Glass-tastic!

Starbucks caramel frappuccinos are my guilty pleasure.  A while back I bought a pack of the bottled frappuccinos to see what they were like.   Although I prefer the blended frappuccinos over the bottled ones, I decided to save some of the glass frappuccino bottles thinking that they might one day come in handy.  And sure enough, they did.  Looking for an easy, inexpensive craft to do one Saturday afternoon, my friend and I came across the frappuccino bottles.  Thinking back to an old project that I did in elementary school, I had an idea on how we could put these bottles to use...

What we needed were as follows...

• Empty glass bottle (preferably clear so that the design on the bottle doesn't show through the tissue paper)
• Tissue paper(s) (any kind that you find visually appealing, but preferably one that isn't textured - it might be more difficult to glue down to the bottle); you can use more than one type/pattern/color of tissue paper and create your own quilt-like design on the bottle or you can stick to one
• Scissors
• White Elmer's glue
• Small paint brush

Directions

• Wash any dust or residue off of the bottle  (make sure the bottle is completely dry before applying the tissue paper)

• Cut the tissue paper(s) you selected into squares or rectangles
• Pour some Elmer's glue into a small cup or container

• Place the tissue paper on the bottle (one piece at a time)
• Dip the paint brush in the glue
• Gently paint directly over the tissue paper that is placed on the bottle in one fluid motion
• Notes:
• In order to avoid getting wrinkles in the tissue paper, begin brushing from the center of the tissue paper out towards the edges
• Also, be sure to keep your brush strokes all going in one direction (either side to side or up and down)
• Don't worry, the glue dries clear (:

• Repeat this process until the entire bottle is covered in tissue paper
• Allow the bottle to dry (it only took a few hours for bottle to dry)
• Enjoy your new, personalized vase!

^ If you so desire, you can add a bow or ribbon to the neck or body of the vase (I used twine to give it a more rustic feel)

You can use this same technique to decorate a plain candle.  Click here to see how!

- M.

Easy Nails

These cute nails are super easy! I don't have pictures of the steps, but I think that the steps are easy enough to follow without photos.

1. Paint the nails three colors of your choice. I chose blue, yellow and red for these. I painted them vertically on the nail.
2. Next, cut strips of tape. Make sure that they are very thin.
3. Lay these pieces of tape out into a pattern on your previously painted nails. Make sure to leave sufficient space between them in order to allow the black nail polish to stay on the nail.
4. IMPORTANT! Make sure that you push the tape down very securely on the nail, all the way to the tip or it won't look good when you take the tape off!
5. Once the tape is secured on the nails, paint over it with black nail polish.
6. After the black nail polish has almost completely dried, GENTLY take the tape off of the nail. It is important to remember which order you put the tape down in. Make sure to take the one that is on top off first.
7. Then enjoy your cute nails! :)

- E.

DIY: No-Sew Hair Bow

 

Materials

• Any type of fabric (My friend and I used an old pair of pajama bottoms that were wayyy too short for her; not only did we not have to go out and buy fabric, but they also had cats on them!  Win-win!)
• Iron
• Scissors (ones that can cut through fabric would be ideal)
• Measuring tape/ruler
• Twist ties or pipe cleaner
• Hot glue gun
• Bobby pin or hair clip

Steps

1.  Cut a piece of fabric so it's 12 inches long.  How wide you decide to cut the fabric is up to you (it just depends on how wide you want the bow to be; we cut ours 6 inches wide)

2.  Cut another piece of fabric so it's 6 inches long.  Again, how wide you decide to cut the fabric is up to you (it depends on how wide you want the center piece of the bow to be; we cut ours 1 inch wide)

3.  Fold over the edges of each piece of fabric (about 1/4 or 1/2 of an inch) and iron the folds down

4.  Fold the bigger piece of fabric into thirds and iron the folds down

5.  Fan-fold the larger piece of fabric that you just ironed into thirds and pinch it in the center

6.  Twist the twist tie or pipe cleaner at the center of the fan-folded piece of fabric to hold the center together

7.  Glue the smaller piece of fabric that you cut/ironed earlier around the twist tie/pipe cleaner so that the twist tie/pipe cleaner is hidden

8.  Glue a bobby pin or hair clip to the back of the bow

9.  Rock it out!

- M.

Super Easy DIY

Step 1: Get into your car

Step 2: Pick up one of your best friends

Step 3: Get ice cream (or any other sweet, guilty pleasure - a caramel frappuccino or sour patch straws will also suffice)

Step 4: Spend the rest of your time eating ice cream, catching up with a pal, and simply enjoying the moment

I generally consider myself more of a winter gal than a summer gal.  Despite the fact that I prefer the rain over the sun, I can't deny my love of warm summer nights, ice cream, and hanging with good people.  After a long day of work and summer school, I couldn't think of a better way to end my evening than with an amazing person, a sunset, and a cone of coffee ice cream.

