Ivy Tower

More Twigs and Twine!!! Let's hope one of my furry babies doesn't destroy this one like they did with my "Let's Stick Together" project. I'm still peeved about that one!

So this was a quick project I stumbled upon. I was actually looking for ways to create an attractive tomato cage. Living in a condo means finding creative ways to have a garden. I came across Carolyn's site DIY tomato cages and then continue on to find her smaller version where she makes it a Mother's Day Centerpiece.Glancing up from my computer I thought my own ivy plant might be in need of an accessory.

My ivy plant... beautiful. The plain old stick in the middle of
the pot... ugly! Plus with my Updated Plant Stand I needed to
complete the entire project. And how perfect is this pot for this
project? It already has twine (or rope) wrapped around it.
A perfect fit!

You don't need many materials for this one! Twigs and twine
that's all, oh and a hot glue gun. I created 4 different stacks of
twigs. The 1st being the longest and then each stack going down
in size from there.

I started by building one "wall" of the tower so I could
be sure my measurements were correct. (You don't
want to make the tower first and then see if it fits in
the pot.) Use your hot glue gun to hold them in place.

Once I had one wall built I found it was easier to build
the other walls with them already inside the pot. The 2nd
wall I built was the opposite wall using my 1st wall as a
reference for where the twigs should be placed. Continue
on with the 3rd and 4th wall.

Next I brought out the twine and wrapped around each of the
joints. I am not a knot expert so I have no idea what you
would call this but I wrapped them in a cross-cross pattern.

Pull your longer pieces of ivy up through the top of the tower
and let some of the shorter ones fall on the lower twigs and
you have an Ivy Tower!

I admit, my ivy does look like it's having a bad hair day but with a few days of sunshine the leaves will flip over and it will figure out its way around the tower.

Animal Coat Rack... for the kids

Need a unique coat rack for your kids? I saw something similar to this on Pinterest several months ago and thought of my nephew. He loves animals so I'm hoping he enjoys this.

The directions for the original website I found are on Apartment Therapy. Unfortunately I had to modify her instructions so there was some trial and error involved.

Find some animals you like. I wish I had found a few more.
As morbid as it seems, use a saw or utility knife and cut
the heads off.

Still think it's not morbid? Unfortunately a new dog sitter came
over to meet my furbabies with these out on my counter. I'm
hoping she didn't call an animal abuse hotline.

I bought a 1x4 board and cut it down to about the size I wanted.
I then sanded, painted.... sanded.... painted until I was happy.
I basically went with a white wash look on the front and then
painted the sides black

Here's the tricky part. Apartment Therapy must have bought
a different kind of toy animal than what I have here. The inside
of these heads were completely hollow. Long story short, I
eventually used some epoxy and glued around the neck of the
animals. TIP: the elephants ears kept pushing his head off the
board. I couldn't sit holding an elephant head to a board for 24
hours so I grabbed a juice cup, stuffed a plastic grocery bag inside,
flipped it over on top of the elephants face and then placed a
large book on top of the glass for extra weight.

And here we are!

Apparently I did a pretty good job arranging the animals
without even knowing. My nephew's fav animal is the
elephant. Front and center!

Pinterest for Dummies

For those of you who haven't made the commitment joined Pinterest yet or even for those who have, the complaint I usually hear when surfing the internet for ideas is you see an image once and then it's lost in good ol' internetland, never to be found again. Of course when Pinterest became popular there wasn't an issue, right? Wrong, how many times have you pinned an image only to go back later and find the link is broken. Boo! Well, here's a helpful tutorial to solve that problem.

I stumbled on this by accident while searching for images on Goggle. My issue is I usually see an image I like, save it to my computer and later on forget why I saved it, where I found it, etc. I discovered Google has an Advanced Search option. http://www.google.com/advanced_image_search Pretty nice, eh? So I did some reading about using their image search and found you can actually search for an image by using that image! Craziness! Who would have thought.

