Napkin Decoupaged Beer Bottle

So my husband and cousin have been playing mechanic religiously for the past 2 and a half months and with that comes LOTS of beer. I have an applesauce jar full of bottle caps right now and if I felt like taking a metal detector to my front yard I would be able to triple that stash. So there will be more projects to come featuring those bottle caps... but for now, you'll just have to make due with the bottle and some spare napkins from lunch :)

What You'll Need

Bottle

Napkins

Mod Podge

Paint Brush

Step one is to tear your napkins. You want to tear all the access paper from around the logo like shown above. The reason for this is so you can create a solid foundation with the plain pieces without sacrificing the graphics.

Take Mod Podge and brush it on the bottle. Take one of the plain strips from the napkin and place it on the glue. With the brush (without reapplying glue to the brush), brush over the napkin until it has smoothed against the surface of the bottle. 

If there are edges that are not sticking add a bit of glue to the brush and go over the edges. Keep going until the entire bottle is covered.

Take a look at your bottle and reapply another layer of napkin over the dark spots. You want it to be consistently covered.

This is how it should look once it's completely covered. Now for the fun part... the graphics.

Take the graphic pieces and apply them where you see fit using the same technique as before.

When you're done it should look something like this. I'm kinda disappointed in the top looking like such a mess. But over all I think it looks pretty awesome!

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Painted Halloween Jars

I found a similar idea online not too long ago and decided with Halloween right around the corner that it was time to clear out some of these jars I've been saving from my cabinet. Not to mention using up some of this paint...

All you need for this project is paint, brushes and a few jars or vases.

Everything was done by freehand so this won't be much of a tutorial. All you do is paint your image on the jar. So here are all the pictures :)

This is the only one I drew in Sharpie before painting. I didn't do it with the others because you can see the darker outline when looking at the back of it. But that happened because my paint was an "Iron" color, not straight black.

Each one takes 3-4 coats to fully cover. I held them up to the light and if there was even a lightly lit spot it got recovered. I am for perfection :)

Step one and step two of my favorite jar! At this point all that was left to do was draw the lines on the windows. I was in no way prepared to paint fine lines on the windows so I cheated and used a black sharpie... shhh. Don't tell anyone.

Kind of a crappy picture of the last jar. My crow!

My messy work area...

And this is the finished project. I still think I'm going back and adding a moon behind the witch. I think she's missing something. When I add it I'll add the picture to the post so check back soon!

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Magazine Basket (small)

This is based on my older post, Magazine Basket. It is the same thing just a bit smaller so the strip size was altered. Here are the pictures. I'm sure you can figure it out :)

Personally I like the smaller one better. The strips were folded more so the basket is a little more sturdy than the one in the original post.

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Photo Decoupaged Table

Let's give you a little background on this piece. My husband and cousin pulled up in my yard the other day with this desk they found in the trash. They asked me if I wanted to keep it... Really?! I'm the Queen of recycled trash craft projects... well right now I'm more of a Duchess but I'm working my way up there. None-the-less, as soon as I saw it I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it. I immediately grabbed a few photos to determine how many I would need to completely cover it. Then off I went to raid my hard drive for all the good photos, transferred them to black and whites, uploaded them to Walmart online for a 1-hour development and 40 minutes later I was checking out with 153 pictures, spray adhesive and a can of clear acrylic sealer. So enough rambling, here's how I did it...

What You Need:

Desk or other surface

Elmer's Spray Adhesive (#1 product of this kind, trust me)

Mod Podge Clear Acrylic Sealer

A Ton of Photos

First off, clean the surface you are working with. If you don't you will regret it later. When I started this project I just sprayed the surface and threw a few photos down always starting each row on the left side. (see above.) My recommendation would be to alternate which side you start the row on. It makes it look evenly spaced. 

Also, when picking out your photos keep in mind the orientation of the pictures. I didn't think of it when I started this but thankfully I had enough extra pictures to compensate for the odd spaces. I was able to keep a clear system on the main surfaces so I only had two odd orientation incidents :)

Throw down as many whole pictures as you can before worrying about the one's you have to cut to size. It makes the project a lot easier to get through, trust me. 

