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May 24

Deck Out My Deck: nail and string art

Since my deck furniture has had a makeover (check out my chairs and side table), it is time to ACCESSORIZE. Yay!

I love spending time outdoors. I love sunshine, blue skies, and fresh air. I wanted to make an accessory to remind me to take a deep breath and enjoy my time outside with my family. I did it with one simple word…. air.

I decided to try my hand (and hammer) at nail and string art… and I love how it turned out.

I started out at my computer. I picked out a font (you can download it here), opened up illustrator and typed “air” with 700 pt letters. Then I dashed the line using 3pt dashes and 20pt gaps. I hit print and had a template. air-01

I got a wooden plaque at the craft store, a box of nails at Lowes and a hammer out of AMGP’s tool box.

before nail and string

Stop. Hammer time.

nailing string art

I ended up not quite using my template exactly, since some of the dots are really close together. I learned to hammer carefully and be sure to only hit one nail at a time. If not, you will bend a nail. And let me tell you, it is hard to pull a nail out of the middle of all the other nails. I had to get a pair of pliers.

all nailed up

Once all my nails were in, I ripped off the paper template and got to stringing. I used size 10 crochet thread. I seemed like the Goldilocks of threads… yarn would be to think, sewing thread would be to thin, and embroidery floss would be too difficult to deal with. I went around the border of the letters first and then filled them with no particular pattern. A couple knots and she was done.

air string and nail art

My nail and string art is just a breath of fresh air, don’t ya think?

- Laura

This post is hanging out at these lovely parties!

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May 22

Weekly Flip Flop Redo: week 10

weekly flip flop redo #10

Flashback to 1989; Chandler, Az. I was in third grade. Every girl was wearing the most *radical* lace-up sandals ever. They consisted of a black plastic sole and long shoe laces… and they came with laces in several different colors. I had to have a pair. HAD TO.

My Dad is a fashion traditionalist. I knew that since he would never let me have a pair of jellies, he would never let me have a pair of lace-up sandals with multiple colored laces. So, I did what every little girl would do. I asked my Granny to buy me the sandals. Lucky for me I was spending a couple days with her while my parents prepared for us to move to California. She picked me up from school and I asked her to take me to the store because I *needed* those shoes. I distinctly remember sitting in her kitchen lacing and re-lacing my new sandals. There may even be a picture somewhere. I loved them. I was going to be the cool new girl at my new school in California.

I wore those sandals to school everyday until my parents got home, and I was wearing them when my parents came to pick me up at Granny’s house. On the way home, my Dad asked to see my new shoes. I passed them forward. Then the unthinkable (and totally predictable) happened.

My Dad threw them out the car window. On the highway. OUT THE WINDOW.

So much for being the cool new girl. Heartbreak.

It turns out that I survived, and even made friends despite my lack of lace-up sandals.

Since the 80′s are back in full force, I decided to re-imagine those lace-up sandals that were going to change my life. This my 10th and perhaps the simplest flip flop redo yet.

I started with a pair of flip flops (electric blue, cuz as I said, the 80s are black) and some radical black and white shoelaces, 1 pair per shoe.

lace up sandal before

I removed the straps from the flip flops and unwrapped the shoelaces. I threaded both shoelaces through the toe hole and tied them together on the bottom side. Then threaded the two ends through the side holes.

lace up sandals

I tried them on and adjusted the straps so they fit correctly. I tied a knot in the long shoelace ends right against the bottom of the flip flop sole. Then I threaded the ends back through the holes.

lace up sandals

To finish up I cut off the ends of the shoelaces that were tied together under my toes. Then I hot glued all the knots in place. But, you could skip that step if you wanted to be able to change out the shoelaces.

lace up sandals

Now that I have a brand new pair of 80′s revival lace-up sandals, I think I can forgive my Dad for the whole throw-shoes-out-the-window thing. I think.

- Laura

This post is hanging out at these lovely parties!

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11 comments

May 20

Paint Dipped Thank You Gift

colorblockhyp-01

Remember last week when I guest posted over at 32turns.com? Just in case you missed it, here is the tutorial for the paint dipped thank you gift I shared with Britany’s readers.

Pinterest. How many crafty tutorials start with, “I saw this pin and…”? Well, this is one of them. I saw this necklace pinned from A Girl Who Makes. I just love the paint-dipped wood beads. They seemed straight forward enough to make, so I picked up some wood beads and gave paint dipping a try.

Now, here is the thing about paint dipped crafts. Nobody actually dips stuff in paint like you would dip a strawberry in chocolate. Instead, they use painter’s tape to create a “paint dipped” look. Go figure. Well, I didn’t actually dip anything in paint either, but I am still going to use the term, “paint dipped”. Okay?