What an excellent way to start off the week.

- M.

I Wouldn't Pick That Nose

So the nose-shaped glasses holder modification/DIY (ish) project was a complete and utter fail.  Rather than looking rustic and weathered, the glasses stand just ended up looking dirty.  I really don't want to bore you with the miserable details of my attempts at making this look somewhat decent (obviously my attempts did not work...).

I think a trip to Home Depot is in store for me this weekend; I need to pick up some white paint to cover up this horrendous sanding job of mine.  I suppose I can (err, will have to) deal with the matchy-matchy, black-and-white thing for a little longer...

(Check out Which Nose Would You Pick? for more before pictures!)

- M.

Which Nose Would You Pick?

A couple of years ago, I found this really neat-o nose-shaped glasses holder/stand at World Market.  One glance at the nose (and the price tag; less than $15) and I was sold.  What can I say?  It was laugh at first sight.  I had the option of buying this glasses holder in either a sleek, shiny black or a natural, wooden brown.  Digging the matchy-matchy look, I opted for black for I thought that it would go perfectly in my all-black-and-white room.

Fast forward to two-ish years later and I am officially over the matchy-matchy, absolutely-everything-in-my-room-has-to-be-either-black-or-white look.  As a result, I decided to modify this glasses holder to go along with my taste now.  I (well, okay...my dad) sanded some of the paint off of the glasses holder in order to give it a rustic, weathered look.

Below are pictures of the glasses holder before I/my dad started sanding as well as the materials I used to do this semi-DIY project (glasses holder, sand paper, box lid - to catch the debris from the sanding of the nose*).  Check back tomorrow to see the final result!

*No cats were harmed in this DIY (ish) project.

(Click here to see how the nose turned out!)

-M.

You Light Up My Life

Whenever I hear this song, I immediately think of that scene in Miss Congeniality where Miss Texas belts out, "Youu light up my li-i-ife," and points to the audience in slow motion.  For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about (ahem, Erika), just scroll down and keep reading.  For those of you who do, let's be friends.

Anyways, as promised, here's how you can jazz up a plain candle and make it light up your life.

What you will need for this project is as follows:

• Candle (any color, preferably a solid color because it will be covered with tissue paper)
• Tissue paper (any patterns/colors that your heart desires)
• Scissors
• White Elmer's glue
• Paint brush (water color size, not I'm-going-to-paint-the-outside-of-my-house size)

Follow the steps below and you will soon have a personalized, jazzy, room decoration.

• After selecting your candle and tissue paper, cut out the tissue paper into various shapes and sizes (you can cut out the designs that are printed on the tissue paper, make up your own designs, or simply cut the tissue paper to fit around the entire candle)
• Pour some Elmer's glue into a small cup or container
• Place the tissue paper on the candle (one piece at a time)
• Dip the paint brush in the glue
• Gently paint directly over the tissue paper that is placed on the candle in one fluid motion
• In order to avoid getting wrinkles in the tissue paper, begin brushing from the center of the tissue paper out towards the edges
• Also, be sure to keep your brush strokes all going in one direction (either side to side or up and down)
• Don't worry, the glue dries clear
• Once the desired areas of your candle are covered with tissue paper and glued down, let the candle dry (I let my candles dry overnight, just to be on the safe side)
• Finally, let your newly refaced candle light up your life!

 

I'm having way too much fun with the title of this post... I think I'm going to go watch Miss Congeniality now.

- M.

DIY: Under $5 Lighted Flower Display

I needed something to brighten up my room, and I had these flowers from Michael's that I had bought a while ago. They were on sale, so they were just a little over $1 each, and had also found this vase at the Dollar Tree for $1. I had these lights that I bought at Ikea on sale for under $1, that had been lying around. The stems on the flower were really long, but I didn't want to cut them so I bent them up and tied them together to help them fit into the vase. To fit both the lights and the flowers in was a bit of a struggle but after a while, they finally settled in. The lights are battery powered, so I pulled the battery pack out, and set it behind the vase in order to be able to turn the lights on easily. The vase looked a little boring to me so I remembered that the day before, my friend had given me one of her old ribbons as we were cleaning her room. I tied this around the vase and it instantly became so cute and girly, just the way I like it! Super easy and cheap DIY! Enjoy!

Here is a picture of what it looks like when the lights are turned off; so cute!

                              

- E.

Are You Afraid Of The Dark?

When I was younger, I was totes afraid of the dark.  Actually, I still kind of am.  As a result, I thought it would be fun to attempt making glow in the dark jars as a DIY project.

