Freakin' Fall Wreath!

I call this Freakin' Fall Wreath because I'm a little disturbed that I have headed down the seasonal decoration path.  But, if all you people in Blog land would stop being so darn inspiring, maybe I'd be happy with my plain front door.  However everything you guys make is cool and I too would like to be cool.  It's a slight problem I have....it's been going on since I was a kid lol!

I was inspired by this post that I saw on Tater Tots and Jello of 25 Fall Wreaths.  The one from Home Stories A to Z really caught my attention, and she had a tutorial to make the flowers. So I made my own version of it.

I started with the green Styrofoam form, charcoal yarn, and several colors of felt.  I wrapped the yarn around the form.  By the way, no one tells you that it takes a while to accomplish the yarn wrapping....also wears your arms out. I made the felt flowers using the Home Stories A to Z tutorial, you can find it here.  It's totally easy.

 Here's the yarn covered form and the flowers.  I also found some pre-cut foam leaves in my colors so I threw those in the mix.

I hot glued some orange rhinestones and teeny tiny pearls inside a couple of the flowers. I did this with out burning my fingers which is amazing.

I found some old ribbon from last years stock and used that to hang it.  Please try to ignore the fact that my door is pink.  It was one of those color cards you pick up and thing "yes, I'll paint my house, trim, and door exactly what the pre-picked color says."  It will be replaced and painted soon! Anyway the wreath looked pretty decent, but I didn't think it was quite there.

So, I found a wooden initial and mod podged some cute paper on it.  Then sanded it a little and used my favorite distress ink on the edges.  I also painted some turquoise on the copper ribbon, just to add a punch at the top.

Final product much better.  It will look even better on my new door!  Happy Crapping everyone!

Linking up to:
The Shabby Creek Cottage
The DIY Showoff Fall Festival

PREVIOUS LIFE....

Let's call this a working title for this new series.  I was thinking that maybe readers might want to know where the heck I came from.  Not where I was born or anything, I wouldn't want you guys to fall asleep, but where I came from design wise...

Previous life... because it feels like forever ago.
Trip down memory lane...

Whatever I decide to call it, it will be a look at some projects I've done.  Mainly a peek into who I am as designer and artist. I'm kind of interested to see how much my taste has changed and if it's gotten better or worse. Eek!!! Shine the light baby... let see some awesomeness or some ugliness lol!

I think a good place to start is with my son's room. So, I wanted something more generic than the usual sports theme room.  I'm anti blue or pink FYI.  I painted the leaves and bird in the alcove where his crib was going.

Graphic Mural

Anybody else see that weird ghost like thing in every picture.... Not a ghost. It took me forever to figure out that there was still something on the camera lense... probably pancake. I was OBSESSED with pancakes while I was pregnant.

 Anyway, I reused a curtain that used to be a pair for the window treatment.  Take notice of the dresser in the left corner. Dang I wish I had a better picture of it! I had painted it and used wallpaper that looked like maps on the drawer fronts.

Old Dresser

Lucky for me, my parents helped me sand and re-paint this dresser.  I think I was nearly going to pop when I made the final decision on how I wanted it to look. Used the wall color on the drawer fronts.  Then, I did the one thing I said I would never do.  I used appliques that came with the bedding.  I know horrific right! The only way I justified using them was because

a) I didn't put them on the wall b) They are not clustered together over the bed c) I didn't use them all


This is the third paint job that this dresser has had.  Just goes to show you that one staple piece can go a long way!

New Dresser

KEEP TRACK OF YOUR RACK

Just a quick note today.  It's been a weird couple of days.  My mom was diagnosed with breast cancer on March 31st, yes the day before April Fools day.  She actually called people to tell them her diagnosis on April Fools day. 

Anyway, she's had 4 rounds of chemo and had her last treatment a couple of weeks ago. (She let me give her a mohawk when she lost her hair) This round has been especially un-kind to her and she's been feeling pretty yucky.  News from the doc yesterday was that she would go on to have 6 weeks of radiation. Boooo!!  That wasn't supposed to happen.  But, it's a better safe than sorry kind of thing. 

 I've been tossing this idea around since she was first diagnosed and I finally got it done.

It's what I like to call a "Rack Plaque".

I wanted something other than the usual ta-ta's or boobies.  Not only is it a good reminder to get your yearly mammogram, but it's going to double as a wig/scarf holder for my mom.

I took it over today to cheer my mom up and she loved it. The only way that we make it through tough situations is with laughter.  Wait until you see the cards that I'm making. Stay tuned....

KEEP TRACK OF YOUR RACK

Linking up to:

DIY Project Parade

Show & Share

C.R.A.P.

Have I ever told you.... probably not. 

I throw around the word CRAP and probably unintentionally offend someone.  I thought I better explain it. 

 Remember my friend Louschell?  Well she's pretty brainy when it comes to jingles and acronyms.... just don't ask her to read a big word like extrapolate outloud. She's very athletic, and as you can see here she's going places. 

I contacted Louschell to come up with something witty for all of the random stuff I had been making lately.  She came up with the name of my shop,  Peepskeeps a couple of years ago. (More on that later) So, you can see why I would force ask her to lend her creativity to me once again. 

I'm not going to tell you what the orginal concept was....lets just say I had to make it more everybody friendly, and less offensive.  But, she got the ball rolling and that is where CRAP came from (insert inappropriate joke here).