This is the spray I used in case you were wondering. During my research I found that Elmer's and Mod Podge were the most highly recommended products of this kind. And I had experience with off brand spray adhesives, Elmer's was definitely a win for me. The Mod Podge sealer I never had experience with but it seemed to do it's job well.

Another tip. When I started I originally just sprayed the surface down as a whole and slapped pictures on it. Once I got more into it I found that spraying each photo individually worked much better for me. But you will get sticky hands very easily doing it this way so make sure you have something on hand to remove it if you're like me and OCD. Lol. I didn't so I just wiped my hands on my jeans so it grabbed some lint and kept me from sticking to everything. This stuff is INSANELY STICKY!! Also, you'll notice the black tray I'm using to spray on might look a little familiar. That's because it's a meat tray. If you're a big fan of TV dinners and fast food restaurants you may not recognize these unless you work as a butcher. This tray is what is the meat is put on and wrapped in when you buy it at the store. I have been saving these for use a craft trays. They are perfect and of course they're disposable :)

Once you get all the whole photos down that you can begin to lay out the pictures you want in the gaps. There will be "slivers" of open space. Don't worry about those yet. You can fill those in with the scraps left from cutting the current batch of pictures. After laying them out I found it was helpful to hold the picture in place and bend it over the edge of the table to create a crease that is easy to follow. Cut away and glue down your work...

If everything is done right then you are left with a lot of clean edges and precious memories.

When everything is done follow the directions on the back of the Acrylic Sealer and spray away. I did about 5 coats. 

An extra step I did later involved the regular Mod Podge glue. I noticed some of my pictures on the edge of the desk weren't completely flush. Instead of tearing it up and respraying and making another mess I just gobbed Mod Podge in those places... and everywhere else basically :) It dries clear and you can't tell it's there. When its dry you can run your finger over the corners of your desk and it will feel completely smooth and tangle free. Your pictures won't budge!

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Notepad

First I have to say that this idea came from an awesome blogger at InfarrantlyCreative.net. Ever since I have been saving every box from snacks to pastas and in this case, beer. These notepads are awesomely creative and have the potential for ultimate personalization at a very low price!

What You Need:

Product box

Paper

Mod Podge

Paper Slicer

Paint stir sticks

Two clothes pins or another form of clamp

Pencil

Paint brush

When doing these notepads, always know your paper size FIRST! It's so much easier to size the cover to the paper than working the other way around. For paper you can use index cards, scrap paper or printer paper cut to size. Your only limit is your imagination.

I took an unnecessary step in making this one. I designed my paper in Photoshop and printed it out and cut it to size. You see (above) the design is monogrammed with my last name embedded in the letter. I printed out 10 sheets of this which gave me 40 sheets in my notepad.

Before I printed this out I marked where I was suppose to cut but they were still off by a few millimeters even with exact measurements. So if you're OCD like me.. plan for this. It isn't too hard getting them even this way, but it's enough to drive me crazy... 

Next step is to trim down the box you want to use. You can use cereal boxes, snack boxes, pancake mix boxes, anything. Open your pantry and take a look at everything in there, you'll find something to use. You could always use it as an excuse to by a giant box of Goldfish like I did :) To trim the box to the right size, just mark it by tracing the paper you have already cut to size. You will need to cut two pieces. One for the front and one for the back.

Now for the important part. Stack all the paper along with the front and back of the notepad. When you are bouncing the stack of paper against the table in effort to neatly stack it, make sure that the top of the notepad is on the bottom. It's IMPERATIVE to have those pages lined up evenly or the notepad will fall apart. Once stacked, sandwich the notepad between the two paint sticks as shown in the picture above. Clamp them together with the two clothes pins. And paint a layer of Mod Podge onto the top of the notepad. Let it dry and repeat 2 or 3 more times.

You may need an alternate clamp if you have more paper. Those black paper clamps found in most offices work great and come in a variety of sizes.

Once it's dry, remove the hardware and you're ready to rock your new notepad! I love this craft. It's awesome and has sooo much potential to be amazing. You can do these for gifts or baby showers, anything. A truly a versatile art form.