Below are some screen shots and directions.

Go to Google.com and click on the Images tab along the top. The Google Images page will include a camera icon within
the search bar at the far right.

After you click on the camera icon, this box will appear. You can either paste the image directly into the field (Ctrl V) or
you can upload an image you've saved on your computer.

I decided to search for an image I saved. I know I copied the pic from Funky Junk Interiors (awesome blog!!!) but for
purposes of this exercise, we'll pretend I can't remember.

A window will pop open for you to search for the image you've saved, in this case a large # 2 Donna created. This one
was out on my desktop. Click 'Open' once you've selected the correct image

You should see it searching (or the little spinning wheel as some call it) .....

And voila! There's the image along with the correct website! MAGIC!

Here was the information Google Support provided. I did some more research to see if I was absolutely nuts or if other people were struggling with this too. One of my favorite sites, The Graphics Fairy actually has a blog on how to find Pinterest images too. Hope this helps!

Metallic Flower

There's not much of tutorial for this one, it's pretty simple. I used the same technique from my Song Lyrics Artwork, using contact paper and peeling off parts of the design. I used the design from my Skittles watercolor piece. And I also had a piece of sheet metal leftover after my Scrabble Board artwork.

So I already had almost everything I needed. Sheet metal, contact paper and a design. The only item I had to buy was some spray paint.

The contact paper does leave some stickiness when you pull it off the metal. I used some Goo Gone to remove it.

I'm curious to see if I could do a multicolored pieced..... oh, the projects will never end. :)

Removing Wine Labels

No, unfortunately I don't have a new project to show... but I do have a great tip for removing those stubborn wine labels!

Tada!

It still took a little bit a work. Some labels are harder to get off than others but here's the secret.... the next time you're making dinner and using your oven, throw in a few wine bottles after you're done cooking. Let them sit in there for about 10 minutes and the labels will be peal right off... most of them anyway. I used the back off a butter knife to scratch off a few labels. \

After letting some bottles soak in my tub....

.... and still no success, this is the best method I've found so far.

*CAUTION*
Please be careful when doing this. Those bottles get hot fast! I used an oven mitt and a towel and sometimes they were still a little too warm for me to hang on to. Also make sure the bottles are completely empty of any liquid. You don't want to have it boiling up inside a bottle only to pull the bottle out of the oven and pour steaming liquid on your little toes.

And out of about 2 dozen, I did have one that just shattered on me. You should probably wear some eye protection. Luckily I heard this one cracking and set it down before it completely broke in two.

Photo Challenge

10 weeks ago when Jason left for Basic I knew I would miss him like crazy.... but I thought there might be a few things he would miss too. So everyday I took a photo of something that made me think of him... I should say, I took a photo everyday of ONE of the things that made me think of him. We finally got to see each other so I put the finishing touches on the book to give to him.

I had this pic laying around but I'd like to put one of us from
his graduation.

My 1st shot at binding. It was actually pretty fun once I got the
hang of it. Sorry there's no tutorial with this blog. This book came
together in a rush and I wasn't quite sure what or how I was going
to make it.

My stitches need to be tighter but still fun.
I found instructions by watching a video
on youtube.

Pic of the beautiful flowers he sent

Mail from him!

Some of my messages for him

I miss having a glass bottle with him

I miss watching the sunset with him

While he might not admit it I think he misses his little girl

Beach Bath Redo

The bathroom remodeling is done.... almost. I think we're going to put in a new vanity so until we do that I'm going to wait to paint. But with the Beach Table done and a few more pieces finished up it's looking pretty beachy.

I had this old mirror sitting around so I painted it up

Same color on this little shelf

Add assorted beachy knickknacks

I already had these shelves in there but added
some jars, shells, sand and candles.

Next I took a couple of boards and found these 3 cheap
squares which work perfect

Again, I found some odds and ends

And glued them on the squares

I used epoxy to attach them to the boards

I used some fabric to hang it up