CRAP stands for Creative Repurposed Awesome Pieces! It's everything I live for.  Making something old, newer.  Turning something useless into useful.  Or create a piece of art out nothing.  I love CRAP!!

My friends have also turned this into a fun game.  They call me with an idea or something they've seen and ask "Hey, do you think you can CRAP that?" or "You can CRAP out a chair like that in your sleep."

It's catchy isn't it?  You're all going to be CRAPping now. (endless inappropriate jokes too)

HAPPY CRAPOWEEN EVERYBODY! Stay tuned ....

RECORD BREAKING ART PEOPLE!!!

First off, this is record breaking because I'm posting 3 days in a row.  It's completely unheard of!! Honestly it's because I'm just sooooo damn proud of myself. Hold on...patting myself on the back...OK I'm done. 

This piece of CRAP has been bothering me for years.  My husband and I bought an awesome statue from Z gallery for $40 about 5 years ago.  That's back when we had money pre-layoffs and pre-child.

We had it for about a year before the glass broke in the back due to an unfortunate doggie attack. It had water in it, kind of like a snow globe without the snow.

Because I'm a hoarder, I never threw it away.  It has been hanging out gathering dust (as you can see from the picture).  My mother is cringing right now.

I took out some aggression and busted the glass thinking I'd just paint it and leave the coral in the center.  But, once I started messing with it, it looked really stupid.  With a little bit of work , I ended up being able to remove the entire coral piece and had a stand with a gaping divot in the top.  It needed something on to fill it.

Originally I thought about just putting a candle in the top.  Until, I was in the shower today and had a thought...wonder if I can find a hurricane to fit in the top!!

Drum roll people because seriously you would have thought I had found the cure to cancer I felt so smart.

Well..... yeah I know you're amazed.  My obsession for high gloss white really paid off (hint: you'll see more of it later).  I found the perfect hurricane.  There was only one of these in the store and I was just crossing my fingers it was the right scale. Added bonus: $2.99 on sale! What?

But, wait there's more. 

The candle was on sale and I had the large glass beads hanging out at the house.  See, I told you I was smart.

Quickie C.R.A.P.

Part of the reason that I haven't been posting so often is because I start one project and then get ideas for a million more.  So, I have a little bit of everything laying around...you know painted deer racks, 60's doggie cookie jar, vintage Kleenex box cover, cabinet doors. You get the point right. 

I thought I'd give a little look at some of the only quickie C.R.A.P that I've completed.

This is a 6x6 gallery wrapped canvas. The front is a piece of scrap paper.  I used a chip board "O" and stamped a print overlay.  On the side, that you can't see well, I used a stencil and modeling paste to give a raised texture.  The modeling paste I used already had a mustard color to it. 

Another 6x6 canvas...actually I got a 4 pack on sale for $14.99.  Not a bad deal.  I used an entire piece of paper to wrap this one, then stamped in 2 different colors. I used blue ink to distress or play up the creases. I cut up a felt coaster that I got out of the $1 bin at Michael's last year.  It's the yellow piece in the bottom left corner.  On top of that, I layered a pendant out the clearance jewelry bin.  Are we sensing a theme here??  I hate full price!  Personally, I feel much more accomplished if I can make $1 bin stuff look good.

Last but not least, a collection of small C.R.A.P.  All three of these are small boxes. The back right was simply painted and then I put a fun sock monkey print on the lid.  The back left is layers upon layers of paper.  We'll call her "Owlina" and she can be" Owliver's" cute lady friend.  The box is my favorite shade of green.  I put one layer of a leaf paper on the lid and cut an owl pattern out of different patterned paper.  The last application consists of small cut out flowers.  I aged the edges of all the cutouts to give them more dimension.  The front item is an eye glass holder.  Another amazing $1 bin find.  It has a flexible veneer top.  All I did to this was spruce it up with paint and some stamping.

The lesson here?? Keep the C.R.A.P. small and maybe I'll finish it in a timely manner.

Orange Mary

Yeah, couldn't think of a good name for this piece of C.R.A.P (Creative Repurposed Awesome Piece). So we'll just call her Orange Mary or Mary Sunrise?? Why do I feel the need to name my C.R.A.P?

 I have this amazing friend, Louschell, and she keeps harassing me about blogging more.  In order to get her to shut up, I am working on it.  You see, she's an avid runner, which you can read about here, and I have let her down in my attempts to be a runner. (I don't run unless something is chasing me)  So, I will have to build her faith in me by being a better blogger.

This piece of C.R.A.P literally evolved out of nothing.  I needed some filler in my shop Peepkeeps.  The box had been hanging around for at least a year and it was covered in some lame scrap paper. I had pulled the paper off and applied some texture and paint a month or so ago, but was still uninspired. UNTIL... a necklace I was wearing broke.

You can't see the texture on the box very well, but it's a stucco finish.  I painted it orange and then used a purple ink to bring out some of the deeper ridges and add shadow.  The gray strands of mica is the necklace that broke, and leaning up against the box is a broken key chain that's been hanging in the junk drawer for a couple of years.

I was originally going to use the strands whole, and wrap them around.  That didn't give the effect I wanted.  I glued the individual mica pieces in random directions, and they ended up looking like rocks or boulders.  So, Mary looks like she's hanging out at the top of a cliff.  Then, I finished it off with some dots of white paint.  I think she needed to be more graphic.  What do you think?