Spoon Vase Video

Another week, another YouTube video :) I think it is safe to say I am on a roll. I don't quite have the written tutorial done yet for those of you who like the written instructions, but here is the video. Tell me what you think. And definitely subscribe to me on YouTube, it would mean the world to me.

So next weeks video is already planned. I am actually going to start filming soon because I am excited about it. Valentine's Day is just around the corner and we all need some decorations for it right?!? Maybe not, but my house does. This is the first house we have had with a fireplace, which means a mantle to decorate and that makes me happy! So decorate it I will!

Anyways, I really hope you guys enjoy this video! I know I loved making it.... So much that I am probably going to make a few more :)

lovelovelove

LanaLou

Tissue Paper Coffee Mugs-

These babies are DISHWASHER SAFE!!! Using the special formula of Dishwasher Safe Mod Podge (and letting cure for 28 days) you can enjoy your new mugs however you wish. This Mod Podge is amazing! Here is the written tutorial for the Tissue Paper Coffee Mugs (Video tutorial you can find on my YouTube).

Aren't these gorgeous? The best part is that you can customize them however you want. From picking the cups to picking the tissue paper, it is 100% you!









Supplies-

• Plain Coffee Mugs- I purchased mine from Target (Threshold brand) for about $4.00 each. Seriously, this is an AWESOME price. The mugs are a of great quality and I know they will last. 
• Tissue Paper and/or Party Napkins- I also bought this at Target. They are all the Spritz Brand. The polka dot and flowers are actually party napkins and not tissue paper! Awesome right? It does not take a lot of tissue paper to make one of these mugs.
• Dishwasher Safe Mod Podge- Gloss- This is the key to making these mugs work. I ordered mine from Amazon for about $14.50. This item fluctuates in price all the time. I also know you can buy it from Darby Smart (a super awesome DIY company, but more on them later).
• Foam brush- you can buy these at any craft store. 
• Rubbing Alcohol and napkin

Step 1) Clean your mug with the rubbing alcohol and the napkin. Make sure you get all of the areas that you will be covering with the tissue paper.

Step 2) Paint on the Mod Podge. You want a nice even layer. Not too thick. 

Step 3) Place on your first layer of tissue paper. Make sure you even out all the creases that you can.

Step 4) Let dry for 1 hour. After an hour, you can add another layer of tissue paper. Add as many layers as you like, just make sure to let the mug dry for an hour between each layer. 

Step 5) When you have your mug looking the way you want, it is time to test your patience. Let the mug cure for 28 days. This will allow the mod podge to set and make your cup dishwasher safe. 

And 28 days later, you are enjoying your brand new, made by you mug!!!! How awesome is that?

Enjoy!

And as an added bonus for my fabulous readers, here is something else you can use the Dishwasher Safe Mod Podge for. Have fun!

lovelovelove,

LanaLou

Fall Wreath

Fall may not be in the air quite yet, but I am very ready for it. Fall projects have been all over Pinterest lately. Making this wreath has me in the mood for fall.... Plus, the Febreeze fall and winter scents probably aren't helping. My house officially smells like cranberry downstairs. But I digress, here is the link to my inspiration for my wreath below.

See I told you I am all ready.

For this project you will need:

- An MDF wreath frame: I found mine at Michael's in the floral section.

- Twigs: you can either find these outside or purchase them. Michael's has them in their floral section for fairly cheap.

- Burlap (or just plain fabric): I found the burlap at JoAnn's for $3.99 a yard and they had a huge selection. Pick whatever colors appeal to you. I got a quarter yard of each color.

- Hot glue gun and A LOT of hot glue: I'm serious, this whole wreath is held together by the hot glue so make sure to stock up.

- Any other embellishments you would like.

I started by breaking (or cutting) my twigs into pieces about 6 inches long. Glue all of these around the MDF frame. I found it was easiest to put some glue onto the frame and then put sticks on. Space these as you would like.

Put your twig wreath to the side because now comes the fun part... Making the rosettes.