Okay, so actually, my friend recommended this DIY project to me when she first heard that Erika and I had started a blog.  (The part about me being semi-afraid of the dark is still true.  I just needed a transition from the title of this post to the actual content of the post...see the tie-in there - being afraid of the dark and making glow in the dark jars?  Eh, eh?  Anyone?)  Anyways, eager to start doing crafts and sharing my experiences, I jumped right on this DIY project.  Below is a list of all the materials that I used for this project:

1. 2, 12 inch glow sticks ($1 for a pack of 4 from the dollar store)
2. 1 Empty jar with lid
3. 1 Pair of latex gloves
4. 1 Plastic grocery bag (or any other sort of protective covering)
5. Scissors

After gathering all of the materials together, I began this DIY project.  Below are the steps I took to complete these glow jars:

1. Put on latex gloves and lay plastic grocery bag out flat on the floor (By reading about other people's experiences with this DIY project, I learned that the liquid from the glow sticks could stain my hands and clothing.)
2. Remove the lid from the jar and place the jar over the plastic bag (I hoped to prevent getting any liquid from the glow sticks on my work surface by working over a plastic bag.)
3. Crack 2 glow sticks so they glow
4. Cut the end off of one side of 1 glow stick and swirl/tap the glow stick along the inner rim of the jar to get the liquid out (repeat this process with the second glow stick)
5. Once the liquid is out of the glow sticks and into the jars, shake out any large pieces of glass that may have fallen into the jars from the glow sticks over a garbage can
6. Put the lid back onto the jar
7. Swirl the jar so the liquid spreads around the whole jar
8. ENJOY!

Creating 2 glow jars took me about 40 minutes to complete - this included set up and clean up time as well as actually creating the 2 jars.  I struggled in the beginning trying to figure out how to get the liquid out of the glow sticks.  At one point while I was working on the first jar, I found myself cutting the glow sticks into tiny pieces and pushing the liquid and glass out with a toothpick.  Super time-consuming mistake.  It wasn't until I started the second jar that I realized that I could get the liquid out by simply swirling/tapping the glow sticks along the inner rim of the jar.  Had I known this from the get-go, this project would have taken me 10 minutes tops.  Or so I like to think...

P.S. The glow jars only stayed glow-y for about an hour.

Do you know of any other fun, crafty projects using glow sticks?  Let us know about your experiences with glow jars and other glow stick projects in the comments below!

- M.

Sand Dollar

A couple of summers ago, my mom, my grampy, and I took a road trip up to Seaside, Oregon.  During one of our morning walks on the beach, my mom and I collected scads of sand dollars; my mom picked up more than 20 whole sand dollars!  I, on the other hand, gravitated towards sand dollars that had been broken in half.  I thought it would be interesting to use the halves of two different sand dollars to make a complete sand dollar.  I also thought that framing the sand dollars would be a fun DIY project as well as serve as a memento from our trip.

Over two years later, I've finally gotten around to framing the sand dollars.  I began with a black, shadowbox frame that I purchased from Ikea a few months back (I can't remember the exact price of the frame but I want to say that it cost $5-10).  In order to add some pizzazz, I decided to scrapbook the inside of the frame thus creating a nice background for the sand dollars to rest upon.  I found some beach-y scrapbook paper from my mom's vast collection of craft materials and placed them on top of one another to create a layered effect.  I then mounted the halves of the sand dollars onto the paper using double-sided scrapbooking tape.

All in all, I'm quite pleased with the final product.  I like how the sand dollars don't exactly fit together and how the split between the two halves is visible; the fact that the sand dollar is not perfect adds character and a unique element to the picture frame.  I wish I had a profound quote about how flaws should be embraced and imperfections should be celebrated to close this post.  Unfortunately, nothing of the sort comes to mind.  I guess I'll just end with this...

Live long and prosper.

(When in doubt, Star Trek it out.)

- M.

Low-Cost Drawer Organizers

Being the super-cheap, organizational-freak, college student that I am, there was no way I was going to pay $20 for drawer organizers from Bed, Bath, & Beyond (I'm sorry BB&B, but we can still be friends).  Instead of dishing out the cash, I decided to make my own drawer organizers.  I took some of my old shoe boxes and covered them with packaging paper I picked up at Target for around $6.  I opted for packaging paper instead of wrapping paper because I liked the simple and natural look the paper gave the boxes.  Although I could have left the shoe boxes as they were, I decided to wrap them in matching paper to give them a more clean and cohesive look.  I also liked the fact that I could personalize the boxes and truly make them my own.  Now, not only is it easy to find things in my dresser drawers, but by using low-cost materials and things lying around the house, these drawer organizers cost me next to nothing.  Oot oot.  Now I can go spend the $14 I saved on more essential items - like food.  Priorities people.

- M.