DIY: Fun Holiday Crayons

With the Easter boxes sent to some really special little ones, I'm ready to share some fun DIY gifts that we sent their way.

The first of which is DIY crayons.  I'm pretty sure these are meant to be made with your leftover crayons that have broken into nibs, but with no crayons in the apart and a desire to make these I bought a brand new bow just for this project.  I first saw this idea on this blog, and thought it was such a cute idea to do one day with kids. Since J and I know some little ones who are just starting to use crayons and decided they would be fun to send in our Easter boxes to them.

I went off searching for the perfect mold to use to make the crayons.  I went to one of our local craft stores and found only hearts and stars.  I had decided on the stars until I couldn't fin many of the other items I was looking for other projects.  I put down the mold and headed to another craft store where I found these awesome egg molds!  While not very cost effective at $9.99 and being for a specific time of year, they were too adorable to pass up.  Plus, since the little ones are still so little I can make them for years to come.

What you'll need:

• A silicon mold
• Box of crayons (Mine allowed me to fill the mold twice) or leftover crayons
• Knife
• Bowl or trash can (for the crayon wrappers)

What you need to do:

• Preheat your oven to 200.

• Unwrap all of the crayons that you plan on using. Cutting down the edge of the crayon with a knife will help make it easier to remove the wrappers.
• Break the crayons into pieces and disperse them among the different parts of the silicon mold.  (Try to avoid putting too many dark colors together because your egg with come out almost black).
• Put the mold on top of a cookie sheet and put into the oven.  Leave in the oven until it looks like all of the crayons have melted 10-15minutes.

• Remove the silicon mold from the oven and place somewhere to cool such as the stovetop or cooling rack.  For a quicker set you can put the mold in the fridge or freezer, but it doesn't take too long for the crayons to set outside of the fridge. (about an hour)
• Once the crayons are cooled pop them out of the mold.

• Repeat until you have used all of the crayons that you want to use.

This is such an easy little project.  J and I had fun making them and waiting to see what the crayons would look like when they cooled down.

The possibility of crayon combinations is endless!  Have fun making your own creations!

DIY: Decorated Vases, Jars, Etc..

It is unfortunate that while we’re getting warmer weather here in NJ, I’m developing a bit of a cold.  I started with the sniffles Monday, but Tuesday it was a full-fledged cold and even now I’m not feeling much better.  Unfortunately since I get paid per diem I’ve had to go to work each day even though I’d rather be in bed all day.  It is a good thing then that I finished my wall art décor this past weekend and another fun DIY to match my wall art since I haven’t accomplished much of anything this week.

This DIY idea was something I came across while seeing what was on sale at Michaels this past weekend.  I saw a link to a Martha Stewart project.  This cute vase was something that looked simple enough to do and required many of the same products that I was already purchasing for the wall art.  My intention was to only buy one vase, but at only $2.50 a piece I decided a second vase and a jar would be a good addition to my purchase.

In the end I purchased the following (Items from my wall art decor project are also in this image):

-2 Vases

-1 Jar

-Paint (same paints I used for my last project)

-Quilters and Electrical tape (1/4” and ¾” respectively) *Side Note: I wanted to purchase painters tape but could not find it in ¼” length

-Same sponge brushes as my wall art project just cleaned and dried from previous use

-Fake daisies (Especially since the vase I was going to put them in was going in our bathroom which gets no sunlight during the day, fake seemed the way to go)

First things first, make sure to wash and clean the vases and jar with soap and let them dry thoroughly.  My acrylic paint also said to wash the glass with alcohol, but I skipped this step (it probably would've helped a bit more as I was removing the tape because some of the paint started to come up with the tape).  

As with my wall art project, this requires you to tape the glass up before you paint.  I recommend you really think about what design you want on the item you are painting.  The more you criss-cross the tape on the glass, the tougher it can be for clean lines to appear on the glass.  That being said don't be afraid to experiment with different designs!

My recommendation is that if you are doing a couple of pieces like I did, that you only work with items that are using the same color at the same time.  Working with too much paint can cause accidents when painting and also requires fewer paint brushes and palates to work with.

I did three layers for all of the colors I used in order to make them totally opaque (the red I almost considered a fourth layer, but when the paint dried after the third I was happy with how it looked).  I let the paint dry until it was dry to touch before taking the tape off.  I only had a few problems where  the paint tried to come up with the tape, mostly with the tiny stripes that I made. 

What I love about these is that they now match other things that are in the same room without being overly matching.  I put the fake daises in the vase meant for the bathroom and I will fill the jar with ear cleaners when I get a chance.  As for the red vase for our living room, I put our tv remotes in it so we don't have to worry about searching for them anymore.

I absolutely love how these turned out!  If you try this yourself please leave a comment with pictures of your work!!

DIY: Wall Art Decor

As I’ve said before, J and I decided it would be a pain to paint our apartment walls only to have to possibly paint them back to a boring white color when we move.  I was browsing through pinterest.com pages when I found this awesome, easy way to add a pop of color to the room.

This weekend I bought all of the supplies:

·      a 24x36 canvas (for only $10 with the store’s sale and a 20% off coupon!)

·      a 16x20 canvas (couldn’t pass up a good deal!)

·      paint (for the larger canvas: for the smaller canvas:)

·      three small sponge brushes and one large sponge brush

·      I couldn’t find ¼” painters tape so I bought ¼” quilter’s tape and ¾” electrical tape.

