I've got big plans for getting it stuck for the long haul.

Merry Almost Christmas!
-Kelli

Paint (by) Numbers

Good morning!  I'm really excited today to link up to the Pinterest Challenge.  This challenge was started by Sherry at Young House Love and Katie at Bower Power last summer, and there's a new one every season.  This time, Erin and Cassie are cohosting.  The basic idea is to have a motivation to actually create something that's inspired you on Pinterest.  I actually discovered Bower Power through the first challenge, which I'm very grateful for; if you're not reading her blog, well, you should be.  If you asked me to sum Bower Power up in seven words, they would be: bacon, somewhat inappropriate jokes, and budget-friendly design ideas.  Pretty much right up my alley.

You may remember my first go at the Pinterest Challenge, the frame wall.  Since Madison doesn't spend more than half the day napping anymore, I needed something a little less time consuming this go-around.  I went back through my pins, finding pretty much nothing I'm interested in actually doing myself (am I the only one that can't not pin every crock pot recipe I come across?), then finally came across a tutorial for hand painting letters.

The method Jaime (she's the brains behind That's My Letter) came up with is, like most Pinterest ideas, pretty simple and pretty brilliant.  Unlike most Pinterest ideas, there is no Silhouette machine required!  You just print out the letters (or, in my case, numbers), then trace them onto your surface.

My plan was to use this method to make an address plaque for our house.  For the last five years, we've lived without one.  Normally, that doesn't affect our lives in any way, but when we have company (or the pizza guy) coming over, we find ourselves saying things like "we're the one with the red door"(not so bad), or "the only house on the street with the unmowed grass" (oops), or "the one with the broken down mustang in the front yard"(long story).  Not cool.

My goal was to do this project for free, with only materials I had on hand, or that I could beg, borrow, or steal.  Thankfully, I was able to complete the project without breaking any state or federal regulations.  My parole officer will be pleased (or would be if he/she existed).  All I needed was:

printer (if you want to get technical I also used paper and ink)
ballpoint pen
wooden surface (I chose an old shelf removed from our bathroom)
paint brush
paint (leftover from my mom's front door, this will also be our front door color)

First, I placed the numbers on the shelf plaque, then traced (with very firm pressure) them onto the wood.  Forgive me for the blurry number.  Better safe than robbed blind because you posted your address on the internet!

I was left with a very fine indentation of the numbers.  It was hard to see inside, but when I brought it outside into full sun, I was able to paint within the lines pretty easily.  I did make very light marks at the corners.

 Like I mentioned earlier, I just used what I had on hand, which meant painting these numbers with a one inch foam brush.  That's not what I would have originally chosen for the project, but it actually worked pretty well.

 I was able to complete the project, from start to finish, during Madison's nap.  Here's the before(the hooks were there from the previous owner's name plaque):

 And after:

 I really like the way it turned out.  I'm already trying to figure out what else I can use this technique for, but I'm not really into the rustic/country thing.  Hmm.  I guess it's time to get pinning again!

Did you participate in the challenge?  I'd love to see your project!

-Kelli