Valentines banner...

Hello Crafty Friends!

Made my first Valentine's banner.  I have been making banners lately for customers and thought I should make one for me. I don't really have much in the way of Valentine decor. (Really, I can't get to my boxes as they are stuffed way back in the closet since our son moved back home until he finishes college...one more year! hehe)

I recently purchased a Sizzix Eclps2 with Bluetooth and Ecal2 software from SVGTools and I am LOVING IT!

I used Scalloped Shapes from SVGCuts and the Curlz font for the letters.  On the solid shapes I learned how to add the dash lines to look like stitches then used my white gel pen and Micro pen to create the stiches.  The arrow was from the shapes library in Ecal2

In addition to using regular solid color cardstock I also used pattern paper Love Story Collection and Me & You Collection (sorry no link for this one, must not be available yet) from TheStampsofLife.

 Now I am off to make a Valentine for my granddaughter.  <3  Maybe even one for my hubby ;)  LOL!  Of course I will share...after Valentines Day.

A quick Happy Holiday sign...

Happy Holiday's Crafty Friends!

Just a quick little share of a fast sign I made for the front porch.  Took me about 20 minutes.  I love quick projects.

I got a wood pallet type sign from Walmart craft section (around $10).  And a floral pick.

Used the dry brushing technique and highlighted around the whole sign in red and then painted Happy Holidays and finished it with a little white dry brushed highlight and added a snowflake and some snow.  Hot glued the floral pick (I split it in two), added a ribbon bow and Voila!

That was fast!  :)

Hope you enjoy this quick little project.  Until next time...

Happy Holidays and Hugs,
Terri

Granddaughter's Halloween Art...

Hello Crafty Friends!

We had our granddaughter up for a visit for a week and just had to do some fun crafty project for her mom and dad.  I had to wait for my husband to have a day off work because this was a 4 handed project.  LOL!  Wish we had another person around to take behind the scenes pics as it was quite comical trying to direct my husband on how and which way to hold the baby while I painted the body parts.  She is quite the wiggler and very ticklish.  A memory we will never forget.

This pumpkin is of her painted butt!  This was the funnest one to make.

Her hands as a bat and feet as candy corn.  In retro spect I should
have done her feet upside down.  Oh well...oops!  hehe!

Going to try to get a Halloween photo shoot in pretty soon.  Need to get out my props...I'm a little afraid of getting into that closet!  Eeeek!  LOL!

Until next time...Happy Crafting!!!

Living room decor...My Style

Hello Crafty Friends!

As most of you know we built a manufactured home up in the country on my husbands family property almost 2 years ago.  It has been a wonderful time for me because I finally (after 30+ years) got to do all the decorating the way I wanted.  

When you walk in the front door you automatically are drawn to the wall of windows that show the beautiful view of Blue Mountain that is our backyard.  I wanted to decorate with this in mind and bring the outdoors in.  I love nature and nature's colors so I had a few ways to go in regards to color choices.  I chose to go with tans, browns, teals, blue gray, amber and creams.  I also added and I love dark bronze metals, cherry wood (not the burgundy red cherry color), and java stained wood.  

Made these picture shelves
to fit this particular size and space.

I chose my couch specifically in a off white tone so that I could change the color accent pieces when ever I chose.  This couch is my very favorite piece!  It is extra wide and deep and filled with foam and down feathers.  So Comfy!!  Great to curl up on and read, look out the window, watch TV and sit in from of the fake fire place.  It does heat the whole room plus some, which was great on the snowy and rainy cold weather we finally got this year.  

Hubby got to pick out one chair and I have to live with ginormous speakers and ugly subwoofer!!  (I absolutely HATE these things!!)  He also took the covers off of them because that makes them look cooler!? UGH!  Oh well, pick my battle right?!  LOL!  Of course his friends think that is soooo cooool...whatever!  ;)  I do like the chair though.  

Hubby did a great job picking out this
chair.  

Can totally do without these speakers (the 80's called and want them back!)
But I love my second hand store lamp finds
with the new shade I got for them.  

UGH!!!
Really cute crochet blanket in the basket I am working
on for the couch though.  Maybe I should use it to
cover this ugly sub woofer...hmmmm???

The fabric on the accent chair gave me an earthy feel.  It reminds me of raindrops and fall leaves.  My sister in law was shopping with us and fell in love with the rug which was a spontaneous purchase after we had picked everything else out and it looks wonderful.  

I found the pillow at a retail store and I have always loved this saying,
LIVE, LAUGH, LOVE and it was the right teal color.

 (That's my wine bar behind the chair, LOVE IT!!!) 

We live in middle of the Mother Lode Wine country!  So this will be filled up in no time.  Literally I can go 30 minutes in any direction and hit a winery.  I custom made the shelves and added the wine glass rack.  Still need some idea on what to put to the right on the floor????

Since the dining area is part of the GREAT room I refurbished this garage sale find table and transformed it into a farmhouse table.  Complete with out initials and a heart engraved into the corner. My favorite piece and biggest accomplishment here so far. You can read more about it HERE. Labor of love!!  I love metal art and these were a great find.  

I am not a fan of captain's chairs, so I purchased 2 fabric covered chairs
that went well with the living room furniture and re-upholstered and chalk painted
the other four.  

