Great Gift Idea Monogram Photo Letters

I found this great idea on-line and wanted to make it for a certain person for Christmas, so Heather, if you are reading this....PLEASE LEAVE MISSY, lol.  The link to the original post the crafter put up is broken now, so I can't credit her post, or find her again, but I will walk you through it, it's super easy.

Here is a list of what you will need:

1 letter, I used a 22 inch paper mache letter, but you can choose smaller or wood, makes no difference.  $10
1 bottle 2 oz of black (or whatever color you like) paint.  I bought Apple Barrel gloss black. $1
1 8 oz Mod Podge (uses very little so if you already have some, use it). $5
1 Spray can of Krylon Low Odor Clear Finish (uses very little so if you already have some, use it).  $8
1 printer with black ink and paper loaded
Paint brush
Foam brush

So if you already have your printer, paint brush and foam brush, you pay full price for the above it will cost around $24.  Prices are as of today, November 14, 2011 and will vary from store to store.

Go get the letter of your choice.  There just happens to be a coupon for this week (Nov 13th - 18th 2011) at Joann's where I found mine, 50% off....WooHoo.  You can also purchase everything else there.  Have your significant other, kids, whoever you can find print out a coupon and go through the line for you as well and you can make this for around $12 or so.

Lay some newspaper down on a flat surface and With your paint brush, paint the letter black on one side and down the sides...wait for it to dry...flip it and paint the other side.

Here is the paint I used, but use what you would like and  remind me to paint my own nails before pictures of this kind!

I just squirted and smoothed....repeat until.......

You get it covered all over.

Let it dry on the first side.  Flip and paint the other side if you want.  I did, I think it looks more finished and makes it sturdier.

My letter was 2 inches across.  I put all my pics into Microsoft publisher and adjusted them to 2 inches wide.  I also brightened them, then I printed them, making sure my printer was set to do black and white printing only.  You could do color if you wanted, but I like the look of the black and white.  I tried to do a print screen here, so I could show you, but it did not want to work.  You could also use Word or even Google Docs and get the same result.

Lay out your pictures with some over lap.  This is why when adjusting in publisher, you can make some bigger so that the persons face is bigger, knowing that you will trim the background.  Once you have the look you want, start trimming.  I used a pencil and lightly made marks on the front of the picture, then trimmed carefully, not wanting to have to print anything again.  Then glue the piece down and trim and glue the next and so on. I went from bottom to the center, then to the top.  Be sure to follow Mod Podge directions, if you are like me and can't see the itty bitty, little teeny, tiny......well you get it....print on the darn bottle, Plaid is nice enough to post it all on-line, with video for us right HERE.  Then you let it dry and brush over the top, once again following the directions HERE.  Let dry.  I let mine dry over night.

Next, take it to a well ventilated garage or outside.  I put mine in a cardboard box, picture side up and sprayed from about two feet away with the Krylon spray.  You can find out the best techniques HERE.  I like to give the you the manufacturers instructions in case something goes wrong, that way you can take it up with them, not me.  Hahhha.  Here is he end product.

I think it turned out well and will look terrific on her wall.  She is a picture junkie, so this is a great personalized gift....I think anyway.  I think I will use my glue gun to place some picture hooks on back and hang it with a pretty ribbon.  I am thinking black and white stripes, what do you think?  Stripes... poka dots..solid?  You choose what you think and I will post the end result.

Merry crafting and thanks for reading.  As always, I love comments, so leave some so I know how I am doing.

Christmas Ideas for Girls

Christmas is right around the corner again....how the heck did that happen?  I know I have not been posting like I should, but stuff just keeps happening that prevents a long post.  SO, I am going to start doing short little posts (that will probably end up long) in an effort to keep you up to date on what I am doing.

I finally have some little girls in my life again, I may be reaching for them actually. Just miss the little girl fun and things, little girl things are the best, well for us girls.  You may be able to use some of this, so in researching things, I will share others posts.  Here are a bunch of great, fast, little girl projects.  I have become a great fan of the Goodwill bins for sources to get these things done.

Building a Barbie doll house out of a dresser.  I will be tackling this one this year.  Amazing!  Not hard at all....any of us could do it.  Here is the link: http://www.just-in.com/recycledDresser/index.htm  Thank you Just in Designs for this one.  I think peel and stick vinyl and carpet tiles from the dollar store and some scrap-booking papers will make this wonderful.  I wonder if I can manage a roof top garden out of paint?  I have a hot tub found at a thrift store for almost nothing that will look nice up there!

As a child my cousin had a great kids kitchen and then my daughter Naelyn had one.  I love them!  My son probably played with it the most.  They inspire future chef's and if a child has never made you pizza or tea, you are missing out!  Here is a great plan for a small kitchen you can do yourself from an end table.  I think this will be a project for next year! http://landofozfam.blogspot.com/2010/12/i-shouldnt-say-never.html  Thank you Land of Oz Fam for this cute post.

