Spray-painted Platters

When I was setting up for the writing workshop last week, I went to snag a couple table cloths for the display of author's books and the treats and water. I was also hoping to find some simple and fun platters at the dollar store.

I did not. I found some ugly fall ones instead.

And tacky clear wedding platters....

Hmmmmm....how about some spray paint magic?

Sorry for the sad pictures. It was very late when I finally got around
to fixing these up. That's how I roll.  Very late=crafty time. 

Voila! I spray-painted the bottom of them, leaving the top food safe. I love how they turned out. And although I dig the bright yellow, I'm not sure it was the best choice to go with the food.

Maybe turquoise? Or even just simple white. Well, either way, any color is better than how they started!

Thrifty Thursday{on Friday!}: Spray Painted Teacher Gifts

I finally got around to making my kid's teachers gifts. Yep. I like to put things off until the very last minute so I can do that thing where I run around like crazy all morning trying to get stuff done.  Good times. 

I finished getting these cake stands glued together and spray painted this morning (for more info on making these, check out This Post)

Then I whipped up some oatmeal cinnamon chip cookies. And scurried off to deliver one to the middle school and two to the elementary school.  Wooh.

I think the teachers really liked them.  Yay! My boys had awesome teachers this year. And so I was happy to do something for them to make them smile. 



How-To Tuesday : Deuglifying Jewelry {with Half-Baked Tutorial}

Alright, I'm announcing another theme for my blog. I know.  You're excited, right? RIGHT? (oh, sorry...I probably shouldn't scream at you....ahem....)

I wasn't sure what to go with on Tuesday. I had a lot of different thoughts rambling around in my brain.  I finally settled on (are you holding your breath? because you're so golly darn excited??)...

Wait for it....


How-To Tuesday! 

Woo-hoo! Huzzah! Hooray!

And I like this theme because I can post just about anything.  Like, say...

How-To Scuba Dive (hmmm....I think I'll need  a trip to the carribean to fully understand this topic)
How-To Find More Time for Yourself (this could be a quick post....Hide from your children in the bathroom, am I right moms?)
How-To Get a Messy House Like Me (ooooh, this is a simple one....Have five kids and decide to be a writer and an obsessive crafter!)

Do you see all the possibilities?  Endless, right?

Ok, so my first How-To Tuesday is a wee bit simple.  I mean really really easy.  But, hey, everyone loves an easy project, right?

How-To Deuglify (aka Spray painting) Jewelry

So, I've found some ho-hum jewelry at one of my favorite stores, The Catholic Thrift Shop.....

Except for the stretched out brown bracelet.  That's one I've had for a while...hmmmm....I can't even remember where I got it. But I was thinking of using it in my jewelry upcycling adventure. 

So, what do you think?  Lovely jewelry, right?  Mmmmm, not so much. That pendant is rather scary.  I am definitely not going to be wearing hot pink hoop earrings and those star earrings?  Ack! Boring! But they were a $1! And I felt it was the perfect opportunity to try something out I'd been wanting to for some time.  A cute and funky friend once told me she spray paints her jewelry to match her clothes.  Wow.  That is so brilliant. And so simple. And I would never have thought of it!

Especially since spray paint and I have become rather close lately.  Hmmmm, spray paint.  You are lovely, aren't you?

So, I started by taking the star earrings apart.  And then I played around with them, trying to decide what I wanted to do next.  I was planning on spray painting the star, but I wasn't sure what to add to the earrings.  I wanted them to be dangly.  This was one idea I had (with the thought that I'd paint the stars brown)...

But.  Blech. Not only do I need to add more color to my house, but to my wardrobe, too!  I buy a lot of black and brown. A LOT of it. 

So, then I got thinking it would be cool to add more color to the earrings.  And my, oh, my what do I have that could add more color?  (besides crayons)  YES! Spray paint.  So, I put a bunch of black beads on some wire to keep them seperated, make it easier to flip them and to keep the spray paint from getting into the hole. 

And then I painted them.  This took a few coats.  I just left them on the garage floor and went out to give a coat every little bit as I was cleaning up in the house and making dinner. 

I originally planned on having orange beads in the mix, too.  But for some reason the orange paint didn't stick to the beads very well.

I spray painted the metal stars and strung the beads onto some metal wire, reattached the metal stars and admired my lovely new earrings....

I love them!  These are way better than the originals or what I was first planning on doing! 

Oh. Spray paint.  What can't you do? My love for you continues to grow.  

I wasn't sure what to do with the pendant and hoops though. But decided to go with my favorite color these days....

They're better.  But I'm not sure about that pendant.  I'd like to think of something else to do with it (other than toss it!).  And the chain....I wonder if I could spray paint the chain?  Well, I could, but I wonder how that would hold up? I might just have to add the pendant to a different necklace. 

Well, there you go.  Grab your spray paint and ugly jewelry and go to town!

Linking up here...

Thrifty Thursday: Bright & Funky Spray Painted Vases {with Half-Baked Tutorial}

I love this idea.

LOVE IT!