First you will need to cut circles out of some scrap fabric. However big you cut your circle is how big your rosette will be. Cut your burlap into sections about 1 inch thick and 24 inches long. Again, use your judgement on this depending on how you want your flowers to look.

Step 1- tie a knot on one end of the burlap. Glue this to the center of your circle.

Step 2- begin twisting the fabric and spiralling it around the knot. Use glue every now and then to hold it in place.

Step 3- continue the twist and spiral process until you have covered your whole circle and only have a small piece of burlap left. The tighter you twist the burlap the tighter the rose will be. So, if you want a rose with more "fluff" to it, don't twist it as tight.

Step 4- flip the rose over and glue the end of the burlap down.

Voila, you have one rosette. Continue this process until you have enough roses to go around the whole MDF frame.

At this point go ahead and grab your twig wreath again. Make sure that you have as many twigs as you want glued down. I added some fake white flower/ball type things I found at Michael's. Begin gluing the flowers down around the frame, placing them how you would like.

After about 15-20 glue sticks to should now be done... I told you it was a lot of glue. But, I do have to say I am really proud of this wreath. I love the way it turned out and the burlap and twigs are perfect for fall.

Tomorrow (or this week) I am going to post some more fall and Halloween decorations I am working on... I did mention I was obsessed with both of those things right now right? But anyways, more decorating and tutorials later :)

 

 

Posted with Blogsy

Pure Craziness

The hubby is off in LA for work. We shipped him off on Saturday. It seriously feels like it has been so much longer. I miss him already. :( But good news, I booked a flight to go visit next week.

I leave my house Monday evening to go visit my sister and do more quiet book stuff. Then Thursday morning I start my long day of travel. I can't wait for my trip. Another vacation... I am one lucky girl. This time I will be laying on the beach in Santa Monica. Super excited for some Bubba Gump Shrimp Co :)

Anyways, I got some more quiet book pages done. These ones are for Lexie's learning book. They are all ideas from my sister and I and no patterns were used.

Cute right? I'm pretty proud of them. The balloon one could easily be made into different shapes. It's a great one because it uses fine motor skills and color matching. The next one is a bead counter. It has shape beads, so animal recognition could also be used. It also shows the number and dots to reinforce the number three different ways. Next is a number matching and then a pizza for her to make. The pizza is mostly just for fun because she loves pizza :)

Back to the craziness though. Over the weekend was the Oregon International Airshow out in Hillsboro. Friday night we went up to the local park to watch the show and the fireworks. Coco was not so sure she loved the fireworks so she cuddled in my sweatshirt.

The next day was insane. I took my husband to the airport and then we had record breaking temperatures here in Oregon. It reached 102. For real, that is just not even okay. We don't do that here in Oregon. The heat was terrible, but I was at my sisters with no AC and sewing all day. Ugh. We got through a lot of the quiet books.

Sunday we were back at the quiet books. It was hot, but not as hot as Sunday. It is finally cooling back down here.. I am a 70s and 80s kind of girl.

I think that it all I can rant about right now. The craziness is slowing down and I am gearing up for my next vacation!

 

 

Posted with Blogsy

Quiet books

Quiet books have been all over Pinterest lately. My sister Megan is heading to Michigan soon for a family trip and friends wedding. Two kids and a long flight.... Some sort of entertainment is needed. Her and I thought making some quiet books would be a great idea. Well, the books were a great idea if someone else made them or it wasn't 102 degrees without an air conditioned house.

But, all that aside, we almost completed two in two days. We used patterns from Imagine Our Life. This women is absolutely insane and makes the cutest books ever. I seriously don't know how she does it. A few times my sister and I were cursing at her because she made us jealous. But, all our hate towards her aside, she is amazing. Her patterns are easy to follow and her blog gives amazingly detailed pictures of all her pages. I wish I could be as cool as her.

The first page we did was the sandcastle. It turned out great and had minimal hand sewing. The cutting was also really quick. This one was really simple to customize with colors and beads.