I personally lucked out at the Goodwill bins and walked away with this:

It cost me $3.00.  They usually go by weight, but you can ask how much for a certain item that is over weight and they will give you a reasonable price.  This is built so well I could jump up and down on it, so I consider myself more than lucky.

I had two flannel pillow cases from the thrift store that had cute little roses on them.  I got them two for $.50.  I sewed a mattress and filled with some of the roll of batting I got, brand new in the package, at the same thrift store for $.50.  Here it is with the mattress.

I made a pillow with the scraps and some more batting.

Then I made the quilt, quilted it and added yarn ties.

Had to show it with the "creepy" doll....thanks Devin, he thinks she is really creepy, lol.  This is only a 12 inch doll, but the actual mattress size of this bed is 22 inches, so this will fit a lot of different size dolls.

I am excited to give this to the little girl it goes to and not bad for around $4.00.

Hints for thrifting.  Thrift often through the year with your projects in mind.  Carry a fabric tape measure in your pocket.  My sewing one works just fine.  That way I can see if things will fit in a space or be the right size for a project.  Always think of ways you can re-purpose something.  Check out the web site of the thrift store, sometimes they have "cards", discounts or coupons....save all you can.  If you know you will be digging, bring a dust mask and some gloves.  At the Goodwill bins carry in your cash or debit in a pocket and nothing else, no purse or visible jewelry.  Most of all have fun!  I do!

FATHER'S DAY LADDER GOLF

So for Father's Day this year we made a Ladder Golf game for Mark.  Some people call it Bolo or Hillbilly Golf, but whatever you call it, it is a lot of fun!  Fawn wanted one too so we bothered the guys at Home Depot together.  Our shopping trip was fun though and we brought back the simple supplies.  Of course, poor Mark got roped into setting up the power tools and we had him drill the golf balls.  Fawn and I were both afraid we would have some seriously off center holes if we were to drill them.  We used the power hand saw though and team worked helped.  I was much better at the actual sawing and Fawn was great at setting up the clamps.

If you are looking for a fun project with the kids or a fun gift, this might be the gift for you this year.  You can follow the instructions below or just buy one on-line, I will provide a link for that too.


What you need to make ladders
• 44 feet of 3/4" PVC pipe ( or 1" PVC)  buy 5, 10ft pieces
• 12 L connectors ‐ 3/4" elbows
• 12 T connectors ‐ 3/4" tees
• Saw or pipe cutter  (we used a hand power saw)
• PVC glue ( optional, we just glued the elbows and T's to the 2 foot pieces so they would not get lost, but the game can be taken apart for storage or travel.  Mark's will be camping a whole lot! )      
Cutting the PVC pieces
• Two rolls of duct tape in different colors (duct tape comes in some really cool shade these days!)
• Cut 14, 2ft pieces of PVC pipe
• Cut 16, 1ft pieces of PVC pipe
• Cuts can be made with the cutting device of your choice.   Hand saw, table saw, jig saw, etc.
• Rough edges from cuts can be lightly sanded, if you choose to, we didn't because we glued the elbows and T's to the ends of most of the pieces.

Assembling the PVC pieces
• Connect the cut pieces with the T and L (elbow) connectors
• The 2‐ft pipes will be used for the back footprint as well as the ladder rungs.  The front footprint doesn't need to be as long as the back because all the force is coming from the front. (A footprint is what is holding the game up)
• No need to use PVC glue. For tranport, it's easier to have the option of disassembly. Some people will glue everything together except for the base to ladder connection. That leaves to pieces of similar size, easy for hauling.  We glued on just the elbows and T's to the 2 foot pieces so we can break them down and take them places.
• Wrap the two foot pieces in duct tape, alternating the colors.  This helps protect the pipe from cracking if you have enthusiastic ball throwers!

How to make the Bolos  
• You will need 24 golf balls. MAKE SURE THAT THEY ARE SOLID CORE.  Paint or color in groups of 6.  We got big sharpie pens and colored them 4 different colors in groups of 6.  This allows for four players.  I have heard that some people use Rid dye on the  balls and rope, but the sharpies worked well for us.  Paint would not stick.  You can also buy balls in different colors, but they are generally a little more expensive.
• Drill a hole going through the center of each golf ball.
• You will need 12 ‐ 18inch pieces of nylon rope.
• Thread the rope through the holes that you previously drilled.
• Place a golf ball at each end of the rope.
• Tie a knot right in front of and behind the ball to hold it secure.
• Use a match or a lighter to slightly melt the knot. This will help the knot stay tied. If you made your holes a little big, you may want to wind the rope through the knot twice to make the knot a little bigger so that it won't pull back through the holes.

