Me and My Bucket: January 2010

Sunday, January 31, 2010

Par-Tay Time!!!

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Thursday, January 28, 2010

Tutorial: Framed Book Page Valentines Heart Decor

I honestly have no VALENTINES DECORATIONS, totally sad right? I know. Anyway, I was looking around at my usual blog sites and came across a couple great ideas HERE and HERE, I decided to mix the two together and this is what I came up with:

Super Cute and Super Easy!!!

This is my very first TUTORIAL, so hopefully I don't mess anything up :)

I started out by sanding and spray painting an old frame black. Since I wanted this to be for VALENTINES DAY I chose a red pin dot fabric and cut it 1 inch larger than the cardboard backing of the frame (make sense). My frame hangs, but if you have a frame with the easel that works too, just make sure to cover the side without the easel :) I then cut a piece of thin batting about a 1/2 inch bigger than the cardboard. You don't have to use the batting, I don't think it makes a difference really, i just wanted it to be a little poofy. Using spray adhesive I attached the batting to the cardboard and the fabric to the batting.

Starting with the middle on one side I folded the fabric over to give me a clean edge and then glued it down using my hot glue gun. Then I did the same for the opposite side and then the last 2 sides as well.

I Did the corners by folding the fabric and then gluing down the center and then folding and gluing the side flaps down.

I tore the cover off an old paperback book and cut the rough margin (from the spine) off and then cut the page into 2x2 squares. I printed a heart off using Word and traced it onto fusible interfacing, cut it own and then ironed it down to my fabric covered board.

Now for the FUN part ...

You all remember elementary school and making fabulous creations out of tissue paper and glue? Well, that's what you are going to do here, only with the book pages. I'm not gonna lie, it's rather time consuming, but totally worth it. I started by using white glue, but it wasn't drying fast enough so I switched over to my glue gun. One of those hot glue melting pots would have been FABULOUS to have but I don't have one :( Anyway, I started with the center and worked my way out to the edges. I chose to put mine fairly close together, but you don't have to and it will still look darling.

I'm thinking this could be great for a child's room, just use their initial and maybe some cute scrapbook paper and fabric that coordinates with their bedroom. Or super classy in an entry way with the initial of your last name and maybe a nice damask fabric.. OOH I think I'm going to do that next!!

I'm linked up to the two fabulous Valentine link Parties below ... Check 'em out!!!

Allow me to introduce ...

THE NEW LOVE OF MY LIFE!!!!

For the LONGEST time I've been in extreme need of something to hold all of my ribbon. I was so tired of digging through boxes trying to find what I needed. I've seen ribbon holders at the craft stores but they seemed so ridiculously overpriced nor do they seem to hold very many spools.

My extremely kind and talented dad decided that he would whip this little baby up for me. I think he used 3 (maybe 4) 1x4's, they were around $2 or $3 each at Home Depot. You may want to get something thats maybe 5 or 6 inches, if you have a lot of large spools. But 4 inches does the trick for the standard sizes. Originally he wanted it to be freestanding but with the Bucket crawling around it needed to be on the wall, and this way it takes up less space.

I put the spools on wooden dowels from the craft store, ( less than $1 each) and bought a pack of knobs for a couple bucks. Make sure to get the size knob that will fit on the end of the dowel. Both knobs are removable so its easy to access the empty spool or to add more.

Using his router he made the slots at a diagonal so the dowels are easily removable. I think all together this was around $15, not too shabby for a custom made ribbon holder!! I know that these aren't really detailed instructions, but if anyone would like to make one of these let me know and I can get you some plans :)