Next was the cupcake page. Now, cutting out the pattern should have been our first clue. This one was tedious. A LOT of hand stitching went into this one. But, the adorable oven that opens up to reveal cupcakes and all the other small details make this one a winner.

The road one is something that we just whipped up on our own. The only pattern I used was from her camping page for the brown bear. Megan is supposed to be sewing a little parking lot with pockets for the cars to go in and I am thinking about another car or two.

In honor of Lexie's first airplane trip we made her the airport page. It has a truck to move the bags from the airport to the plane. A helicopter that can be moved around. A small plane that flies on a string. The airplane had one area that opens up to put the bags in. We ended up adding another opening on the plane so that Megan could sew in a vinyl pocket and put a family picture in there for Lexie.

We kept telling her she was going to go on an airplane soon and her response was "I too big". It was really cute. Hopefully, she will enjoy her first flight! She will have two really cool books to keep her entertained on the trip.

This page was by far Lexie's favorite. She has an obsession with green monsters, especially Mike Wazowski. Since the book is for her, we decided to do something special. We made a Mike and girl Mr Potato Head- ish page. This was one of our creations and we had so much fun making it. We cut out some circles, blew up a picture of Mike to make the arms and legs, then sewed on the eyes... Well one eye for each. For the girl, we added some yarn hair. Her favorite outfit for mike was the pink polka dot tie. We made ties, skirts, lips, and mustaches. I think we are going to have to make more clothes for this page because she loves it so much.

We still have plenty left to do but the rest of the pages should be much more simple to make... But I'll let you know after we actually make them. Stay tuned for more quiet book pages through the next week or so.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Homemade Laundry Detergent

Lately the hubby and I have been all about saving money. He is getting me into couponing, if anyone has any tips on me let me know. Something that I did in December to start our frugality was make our own laundry detergent. It is one of the best things that I have done, for real.

Here is what you'll need:

-1 4 lb 12 oz box Borax found in the detergent isle

-1 4 lb box Arm & Hammer Baking Soda found in the cooking isle

-1 box Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda 55 oz found in the detergent isle

-3 bars of Fels-Naptha soap, found in the detergent isle

-2 small containers of Oxy Clean or store brand Oxy Clean

Start by grating up your fels-naptha soap. If you have one, use a food processor. The first time I made this I hand grated it and it took forever, plus I scraped some of my fingers. Next, add in all the other ingredients. You can mix this up in a garbage bag and enter add to your storage container, but that is not necessary.

This will make about 2 gallons of soap. You can find a large enough container at Walmart or Fred Meyers... Or basically any store.

This detergent is fairly mild, but works wonders. You will only need about 2 tablespoons per load because it does not have all the excess that store bought soap does. I even use this soap in my HE washer. Just put it straight into the barrel instead of into the dispenser.

That picture above was taken today. When I made my soap in December that container was full. Seven months later I am still using the same soap. It lasts forever.... Seriously, forever. I spent about $25 to make, so I would definitely say money-wise that this is worth it. The awesome part too, is it has no smell. If you want to add some, you can use the Purex crystals. Or do some homemade fabric softener, which I will do a post about later :)

 

Posted with Blogsy

DIY Home Cleaners

We have all been reading about natural cleaners and right now they are all over Pinterest. I found one that I figured I would try. Overall, any of these cleaners are really simple to make. Here is the link to the directions I used :)

For both cleaners:

12 oz spray bottles- I found some at Dollar Tree; the Container Store among others has them too.

Window Cleaner

– 3/4 cup vinegar
– 3/4 cup water
– 1/4 cup rubbing alcohol
– 1/2 tsp liquid dish detergent
– 3 drops of orange (or whatever you like) essential oil
– 3 drops of vanilla (or whatever you like) essential oil


Countertop Spray

– 3/4 cup vinegar
– 3/4 cup water
– 1/2 tsp liquid dish detergent
– 10 drops of orange (or whatever you like) essential oil
– 10 drops of vanilla (or whatever you like) essential oil

Once you mix all the ingredients together, pour them into the spray bottles. For best results, shake them before each use. When washing your windows, use a news paper. It works a million times better. I also recommend making some cute little labels... But, there are also free printables on the link if you want to use her scents. Oh, she also has instructions for a soy wax candle to go with the sprays!