Now here are the rules:

Ladder Toss, Ladder golf, Bolo Toss, Polish Horseshoes, hillbilly horseshoes, Hillbilly golf, Redneck Golf, Ladder Ball, Monkey Balls, or Ladder Ball, is a lawn game for 2 to 4 people. The game is played by throwing a bolo, made of two golf balls connected with a rope, at a 3 rung ladder. Different rungs of the ladder are worth different amounts of points. The top rung is worth 3 points, the middle is worth 2, and the lower rung is worth one. The goal of the game is to get exactly (and not over) 21 points.

Scoring
Top Rung = 3 Points
Middle Rung = 2 Points
Bottom Rung = 1 Points
Score is determined very similarly to Cornhole, where points cancel each other out. If you score on a rung and the other team or person scores on that same rung, the points are canceled.

Example: Team 1 puts 2 bolos on top rung, it is 6 points, but team 2 puts 1 bolo on the same rung, it cancels out 3 of the 6 points.
Play up to 21.

Alternate scoring variation:
All balls that land in the base of the ladder can be scored one. The first rung can be scored 2, second rung 3,
and top rung 4. This is helpful with younger players, and can help the game move along a little faster For the one-pointers landing in the base, only one ball must be inside the area. The exception to this is a shot that lands both balls on the outside of the frame with just the rope on the inside of the ladder area. This is the only shot that counts for a point without any ball inside the base area.

Game play
Set Up
• Place the Ladders 15 to 30 feet apart (Adjust the distance, accordingly. Shorter for younger players is fine)
• Each team will have 3 bolos. (different colors for each team)
• Players alternate throwing one bolo at a time until all 3 are tossed.
• Ladder Toss can be played with 2 people or in 2 teams of 2 or 4 individual players each with their own set.
** For two people, both stand at one end and toss the balls, then move to the other end for the next toss.
** If you are playing with 2 teams of 2, 1 person from each team will stand on each side.
** If playing individuals, just stand next to who you want to chat with!

Here are some sites I used that helped me and might give you ideas for other fun family games: outdoorgameplayers.com
http://home.comcast.net/~jcjrsmith2/files/laddergolf.pdf

Here is a set you can just buy and wrap!  Honestly, it probably ends up costing about the same......we just had fun working together to do it......some of the time, lol.



Whatever you decide to do, have fun!  Sorry I have not posted in awhile.  I will get back to it!


As a side note, we played this until 9 last night.  Mark and I all by ourselves in the yard having so much fun.  If you know us, you know we had to be having fun if we were still outside and awake at 9 P.M.!

Great ideas when you are cleaning out your closets after the holiday rush!

Here are some great ideas when you are cleaning out your closets after the holiday rush!  Found a really great blog on how to recycle clothing read this from money saving Mom and get some good tips on consignment shops.  My problem is when I go, they reject so much.  I like to donate to a certain extent, but am trying this year to reuse, recycle, grow and compost as much as possible.  I want to keep the cash I have put out, paying me back as much as possible.  I racked my brain on what to do with the left over clothes.  You can only get so much of a tax deduction and then you are done.
My parents were much older than all my friends.  My relatives even got confused this year with which group I belonged to for pictures, my cousins or my cousins children.  I teased that it was the first because I was the baby, but it is true.  Lots of stuff was passed down from my grandmothers depression era sewing, but only in my brain.  I never followed up.  So I started thinking about my fathers mother and her great quilts, always made out of dress or shirt scraps.  I did some of that this year for my rice bags.  Then I though about my mothers mother and the fact she made me some great Halloween costumes from scraps.  I remember a whole Indian princess costume from burlap sacks.  Why can't I do things like they did this year?  I can do it and help to recycle, save money and save the environment in my own little way.
A few things I came up with are listed here with links:
1.  If you have babies, friends that do or even grandchildren and can sew at all, these patterns for diapers and wipes are great.  So many of us are trying to go green and this is a wonderful way to do it yourself or help someone you know who is, get greener.  Thank you Zany Zebra for the many options and patterns you have listed.  They allow you to even use left over t-shirts!  She also gives you tips for washing them on her main pages.
2.  Everyone loves quilts or baby blankets. These are great gifts for Mom's to be, or me....ooo...ooo....pick me.  This is an EASY one you can  make with old clothes.  I know, they say they used flannel, but you can use cotton or anything else.  I would choose to use all the same type of material, but still this is great.  Use old flannel sheets or pillow cases if you want, but these are neat.  Rag quilts.
3.  OKAY!!!!  This is my favorite - my friend Heather's Aunt sews her new pillow cases each year for Christmas.  I thought, man, I love those.  They look and feel so much better than the store bought ones.  Why can't we make these with left over clothes.  Since it is something you sleep with, I recommend cotton or flannel, but use what you want as long as it is non flammable.  Watch this woman, this is amazing.......we can do this....Easy Tube Pillow Cases.  You can make these and send them to our troops too.  They are asking for pillowcases from home.
4.  Okay, always have to take it a step too far.  But I am making some of these just to have on hand in case of an emergency.  Flood, power outage or volcano, who knows.  Anything that means I can't re-stock.  They are a necessity.  Sanitary pads.  The Hillbilly Housewife has this one down pat and she uses them all the time.  So here is her post on how to make your own Sanitary Pads.

