Befores

I'm in the mood to paint things!  Now that school is out and summer is finally here, I have the urge to freshen up our back patio area.  I want bright and comfortable.  I'm in the midst of about 6 different projects so none are complete but I wanted to share some befores and hopefully soon I'll share the afters! 

One is this bistro patio set I inherited from my Grandmother...

I've renovated it once before...it was a dark gray with sage green padded seat and a glass top.  The weather has done a number on it and 'somehow' the glass top ended up in pieces...hmmm....  I plan to brighten it up and bring it back to functional once again.  I stopped by the fabric store to look for some outdoor canvas to redo the seats and my head just about exploded from all the choices!  After a couple trips back, I think I'm keeping it simple and going white with solid red cushions. 

This cabinet is a $5 find I made this morning at a local thrift store!  I need a place to store all the shoes, balls, gloves, etc that seem to be laying all over the patio at any given time.  It needs some love and it's pretty ugly but it's sturdy and has potential!  (And no I'm not talking about the pug in the picture!) 

And lastly a garage sale find from about a year ago.  I was inspired by an idea for this huge wooden frame I've had stored away.  I dug it out and am getting to work! 

 

I think I need to start paying Dexter a modeling fee....

 

Project Organize: Hairstuff and a crafty recycle/reuse

I have a problem with vintage luggage.  The problem is I keep buying it because it's so cool looking and then I don't know what to do with it when I get home!  I recently picked up a little blue train case at the Roses & Rust Vintage Market from my friend Zizi of The Green Mum.  Immediately loved it for the size and the color.  Did I have plans for it?  Nope!  I thought about it a little bit and decided to revamp it and use it for all my hair goodies. 

I raided my daughter's fabric stash and found a really bright, fun fabric and glued it to the inside which had been gutted.  Love my new storage trunk!! 

 

Before:

 

After:

In Use:

Redding Handmade Team Charm Swap

There are many reasons I am so excited to be a team member of Redding Handmade, but one of the latest is the upcoming team charm swap!  One of our members, Kimberly Snowden (Garnet Heart) presented the idea to the team along with the starter charm bracelets she made for every member. Right away I was excited by the idea and so thankful to Kimberly for the super cool bracelet.  

At our next monthly meeting we will be having our charm swap with 16 members participating.  Each of us will make 16 identical/similar charms and swap them with the other members, we will end up with a full charm bracelet representing each other.  We all have different styles and materials that we work with, so it's going to be a very eclectic and fun charm bracelet.  I can't wait to see what everyone comes up with!

I have the idea in my head of what my team charm will be, just need to get into production mode!  We will have upcoming posts on our team blog featuring each contributing members charms...check it out here...www.reddinghandmade.com.

Sweet Seven Year Old Birthday Party

Last Friday after school we had my daughter's birthday party...we did a Sweets/Pom Pom theme in her favorite colors--black, pink and white.  It worked out perfectly that her birthday comes 2 weeks after Valentine's Day.  Clearance sales!!  I have been collecting anything and everything pink and white I could find. 

We had a full itinerary of activities planned for the girls!  Including:

• Pom Pom necklace craft


• "Minute to Win It" style game using candy


• Pin the Pom on Ella


• Pizza and cupcakes


• Candy Store


• Candy Bingo 


• Wii Let's Dance


• And the ever popular....chase Ella's big brother around the house game! 

Not sure what was more fun, planning the party or actually having it!! 

Some Credits:

Colored paper straws.....Jilly Bean Kids

Minute to Win It printable.....Stacy Julian's Blog

Tissue paper pom poms.....Martha Stewart.com

Inspiration everywhere

My Etsy banner says Juella Designs - Inspired by....LIFE.  The following just proves you never know when I'm going to get inspired!  I was flipping through the paper this morning and the Bizarro cartoon caught my eye--it immediately made me laugh.

I clipped it out and I've been staring it at through out the day and thought, "Hey I want that on a necklace."  And wa-la! 

 
Handcrafted and soldered onto sterling silver.  This one's mine but let me know if you're interested in me making one for you!

 

Getting Crafty with punches

I dug out one of my oldy but goody craft ideas after seeing some fun Halloween paper and a pumpkin punch on clearance at Michaels.  I did this same thing last Halloween with a skull punch and I've done it with snowflake punches and butterfly punches as well.  It's really simple but I love the look. It's also a great project to do with the kids because there is no wrong way to do it, though in art there really never is!