I started out with large wooden beads.

wood beads for paint dipping

And some yellow acrylic paint.

yellow paint

I carefully wrapped some painters tape around the middle of 9 beads.

taped wood bead

I used the tape to make them stand up on my work surface and painted the exposed bead yellow. It took a couple coats.

yellow taped beads

I let them dry, took off the tape… And surprise! Paint-dipped beads. What… you aren’t surprised?

yellow paint dipped beads

My beads looked lovely, but not quite like jewelry. So I thought I would give them some shine with a high-gloss finish. In order to paint all sides of them I suspended them on some wooden skewers stuck into paper cups.

paint dipped high gloss

Two coats of the glossy stuff and I had shiny paint-dipped beads begging to be made into some jewelry. I decided I wanted to make a bracelet out of them, so I got to stringing on stretchy string.

paint dipped beading

One big, fat knot later, and I had a bracelet.

paint dipped bracelet paint dipped arm

Wouldn’t that bracelet make the perfect little gift for that woman in your life? You know the one. She may be your mom (wait, did you forget Mother’s Day?), your sister, your friend, or a teacher. Whoever she is, you owe her a little something to say “thank you”, don’t you?

While I was thinking about giving my paint-dipped wood-bead bracelet to a wonderful lady in my life, I realized I couldn’t just giver her a loose bracelet. It needed some pretty packaging. Actually, gift-wrapping is one of my favorite parts of gift giving – I just love making things a little more special!

I decided that this bracelet would fit perfectly into a pillow box. So I made one out of an up-cycled cereal box. I had never actually made my own pillow box before, so I did a little research. I found an easy tutorial at Lines Across, and got to work. I used a salad plate instead of a CD to draw my curves because I needed a little bigger box… and I dipped it in paint. Okay, no I didn’t. But I did get an amazing paint dipped look!

paint dipped pillow box

Wait, you don’t know how to embroider? Check out my tutorial. Too intimidating? No problem. There are approximately 85 zillion ways you could embellish your paint-dipped pillow box. You could add stenciled or vinyl letters, decoupage, washi tape, ribbon, etc. Or you could just let it be, with all its paint-dipped splendor.

Now, that is a thank-you gift I will be proud to give.

paint dipped set

paint dipped thank you

I hope I have inspired you to give paint-dipping a try!

- Laura

This post is hanging out at these lovely parties!

If you enjoyed this post, please! Thanks!

20 comments

May 17

Deck Out my Deck: mosaic side table

Last week I showed you my amazing red deck chairs, which came together exactly as I had imagined and I LOVE them. Today, I am going to tell you about redoing the mosaic side table that lives between them, which is a very different tale.

Like the chairs the side table was pushing a decade old. There were bits of rust peaking out from the fading black paint. The grout was growing mildew (gotta love the South). A couple tiles were chipped. It needed some love.

mosaic side table

I had a plan. It looked like this. (1) Give all the metal a fresh coat of black spray paint. (2) Cover up the mosiac tile with a layer of cement. (3) Stencil a monogram onto the cement. (4) Seal.

Plan in mind and pre-mixed cement in hand I got to work. I spray painted the legs, and the ring around the mosaic. Since I was going to cover the tile with cement, I didn’t bother to tape it off or cover it up. Most of the tile got painted black…

And I really liked it.

So, I put the cement away for another day. But I still kinda wanted to add a monogram. So I printed out a “k” and cut it out of a file folder with an exacto knife.

stencil mosaic side table

It didn’t work out super well. I dunno if it was the unevenness of the mosaic tile or that my stencil was wonky, but I didn’t quite get clean lines.

stencil mosaic side table

My ‘K’ wasn’t perfect, but it was good enough for me to know that I just didn’t like it. So, I pulled back out the black spray paint and painted the table top black again. And that is how it will stay…. for now.

mosaic side table

Now that my black mosaic side table is hanging out with the red chairs, I am so glad that I kept it simple.

red chairs black table

Actually, I am kinda proud of myself for this one. I am NOT good at keeping things simple. I always complicate things, sometimes to the point that I never finish them. Lesson of the week: K.I.S.S. – Keep It Simple, Stupid.

- Laura

This post is hanging out at these lovely parties!

If you enjoyed this post, please! Thanks!

2 comments

May 15

Weekly Flip Flop Redo: week 9

Mother’s Day has passed and Father’s Day is just around the corner, so it is the perfect time to take a little detour from my closet and redo a pair of MAN-FLOPS.

AMGP isn’t the biggest fan of having things between his toes, but slowly and surely he is coming over to the flip-flop dark side. Even still, I figured if I was going to make him a pair of flip-flops I better make some he will like. So I set out to appeal to his man-sense.

After a ridiculously long search, I found what every man needs.

bottle opener

Bottle openers, that can be conveniently worked into a pair of flip flops. It is really hard to find simple cheap bottle openers. These came from the dollar aisle at Target, and I had to take them apart a bit.

Sadly, I am not the first to make bottle opener flip flops (click here to see some amazing floppies), but these puppies will still be pretty unique, what every man wants, right?

Here is what you need to turn a bottle opener into a beachy pair of bottle-opener flip flops.

bottle opener flip flops

The holes in the bottle opener that I unscrewed from the keychain were pretty small. I could only thread one strand of twine through. So, I used the single strand to tie on all the others I need.

bottle opener

I started by braiding the part that goes in between the man-toes, keeping it together with a piece of painters tape cuz it happened to be lying around.

braid flip flops

Then I tied on the longer strands for the side-straps.

bottle opener tie

I pieced the twine into three sets of six on each side and got braiding.

braid twine

bottle opener twine braid

I gutted my cheap man flops (i.e. cut off the straps) and threaded my twine braids. I played with them until they appropriately fit some man feet and then hot glued the ends to the bottom of the soles as I have done so many times before.

bottle opener flip flops