I have been using these sprays for awhile now and I love them. They are so simple to make, you can make them smell however you like, plus it is REALLY cheap to make.

My first test with this was to clean my microwave out and let me tell you, it practically wiped all the mess right off. I would mark this Pinterest pin as a win.

 

Lovelovelove

 

Posted with Blogsy

Pinterest Interest- DIY Tea Soap

 

This week I am looking at some really cute tea soaps that I found here.... They were really simple (and fun) to make. Plus, they turned out really cute. I loved being able to customize the soap by what tea that I put it in. So here, is the way I did it.

Materials:

Soap- I found an awesome kit at Michaels that had the bar soap... But, there is a huge selection at Michaels for all the kinds of soap you want, basically a good melt and mold kind.

Tea- I used Peppermint and also Earl Grey

Apricot seeds- this came in my kit from Michaels, but I believe they have them for individual sale there too. This adds the exfoliating scrubbing that I love in soap.

Soap Mold, bowl, tissue paper, string, and labels if you want them :)

I started by breaking off pieces of the soap and putting them in the bowl. Microwave this in about 20 second intervals until you have a smooth consistency. Add in about 1/2 to 1 tea bag into the soap. Also add in a little of the apricot seeds to your desired scrubbiness level. Dump this into your mold and let it cool completely before moving it!

Once it is cooled pop those suckers out of the mold. Now, I don't have a picture of it, but I wrapped them in tissue paper so that they looked like little tea bags. Then I stapled on the string and added a label that I made quickly so I would know what kind it was. If you want more detailed pictures of how it was wrapped, go to the tutorial that inspired this, she does a much better job than I ever could.

 

There you have it loves, a simple soap that smells wonderful, works amazingly, and is so cheap. Oh and here is a little bit of info on the benefits of green tea soap I you need another reason to make it.

 

Lovelovelove.

 

Posted with Blogsy

DIY Mineral Veil

This one is really simple. While perusing Pinterest, I found this pin. Making your own mineral veil, who would have thought. I am one to spend a lot of money on makeup, but this is one place I will now save.

I will admit, this may be the easiest project you will ever do. One ingredient, that's it, just one. Cornstarch. I bought it at Fred Meyers for under $1.50.

Now let's do some price comparison down here.

This mineral veil costs $20. Look at its ingredients below... Notice what the first ingredients are? Oh yeah, it's about .3 ounces of product...

Ingredients

Zea Mays (Corn Starch), Corn Starch Modified, Zinc Stearate, Magnesium Stearate. May Contain: Iron Oxides (CI 77491, CI 77492, CI 77499)

Now my 12 ounces container of cornstarch cost less than $1.50. How do you even validate paying for the other one?

If you have an empty mineral veil container from the last time you bought it you can just reuse that. If not, just buy a container that you can find in the travel section or even use a small Tupperware.

If you want to add a slight color to the mineral veil, just add some of your powder that you already have. Otherwise, this will just leave a nice translucent cover on your face. It really helps to set your makeup and make everything smoother.

There you have it ladies (and gentlemen I guess) the easiest project you will ever do from Pinterest.

Since I missed last Monday I am going to do another Pinterest Interest tomorrow. :) I know, you all love me. Check back tomorrow!

 

 

Lovelovelove.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Crafting

I've been watching Craft Wars on demand today and it is quite interesting. I am super jealous of all the cool craft supplies that they get to use. It is the most epic craft supply room. I am so jealous of the crafters on this show. I wish I was good enough for it.

I need to find something to create today so that I can blog about it tomorrow. Any ideas?

Officially one week until my birthday! Woo hoo!

Lovelovelove.

