Art Table

I got this table from Ikea for the little one for Christmas this year.

I had seen a similar one at a friend's house and thought it would be perfect. It is just the right size for her and the table top and chair seats are dry erase board! But it was ugly boring, so I spray painted it. This was my first experience with spray paint and I wasn't that impressed. It felt like it took forever. Sand, paint, dry, sand again, paint again...you get the picture. Maybe I should have used a primer or maybe it was the cheap Ikea wood but the paint didn't want to stick in some places. I even ended up using acrylic paint with a coat of Mod Podge over it in a few places. Oh well, it turned out cute. 

Close up of butterfly detail on chairs.

Cardboard Box Oven...FINALLY!

So I know that I promised pictures of this several days ago...but it was a holiday week, cut me some slack. No more waiting, here it is! Drum roll please....

*Please disregard the kitty in the oven. We got her some pots and pans today so hopefully no more "exotic" foods :)*

LOVE IT!!!! Not just me, the little one loves it too! Would you like a few close ups of the awesomeness that is my creation (I know, I can't take full credit for it...but mine is cooler!).

Notice how the handle for the door sticks out??? That is a hanger that I manged to wiggle through two holes. What good is a handle if you can't hang a towel from it?! I didn't think I had enough paint and wanted an easy solution I wanted to add some variety with cute scrapbook paper, so I Mod Podged some to the sides...and drawer...and top where the knobs go 

Before bedtime, she managed to pull the "burners" off (nice work hot glue...you're fired). So I plan on painting silver circles where they would go and then adding the black spirals for the burner. Try ripping that off, missy!

More Mod Podge to create "contact paper"

Since I've never seen an oven with a brown inside, I painted hers silver.

Like the cooling oven rack. This is where I spent a whole $1 for the entire thing. Everything else I already had on hand.

Oh, and the knobs turn.

White Elephant Gifts

Last year at one of the white elephant exchanges we attended, we ended up with these ugly ties.

My older sister and I came up with an idea to make them even better! What did I do to them? Made them 3D!

Yep, those are golf tees and pompoms glued to the ties. :)

.

My family has an obsession with Tab soda. We (my family) often include cans of Tab in with gifts we give each other, as a gag gift. Recently, some members of the family have started making Tab creations. For example, my older sister made a pound cake that she covered with a Tab flavored glaze. Zach came up with this idea for our white elephant exchange this year.

 It is a Tab cooler (with original Tab soda can on top, to give you an idea of how large it is). He took sheets of styrofoam and cut them into circles (about 10" in diameter) and glued them together with a hole in the middle to store the Tab. I had the privilege of painting this giant styrofoam creation to look like a can of Tab. We were quite pleased with how it turned out and the family really seemed to enjoy it.

Christmas Crafts

Here are the crafts that I made as gifts for people this year. To start us off is this framed wreath I made for my sister. I was inspired by this idea from The Happy Homebody. I was originally planning on making a wreath from terra cotta pots and using the little styrofoam apples as accents but the more I worked on it the less I liked it and then I came up with this idea. It matches the decor of her kitchen (red & apples). I loved it and so did she!

Then, for my in-laws I decorated these flameless candles. She loves candles and he blows them out so I thought this would be a good compromise. The images are threaded onto the ribbon so they can slide off the candles if they want to leave them up throughout the year. The nice thing about this idea? It's the gift that I can keep on giving! What am I talking about? I happened to write down the size of the candles so I can make more sleeves for them for other holidays to give as gifts.

Next up...Jewelry! I made three bracelet/necklace sets this year to give to my husband's sisters. I didn't get a picture of the one I made for the littlest sister but it is made of pink paper beads. I'll try to get a pic later. For the other sisters I made these.

I also decorated a journal for one of my brothers-in-law. He is preparing to go on a mission so this is what I came up with. Yep, it is a suit coat, except it had two buttons when I was all finished. My sis-in-law helped me with it. She gathered scriptures and quotes about missionary work and we lined the inside and back covers with them.

And for the last of my siblings-in-law...a goodie package. Pictures of that in a different post.

It's beginnig to TASTE a lot like Christmas!

