American Crafter

Time to {VOTE}

October 14, 2011 6 Comments

Yay!

I am still thrilled that I made it to round 2!

Guess what?!

This Week I am #5 AGAIN!

So click on over and VOTE for #5!

Wahooo!

When I read that this week’s challenge was “House Of Order,” I was super excited because I lately my house has been anything but a “House Of Order…” and this was the perfect motivation to get in gear and create order in my house!

I chose to focus on our laundry room because it needed some serious TLC and now it looks like this:

LOVE!

Ok… here is a peek at the disaster that once was…

To get into our house from the garage, you have to walk through the laundry room.

So walking through that disaster everyday was driving me completely NUTS!

But now I get to walk through this:

It was really hard for me to reach the detergent in the cabinent above the washer, so I decided to use the laundry items I use often as decor!

And what laundry room is complete without Martha’s Stain Removal Guide?!

Print it, frame it, display it!

Of course I HAD to use a few mason jars to hold things like clothes pins and dryer sheets!

Love!

This mirror used to be white, then many years ago, I painted it black and a few days ago, I worked a little magic with some sand paper and…

ended up with this:

Dog food, cat food and treats are neatly stored in their own little jars!

Neat and clean!

Love it!

With a little effort, laundry supplies can be pretty!

Who knew?!

Check out my new drying rack!

… no more clothes laying out in the kitchen to dry!

Yay!

(Here comes the bribery…)

If I make it to Round 3, I will show you how the Hubs made this so you can make one for your laundry room!

It is amazing how a little organization can make a huge difference in the way you feel about your house!

What once was a room that made me cringe is now one of my favorite rooms in our house!

Now it’s time for you to VOTE VOTE VOTE…

#5!

Please?!

I was blown away at last week’s support!

Really, it is amazing!

Thank you all so much!

VOTE!

When it’s organized…

Laundry can be

loads of fun!

Filed Under: American Crafter, Blogging Events, Decorating, My House

BOO {to you} Wreath Tutorial!

October 10, 2011 27 Comments

Thank you to everyone who voted for my BOO {to you} Halloween Wreath in American Crafter Round 1!

I am so amazed at all of the support!

Thank you TONS AND TONS!

The competition is fierce this season!

All of these ladies are super talented!

I am honored to have made it to round 2!

Ok, so, Want to make a BOO {to you} Wreath for your house?!?

Well, today I will show you how!

Yay!

I wanted to use things I already had on hand, so I grabbed a grapevine wreath that was in a closet and some Krylon Primer. I gave it a good coat of primer then a coat of Krylon Metallic Silver.

I had these wooden plaques that I grabbed at Hobby Lobby a while back.

(They go on sale for 50% off often – just fyi!)

I sprayed them with Krylon White.

I also had these wooden balls.

(Ok, I have an entire drawer dedicated to wood items that are just waiting for the perfect project!)

So I gave them a good sprayin’ of Krylon White too!

While the plaques and balls were drying I gathered up my ribbon scraps.

Any of them that were black, white and orange!

See, scraps come in handy!

(yes, there was some ricrac in there as well!)

I began tying the ribbons in knots all around the wreath.

Like this:

I kept tying and tying until the wreath was covered in scrappy goodness:

I had two strips of this fun black and white fabric left over from another project.

They measured about 9 inches x 24 inches.

I laid the fabrics right sides together and stitched down one of the short ends to create one long strip of fabric.

Next I ironed the seam and then folded the long edges in about half an inch then ironed flat.

It should look something like this:

I sloppily (is that a word?!) folded the edges in then laid the wreath in it like this:

Pull the fabric and line to short edges up like this:

My handy dandy Silhouette cut out the “BOO {to you}”

and I applied it onto the large wooden plaque!

Next I took the big square wooden plaque and hot glued one end of ribbon onto the back.

I looped the ribbon around the fabric like this:

Then hot glued the other end of the ribbon to the back of the plaque making sure that it was not twisted because that would not be cute…

I wanted polka dots for the white balls, so I gathered up some left over vinyl and my hole punch.

Then punched out little holes…

And stuck them onto the balls!

How easy is that?!

I used my Silhouette to cut out a vinyl crow and stuck it onto the small wooden plaque then decided to place it on the left bottom side of the wreath.