Dia de Los Muertos the Halloween Edition

Halloween has been Emily’s number one holiday since birth and when we lived together in Savannah, her love for all things spooky was simply intoxicating. Luckily, this year we were able to spend the weekend together in Massachusetts. Knowing that we would be together on such a special holiday, we got to planning our costumes and decided to go with Day of the Dead.

Supplies:

Face paint – white, black, red and blue

Powder makeup – white and black

Black eyeliner

Loose glitter – optional

Self-sticking jewels

Flowers

Bobby pins

To start, I picked up some (on sale!) flowers at Michaels and glued them to some pretty hefty bobby pins for my hair.

As you can see I glued the pins to the leaves first.

Then I glued the leaves to the flowers.

Extreme close up! Emily thought it was necessary to get a picture sans makeup.

On the white makeup goes!

Putting on the black makeup.

Lining my eyebrows.

Filling them in with blue to match my flowers.

I decided to go with the red lips lined in black.

All complete!

Emily putting the final touches on her makeup. As you can see, she decided to do some red right around the eyes and went with the full black lips.

Ready to explore all that Salem has to offer! Witches, ghouls and goblins, here we come.

Two girls in Witch City

Uh oh! We got caught practicing witchcraft!

–Heather and Emily Jo

Porcelain Paint

To stick with the simple theme of the week, I decided to decorate some boring white coffee mugs with a little bit of paint. I had seen an example of this on Pinterest.com(which, is a very addicting site if you don’t already have an account there) and wanted to try it out for myself. In the end, the mugs look like they took a lot of time and creativity, when in reality the entire project took me less than 45 minutes – for all three mugs!

Supplies:

Porcelain paint

Mugs

I wanted to stop by our local Salvation Army store to see what sort of mugs they had there(I had envisioned doctoring up cheesy mug designs with my own designs), but decided instead to do a little shopping in our own cabinets. I came across these simple Pottery Barn mugs just begging for some sketchy drawings.

I picked up silver and black paint at Michael’s and got to work. These are actually very easy to draw with straight from the bottle, so skip the paint brushes.

Here are some abstracted tree designs on my first mug. You can see that the paint comes out a bit like puff paint. 

Ta-dah! Three revamped mugs! I started out with the trees(painting them upside down on purpose, deciding to stick to that theme through all three) and then moved onto the linear mountains and finished up with the nesting dolls. 

Once these have dried for 24 hours, I just have to stick them in the oven at 350 degrees for 35 minutes and they will be dishwasher and microwave safe.

–Heather

Friendly Fridge Ghost

This 2 minute project is perfect for this time of year! So easy it’s scary!

Supplies:

White Refrigerator

Black Construction Paper

Scissors

Tape

First, clear off the front of your fridge. Next, cut eyes and a mouth for your ghost. Last, tape it to your fridge! Such a simple, creative, and cute way to add some Halloween to your Home. This could be a good project for the kids too.

This ghost fridge will definitely keep all of your Boooooze cold!

–Emily Jo

Solid Perfume

This blog post is dedicated to my friend Nicole. We’ve been friends since elementary school and I grew up in a house right behind that school, so needless to say, we spent many hours playing on the playground. One day we realized that after we had buried ourselves in the sand, our skin was magically softer. So naturally we took some home in a sock, whipped up a concoction using the sand and every bath product in the bathroom, slathered it all over our faces and named it “Purple Chester.” This solid perfume project has the potential for lots of creativity and definitely brought me back to the 4th grade beauty professional in me.

Supplies:

Empty container – the recipe I went off of used a cute locket

Beeswax

Essential oil(s) of your choosing – I used sweet orange and a tiny bit of lavender

Coconut or Jojoba oil

Optional: Eyedropper – it was helpful but not necessary

To begin, I finished off the last of my Rosebud Salve so I could use the container.

Next I decided I would forget what was in the container if I left it as is, so I slapped a sloppy coat of white paint on it.

I left the roses on the side because they’re pretty!

Then I found this bee hanging out in my room, he must have known I was using some of his hard earned beeswax. Sorry buddy!

So here is where the concocting starts. I found a recipe online and doubled it because I had the supplies and thought my container could hold more(in the end it turned out I probably should have quadrupled the recipe).

1 heaping tsp of beeswax

3 tsp of coconut or jojoba oil

55 drops of essential oil

Although the ingredients are shown separate above, I ended up combining them all and microwaving them for about 45 seconds, or until all melted.

Then pour into your container and let cool completely – which took about 20 minutes.

Now to decorate! I added a little chevron pattern with a permanent marker.

Then added some red-orange lines and dots.

And some green lines and dots. This little container makes carrying a perfume around much easier and will become a staple in my purse.

–Heather

Glitter Shoes

This project was so much fun, and I’m so happy with the outcome! I was skeptical at first, but this is an easy, cheap, brilliant, way to update that pair of shoes you no longer wear.