For Christmas, my sis-in-law and I got together and made some goodies to send to my bro-in-law. Here is what he received.

This is what the kitchen table looked like the morning we sent the goodies, before they were packaged.

The spread included peanut butter brownies, chocolate toffee popcorn, snowman shaped peppermint bark, chocolate covered pretzels, these cute rice krispie trees

 and this cherry-limeade popcorn. I love Our Best Bites!

I'm almost done

With my version of the Martha cardboard-box-turned-oven.
Here is hers again...

and here is a sneak peek of mine...

LOVE IT!
I think I can finish it tonight and get pics of the finished product up tomorrow or Sunday.

Welcome Welcome Fellow Addicts!

Welcome all you Craftaholic readers! I'm so happy to be able to share some of my ideas with you this week! (In case you don't read Linda's blog and are wondering what I'm referring to see this post) I hope you enjoyed the how-to on the shower curtain ring bracelets. Thanks for stopping by to check out my little site, be sure to stop by again after Christmas for more of my recent crafts. And I'm always looking for new sites of inspiration, so if you try your hand at any/all things crafty I would love see your work! Don't be shy!

~Ashley

p.s. I just have to share part of this email I just got from my little sister "I'm so glad I have a craft-addict for a sister"
Seriously, she just put that in an email she sent me! How appropriate!

The Bane that was Pumpkin Muffins

I don't know what I was thinking. I wanted to make pumpkin muffins. I found a recipe and thought it sounded easy enough. It would have been...


...except I decided to let my one year old help. She loves to help me cook and bake. She does a great job stirring...and sampling! So I started putting ingredients into a bowl and put the eggs into the pyrex so that she could pour them in. Well she was a little over zealous and spilled one of the eggs onto the counter. Instead of going with my gut and scooping the egg into the bowl I decided to clean it up and grab a new one out of the fridge. This is where disaster number two comes in. Turns out the back of the fridge was a little too cold for my little eggs and when I cracked it (straight into the bowl, of course, instead of into the pyrex) it was a little egg slushy! Yep my egg was partly frozen. Crap! So dump out what's in the bowl and start from the beginning...except the rest of my eggs are in the same state as the aforementioned one. My husband, the wonderful man that he is, decided that it was too early to call one of our neighbors to see if we could borrow two eggs (7:40 isn't that early is it? Especially if you have kids). He offered to go to the store but I had already given up on them at that point. A few days later I decided to give it another try. Things went smoothly and I even added some chocolate chips to sweeten the deal. The looked beautiful...and I wish I could say they tasted as good as they looked. My husband loved them and the little one loved them but something about them just didn't sit right in my mouth. So the search continues for a delicious pumpkin muffin recipe. Go figure I didn't like them after all the trouble I went through!

Thanks Smitten Kitchen for the pic! Yours look delicious!

Paper Trees

So pretty and so easy! I might have to store this idea away for a couple of years until missy is old enough to help. Thanks, Martha!

Make Your Own Notepad?!?!

I have GOT to try this! I think I'm going to do a little research and see if there is a way I can make each page sticky so then it could be like Make-your-own-Post-Its! Yes, Lori, if I can figure it out you will definitely be getting some! Found this here, at Skip to my Lou.

Peppermint Bark Popcorn

So I tried to make this Peppermint Bark Popcorn, again from Our Best Bites, and had the same problem that a lot of readers have...the peppermint extract made my almond bark thicken up so much that it couldn't just be poured over the popcorn and stirred up. However, since I had already invested time and energy and supplies ($$$) into it I decided to continue anyway. So off came the rings and in went the hands! I mixed it in as best as I could. It was delicious! The best part was that because my bark had thickened so much, every once in a while I would get a bite that had a lot more of it! It was like a little white chocolate party in my mouth! Mmmm

I should really start taking pics of my own end results!

Peppermint Brownies

Made these...loved them! Only thing different about mine was that I added too much food coloring to the frosting and so it was hot pink! Who cares! They still tasted delicious! Seriously...love Our Best Bites!

Placemat Handbag

Like I said before, I love Dollar Store Crafts! Now if I just had a reason to make one of these...