So, I found glass vases in different sizes and textures at the thrift store, scarfed up a whole ton of them and endured the odd looks from the cashier lady sent to find me a box to cart them away in.

"Why are you buying all these vases?" she asked.

I told her my plan.

"I never would have thought of that," she said. I can't be certain she meant this as a compliment.

Okay, so back at home I threw down my spray painting sheet on the garage floor, whipped out my cans of Kryon, sat my vases (one at a time) upside down in the middle of the sheet and gave 'em about 3-4 thin (letting it dry between coats...you don't want the paint to run down the vase) coats of paint.  For the last coat, I turned the vase right side up and gave it a quick onceover, trying not to get the paint inside the vase just in case I actually want to put flowers in them at some point. (Did you catch that? That was my (kind of) tutorial.

I didn't get them all done in one day. I worked on them here and there. And I wasn't even totally sure I was going to like them.  But then I began lining them up... 

(Warning: There may be too many pictures of my insanely awesome vases.)

(Please ignore the ugly digital box antenae things. Yep. We're a bit old school.)

My boys keep saying, "Mom, those vases are really cool." Awww, they're they best.

Ack! Don't you just love the texture and the colors??!  My favorite is that little robin-egg blue bumpy one.

I've been wanting to add more color to my house and this was the ticket. And best of all it was so cheap! I snapped up these vases for a dollar each, except for the short fat red one on the end. It was a whopping $2.  Not bad for $11, right?

I'm thinking of adding some yellow vases into the mix as well.  Darn.  I guess I'll have to go back to the thrift store...

Linking up here...

Thrifty Thursday:Bright Spray Painted Vases

Alright, here's some randomness to enjoy....

*I forgot how old I was. Yep. As I was talking with my mom about my brother whose birthday was yesterday (Happy Birthday Jeremy!) and we were talking about how old everyone was turning this year...yep. I thought I was a year younger than I am. Wow. Senility is setting in early.

*I cut off some of my eyelashes a week or so ago. Girls, be careful with those eyelash curlers. I'm not exactly sure how mine become defected...maybe it turned on me? It was tired of all that work trying to make my eyelashes lovely? I don't know.

*I'm trying my hand at pitching craft articles for a magazine. And I'm LOVING it! I recieved an email from the Senior Editor about one of them. She thinks it's great and wants to hold onto it to see if there is a place for it in their future line-up. Yay! I just sent in another one last night and it's really really cool! REALLY cool. (boy. I sound humble, don't I?)

*I'm starting something new on my blog.  Every Thursday I'm going to post about a fun, cheap and easy project.  I'm calling it Thrifty Thursday (I know. It's pretty original. Yep. Took me....minutes to think of it.)
So, with out further ado...I give you the first Thrifty Thursday....

So, I picked up these ordinary plastic vases at the dollar store yesterday....

They are pretty ho-hum, right?

But you simply add the magic of spray paint....

I did about 4 coats of the blue. And 3 of the yellow. I wanted them nice and bright...I probably didn't need to do that many coats though.

I let them dry about 10 minutes between each coat (or sometimes less....I'm a bit impatient).

Pop in some flowers (also found at the dollar store)...

Huzzah! Bright and fun vases. I made these in a manner of minutes.

I plan to put this yellow one in Zoe's room. She needs more color in there.  But I didn't take the picture of the vase in there since she also needs a hazmat team to come along and help her clean up a bit.

The blue one will find a home in my living room.  I'm not sure where though....I'm not the best at the whole Home Decor thing. I always have big plans (anyone know how to convince my husband that painting the walls won't be The Worst Project Ever?) but I don't often carry them out. It's just not high on my priority list.

I'm trying to change that though....well, kind of. I still don't have time or really the money for big home decor projects. But cheap and easy projects, now that's what I'm looking for. And these vases definitely fit the bill!

Upcycled Cake Stands (with some FAMOUS Guest Crafters)

 Squee!! I love this idea. Really really LOVE it. This is brilliant. Check out my new cake stand....

(which is holding some yummy Garlic Cheese Biscuits in the picture)

My cute friend, Sundi, posted about this fun idea on our crafty blog, Cheap Cheap Chickadee.  I searched around and found this fun tutorial at Eat Drink Pretty. And then I was at the thrift stores last week and I found this great collection of plates and candlestick holders...

I glued them together with some E6000 and enlisted the help of my Special Guest Crafters J.K. Rowling, Stephanie Meyer, Mette Ivie Harrison, Cornelia Funke, Jessica Day George (and more!) to keep them together.  Luckily these Famous Gals are super strong. Well, they are when they pull their weight together....

But, only one cake held together, the yellow one with the wide bottom. I'm going to have to try using an epoxy for the other two. The ceramic and metal just didn't stick together with the E6000. I'm not sure what I did wrong there. I think I shoud have sanded the metal and ceramic. But I'm just going to try the epoxy next.

So then I flipped it over and spray painted it.

I didn't want to run the risk of the paint running, so I did a lot of thin coats. 

And voila! My new cake stand...

So fun, right?  I made another one this weekend. A red and white one, but I gave it to my sister before I could snap a picture of it all finished and pretty.  Although here it is in production...