Kimberly is Engaged!

About a month ago, Kimberly's boyfriend Chad asked us to help trick Kimberly so he could surprise her with a proposal. It was really sweet and she was super surprised! We were so glad to be a part of it. We had dinner plans together and secretly both of their families joined us. 

We had a wonderful time celebrating the happy couple!

When I knew that they were getting engaged I decided to get my craft on. Plus, it's summer and I have time to spare :) So I headed to Target and made this cute little box of bridal goodies. I got the box at Target and then used my Silhouette to cut a label for it to say "future Mrs. Hunter" ... it turned out awesome. 

Then I got 2 stemless wine glasses at Target also (their basic glassware is $1 each!) and etched them, one to say Mr. and one to say Mrs. We joked at dinner that in December when Chad graduates with his PhD I will have to make him one to say Dr. since it will be Dr & Mrs :) 

I also pulled out an extra one of these ring dishes that I made for gifts at Christmas and used the Silhouette to cut a silver ring to put in her ring dish!

And bought a bridal magazine and (not pictured) the diamond dazzle stick to polish her shiny rock!

Etched Glass DIY

I recently etched designs on to pint glasses and thought I would share my wisdom in doing it... a few mistakes I made that maybe you won't!

I bought Armour Etch from Michael's and used a foam paint brush to brush it on. 

I used pint glasses I found in Target for $1 each! 

And you need a stencil of some sort. I used my silhouette cameo to cut a dogfish and used the outside of the design as the stencil. Here's where lesson #1 comes in - leave a LOT of extra vinyl/sticker space on the outside to block runoff cream from the glass. 

Apply the vinyl/sticker to the glass wherever you want the design, make sure it is smooth and stuck down good. 

Use the foam paint brush to apply the etching cream nice and thick. 

Since the glasses are curved, it was going to run down the side in some manner, this is why you need a lot of extra vinyl around. The first time I attempted this I accidentally let it run off the sides while it was sitting there drying (that's what I get for doing too much at one time) and it also etched the glass in a different location... no good! 

The jar says to let the cream sit for 5 minutes, I let it sit for more like 10 minutes just to be safe. Then take it to the sink and use a wet washcloth to wipe off the excess cream. Then remove the sticker and voila! 

DIY Ring Dish

I was trying to come up with some cute gift ideas that I could use my silhouette cameo to make and came across this on pinterest. I figured that would be pretty easy!

So I ordered the "tasting bowls" by Libbey on Amazon prime and they were here in no time!

Then I had to get to designing in the silhouette studio. I went to dafont.com and downloaded KK monogram font for free to use. I designed them similarly to the post I got the idea from, but the curly monogram font didn't come out well when cut so small. Maybe I should have set it at a slower speed but the letters were so thin that they got picked up/torn, etc. So back to the drawing board I went. 

I did a couple of "plain" monograms, just the letters with cute fonts. Then I found a tutorial on pinterest for circle monograms using whatever font you want. I tried that, but with certain letters it just looked weird, so then I added my own circle around it (2 circles, one larger and one smaller). I was pretty satisfied with that so I cut the vinyl and put it in the dish using transfer paper!

DIY Holiday Glass Blocks

A couple of Christmases ago my sister-in-law painted glass blocks (she is a super talented artist) and filled them with Christmas lights. I don't have the talent to actually hand paint anything, but I do have a handy, dandy silhouette cameo! 

I got the glass blocks in the holiday section at Lowes. They were $8.50 each, are they out there anywhere for cheaper?! Then got to searching on pinterest for just the right design/saying. I went with "Ho Ho Ho" with a couple of snow flakes. I typed up the Ho Ho Ho and traced a snowflake image using the trace tool in silhouette studio.

I cut the vinyl, and laid the transfer tape over the ho ho ho, then lined up the snowflakes under there too, so that I could lay it all down at once.

UPDATE!
I didn't like how the snowflakes weren't very visible because of the white lights in the block, so I tried green lights in the block, still no good. I decided to change the snowflakes out for Christmas trees, added a bow to the top and it's much better now!

DIY Santa Ornament

I'm still a crafting machine over here with my silhouette cameo! We are attending a Christmas party where you are asked to bring an ornament for their tree, so instead of buying something typical from the store I scoured pinterest for something creative (but not too girly) that I could make using my silhouette cameo and the clear glass ornaments you can get at your craft store.

I found this cute Santa ornament but wasn't sure how long M&Ms can last (year after year?). Especially if you're like me and store your ornaments in your not-heat-controlled attic, that could get pretty messy. 