Old Book + Creative Idea = Wall Folder

I'm working on my own version of this to hold paper and coloring books to go with the art table that little missy is getting for Christmas. Hopefully I'll actually be able to accomplish all of the things that I want to by then and can post some pics of my stuff in January.

My Skirt Becomes Her Skirt

So I have a couple of skirts that I no longer wear, they still fit I just feel too old to be wearing them because of the fabric that I made them out of. After seeing several tutorials on skirt revamps I have decided that after things calm down from all of the Christmas chaos I'm going to attempt something like this:


Oh, why do you all make it look so easy??? I might regret doing this!

And for my one skirt that is a little more fancy, how about something like this


I think I'll start with the first one...it looks easier!

Paper Beads

I saw this idea on a blog (which I didn't bookmark at the time and now I have no clue which one it came from). I used these instructions from Family Fun. It was pretty simple, except I made my paper triangles longer and skinner than listed. I also just used regular old scrapbook paper that I coated in Mod Podge (before cutting the triangles...trust me on this one!) since I have a ton of it and used the Mod Podge to glue it because I couldn't find my glue stick. It was messy and time consuming but it turned out super cute. I made a bracelet and matching necklace as a gift for someone who shall remain nameless and of course forgot to take a picture before wrapping it up. But the beads look somewhat like this (and I'll get a pic after Christmas)

Thanks Thrifty Fun for the photo!

Terra Cotta Decor

Too many cute things to do with terra cotta pots!
These cute mummies (info here).


or how about some ghosts (I actually saw some in the oriental trading co magazine that were way cuter...I'll have to scan the image in)


Or snowmen! Super love them all!

Cutest Puppet Theater Ever

This will have to wait until we have a house of our own someday (plus the little one isn't old enough to justify making this just yet). Bookshelf/hutch turned puppet theater, love it!

Childs Oven Mitts

So I have started making these for my little girl and they are so cute! The only problem is that she picked the plain green ones and that is just too boring for me so I'm sewing some cute flower ribbon around the opening and they are too small to fit on the sewing machine, so I have to do it by hand (something I'm terrible at!). I'll post pics after Christmas when they are all done. Get details on these ones here.

Post It Note Holder

I have a sister that would love to get these as a gift (close your eyes, Lori)! I seriously love the site Dollar Store Crafts! So many cute ideas (instructions for this one found here).

Halloween Spooky Candles

These are too fun! What a neat idea from A Little Tipsy (more info here). How spooky would these be if you used a white candle with red dripping down the sides?! I'm going to try that!

Pot Holder Turned Quiet Book

Maybe someday I'll learn how to actually sew so that I can make cute little quiet books like this one, from Obsessively Stitching.

Ribbon Covered Frame

I super love this idea! I found it here, at Lucky Star Lane. Basically you cover a piece of foam core with ribbon and add a little clothespin to hold the pic. This will be great for all those ribbon scraps I have lying around!

Two Tutorials Next Week!

I'm excited to announce that I'm participating in Readers Tutorial Week over at Craftaholics Anonymous! It starts on Monday and I have two tutorials that I'm sharing, one on Tuesday and one on Friday. Dying to know what I'm giving you step-by-step instructions for? 
First up on the docket is my Shower curtain ring bracelets (click for original post with pics)
And tutorial number two:

Oh, did you think I was going to give away all of my secrets? :D You'll just have to check out Craftaholics Anonymous next week to see what I'm doing. hehehe

Tons of crafts coming soon!

First, let me just brag and say that I've been featured on another blog!!! I was kind of surprised at how excited I got about it. Check out the link over to the right :)

Now on to the original reason for this post...I have lots of cute crafts that I've made recently that I am dying to post...but I can't. Why??? Because they are Christmas gifts for people who might stumble across this blog of mine (since I know they read my other blog). So for now you'll have to survive on pics of last year's projects:

Personalized bookends for the sister that loves to read (had I known that she would get married 5 months later I wouldn't have matched them to her bedroom!)

Picture frame wreath

FAMILY picture wall hanging (yep...I stole this idea from Joann.com)

And the ever popular and super easy personalized comp-book-turned-journal. There will be another of these this year for a different family member and I super love how it turned out!