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Magazine Basket

I have been applying for a lot of free items online. I get subscriptions to a lot of magazines that way and once I read through them they are useless... or are they? I've been saving them hoping to find a useful way to recycle them into something else. After visiting my Mom at work recently I came across these wire-framed newspaper baskets. Cute, unique, practical and completely doable! 

What You Need:

Magazines (62 pages)

Mod Podge, watered down

Paint brush

Scissors

Patience, lots of it.

First thing's first. We need to make some paper strips for the weaving. My basket is the size of a regular piece of printer paper but you can change the instructions to fit your needs. 

To begin making the strips you will need to glue multiple pages together by overlapping them end-to-end about a half inch and then laying them out to dry. They dry in under a minute so you can stack these as you glue them. You will need 3 different lengths of strips. You will need 11 Strips made from 2 pages, 8 strips made from 3 pages, and 4 strips made from 4 pages. 

After gluing the pages together, you will need to fold them in half length-wise 3 times. You will end up with 23 strips, each a little less than an inch in width. Set aside the the 4 extra long strips. These you will use later to weave the sides in place. 

Take the 8, 3-paged strips and the 11, 2-pages strips and weave them together taking care to keep things pretty even. You will appreciate that later. If you don't know how to weave... over, under, over, under. If you still don't know how to weave, Google it. 

Bend all the edges upwards to make this next step a bit easier. Try not to get discouraged doing this first side weave. This will probably be the most difficult one but it gets much easier after this. Take one of your remaining 4-paged strips and begin weaving around the upright strips.

I found that it helped to dab a bit of glue randomly during the weave. Especially where the strip starts and ends. It helps a lot to help keep things tight. 

Once strip one is complete, breath a sigh of relief because it's smooth sailing from here on out. Repeat the process with the remaining 3 strips. If you chose not to glue as you go, be sure to at least glue the last strip. I didn't start gluing every individual weave until the third strip and I wish I had done it all the way through. It makes for a much more solid product.

Once the strips are weaved and the glue is dried, cut the access off the strip ends to make it level with the top of the basket. You will notice the tips of the cut off strips separate a bit at the tip. Easy fix. Run through them and dab glue (solid glue, not watered down) in the openings and squeeze shut. Hold it for a few seconds and move on. 

Once that is complete, your basket is done... unless you want to add one last detail. I chose to. Out of the scrap ends that you cut off, find a couple long pieces and cut them down to size. You want them to be able to lay over the edge of your basket so you will want them about an inch and a half in width. Length isn't too important as you can easily add more as you continue around the basket. When you add glue to the edges of the basket be sure to use plain glue. Do not water it down. Once you finish adding the "rim" you are finished. Stand back and admire your work! 

Stay tuned for my next blog to find something to fill it with!

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Mirror/Corkboard Project

Originally, this was a framed set of mirrors. My Mom bought it at work at 90% off because it was damaged. It sat in her house for a couple months leaning against a wall until the rest of it fell apart. I adopted it and brought it home where it sat in my room for about 2 weeks until I decided what I wanted to do with it. I thought the contrast of mirrors and cork would be interesting. Add a bit of a college-punk twist to this modern themed piece of decor. It was a very simple project. Cheap too! Here we go...

Supplies:

Frame and mirrors (Free)

Cork Sheets (6.00)

Glue Gun and Glue (8.00) -you probably have this on hand already

Scissors

Trace the glass onto the Cork Sheet until you have 9 traced. There are 18 available spots but since I'm alternating between glass and cork I only need half the amount.

Cut out each of the 9 pieces. Place them in the open slots alternating the two materials until all the spots are filled. Hot glue them in place.

I like it with just the frame filled. I wanted to hang it on the wall like this and in the center of it, mount clock hands directly on the wall. Then add number stickers around the edges, or lines in place of the numbers. Shane liked the mirror in the middle so that's what I did... 

Same process. I laid the glass in the slot and used hot glue to keep it in place. And now the project is complete! A beautiful and practical mirror/corkboard. Now all that's left is to deck it out with some sweet homemade Bottle Cap Tacks from my last post :)

Love it ♥