I promise this project is minimally messy and pretty quick.  If you want to follow thenewdomestic.com’s method then you will first need to create a mock version of your painting.  Instead of doing this I just haphazardly put tape down on my canvas.  (*Note: If you decide to use electrical tape make sure to really press it down into the canvas as it will peel up a little if you don’t and you will not end up with totally clean lines.)

I also chose not to pre-decide where I wanted each color to go.  I just knew that with the larger canvas I wanted red to be the main color and on the smaller canvas dark blue would be more present.  I used a Tupperware containers and a lid as a palette and worked on the smaller canvas first. 

Like I said before I did not plan out which sections would be what color.  As I went I would just think that an area looked like it was too much dark blue and needed a splash of light blue.  I did the same with my larger canvas, but I also knew that the color I wanted the least of was the dark brown because I didn’t want the painting to make the room look dark.   I painted 2-3 coats of each color because some needed the extra layer to look the way I wanted it to be.

My paint directed that I wait 1 hour between layers of paint, but to be honest it was pretty dry after 10 minutes so I just went on to the next layers when it was dry to touch.  I waited about 5-10 minutes after the last layer before peeling off the strips of tape.  Make sure to pull the tape in order (some of mine overlapped) otherwise you could ruin some of your straight lines if your paint is not totally dry!

 

I let both canvases dry overnight before attempting to hang them (just so I wouldn’t accidentally get paint on the wall.  The paint brand that I purchased says it takes 21 days for the paint to cure so J and I decided that we would wait to hang up the canvas in the bathroom until then because the moisture from showering might cause it not to cure completely or make the paint run.  (That doesn’t mean I can’t take a picture to show you what it would look like!)  We did decide, however, that the large canvas could go up in the living/dining room without waiting for the paint to cure.

The nice things about the canvases that I purchased is that they are light and instead of hammering nails into the apartment walls, we just used thumbtacks to hold them up instead of possibly hammering nails into wiring in the walls.

Doesn't it add such a great punch of color to both rooms!?  What home decor have you created for a fraction of what it would've cost to purchase that item in a store?

Weekend Arts & Crafts

So this weekend was spent recuperating from the aforementioned never ending week.  Since J unfortunately had to work the whole weekend I thought I'd get some chores done.  Finishing the laundry was the furthest I got before boredom completely took over.

Image from thenewdomestic.com

J and I have been trying to save money grocery shopping, so we shop the circular, only buying certain things when they are on sale (i.e. Chobani yogurt, certain fruits, etc).  I grabbed our stack of shops' circulars and looked for the Shoprite one to start circling what we should get for the week, only to come across one for A.C. Moore first.  Like I talked about in my last post, the Wall Art Project from the New Domestic is a project I'd like to complete, but I was waiting until my next paycheck to purchase supplies.  Well, the supplies were on sale at A.C.Moore and canvases were half off so I decided to go ahead and get started on this project.

I may have gone overboard with the supplies I purchased (from Michaels as well), but I spent the rest of the weekend happily crafting and having a nice relaxing weekend.  I can't tell you how ecstatic I am with the results.  The two pieces of wall art I ultimately ended up making cost me under $30 and I used the remaining paint to create a couple other items for the apartment which were about $3-7 to make each.  Not too bad!

Later in the week I'll post a How-To on creating the wall art and containers that I made over the weekend.  Right now I've got to get some things done that I put off all weekend and then head to work!

No More Bedsheets as Curtains

So now that J and I are finished traveling until at least April we have time to work on making the apartment look nice and work on projects we’ve decided sound like fun.  When we got back from Italy we finally received the remaining part of our couch (we had 2 out of 3 pieces), only it was not delivered on the day we were promised, instead a whole week later.  Our experience with the store and staff in which we bought our couch from was frustrating and if we weren’t both in love with the couch we would seriously consider returning it.

I forgot to put away the iron before taking this!

On a positive note, having our couch finally has allowed us to determine what color scheme we want the room to be.  We won’t be painting the walls of our apartment because it is a hassle since we don’t know what will happen in the next year and whether we will renew our lease or not (if I get a teaching position in another area we would consider moving).  I wanted something that would make the room pop! against  the plain off-white walls.  Originally I wanted to go for a chocolate brown, cream, and coral color scheme, but it has proven really difficult to find décor that not only contains these colors but also has a pattern I like. 

I used the Sherwin-Williams Color visualizer to create this mock room, pretty cool tool!

Frustrated I gave up that search and decided that a better route to go was chocolate brown, tan/cream, and red.  We already have placemats that are those colors that I like and finding curtains to go with the room was so ridiculously easy.  The curtains still need a little work as they are too long for the window, but I’m working on hemming them.

The tabs on the ends of the curtain rod are actually for daytime use, when you can pull the curtains together and tie them with the pieces of fabric.

Currently I’m in the search for additional pillows for our couch.  I thought about making them myself and who knows, maybe I will still make one or two, but for the time being I found some at Target I may purchase.

Also, I found this idea for wall art on pinterest.  J agreed to help me try to make one for our living room/dining room.  When I get my next paycheck the supplies for this project will be the first thing I purchase.

We also ordered pictures from our trip.  I ordered seven 12x18 poster prints from Snapfish (I had a great coupon) so we could play around with six of them and the seventh is going in a different spot.  I taped them all to the wall temporarily so we could see which ones we liked best (I haven’t purchased frames yet), but now I kind of like the idea of all six images on the wall.  What do you think?  Too much?

Now that I finally know the color scheme, but I have no money to spend I feel like I'm constantly seeing things I'd love to try out in the apartment.  It may be a while before the entire room is finished, but I'll be sure to share our improvements with you along the way.