Tag: martha stewart

Christmas, Craft Projects, Holiday

Painted Salt Dough Ornaments

Jessica Smith

Remember the salt dough ornaments from Sunday? Well, if not, let me refresh your memory.

BAM!

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Carrie, Amy and I made a bunch of these ornaments at our last craft night of 2012 and I hung a few on my tree right away. I also saved a bunch to paint. And, amazingly, I painted all of them on Tuesday night after work! I guess when no television shows are new it’s much easier to motivate yourself to work on crafts.

I broke out my Martha Stewart metallic silver paint that I used like a crazy person this summer (silver mirrors, silver chests, silver everything!) and a teeny tiny paint brush and started to paint different ornaments. I made three snowflakes out of the silver, adding ribbon to hang them on the tree by. I also painted a few with reds and greens. I painted a lot of ornaments last night.

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I accented this snowflake with red dots using the tip of a small nail head.

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Then I painted this little mitten. So cute!

I’d show more, but they are all gifts for people who might be peeking! You get the idea anyway.

One last thing… if the world ends tomorrow, nice knowing ya! 😉 Happy almost Mayan Apocalypse and happy Thursday.

Craft Projects

Decoupaged clip boards

Jessica Smith

My girlfriends and I got together this weekend for another day of crafting. We planned to do decoupage crafts and decided to try a Martha Stewart-inspired project: Decorative clip boards.

Carrie saw this online and had been wanting to try it for a while now. She had two matching clip boards already, and we picked up two more at the thrift store.

To start, we created templates for the clip board. To make this easier, Carrie and Amy tied their clips open with twisty ties. My clip board didn’t need that because the clip style was different.

Once the templates were created, we cut out the paper of our choosing to cover the board.

Now Amy and Carrie did theirs the right way. In fact, Carrie diligently research how to use Mod Podge before tackling her board. Me… well I just went for it.

I’ve used Mod Podge before with no problems, so I covered my board in a layer of the stuff and slapped my paper on top. WRONG! The paper I chose was really delicate and thin, so it was ridiculously impossible to smooth out any of the bubbles in the paper. So my tray looked like crapola.

I ended up ripping my paper off and opting to cover my board in fabric.

Carrie and Amy stuck with their original plans. Carrie found a tip online suggesting you coat both the surface of your project and the back of the paper with Mod Podge. That seemed to work a little better for this project. I personally think it depends on the thickness of the paper.

Anyway, I got to covering mine with fabric. It was the first time I’d used Mod Podge with fabric and I loved it. With fabric, it is soooo easy to get rid of any imperfections because you can pull the fabric any which way without worry of it ripping. So after I put on a coat of the Podge onto the board, I slapped my fabric on top and got to smoothing. I also folded my fabric around the edges of the board for a nice clean look. Once it was all smooth, I cut away a piece for my clip and put a thin layer of Mod Podge on top.

I had some scraps left over, so I created mini rosettes to embellish my clip board. I’ll do a whole post on those later, but all in all, they were pretty easy to make.

Once my rosettes were dry, I hot glued them to my board. So cute!

If you think my board is cute, then check out Amy’s and Carrie’s boards!

I love their paper choices (courtesy of Paper Source… love that place). Carrie said she will probably hang hers (center and right board) in her kitchen. Amy said she will probably bring hers to work.

Crafts aside, my weekend was so much fun. The hubby and I got to meet our friends’ new baby, Declan.

What a sweet little guy.

Declan and I are pretty much best buds now. And the hubby? Well, he and Jax are best buds.

It was a great weekend with great friends.

Happy Monday!

Craft Projects, Mirrors, Quick and Easy Crafts

Mirror, mirror on the wall

Jessica Smith

A month or so ago I went to a closing sale at a local art store. I bought a bunch of great supplies, including the picture frames that I turned into jewelry displays, a lot of paint brushes, a little end table and a pretty mirror.

The mirror had a vibrant gold frame with a beautiful pattern around the edges. I wasn’t sure if I would leave it that way or not, but I grabbed it before any of my competition could. I have such a hard time passing by pretty mirrors. It might be a disease or something… who knows.

Anyway, my cousin visited a couple of weekends ago (yes, this is related), and she brought the hubby and me a framed print of a photo she took during our first dance. It’s one of Brian’s favorite pictures from our wedding, so when I visited her in March we picked out a silver frame so the hubby and I could hang it up in our room!

Check out this gorgeous photo 🙂

OK, back to the mirror. After we hung the photo up in our room, I had the perfect plan for our mirror. All it needed was a few coats of silver paint, and it would go perfectly in our master bedroom with our wedding photo.

Before I started painting, I taped off the inside of the mirror. I am not that neat of a painter, so that was totally necessary.

Once it was ready to go, I applied a light coat of Martha Stewart’s metallic silver paint — this was the same paint I used to paint silver stripes on my wooden trunk.

I painted the mirror with a sponge brush instead of a paint brush. This helped me avoid uneven brush lines along the frame. It also helped me get the paint into the small parts of the frame.

I let the paint dry overnight, then coated it a second and third time.

So pretty! Doesn’t the frame of the mirror seem to match the color and style of the wedding frame! Wahoo. I love happy coincidences.

The paint dried beautifully, and again I am very happy with Martha’s metallic paint. It’s got the perfect amount of shimmer and sheen to it.

My dog is so cute in my painted mirror. Ha! Caught him red-handed (red-pawed?) eating a rock. Darn dog.

And just for fun… upside down dog in the mirror. Yes, I was having too much fun.

I love the mirror even more in silver, especially looking back at how vibrant the gold is. At the end of the day, I’m a cool-color girl. Silver almost always beats gold.

This quick upgrade to the mirror just proves that sometimes all something needs is a quick coat of paint. Easy peasy.

One last thing…. HAPPY BIRTHDAY EMILY!!!!!

Hope your day was wonderful, baby sister.