1.  Gather some fun papers, scrapbook papers, ephemera, photos, anything you can punch out.  You can stick with a certain color, theme or just completely mix it up. 

  2.  Purchase a fun shaped paper punch....there are countless shapes and cost between $5-$10...I bought mine at Michaels.  I rarely ever buy anything at Michaels without a 40% off coupon--save 'em up and use 'em!

3.  Purchase a frame....I reuse the same shadowbox frame throughout the year and just swap out the art for the season.  Any size frame will work, I prefer shadowbox frames for this project.

4.  Punch out your shapes and glue them down however you like.  For the pumpkin one in the shadowbox, I   also used pop-dots, which are raised pieces of foam sticker that gives a little dimension to the punch outs.  For the skeleton, the kids chose to just glue all the punch outs down randomly and then use one pop-dot for the black glitter skull.  Ella did the pumpkin one on the left and made a pattern, using alternating using pop-dots.  Anything goes here...it all looks fun!

5.  Hang on the wall or give as a gift! 

Getting Crafty with skulls

As I said in my last post I love Halloween and I LOVE HALLOWEEN CRAFTS!  Each year I like to come up with a few new ones to do with the kids (or without).  Here's a simple one we just finished with the coolest paper mache skulls I found at Michaels.  I dug out a bunch of random magazines along with some Halloween catalogs (Grandin Road is my favorite!) and we went to town cutting out images we were drawn too. 

For mine I stuck to Halloween themed photos and words (threw in a couple of flowers and sweet butterflies for contrast!) but love what the kids did...Ella put pop tarts around hers and Jacob filled in the mouth with a huge hot dog.  So funny! 

We then used Mod Podge and a paint brush to randomly stick the images to the skulls.  I covered mine completely and then sealed the whole thing up with an acrylic spray.  The kids wanted to add glitter to theirs...Ella got creative in her placement of glitter, Jacob used glitter to cover up the blank spots where he didn't add images. 

Up next:  Views of our Halloween decor....

Getting Crafty with the Girls

Recently I had a fun evening in with my girlfriends.  I had found a
great little crafty blog how-to for making a beach bag out of
inexpensive beach towels. 

Beach Towel Tote Tutorial

I called up 4
friends and they all were game.  We each picked up 2 or 3 brightly colored beach towels and got
to work.  Keep in mind none of us are that proficient in sewing--just
enough to cause trouble...we had 4 sewing machines going, lots of terry
cloth lint flying about, a few needles broken and maybe just a few a lot of curses
being said through-out the night!  All in all it was a fun evening and
we eventually got some pretty cute/funky beach bags out of it.  

I
improvised and used some rope for the handles by adding grommets to the
bag. 

Front:

 

Back:

Inside:

 

Blog Reader Giveaway!

I've had the urge to sew lately and have made a variety of simple projects in the last few weeks.  I went crazy one night and ended up with an extra Valentine's banner....before it gets too late, I want to do a quickie weekend giveaway to my blog readers!  To enter just leave a comment on this post and tell me who your Valentine is...husband, wife, kids, friend, pet....I think mine just might be our new puppy! (An upcoming post for sure.)  I will draw a name on Monday morning at around 10am and I will mail the winner their very own Valentine's Day handmade banner.  Oh and please remember I call myself a jewelry artist, not a seamstress!

Delayed Christmas share but with a Valentine tie-in

Every Christmas I like to make a handmade ornament of some kind.  I like to switch it up every year...glass balls one year, painted ornaments another, photo frames yet another, etc.  This past year I came upon the House of 3 blog and website and saw a tutorial for the sassiest ornaments that reminded me of "jewelry for your tree"....which I guess is what ornaments are anyhow...LOL!  But anyhow these looked like you could even wear them for jewelry if so inclined.  I downloaded the printable and hit up Michaels for the adornments.  It was a lot of fun. Here are some of my creations...

We delivered these to friends with a little ding-dong-ditch which was even more fun then making them!

The Valentine tie-in....so I see that House of 3 now offers the same set of printables for Valentine's Day.  I wish that I had the time to make them, because they are oh so cute, but this year I unfortunately do not.  I wanted to share because maybe someone out there does.  [And if you do, I'd love to see your finished product!]  Click here to see some of the fun House of 3 Valentine printables

You know on second thought...now that I see them, I may find the time to make them!  :-)