I decided to go with the shredded crinkle paper instead of M&Ms. 

I got glass ornaments, red shredded crinkle paper, green ribbon and used my silhouette cameo to cut black for the belt and gold for the buckle!

First, stuff as much red crinkle paper in to the ornament that you can fit. You will probably need to use a pen or something of the sort to shove the paper in the tiny opening at the top. Put the lid back on the ornament, you are done with that!

I cut the belt (a strip of black vinyl) and buckle (a "curved" square with another inside of it) with my silhouette cameo. I may add a green ribbon later, but figured it would blend in with the tree anyways! 

DIY Christmas Tree Sign

Like I said yesterday, I've been crafting up a storm with my silhouette cameo. I saw this pin and loved the black, white and glittery gold but am not really one to put up deer heads in my house, so I decided to take it in a different direction. 

I used a canvas panel, painters tape, black spray paint and glitter gold vinyl along with my silhouette cameo. 

Put the painters tape on the canvas in strips going all the way across (the parts that are white in this picture were covered in painters tape). 

Spray paint it lightly with black, making sure that it is all covered, but not too thick (it could bleed under the tape if you soak it with paint). Let the paint dry and peel up the tape, you will have a black and white striped canvas! 

Lastly, I designed the Christmas tree in my silhouette studio, cut it and used transfer tape to place it on the dry canvas. 

DIY Christmas Platter

I've been spending a lot of time with my silhouette cameo lately. I love that thing. pinterest + silhouette machine + holidays = 1 busy girl. 

The first craft I tackled was a Christmas platter that I found here. It really is pretty easy, if you have a silhouette machine (or one similar). You could of course make this for any time of year and use different colors of vinyl. 

You Need: 
A plain tray/platter
Green vinyl
Red vinyl

Measure the inside of the platter. The only one I could find (that didn't cost a ton) had the extra ring around the outer edge so I had to make sure to get all of the vinyl in the middle. 

Type the last name (or name you want to put on the platter) on the silhouette studio (my font for this was Andulus). Then in another font (I used Boys R Gross) type merry christmas.You can drag it over the first word to be sure how they line up/size correctly. Then of course cut and paste it in to a different file, so that you can print on two different colors. 

Print the background name in one color, and then using transfer paper center it in your tray. Then using transfer paper again, transfer the "merry christmas" that is printed in the 2nd color. 

And voila! 

Laundry Room Makeover

About a month ago we discovered mold in our laundry "room" (more like a laundry closet). There was a really soft spot of drywall so Trey broke through it to see what was going on back there. Behind that wall he found the "sewer" PVC pipe coming from the bathrooms upstairs. Whoever put up the wire shelving in there (when the house was built?) screwed one of the supports straight in to the pipe! I guess it was fine for about 20 years but finally started to leak creating the disaster we found. 

 We ended up cutting out about a 4' x 4' piece of the drywall in order to get rid of all of the mold.

In the mean time the kitchen was a disaster zone. Super annoying to live like that for a few weeks. 

I also didn't want to put back up the wire shelving, it's not my favorite, things fall through the cracks and half of the supports were broken. So I turned to pinterest for ideas. These two were some of my favorites so we created a combination of the two. 


I went to the area Habitat Restores to try to find a good deal on cabinets. We saw cabinets at Lowes for $89 each so I was trying to find them cheaper than that. I went to a few different stores and finally hit the jackpot! I got 2 cabinets, the size I wanted and didn't even have to refinish/repaint them for $30 each! Then just across the street was Home Depot, so I stopped in and bought knobs for $12.

We fixed the hole in the pipe and left it open for about a week to make sure that it wasn't going to leak. Then before we could close up the wall my dad and Trey added a light at my request, since there was never a light in that room. 

Then we could patch with new drywall and had to mud and repeat a few times. 

I was over the original yellow that was there so I took this opportunity to chose a better color :) It was "teal zeal" and I still love it! 

 My dad & Trey hung the cabinets, added a shelf on the top and a rod to hang clothes to dry on! I LOVE IT! It's so much prettier than before, everything has a place to be stored and you don't see all of the junk laying all over the shelves. And finally my kitchen is clean and organized again!

State Silhouette Art DIY

I saw this post on Home Sweet Ruby and just had to do one myself! I changed it up a little bit and luckily didn't have to cut it by hand since I have my handy dandy silhouette cameo machine.

