May 7, 2012

Set Sail!

Hope everyone is enjoying the Melody of Life mini collection as much as I have! I have noticed it flying off the shelves online so you must! :) There is probably a bit left out there if you look hard enough. Took me some time to find the perfect project for it. I wanted something I'd hold onto for a while and display in my home since the colors matched so well. If you have family that are musically inclined and need some paper that doesn't pigeonhole you into only using Red/Black/White color combos, check this one out.



I enjoy turning trash to treasure and this project was certainly a good one! My neighbor called me and said she had some things she wanted to get rid of, to come take a look. I found a couple things for our beachy/mermaid bathroom and in the pile of stuff was a (broken) Jim Shore resin sailboat that (I hope I don't offend anyone, LOL) was quite hideous. Really the sail was the most awful green for this sculpture. This photo doesn't even do it justice. It was VIBRANT, but it had "good bones". It sat on my kitchen table for a good week. I almost tossed it twice before this idea came to me. ;)


I'm sure you see where this is going! I decided to cover it with paper! and what fun it was molding and sculpting the boat and sails into a whimsy of life on the high seas. 




So glad I didn't toss it because this is probably one of my favorite projects recently. You are probably wondering what music had to do with sailboats right?? Well I think it is safe to say I was thinking out of the box with this one. (recycled paper mache xmas gift box to be exact.) None the less it works great and the quote ties it all together. The quote from the journal card sheet was cut with a spellbinder's die and safety pinned to the sail over the word "listen". I layered and pop dotted the same word from the sticker sheet onto it.





Thanks for looking!

February 6, 2012

Yours Truly Blog Hop

Anyone else behind in creating Valentine's Day decor and cards? I know I sure am but you still have time to place an order or stop by your LSS and pick up some new papers to inspire you! If you haven't had time to check out the Echo Park line Yours Truly, let me give you a little peek into the paper collection that was voted Number 1 by all of YOU!



There is sooo much more in this collection than just Valentine's Day themes though. Don't for one second think you will use it for just that alone! If you don't believe me just check out all the themes in this newsprint paper. ;) Go ahead, I'll wait....



Lots to chose from that is still lovely but not totally Valentine's Day related either huh? I went the obvious route of course but if you follow the blog links at the bottom of this post you will be in for some surprises as far as the variety of themes others have used theirs for. Christmas? yup! 

I have been thinking about creating one of these for a while. I saw something similar online ages ago. Of course it was before Pinterest so it's only saved in my head. LOL The Center of the rosette is made using an old photograph I found *JUST* for this purpose while shopping at a local thrift store with a friend. It is a very old (1873?) photo of a child dressed as a Cupid holding a bow. I thought it was just perfect. I'll be sharing that image in a moment! It is layered under a vintage glass clock face cover so it is convex and gives a little space for some embellishments under it. perfect right?



The rosette is made up of many layers attached from the back side and built up between layers of chipboard. this is a perfect use for cereal boxes as the print will not show. just make sure you cut it about 1/2" shy of the edge of your previous layer. Working from smallest to largest.


How cute are these little XOXO banners?



And last but not least the center of the rosette with the photograph! and as promised the printable image so you can have fun creating with this sweet little girl.




Looking for more ideas?
Check out these other blogs in the hop! And stay tuned for some late additions ;) 

Nancy Burke-Coming soon!
Denise Thorton-Coming soon!

If you are looking for yet even MORE inspiration. Echo Park has put together a digital eBook which you can download  as a pdf file. So many options for reading a PDF now.  read on your PC, Kindle, or even a Kindle App if you are lucky enough to have an Apple device*. :) 

(*My new iPad2 is patiently waiting in it's box for me to finish this post eeeeeek!! Happy Valentine's Day to me! Love my husband sooo much!) 




Have fun crafting!!

January 16, 2012

DIY Apothecary Cabinet

If you have a half dozen or so various sized iris carts and hate looking at their utilitarian plasticness, this post might be for you! Sure those carts and towers of drawers are handy but they don't look very nice. Since my room is essentially open to the entire upper level of my house (and even seen by some of the lower level) I have been looking for "prettier" storage. which led to a need for a set of card catalog drawers or an apothecary of some sort. Only without the steep price tag.

I came across many great mail cubbies  like this



...and realized they were essentially the same as a shoe organizer like this ClosetMaid 25 cube cabinet


but I wasn't loving the idea of all the "mess" showing, and this made me think hmmm maybe I can make my own drawers! This drawer (below) reminded me of the old berry flats with the pine ends and cardboard sides/bottom. And right there an idea was born. :)



I started with two 25 space shoe organizers from Lowe's. these are not cheap so if you can find  1-2 used cabinet bases you could save a good chunk of money (Like $100!). two of them stacked without legs are about 5'4" tall. I had plans to add feet and a cown moulding piece to the top which would look GREAT, but I'm short LOL! Adding another 6-8" would mean the top drawers would not be as accessible so I went without feet/topper.

Here's what I ended up making and how:




I started with assembling the cabinets above and measuring the cubbies for my drawer size. then began creating the drawers. each drawer needed a 1/2" thick plywood front and back cut slightly smaller than the cubbie openings and just deep as the cabinet itself you want to take into account the thickness of the cardboard you use to create the sides and bottom of the drawers when calculating the width and height of the plywood pieces. (* you'll see what I mean later)

I was lucky to have a Dad that would help me cutting all 100 fronts/backs using his table saw. ;) if you don't have a super handy Dad (or Husband! Mine got out of all the work because he was deployed and I couldn't wait any longer. :) ) Home Depot will rip plywood into board feet for you. (they just need to know the width you want.) then all you will need to do is cut to length with a chop saw. when we were done Dad drilled all the holes on the drawer fronts for the knobs, while I sanded the edges as needed.  this only took us a couple hours believe it or not! I even used up some of the scrap plywood we had taking up space in the garage so I saved a bit of money there.

while we were at it I had him cut me a template out of some salvaged acrylic. I used this for cutting the cardboard to the perfect size.  Just like a quilting template I cut around the outside of the template to get a plum cut which made perfect drawer "bellies".
using the template as a straight edge I creased the bottom corners of the drawer so they would wrap around the drawer fronts/backs forming the sides and bottoms of the drawers like a "U". I stapled in place with a heavy duty staple gun and 5/16" Light Duty Staples.

*a friend recently told me she and her DH used a table saw to cut down stacks of cardboard and the edges were "ok". might be an option if you want to try because I won't lie. cutting 50 sheets of cardboard took me a few nights to get through. I longed for the days of working in a picture framing gallery and having a wall mounted cutting system!

Before adding the sides you can decorate the drawer fronts by decoupaging scrapbook paper, wallpaper or old salvaged paper to them. I painted the fronts of mine white but later realized it might not have even made a difference.   Your drawerwill look like this when you wrap the cardboard piece around the belly and sides of the drawer.


 *the overall exterior size of the drawers is 11.5" deep (long) X 5 3/4" tall X 4 3/8" wide. 


In my case I had a ton of used priority mail boxes from post CHA shopping this fall and a reorganization of my scraproom (I had kits stored in them). these boxes have very thin but strong construction and are the perfect material as they barely show when the drawers are closed. You can get two drawers worth of cardboard out of one box if you are careful to peel it apart at the side seams to open it up instead of cutting it open.





For the knobs I purchased plain wood knobs from an online bulk sales company and painted them white. once dry I stamped with black archival ink using various stamps I had on hand.

The label plate is a Tim Holtz Die cut from heavy chipboard and black cardstock layered on top. I used watercolor paper for the label backing so pencil marks would erase easily if I wanted to put something new in a drawer. I attached them with my ATG. The brads on each end of the bookplate are purely decorative as is the enameled number plates on some of the drawers.


The drawers hold a lot of supplies. that lower right drawer has a full sized glue gun, two minis, a container of two bags of bulk large glue sticks and a few more colored sticks on top there. Since the cubbies are big enough to hold shoes you get twice as much room in here than a Library card catalog would allow. That's a HUGE bonus for me and was worth the effort to make this on my own over buying.




And then after I was all through making the cabinet, the idea came full circle when I found this on etsy (or ebay?). I realized someone else had used this same idea using tin formed around two pieces of lumber a long long time ago. LOL
One of these cabinets would look great with all sorts of salvaged knobs and pulls like this hardware drawer had on it.




Cost
2 ClosetMaid cabinets $45 each =$90
Scrap 1/2" plywood = free 
(* it'about $15 for a sheet)
Wood knobs w/ screws $20
Priority Mail Cardboard boxes = free
5/16 light duty Staples= $5
----------------------
Total
$115


You can follow a discussion about the process and additional solutions for drawers at Two Peas 
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