Thursday, November 17, 2011

$3 Thursday – Chalkboard fabric

One of the great things about blogging is all the wonderful ideas I find when I’m looking at other blogs.  One recent thing I became aware of is chalkboard or blackboard fabric.  Yes, chalkboard fabric, no priming, drying, painting, drying, painting, drying and painting again.

Now don’t get me wrong, I love my chalkboard paint, especially spray paint but fabric you could cut and shape how you want, I had to try it.  Oh, add the fact that it is relatively cheap inexpensive – sold.  I found mine at Jo-Ann's for $5 a yard.  Use a coupon and you can have ready to use chalkboard for $2.50 a yard. 

It is a thick, vinyl material that sort of reminds me of old vinyl tablecloths.  Since it is vinyl it have a bit of a smell but I noticed that after sitting for a while it dissipates.  I bought my fabric over a month ago and don’t notice any smell now.

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The chalkboard fabric made this chalkboard a rather quick and easy transformation.

I repurposed this frame with a little bit of paint and the chalkboard fabric.

I took the picture out and sprayed the image with glue and smoothed on the fabric when the glue was tacky.

Quick and simple.

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I painted the frame with a colonial red paint with a little bit of black and shimmer paint and then I lightly distressed the frame.

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I love the pop of color the red frame gives, to a quick fall decor.

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  The frame matches my couch and brings some darker color to my living room which it needed.

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Just like chalkboard paint you need to ‘season’ this with chalk before you write on it so you don’t ‘burn’ your image into it.

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I’m loving my new chalkboard and have other projects in mind for the rest of the chalkboard fabric I have.

Supplies needed:

Frame - on hand

Chalkboard Fabric – about $2

Spray paint – on hand

Spray glue – on hand

Total cost:  $2 for chalkboard fabric, everything else I had in my stash.

 

Want to make your own?  Run, don’t walk, ok, well drive to your local fabric store and ask for chalkboard, or blackboard fabric and find a picture frame you can use for your new chalkboard.

June

I usually link to these fabulous parties:

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Zebra’s, Apple’s and Flowers, oh my

Since one of my sisters mentioned that I’ve been showing too many cards and I haven’t seemed to finish any other crafts lately I thought I’d share some cookies I made and decorated yesterday.

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I zebra patterned flower?  Isn’t there a saying about flowers coming in all shapes and sizes, so why not zebra print?

The hardest part of this flower was cutting the edible paper to the size of the cookie.  I thought the cookie cutter would work but this stuff is just too tough to cut cleanly through it.  There are lots of patterns of edible papers that can be used as decorations on cookies or cakes, just look in the cake decoration isle of your local craft store and you too can make your own zebra print flowers.100_9171

I don’t have any leaf shapes so I thought apples would be the closest fall themed shape that I had to decorate.

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I decided to make a couple flowers that were in a more traditional color.

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Since I only made white, red and green icing I thought I’d made a plaid of sort decorated cookie.

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I like to decorate a few cookies without a full frosting base since sometimes I find the sugar cookie and glaze frosting can be a bit too sweet.

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For this last cookie I just started drawing a few leaves and kept going until I had this abstract, poinsettia type flower.

Do you decorate cookies just for Christmas or for other holiday as well?

June

I usually link to these fabulous parties:

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Baby it’s cold outside….

So cold that I decided that it was finally time to bring in a couple of my succulent planters for the year.

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Both of these planters really filled out this year.

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I love how full they are and the great colors that the cooler weather brought.

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I had only hen and chicks when I started these planters but thanks to one of my sisters who answered my request earlier in the year she brought me some of her plants to add in to the planters.

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What a great mix of colors and textures.

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I few of the trailing ones have been trimmed back and added back into the planter to fill it out a bit more.

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My favorite is this hen and chick that was almost a hot pink for while.  I found it tucked underneath the edge of the container and pulled it out.  It was a very bright green but once it was out in the sun it quickly turned a great pinkish-red color.

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This yellow one has a slightly peach hue to it – very eye catching.

100_9144 My smaller planter has a few plants that are a deep reddish-purple color.

As a reminder here was the planters earlier this summer when they were mostly green.

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And now the after – full of color.

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Hopefully I can over-winter these planters inside my apartment without too much difficulty.  Last year a few of my hen and chicks didn’t survive inside.  Hopefully this year will be a better year for them as I’d love to see these planters keep growing and transforming.

June

I usually link to these fabulous parties:

Friday, November 4, 2011

Rhinestone Dove Card

My non-paper crafts have been very limited lately so here is the second bright but neutral card I made for Christmas.

The rhinestone dove had a holly branch and came with other holiday images but really I think this card could be for just about any occasion.

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I distressed some of the papers and inked all of the edges to tone down the bright cardstock.

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I love the neutral flower with some shimmer in the center.

June

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Deck the halls

At first glance I don’t think this cards looks all that Christmassy.  Hmm Christmassy made it through spell check! 

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When I was making this card I was a bit unsure where it was going.  You see I was working on Christmas cards and ran out of the cardstock I was using with the patterned paper I had.  I had a little bit left so went searching for another matching cardstock and came up with this turquoise-aqua paper.  It matched but was not a color that said Christmas to me.

The cardstock in person is a bit more aqua than I could get the picture to show.  I find aqua is a hard color for me to get a true to lift color when I’m taking pictures.  I tried may different locations and just can’t seem to find the perfect spot.

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Who would have thought that a card could be both bright and muted?

I think the brown distressing toned down the bright cardstock and helped make this card of of my favorites.  I’m like that sometimes, the stranger the color combination, the more I like it.

Last year I made a few pink Christmas cards.  What is your most unusual color you’ve used for your holiday cards?

June

I usually link to these fabulous parties: