Sunshine on a bottle

While waiting for some letters to dry I thought I'd share this little Easter treat with you.
I've been wanting to try the Staz-on ink pad on glass, and when I found these yellow bottles/vases at IKEA (on sale!!), the time was right. For 10 kronor I certainly can afford to fail.
I think it turned out nice though. The letters spruced up the plain vases and made them noticeable.  :) Would have been even better with some traditional swedish Easter twigs in them, as I imagined it. But with all the snow we got today, there's no way I'm gonna find that tonight.
Mr & mrs Goose will cover for the twigs on this photo... 

 

Now - back to finishing those letters!

DIY glitter votives

I had 10 minuters to spare the other night, wich turned out to be just the time needed to make these glitter votives.

Before - a simple IKEA votive in clear glass, and after - a luxurious goldshimmering eye catcher.

Vintage cake stand

Just a few days before christmas I came up with the idea of making three tier cake stands as christmas gifts for my family. Great idea!
NOT so great that I decided this a bit late.... However, a quick raid to the thrift shop and a browse on the internet later I luckily had all the parts needed AND a drilling-willing husband (noo, I did not find him online :P), so I made it in time for christmas. Just in time I might add.
I didn't have time, however, to take pictures.  Ja okey, I forgot. There were more important things to focus on right then and there. :)

I've later corrected my mistake, so out of the four cake stands I've managed to photograph three. Tadaa!

The one I kept for myself. Picture's from christmas eve and we've filled it with homemade candy. Yummy! You can't see it here of course, but it's green-ish and top and bottom tiers have similar empire? baroque? OLD depictions that ties it together nicely. 



Cake stand #2, for my mother-in-law. Pale green and pink flowers for this one. The openwork saucer on top is  the icing on this cake.

 

The third one I gave to my mother. It has brighter flowers and gold lining, although the top bowl is more of a bold border.

 

 

I think I may have to make some more of these, as soon as I have time to shop for more vintage plates. It was FUN!

 

Daycare christmas gifts 2012

Guess what we gave this year. :)

I found these tiny boxes in my stash. With a stamp, a few punched out snowflakes and a christmasy tape, they turned out super cute. 

Added a gem too. There's always room for bling. :)

So, if you guessed bracelets, you were right! :) Not too hard to guess was it?

Collection II

Ok, so I've deleted my previous post. Here are the correct pictures :) Maybe a sign that I have too many bracelets, since I can't keep track of them even in photos.

Anyhow. All of these are made in the same way, with double cord and pearls threaded in between.

First, two blue toned summerish bracelets. I even enhanced the beach feeling by using a nautical button and leaving the ends a bit longer on the top one.

 Same bracelets, only the back...hm. Front side? Top? Ah. The other side.

 This is it! The origin of my obsession and the reason why I fill post after post with bracelets. :) I made this a little while ago during craft night at church. I'd read something about making bracelets like these somewhere online, and thought I'd have a go at it. I couldn't remember exactly how to do so I just tried a few ideas and went with what looked most right.
I had so much fun that night though, chatting along with my friends, that I accidently made it too big for me. Oops!

Luckily it fitted hubby like a glove, and I had to make some more that would fit me. :) So this is why.

(and btw, I had made a few itty-bitty mistakes with it so I re-threaded it later)

 This one is all mine! A double wrapped model in soft multicolor. I like the mixture with clear/opaque/matt/shiny beads in an irregular pattern.

This is a tiny one. Too small even to fit my boys, it now adorns the wrist of little Molly. She's happy. I'm happy. :)

Collection I

Last week I was a busy little bee, teaching others how to make bracelets. I had soo much fun, thank you all who joined me.
Here's a small selection of my rapidly growing collection, but there's more to come :)

Pebbles & pearls

More bracelets. Lovin' it.

Twisted minds makes twisted twines

This is turning into an obsession! I soon turn every twine I see into bracelets ...and I see twine everywhere. Few days ago my eyes landed upon this pack of christmas twine, and my brain immediatley thought of bracelets.

Worked out pretty well don't you think? :) It's the top bracelet that used to be christmas twine, the other two just tagged along for the ride. Btw, the red hearts on the lower one comes from a garland of multicolored hearts and gold beads that I found at another christmas display, years ago. VERY useful, that one.

@ work

Just a snapshot from my "dayjob", feeling christmasy. :)

Signs of love



There are so many things to try out there! One of the things would be this, Aged wood signs. A LOT of work, but with truly rewarding result, don't you think? Who would guess these plank pieces started out looking brand new?? Not me. :)

 



The process includes using power tools (yay!), sandpaper, rusty nails, saw, steel wool, vinegar and paint. Oddest combo so far.

 

Making the wood look and and distressed takes time, but I think the most time-consuming part is cutting the stencils....Oh I wish santa will send me a digital diecut gizmo!

 



Since stencilmaking isn't the most fun part I just combined the stencils I made to make different messages. That works. :)

 



For this last one, I used both masking and stencils in multiple layers.

Time-consuming or not, I need to make more!

 

 

I also made a few paintings with a curtain for canvas, they'll be up here soon.

Knots & beads

Just a quick note today to share with you my latest addictive findings.

I'm totally hooked!

 

In just a few minutes ...hm, atleast it FEELS like minutes, but I suddenly realised I'd been making bracelets into the dead of night... Naja, I'm sticking to it! In a very short time you can make a whole bunch of these übercute knotted darlings.

 

Originally, this was a DIY-kit for four bracelets from Panduro. Anyone who knows me would say it's soo typically me to not go by the book, so of course I've made a few minor changes.

I found some pearls and another centerpiece for the top bracelet in my box of treasures and put together a pattern of my own. Being a novice at jewelrymaking, I followed the knotting instructions to a T though. Quick, easy and fun fun FUN. And I still have stuff left from the kit to make atleast one more, yay!

 

I also made these. Actually, I started making the Green Goblin at craft night at church but didn't have time to finish it then. Now I've re-knotted it and added some silver pearls and the skull, leftovers from the Panduro-kit.

 

It was just enough string left to make the second one, wich is a washer covered with a pretty paper and lots of Glossy Accent, tied up with a single string.

 

 

 



Teacher appreciation, wrap it up.

 All dressed up and ready to go.

I made similar cards for all four teachers, two in each style.

 

The inside is identical however. That is, apart from the class name.

 



 If you are the best teacher in the world it gotta show, right? I made them these to wear, with safety pins in the back.

Teacher appreciation, part A

Last, but not least. Here it's a handwritten letter-style background, to wich I added more confusion - I mean depth - by masking with numbers and glimmer mist. Sadly all that sparkle won't show up in this photo.

A for Agneta.

To me the background resembled a somewhat stormy summer sky so I went with that feeling and added some clouds and birds also. The minimini tag tagged along here too. ;)

What's better for a windy day than flying a kite? It's made from newpaper paper from the E, and this too sparkles....

Down on the ground is where hearts and roses grow.

words to live by

The last few weeks I've been busy with a new project: making a painting for the conservatory. I knew I wanted it to be reclaimed wood and a quote of some sort, but I didn't know it would involve that many steps! I'm pretty pleased that it's finally done. Pleased with the result also. ;)

 Like I said, I took scrap pieces of wood (some green, some white and some raw) and lined them up in some sort of disorderly order, and had my hubby help me screw them together. It ended up almost 170 cm long.
Then the hard work began.

To make the wood look really old and shabby I sanded, brushed with a wire brush and stained with a very strange and kinda nasty smelling concoction of steel wool, white vinegar and coffee grounds (wich by the way gave exactly the worn look I was after, great!!).

When it looked aged enough, I covered it with a thin layer of white paint, and once dry I started over from the top: sanding, brushing and staining. And some more sanding. Pew.

Finally time for the quote! I printed out the "enjoy life" and cut each letter out to make a stencil. For the rest of the quote I traced letters from another stencil and then filled every letter by hand with an itty-bitty brush... wich is, by the way, not the very best thing to do on the hottest summer day this year. I believe the paint dried already on the brush...

Then I sanded again.

I did it, and I like it! :)



 I also made two mini-paintings with parts of the stencil, one joy

...and one life.

I had a lot of fun making these and I'll be making more, soon.

Enjoy life!

Orange/coconut scrub

Here's some more sugar scrub. :) This batch I was asked by a friend to make. She wanted some teacher appreciation gifts with a summer feeling, so we decided to go with orange/coconut scent. I replaced some of the sugar with coconut flakes and added a little coconut oil to enhance the aroma. The rest is business as usual: olive oil, sugar and orange peel.

Fot a hot vibrant summer feel I went with orange/yellow colors. I believe my friend also added orange scrub gloves to make a nice little kit.

Inside the tag I left instructions on how to use the scrub, aswell as a list of contents.  Small transparent flower beads in the end of the ribbon makes it extra sweet.