I have done a lot of refurbishing of some of our old furniture for this house but still need items like coffee table (if I can fit one in there).  When the kids all come home everyone plops on the floor so not sure if I want one.  I really like the cut log look natural style.  

Definitely need end tables with storage and would like a long bench for under the window.  Some bigger paintings for the walls.  This house has lot's of big walls.  Someday I would like a really nice built in looking entertainment center (then I can move the fireplace to our master bedroom).  I have loads of movie memorabilia and Disney snow globe collection I would love to display.  

Love these rustic style pieces I found at Arhaus.com.  Especially the brown wood entertainment center...WOW!!  <3

Check out these pieces at Arhaus.com!

We've had our eye on these end tables I found at Wayfair.com

Well I hope you enjoyed the little tour of our great room decor and style.  

Until next time...

Hugs,

     Terri

Adventures in Chalk Painting with Waverly...

Hello Crafty Friends...

Well I finally got around to trying out Waverly's Chalk paint that Walmart is carrying.  I didn't get Waverly's brand of waxes though.  I have Annie Sloan Wax clear and dark, so I just used those.  No sense spending more money right?!  :)

Today I thought I would try it on a wood chair.  I've had this chair forever and when we moved I didn't get rid of it.  It was in definite need of renovating, so it was the perfect candidate.

First I sanded down all the paint splatters so I had a smooth surface.  I didn't go all crazy sandy, just enough to knock off the high spots and a little of the varnish.  Then wiped it down really well with a damp cloth.  Then applied one coat of Waverly's Chalk Paint in Truffle.  It only took a little less than half the bottle to cover the whole chair (even underneath the seat).  It has the consistency of chocolate putting and went on nicely.  I wanted a brown color for this chair to be an extra chair for the Farmhouse Table I made.  (You can find that post here.) The paint had more of a grayish brown color when dried.

It was a little more grayish/brown than
the pic shows.

I applied a coat of Annie Sloan clear wax using a t-shirt instead of my wax brush.  It was easier to get in between the spindles.  Let dry for about an hour and then applied dark wax.  Rubbed it down really well with a t-shirt then used my drill motor with buffing brush (best tool ever!!) and then went over it with a shoe shine brush.  The wax after being buffed was still a little streaky so I wadded up some paper towels and rubbed down one more time and it rubbed right out.

On a side note:  My intention wasn't to have a distressed look on this chair.  I wanted it to be a solid brown.  Wellllll....thanks to my drill motor bumping some of the sides and scraping off some of the paint, it became an accidental victim of distressing.  Oops!  LOL!!  So it had a few more accidents (intentional bumps) and made it look symmetrical (sort of).  I think it still looks great.  :)

Here is the finished product...

The Annie Sloan Dark wax really browned
it up to the color I wanted.

I also got Waverly's Chalk Paint in Rhubarb and Peacock.  Going to paint some Ball jars and see how it holds up.  Making vases for centerpieces for a wedding.  I'll let you know how that goes when I get them done.  :)

Until next time...

Custom Picture shelves...

Hello Crafty Friends!

Today I will share how I made these picture shelves.  I couldn't find any pre-made to the size specs I wanted for this wall, so I did some research on Pinterest and came across this tutorial at Viva Cindy Blog.  Literally, we have the same exact story!!  LOL!

So here it goes:

The blank wall!

The supplies!  Oops, forgot to fill in the nail
holes.  Couldn't tell anyways.  LOL!
The can of GF top coat was
empty (how did that happen??)
I used Minwax's spray polyurethane satin.
Lowe's cut all the wood to size for me (30")
2- 1x4 pieces and 1- 1x2 piece for each shelf.

Glued in between with good 'ole Elmer's wood glue.

Since I wasn't using power tools and was home alone, I used
a piece of scrap to hold in place while I nailed together.

Ta Daa!!
1 down and 4 to go.  :)

All ready to sand.

Stained with one coat of GF Java Gel.
Then out to get sprayed.

I used black wood screws and went into the studs.  They
were not exactly centered on this wall (surprise, surprise),
but you can't tell because there are pics in front of
them.  ;)

That's it!  Now I am off to work on the craft room.  Got one piece started.  I'll share that soon.  It will be a work in progress.  I sure miss my old craft room at the old house.  I'm sure this one will be just as fabulous!  Yay!!

Until next time...

Sprucing up an old wreath for spring!

Hello Crafty Friends!

Tell me it isn't so?!?!  I really haven't blogged since October???!!!!  WHAT!!!

I know I have shared some stuff over on my facebook page, but hadn't realized I haven't posted anything here.

Well one of the reasons I know of is that we moved!!  So my craft studio has been boxed up for months and months.  I am still in the process of designing my new craft studio/office but haven't settled on a plan as of yet.  It's getting there though.  I did start unpacking some stuff though to keep me busy.  I want to unpack it all though.  :)

Well to get back in the swing of things I will share my first crafty project in a while.  My front door wreath was looking absolutely BLAH!!!  So I thought I would spruce it up by adding a few flowers to freshen it up for Spring.  I don't think it turned out half bad.

Now to tackle some birthday cards for my girls.  It's birthday month!!!  :)