What You Need:
Backing card stock/scrap book paper
card stock/scrap book paper for your state
Pink or white paper for heart
frame
scissors or cutting machine 
glue stick


What You Do:
Cut card stock down to size of the frame (I used an old 8x10 frame we had lying around)

Cut state silhouette (If you don't have a cutting machine you can use Home Sweet Ruby's directions - basically print out the state to the size you want and use it to trace then cut by hand, If you do have a silhouette, I googled North Carolina state silhouette and found a pdf that I could download for the image then trace the outer edge only... I found mine here, this would work for either cutting by hand or silhouette) 

Cut a small heart and place over the city of your choice

Glue all pieces together and stick in a frame! 

This cost me all of $1.47 and I have cardstock to spare! Love it!

Painted Mason Jar Succulents

While shopping for Mother's Day this year I found this cute idea on Etsy. 

Of course since it was $45 plus shipping, Trey and I decided to try to do it ourselves! Turns out it was really easy and for the price of that set of four, shipped, we managed to make 12! We looked on Pinterest to get ideas of how to do it and also found the website for the paint to be helpful.

What You Need:
Small succulent plants
Potting soil
Mason Jars
Foam paint brushes
A sheet of sandpaper
Newspaper to work on
Paint (we used the little jars of folk art paint from walmart for $2 each) In the future I might would get a "chalk" finish but this worked just fine!
Sealer paint (polycrylic or something similar)


What You Do:
Rinse and dry jars. 
Using a foam brush paint the jars (up and down along the sides, go in a circle around the top where the lid will go)
Let them dry for an hour (or whatever your paint directions say). 
Paint a second coat, let dry. 
Lightly sand with sandpaper to get a weathered look. 
Paint a light coat of sealer
Screw lid on without inner seal
Fill with potting soil and put the plant on the top

DIY Laundry Detergent

I found a link on pinterest to a recipe for DIY laundry detergent and decided to try it. It comes from a family of 9 who uses it in their huge loads daily and said it works great. It cost just under $20 for all the supplies. They said it lasts them about 2.5 months, doing 1-2 stuffed full loads per day... I will have to see how long this ends up lasting us and see if it was worth it, but I figured why not try!

What You Need:
1 box super washing soda
1 box Borax
1 box Pure Baking Soda
1 (3 lb) container of Oxy-Clean
3 bars Fels-Naptha, shredded
Large bucket (at least 3 gallons)
1/4 cup scoop (I saved the scoop from the oxy clean)

What You Do:
You are going to mix all of the ingredients together, but since it is a lot of white powders it is best to do one at a time. 
Mix Borax and Super Washing soda in the bucket (with large spoon).
Then add Baking Soda and mix well. 
Add Oxy-clean and mix well (save the scoop!)
Lastly you will add the Fels-Naptha but you first have to shred it. They recommended a food processor, but since I didn't have one I simply used a grater and it worked awesome! 

Mix all of these together well and store with an airtight lid. 

For ease of use, I used the Oxy-Clean container to put a small amount of detergent in the laundry room and saved the large container in a different area. You will need 1/4 cup per large load (or 1/8 cup if you have a high efficiency washer). In order to not have to buy a measuring cup, I measured 1/4 cup of water in the Oxy-Clean scoop. It came up to the 3 line that is already drawn on there, so I marked it with a Sharpie for future reference. 

Cornhole Boards

For Jennifer and Rick's Wedding gift, Trey decided to make them cornhole boards. Rick has become somewhat of a cornhole fanatic so we thought this would be a pretty exciting gift. 

He got started with some directions online. Then after getting them assembled we had kind of paused for a bit trying to figure out what to put on them. We didn't really want to do the typically NCSU boards and were trying to be creative. While looking on Etsy, I found a hop sticker that we could use as one decal but we wanted something different on the other one. I contacted the shop owner and he said it would be about the end of December but he could make us something. Well he had been bogged down with Christmas season and that didn't work out quite yet and then I got my vinyl cutter for Christmas so I figured we could figure it out ourselves! 

We decided that we wanted to do hops on one and grain on the other. The only issue is that I can only cut 12" wide, but basically as long as I want. So we pieced together 3 hops on one board and 2 grain designs on the other. 

 I was super excited about how the vinyl turned out and we got paint to match for the edging. Trey spent a few evenings painting the edges and sides of the boards. 

Then we applied the vinyl  decals and he painted on top of it all with polycrylic so you could still see the nice wood he bought. 

We were pretty thrilled with our vinyl application!!

The lighting is pretty terrible in these pictures but I'm proud of how they turned out!