Explore and have fun, make some pot holders or make a baby doll for the little girl in your life, start looking here Rag Doll.  This is the first of many she has posted to complete a doll.  Just remember to try and be a little greener if you have time.  People will appreciate those gifts you start now for this next Christmas.  You can do them with little money and lots of love if you start thinking and planning now.  Thank you for reading what I post and please send me ideas back in the comments, if you have any, feedback is much appreciated.  Suggestions on posts you would like to see are great too.  After all, I have the time right now.  What homemaking stuff would you like to know about?  Also, if you have any friends you think would like my ideas, let them know.  I love having peeps out there.  The more the merrier!

On the Cheap

Alright, told everyone we are trying to do Christmas for free or very little money, well with a ten year old who still believes in Santa, sorta hard.  But we went on a hunt today, Mark and I.  First, we wanted to get him marbles.  Went to Goodwill, ended up with 4 brand new books, and two funny presents for Marks Christmas party.  We got the whale character from Dr. Seuss's If I Ran with the Circus, brand new, with the tag on, for $1.99 this is http://www.amazon.com/Dr-Seuss-Circus-Plush-Whale/dp/B0034EKU90  $ 12.67 wow, savings of $10.50.  Also got a High School Musical game, with the DVD, it was the original and never opened for $3.  Can't wait to see the guys he works with faces when they try and pass that on to the next person in the white elephant exchange!  Now the BIG news for those of you who have a Bi-mart.  We got the last two of these at the Tigard Bi-mart, but if you have one near, jump on it.  http://www.amazon.com/Amazing-Marbles-Deluxe-Collectors-Players/dp/B003J9D6DM  $25.00 on Amazon.  $5.99 at B-mart, THAT IS WHY WE GOT TWO, that was all they had, or I would have bought more. One hundred and fifty one marbles for that price, crazy.  We are making a marble mat, instruction book and a bridge to go with his marbles for Christmas, total for his Christmas, $11.98.  We had the makings for everything else in the craft closet or wood shop.  Will post the book and instructions on tomorrows blog !  ENJOY!

Homemade Christmas

This year we are choosing to have a Homemade Christmas.  Yes, it is motivated by budget, but truly, finding creative ways to spend little or no money is FUN!  Devin is making Christmas ornaments for people.  He and Mark came up with the great idea of slicing up last years Christmas tree.  We have a wood stove, so they had stored it on top of the woodpile to be burned later.  Now it will be part of our Christmas celebration forever.  I am not really showing many finished products, since some of the people who read this are on my list, but here is the beginnings of their project.  Should be fun to see what they come up with.

I am working on some paintings and crocheting.  Have a few other things under our belts that include granite and other fun stuff.  Here are some of the crotchet projects.

But the thing I found that I want to share with you I am really excited about.  With my children, some kind of electronic gift is what the two youngest really want, 10 and 18.  Well check this out, you may already know, but I didn't, Amazon has a free Kindle download for your PC.  Plus, they have a huge amount of free books for the program.  I just got the program and 15 books for the kids for FREE.  Not only that, I did not even touch on all the free books, they offer a ton.  Classics and new books, even games.  Some of the games will not download to the PC version, but hey, I am happy.  Here is what I suggest,  for family members you can put this on their computers without their knowledge and tell them on Christmas day in a card, or if you are giving as a gift to a college student, copy the program to a CD and include a word doc with written instructions.  It was super easy though.  I already had an account, so you may have to open one if you don't.  Click on the link below, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, on the right side on Amazon there is a BUY NOW WITH ONE CLICK button, you will see Get Kindle for PC below that.  Click there and follow the directions.  Then, just shop at the Kindle Book Store.  So great to get The Wizard of Oz, The Secret Garden and the Junglebook for free along with some new titles.  You can also buy titles for the PC version.  My children LOVE to read, so they are going to like this!  Okay, so today is Pay it Forward day, so here you go!  As for me, I downloaded a few titles I think I might enjoy, so I am taking a break and reading a little!  Enjoy!