Mod Podge is Love

I'm starting to make my own gift boxes and just wanted to share my latest one.

Starting with a plain cardboard box from Michaels...



...Mod Podge, foam brushes and an exacto knife (not pictured)



I first used my exacto knife and went thru the Sunday LA Times and cut out the comic strips individually in their single cells...



I then applied my mod podge to the lid of the box and started applying the comic cells one by one and putting a coat of mod podge over each one. Once finished I let it dry for about 30 minutes and then applied another layer of mod podge for extra gloss. I also Spray painted the bottom of the box black and ended up with the CUTEST gift/decorative box




EVERYONE I know will be getting their birthday/Christmas presents inside these for the next year at least!

I'm loving birds right now!

So much so that I got an UBER-cute bird vinyl stickie from Etsy.com (that site is sooo addicting, since everything is handmade) and it just got delivered today!



He kinda reminds me of "The Raven"...so I named him Poe...



And now he lives in my kitchen. (I know I'm crazy) He's just too too cute!

I also whipped out the watercolors and made this little diddy up, and stuck it in a $5 on sale frame from Target! It will be hung in my living room...

Etsy Throw Pillow Covers

I got my new pillow covers from Etsy for some of my throw pillows for our couches. We will very soon be buying new couches, just haven't found ones we are totally blissfully in love with yet. Anyways, back to the awesomeness that are now my throw pillows...



The color!! The bright white!! The ball fringe!!! Soooo yummy!! I'm so in love with the birds!!! <3 They are soooo cute, and I can't get enough of them!

I <3 Spraypaint!

Boring kitchen knobs...



Plus metallic spray paint...



Spices things up a bit...





I'm loving the color and how it contrasts with the color I painted our kitchen!

A Sailor's Life for Me!

I'm redecorating my bathroom and doing a sailing theme, and just wanted to blog about the process.



We live in an apartment that is a "historical landmark", so there's not too much stuff that I can change which is a drag. I don't really understand why it's a historical landmark, the only thing I know is that movie "The Purple People Eater" was filmed in my apartment. If you've ever seen the movie, the apartment that the grandpa lives in, well that's my exact apartment. Aside from that I don't know what's so historical about it, but I do see tour busses outside on the street every now and then...guess I'll have to take a tour of Downtown Fullerton one day. Our bathroom still has the original 1920's clawfoot bathtub and old things like that. It also has one of those sinks that are just attached to the wall with nothing underneath it and you can see old pipes and cracked paint and stuff... please don't gag when you see this pic...







YUCK



Well with a little fabric, some fabric glue, super glue and velcro I fixed that...







Ahhh so much better, and now we can use that curtain to also act as a little storage! I just made the curtain with fabric glue to hold it all together as I don't have a sewing machine, took one side of velcro and glued it to the top of my curtain, and super glued the other side of the velcro up underneath my sink and stuck them together! Super easy!



The bathroom is still a work in progress, I need to find a shower curtain and window curtain or possibly make them, and get some of the decor together a little bit, but here's what I have going on so far...

I got these towels on sale from Target!

These are supposed to be name card holders like for dinner parites, but I just threw them in here to mix it up. I got them for like $1 at Tuesday Morning

I still need to paint this helm that I got at Michaels, and I got this lighthouse at Big Lots on clearance for $20 it's huge, and underneath there's a switch that makes seagull noises and the light on the top rotates and works...what?....ok ok if you know me at all, you know I'm a major cheeseball and LOVE things like that!

And that's what I have in my bathroom so far! I hope you can use it for some inspiration!

Let your imagination set sail!

I LOVE thrift store finds!

I love love love browsing thrift stores, buying ugly things for really really cheap, giving them a facelift at making them beautiful.

I was browsing at one of my favorite spots a couple weeks ago and came across a very sad looking short bookcase. It was falling apart and parts were lifting up. It looked like wood, but upon further inspection it's actually that fake wood, pressed cardboard stuff with a wood-like covering on it. Well, I saw it's potential, and scooped it up for $7 (I'm bummed I didn't take a before picture of it). I stopped by Walmart and bought a small can of Peacock Blue paint, got home, re-glued some pieces, sanded it down and gave it two coats of the pretty paint and turned a pitiful little bookcase into my new accent furniture.



I still have to put books and things in it and decorate it cute, but you get the idea!

Diaper Cake Tutorial

One of my cousins just had a baby girl, and her baby shower is tomorrow (she was born right before 35 weeks) so I decided to make her a diaper cake for her shower!

What you'll need

A pack of 56 diapers


Clear hair rubber bands (I bought black, but I recommend getting clear as they're less noticeable) & Regular large rubber bands


One 9oz baby bottle with lid (I bought 2 and used one for decoration) and filled them with candy


Ribbon


Silk Flowers


Scissors & Double sided tape


One 14" round cardboard cake circle




To start lay your diapers flat on the table and begin rolling them up from the waistband so any colors/design ends up in the center of the rolled diaper.



When it's rolled, take one of your hair rubber bands and place around the rolled diaper to secure.


Roll and secure all 56 of your diapers.


Next, take one of your candy filled baby bottles and place a regular rubber band around it.


Slip rolled diapers inside the rubber band all around the bottle creating a ring.



Once completed, place another rubber band around the ring of diapers and create a second ring of diapers.




And create a 3rd ring.



Your base should now look like this.


Next place another rubber band around the top of the bottle and start making your second layer of the cake, this time only making 2 rings of diapers.





Your finished second layer should look like this.


Now pull up on your bottle a little bit so it peaks out the top of the second layer of the cake, but not too much that it completely lifts all the way out of the first layer.


Place a rubber band around the bottle and create one final diaper ring which finishes the your top layer.




Now for the fun part, decorating!

Take your ribbon and measure and cut pieces to fit around each layer to hide all of the rubber bands.


Apply the ribbon to each layer using double sided tape to secure.



Next, take your silk flowers and cut them from the main stem, so each flower has it’s own shorter stem.


Group flowers together like a bouquet.


Place your “bouquet” into the top of your cake and arrange as necessary.


(I just realized you can see my husband’s UFC game on TV while he was playing xbox lol)

Place your cake on your cardboard cake circle. I also stuck double sided tape to the bottom of the other candy filled bottle and stuck it to the cake circle.


The finished product.