 

 

Posted with Blogsy

Polymer Clay Pens

I LOVE going to the store and buying new pens. Seriously, back to school shopping is my love. Everything about it is amazing. But mostly the pens. You can never have too many cute and fun pens. Now, we come to the part where I love to be different. Standing out is awesome. So here we have a dilemma. There are only so many pens in the world and you will most likely run in to someone with them as well. That whole rant has brought me to this tutorial. Polymer Clay Pens. You can make them look however you want and it is almost a 100% guarantee yours will stand out from all the rest.

The materials for this are quite simple:

• Polymer clay-- like Sculpey, you can find this at Michael's or even Walmart.
• Pens with the plastic barrel that you can remove the ink from like so.... Make sure to pick your favorite kind :)

First begin by removing the ink from the barrel. You should just have a plastic barrel, empty of all ink. Wrap the clay around the empty barrel in a design however you would like. I'll be honest, this was my first polymer clay project so I didn't do anything crazy. I used a couple colors and rolled them together to create a tye dye effect. I also did some polka dots and some zebra stripes.

For the tye dye-- pick a couple colors and roll each into a long snake. Then, put all your snakes together and roll them into a snake. Basically, you want the colors to still be identifiable and not mixed into one. Take sections at a time and cover your barrel. You want this to be pretty thin so the pen is still comfortable in your hand, but don't make it too thin.

For the polka dot or zebra stripes-- pick one base color and cover the barrel with that. The polka dots were really simple, I just took small little balls and pressed them out so they were flat like pancakes. For the zebra print I carefully cut out the stripes and then laid them on the barrel carefully so that they looked like a zebra.

Put all your pens onto a baking sheet. Bake them in a 275 degree oven for 15 minutes. Don't worry about the plastic melting, the oven isn't hot enough and the plastic is thick... I'm sure there is a better explanation for it, but that's mine.

Now you have some incrediblely awesome pens that are all yours :) tell me what you think!!!

 

P.S. I am sorry my descriptions are so terrible, I haven't worked with polymer before and I'm sure there is probably a better way to do it but I tried! Leave comments with any tips or tricks, I'd love for some help with it!

 

Lovelovelove.

 

Crack Corn

So while perusing my kitchen the other night I really wanted a new sweet treat. And popcorn. And well I love chocolate on popcorn but I still wanted something new. This led me to searching the Internet and I found A LOT of delicious looking popcorn recipes but one kept popping up. Literally. Anyways, many of them called this poppy chow, but I a sticking with crack corn. This stuff is crazy good and so addicting. Eating just a little bit is hard, so now that you have been warned here is the recipe....

Ingredients

1/2 cup peanut butter
1/4 cup butter
1 cup chocolate chips
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
9 cups Popcorn- I used a bag of butter flavor
Powdered Sugar

Mix the peanut butter, butter, chocolate chips, and vanilla in a pot. Stir constantly until melted and mixed together.

While doing that pop your bag of popcorn according to directions. Dump that into a big bowl.

Top that with your peanut butter mix and stir it all together so the popcorn gets coated completely by the mix.

Pour all of that onto a baking sheet and top with as much powdered sugar as you like.

Place in the fridge until the peanut butter mix sets, or just leave it out.

Store it in an airtight container... But let's be honest, there won't be much left :)

*FYI, this is not a recipe that I came up with on my own... It just so happens to be the recipe for Muddy Buddies or Puppy Chow, just with popcorn instead. :)Either way, it is equally delicious and I feel that everyone should know about it.





Anyways, only three tests left until this term is over and 19 days until we leave for LA/Anaheim! It is getting so close and I am getting more and more excited for sun!

Check back later this weekend for a new tutorial and lots of other fun stuff :)

 

Slacking... And reupholstering an office chair.

I know my last post said I would do better about posting more, and well I really did plan too...... But again I have become really busy. Next week is finals and this week was just insane. I have some videos that are ready to go, I just need the hubby to edit them.