These toe-less ankle boots had been sitting at the bottom of my closet for over a year now. I have only worn them once, and they were the perfect guinea pigs for this experimental project.

Supplies:

Pair of Shoes

Glitter

Tacky Glue

Spray Adhesive

Paintbrush

Once you have your pair of choice, stuff plastic bags into any openings you do not want to get sticky or glitter-ified. (If you are doing a pair of heels or flats, this would be the whole inside opening where your foot would go)

Next I said good-bye to my shoes, no turning back now. Pour some tacky glue onto your shoe and turn it into a thing layer using your paintbrush.

Glitter time! (I can’t remember the last time I’ve used glitter in a project, possibly elementary school. But let me tell you… reunited and it feels so good.)

Continue to put layers of glue onto your shoe and glitter on top until you have covered a large area.

Gently pat the glitter down so it really sticks to the glue.

When I started the other shoe, I was getting impatient so I covered large areas with the tacky glue. This actually worked just fine, and went much quicker.  

Continue to dispense your glue, paintbrush it thin and right up to the edges of the sole, and sprinkle your glitter.

This is what I have to deal with when I’m trying to do anything that isn’t feeding, petting, or cuddling Molly.

I expected this project to take a lot of glitter, but it really didn’t at all! This was a brand new container and I barely made a dent in it. So you don’t need to purchase very much at all.

Once I felt that I had covered every part of the shoe with glitter, I used a dry paintbrush to dust away any glitter specs that were on an area I didn’t want any on. (Molly was entranced by the glitter)

Take your spray adhesive and put a thin coat onto your shoes. 

IMPORTANT: make sure you are a good distance away (like a foot or more) from your shoes when you spray. If you are too close it gobs up on the glitter and makes it not sparkly anymore. I had to re-do a section because of this.

These bad boys took forever to dry. I sat them in front of a fan to speed up the process, rotating them every 20 minutes.

Love!

I can’t wait to wear these!

I love the way these turned out! 

I’m all ready thinking of other pairs I can do this to, with other glitter colors.

–Emily Jo

One Night Stand

So I found this night stand at a garage sale a few months ago for a few dollars. I knew I wanted to paint it, and this weekend I finally got around to it. This is a really simple way to paint furniture, anyone can do this!

Supplies:

Piece of desired wooden furniture

Sand Paper

Paint (Acrylic, Spray Paint, Wall Paint..all works)

Masking Tape

Optional: Fabric, Modge Podge (or white glue/water combo)

First sand down your item. This will take the finish off of it so it will absorb the paint. (That’s Why mine looks so dusty) Dust off all the little dust pieces the sandpaper leaves behind.

Next step..Paint! I used leftover wall paint. Make sure to get under your item and in all the nooks and crannies.

I decided I needed some more color, so I masking taped off the tabletop and used some gold metallic spray I found 

in my paint drawer. I sprayed the fronts of the drawers as well.

I had some scrap fabric lying around…

So I used Heather’s tutorial on fabric lined drawers to line my drawers!

And here is where I will be keeping my underwear now!

Not bad for a few bucks.

–Emily Jo

Mini Collages

So collages and I have been going steady since high school when I was assigned a “found object” self-portrait. Working with “non-traditional” mediums or mixing “traditional” mediums made me focus less on precision and more on the content of whatever I was making – pushing me towards a much more conceptual style. For this project I had two small (6″x6″) wooden canvasses that have been sitting in my room since spring. These two were originally part of a set of six, but four were used in a Father’s Day gift, so these little babies have been left art-less for a while. It hit me last night what I needed to use these for – a “night” collage and a “day” collage. 

Supplies:

Two canvasses

Magazines

Scissors

Ruler

Rubber cement

So here we are, my magazines, canvasses and two piles of images, one for each. 

So after scouring my magazine collection for the best images, I got to work measuring out 2″x2″ squares. At this point I wasn’t quite sure where I was going to take this project, but I just went with it.

All squares cut out (I needed 21 for each canvas but cut more for insurance) and separated into their respective piles.

Next I decided since I had some extras, I’d test out cutting them into triangles, after which I was convinced that all of the squares needed to be triangles. Having graduated from art school I immediately came up with a conceptual reason to back this decision up – it adds to the yin and yang feel of the project; day/night, light/dark etc.

Before you begin, make sure that your supervisor (in this instance, our cat, Mr. Wizard) is in place and attentive. He was getting a bit jealous of Molly’s prominence on the blog.

Once everyone was in place I brushed a coat of rubber cement over the whole canvas and let dry. What I learned after completing the first one was that you should really just coat the side you are working on because by the time you get to the last side, it’s too dry to stick to.

Then I just started lining those triangles up. At first I didn’t have a specified layout, but then I realized that undermines the integrity of the collage and worked out a composition that enhanced the concept. 

