Thursday, May 31, 2012
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Patriotic Craft Time!
My husband can finally see something come from one of these old windows I've been carting around through the move, hahaha, yay!
I've had this project in mind for a while and I was glad to finally get around to it this weekend! I used all leftover or free materials: Leftover acrylic paint from a painting party for a friend quite a while back (a great idea for a housewarming party for a friend's first place, fyi), a wooden star as a guide shape, leftover tape from garage sale, and a neighbor's old window that they left curbside when they got new ones.
After thorougly cleaning the glass and frame, I started by measuring out stripes.
If anyone knows how to effectively clean "chippy wood" without breaking off the paint chips or soaking the wood so that it swells or needs a long time to dry, please let me know. I may love shabby chic decor, but I am not one of those people who thinks shabby means dirty. I want things to look antiqued, but not dirty. Going into this project, however, I knew that this was destined to hang on a wall outside, so I didn't stress too hard over the dirt that was super-stuck in the cracks of the paint.
Then I taped all the way across. I made sure to start with red paint first and do the white second because I knew if I painted red on the backside of a white stripe by accident, it might show through.
Now if you're doing this project yourself, you might want to invest the dollar into a foam stamp for the star. I just happened to have this wooden shape handy and really didn't want to hike it to the mall (my nearest craft store...yarg mall parking) just for a stamp. So I used this to give me my outlines, then painted them with a brush after that.
Obviously it's pretty important to make sure your first layer of paint is dry before painting the next color. With the acrylic a few times I thought it was dry, went to add a second coat and then accidentally messed up the first, non-dry coat. Woops. That's the great thing about this style, though, streaks are at home.
Let it dry in the near-summer sunshine....
Grand reveal.....
...
...
...
...
Ta-da!
Definitely a little more schoolhouse-style than I was going for, but that's alright, I still like it!
Now to add some hooks to the backside and hang it up outside!
Hope you had room to have some creative fun this weekend, too!
I've had this project in mind for a while and I was glad to finally get around to it this weekend! I used all leftover or free materials: Leftover acrylic paint from a painting party for a friend quite a while back (a great idea for a housewarming party for a friend's first place, fyi), a wooden star as a guide shape, leftover tape from garage sale, and a neighbor's old window that they left curbside when they got new ones.
After thorougly cleaning the glass and frame, I started by measuring out stripes.
If anyone knows how to effectively clean "chippy wood" without breaking off the paint chips or soaking the wood so that it swells or needs a long time to dry, please let me know. I may love shabby chic decor, but I am not one of those people who thinks shabby means dirty. I want things to look antiqued, but not dirty. Going into this project, however, I knew that this was destined to hang on a wall outside, so I didn't stress too hard over the dirt that was super-stuck in the cracks of the paint.
Then I taped all the way across. I made sure to start with red paint first and do the white second because I knew if I painted red on the backside of a white stripe by accident, it might show through.
Now if you're doing this project yourself, you might want to invest the dollar into a foam stamp for the star. I just happened to have this wooden shape handy and really didn't want to hike it to the mall (my nearest craft store...yarg mall parking) just for a stamp. So I used this to give me my outlines, then painted them with a brush after that.
Obviously it's pretty important to make sure your first layer of paint is dry before painting the next color. With the acrylic a few times I thought it was dry, went to add a second coat and then accidentally messed up the first, non-dry coat. Woops. That's the great thing about this style, though, streaks are at home.
Let it dry in the near-summer sunshine....
Grand reveal.....
...
...
...
...
Ta-da!
Definitely a little more schoolhouse-style than I was going for, but that's alright, I still like it!
Now to add some hooks to the backside and hang it up outside!
Hope you had room to have some creative fun this weekend, too!
Monday, May 28, 2012
Our First Big Fundraiser!!!!
many of you know, we've been asking people to donate things to our "adoption rummage sale" for quite a while now. We figured that we'd try to start out with the fundraisers that required the lowest amount of cost or effort from other people, and what could be cheaper than the stuff people were already planning on getting rid of?
I have to say, I was incredibly humbled and am incredibly grateful for this fundraiser. We picked a sunny forecast, which turned out to also be the weekend of the Little League Baseball Parade across the street.
My mom came down to help, which was a huge help! She's so organized! It was also cool because she got to stay with us for a few extra days and she was here for Mothers Day :)
People donated tons of stuff, all throughout the weekend even, and came by to help organize, shop, and offer encouragement. How blessed we are with a beautiful, supportive community!
I was honestly surprised how much little stuff we sold. When I was a kid, the town we lived in was the kind where the "big ticket items" in your ad were the things that brought people out, and a few other people would come by for kids toys etc. Here it's the complete opposite: people come out to buy clothes and little stuff, and all of the mid-sized things were gone by the end, but we had most of the big stuff left. That's great though, because now we can sell it online or use it again in our next yard sale in late summer/early fall. Because with this kind of success, who wouldn't want a repeat?!
I was also very surprised by the success of the bake sale we did at the same time. I had at least 4 pans of cakes or brownies, 3 dozen chocolate chip cookies, 2 dozen oatmeal cookies and 4 dozen cupcakes all out the first day, and had to bake more that night because we ran out!
It was nice to socialize the pups with lots of unknown people at their house. I was proud of how well they did, especially our little scardy-cat Kiwi who actually came out to visit people on her own accord!
So, the results? Drumroll please....
With a garage still full of items for next time, this fundraiser brought our adoption fund up over the $1,000 mark!!! WOO-HOO!!!!
I have to say, I was incredibly humbled and am incredibly grateful for this fundraiser. We picked a sunny forecast, which turned out to also be the weekend of the Little League Baseball Parade across the street.
My mom came down to help, which was a huge help! She's so organized! It was also cool because she got to stay with us for a few extra days and she was here for Mothers Day :)
People donated tons of stuff, all throughout the weekend even, and came by to help organize, shop, and offer encouragement. How blessed we are with a beautiful, supportive community!
I was honestly surprised how much little stuff we sold. When I was a kid, the town we lived in was the kind where the "big ticket items" in your ad were the things that brought people out, and a few other people would come by for kids toys etc. Here it's the complete opposite: people come out to buy clothes and little stuff, and all of the mid-sized things were gone by the end, but we had most of the big stuff left. That's great though, because now we can sell it online or use it again in our next yard sale in late summer/early fall. Because with this kind of success, who wouldn't want a repeat?!
I was also very surprised by the success of the bake sale we did at the same time. I had at least 4 pans of cakes or brownies, 3 dozen chocolate chip cookies, 2 dozen oatmeal cookies and 4 dozen cupcakes all out the first day, and had to bake more that night because we ran out!
It was nice to socialize the pups with lots of unknown people at their house. I was proud of how well they did, especially our little scardy-cat Kiwi who actually came out to visit people on her own accord!
So, the results? Drumroll please....
With a garage still full of items for next time, this fundraiser brought our adoption fund up over the $1,000 mark!!! WOO-HOO!!!!
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