I am so excited for this term to be over! I am worn out and need summer vacation... I need some sunshine. For any one who loves in Oregon, this weather has been insane! Luckily only like 20 more days and Richard and I will be in Anaheim for a few days.

So one of our roommates moved out and a new one moved in, but in that whole process I got a new craft room :) yeah I pretty much love it. I've been spending a lot of time getting it together and I have to say it is becoming quite nice and cozy. I just need a massive beanbag chair and I'll be set. But anyways, I found an office chair on Craigslist for free... Definitely not the best shape... I gave that one to the man cave and took one of theirs :) and reupholstered it. It was way easier than I thought it would be. Below is my process.

Materials- fabric of your choosing (I used two pillow cases and pieced it together), staple gun and staples, and an ugly old office chair. Plus anything you'll want for embellishment.

Step one- unscrew every screw you can find on your chair. This will separate the seat from the back and the arms. Make sure to save all the screws!

Step two- I started on the seat and pieced together the fabric pieces to completely cover it. You want enough fabric to cover it all and go about an inch or two onto the bottom. Once you have the fabric placed where you want it begin stapling on the bottom. I started on one area and worked around the chair, then I made the corners all nice and tight. This will take a lot of pulling and adjusting, but you want it to look as nice as possible.

Step three- move to the back rest now. You can either sew or use just the staple gun, I went the staple gun only because it was easier. You'll want to have a piece the at least covers the side your back goes on completely so there are no staples for you to lean up against.

Step four- Your chair should now look like the image above. The last little bit of the of the back of the chair will get covered with pieces. I tried to make this look as nice as possible,since people will actually be seeing it. Then I used some hot pink elastic to cover up one row of the staples and plus I can use it to hold stuff down there. After you are all done with this rescues everything back together.

And voila, you now have a fancy new chair. I loved this project and it was a quick way to help make my room look better.

 

 

Mother's Day :)

For Mother's Day lunch I was in charge of desert.... It is my favorite :) So I logged onto my Pinterest to find something delicious. It was way too easy.

 

This was my original inspiration, which can be seen on my Desert Board. But, my sister Megan and I wanted to make it our own. So we did.

Our bottom layer was a mixture of crushed up Oreos, Oreo cream, and a little butter to hold it together.. We are still working out a way to perfect this, so any ideas would be awesome. I think I had more fun taking the cream off of the Oreos so that I could mush up the Oreos easier. For real, it was a lot of fun.

Anyways, back to the cooking. Mush up the Oreos so that they are as fine as possible. I recommend doing this in a plastic bag and using a rolling pin... Or letting a little kid step on it a few times :) Once the Oreos are crushed, pour them into your pie pan. Next, in a small bowl throw all your Oreo cream and about 2tbs butter then place it into the microwave to melt it. Mix this into the Oreo crumbs until everything is covered well. Press this into the pan well and bake in a 300* oven for about 8-10 minutes to help it set.

Next is making some mousse. I decided to use a White Chocolate Jello mix for this. A small box of the mix will work just fine. Mix that with 1-1/2 cups heavy whipping cream. Whisk it until it is nice and thick. Now is putting together the pie.

So here we have the Oreo layer... On top of that I put a layer of strawberries. After the strawberry layer was the mousse layer. Then, after the mousse layer I put another layer of strawberries.... Finally, I topped the pie off with some melted Hershey kisses and semi-sweet chips. We put this in the fridge to set for about an hour while we ate dinner and so that the chocolate could harden up.

While we were kind of worried that this pie was not going to turn out, it was delicious. I know there are stil. Some kinks to work out, but I will definitely be making this again and again... And really, who doesn't love strawberries and chocolate?

That's all I've got for cooking originality... I also made some lemon cookies which you can find in my desert board and they were outstanding.

All in all, this weekend was awesome. Here are some of my favorite pictures from it.

Lexie cuddling with uncle Richard and Coco.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lexie showing Avery how big kids play with the toy piano... He loves his big sister.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Subscribe on YouTube!

Follow me on Twitter!