I also collaged the sides of the canvas.

Here’s a top view of the finished collages.

Here they are up on a wall.

And here is where they will hang for at least a little while.

–Heather

Fabric Lined Drawer

This armoire has taken on many forms and functions – from dark stained china cabinet, to its newest iteration as white lacquered clothes storage. I had given minimal thought to how to line the drawer – using old christmas wrapping paper as a placeholder until a better idea came along. I finally found my inspiration in a flowery fabric table cloth that was out of commission due to paint stains and holes.

Supplies:

Large piece of fabric

Mod Podge – or any other white glue

Ruler

Triangle

Water

Large paintbrush

Clear gloss spray paint

First I cleaned out the mess of scarves, bathing suits and belts that I use the drawer for.

 

Next I wiped the drawer down to make sure that the fabric has a clean surface to cling to and doesn’t bubble up in any spots.

Next I measured the dimensions of the base and the sides.

Then I drew the dimensions out on my fabric so that it comes out as one cohesive piece. And as they say “measure twice, cut once,” which of course I forgot and ended up having to cut a second piece. Luckily the tablecloth was big enough to accommodate my mistake. Also, if you want a uniform pattern, center your measurements on the fabric.

Now here is where the fun begins, I watered down Mod Podge (I’m sure any sort of white glue would work in this situation, just as long as it dries clear) and soaked the fabric until it was all saturated.

Amazing that it all fit into that small container!

Next I laid the fabric over my drawer and used my trusty triangle to smooth the fabric into all of the corners. This part took the longest, just to make sure all of the air bubbles were smoothed out and the pattern was relatively even.

I let the fabric bleed over the edge so that it is seen on the sides when the drawer is pulled out, but I double checked to make sure the drawer could accommodate the extra fabric while still sliding in and out. Once the fabric was all down and where I wanted it, I slathered a thicker coat of Mod Podge all over to secure all of the edges. I then let it dry overnight and sprayed a light coat of clear gloss sealer to combat any tackiness left from the glue.

Et voila! Installed and ready for filling.

One thing to consider if you decide to take this project on – the wood shows through a bit under the white fabric, so if you want a bolder look go with a fabric with a colored base to it.

— Heather

Framed Necklace Holder

I started making jewelry last month and I haven’t decided what to do with it yet. So until I decide where/how to sell it, I have all these necklaces laying around. Hence, the idea for this project:

Supplies:

Wooden Frame

Branches

Hot Glue or Super Glue

Acrylic Paint

Bar of Soap

Sandpaper

I found this framed mirror at the dollar store, and found these branches on my lawn. The total cost of this project for me was $1.00… which is a perfect price for a starving artist like me. (Note my cat, Molly Clyde, scoping out the situation)

Popped out the mirror from the frame, and I painted my undercoat of light peach. This is going to be the color that shows through in certain spots to give your frame an older/weathered look.

After your undercoat dries, take a bar of soap, (I just used the cheap, white, dial soap) and rub it onto a few spots on your frame. I noticed the more I rubbed, where little chunks of soap even came off onto the frame…the better it looked in the end. Now put your top coat on, I chose a light blue.

Once your top coat dries, take your sand paper and sand the spots where you had rubbed your soap. Your top layer of paint will scratch away, showing your undercoat of paint.

Fake vintage…I dig it.

Now go glue your branches to the back of your frame…

and display all your pretty necklaces and bracelets!

—Emily Jo

A different kind of vase

I have an on going problem with my dear, sweet, kitty cat. She eats any plant that I try to keep in my house. She’ll seek them out on top of my fireplace, dresser, coffee table, refrigerator…you name it and she’ll jump up there to nibble on the leaves. So I have finally come up with a spot that she will not be able to reach.  This wall vase is very easy to make, super cheap, and definitely one of a kind.

Supplies:

Scrap Wood

Glass Jar

1/16″ Diameter Wire

House Paint or Acrylic Paint

2 Nails

Take a piece of old wood and paint it any color desired. This project would even look nice keeping the wood natural. 

I just put one coat of white paint onto mine. I liked the way the wood still was able to show through, giving it an older, vintage look. 

Hammer 2 nails into the wood where you want your vase to sit. It’s important to take whatever jar you are using, (I used an old pasta sauce jar) and measure the width of the lip. This is how far apart you want your nails to be.

Wrap a long piece of wire around one of the nails a few times.  Make sure you cut your wire longer then you would think. It has to wrap around each nail multiple times, then around your jar 3 or 4 times. ( I cut my first one too short, so learn from my mistakes please.) Then slide your beads onto the open end.

Wrap your wire around your jar, then around the other nail.

Then Hang and admire your thrifty, wall art/vase.

Ta-Da!

I painted some subtle circles on the other plank of wood, I contemplated putting a mirror on that side, but I kind of like it plain.

“I MUST find a way to eat those flowers!”

—Emily Jo