Finished Summer Blocks

These are the blocks I made for the give-away winner, Mindie. I really like how they turned out. I'm not sure what my favorite part is, but I do really like the ink on the edges of the paper. It adds depth and dimension, and I like that. Like, like, like. I think I need a knew adjective.

In other news, I'm still trying to get rid of all the crud, but it's getting better. The cough is mostly gone. At one point it was so bad I woke myself up at night coughing, and the cough was so bad I literally sat up in bed from the power of it. It rose me from the bed. The Dear was not so happy about that one. Especially because I was coughing for about twenty minutes in the middle of the night, and he gets out of bed at 4:20 in the morning. My sore throat and ear ache is also gone. Hooray! Just in time for a two week road trip to Illinois to visit my parents and extended family for my cousin, Brianne's wedding.

If I get time today I'm going to make a set of blocks for her kitchen that say Eat. At some point, when I have time, I'm going to make a set of Eat. Pray. Love. blocks. This isn't a plug for the movie though. I didn't like the movie, but I do like the sentiment that it conveys, and the versatility of the set. Good for a kitchen, living room, or dining room.

My Give-Away

Okay, I've decided, I'm going to do a give-away. Right here, right now. Here's the deal:

Right now I have 9 followers. That's right, 9. That saddens me a bit. I appreciate the 9 of you though, but somebody just isn't spreading the word. In order to get the word out, I'm going to do something I saw on Clean Teen Fiction just the other day. See, she was having the same problem as me. She had a new blog, and she wanted to up her readership. So she's hosting a give-away. In a few short days she went from 8 followers to 20! I think I can do that too. So, this is what I'm going to do: When my blog reaches 25 followers, I'm going to give away a set of my blocks. The entry period starts now, and goes until May 22nd (that's Mother's Day). So the winner is going to get a late Mother's Day present, but such is life. The winner can choose one of the sets I have listed in my Esty shop (just don't buy it from the shop), or can let me know if they want a custom set (such as a first or last name, or just a word like faith, love, dream, etc.). Winner chooses.

So, entries: To be entered to win you must be a follower and leave a comment on this post. Please leave a separate comment for each entry. You can get another entry if you talk about this blog/giveaway on your Facebook status. You can get another entry by posting about this blog/giveaway on your blog. If you put a link on your blog sidebar to leserleeslovesandhobbies.blogspot.com I'll give you another entry. You can get up to 4 entries in the random.org pool. If you do one of the blog entries, I must be able to view your blog to verify the post. I know that sucks for the private bloggers, I would know, I'm one of them (I have a private blog, in addition to my two public blogs), but such is life. Good luck!

St. Patrick's Day Decorations

In addition to my leprechauns that I made many, many years ago out of brown paper grocery bags, I created a shamrock garland for the front window, and some "Lucky" blocks, since it's too cold and snowy for my "Spring" blocks to come out, and the "Winter" ones have been out for too long.

The leprechauns were a bit time intensive, but pretty simple to do. I free-handed the different body parts on the paper bags, then painted them with Cermacoat paint and used scrapbooking supplies to embellish them. My mom had a paper crimper that I used to make the hair have texture, and that thing was AWESOME! And I used brads to attach the various body parts together. I think they took about two hours to make, but I can't remember for sure.

The blocks are easy too. I will give a step-by-step process.
1. Gather 2x4s (we always have tons of scrap pieces laying around that I use)
2. Cut 2x4s to random heights. I don't even measure. I just eyeball some bigger, some smaller and don't worry about perfection.
3. Sand 2x4s as needed.
4. Gather scrapbooking paper. The pieces need to be 3" wide, by whatever height you need.
5. Coat wood with Mod Podge and attach papers.
6. Cover papers with another coat of Mod Podge and attach letters.
7. Cover letters with another coat of Mod Podge and let dry.
8. When Mod Podge is dry add desired embellishments.

For my rainbow I used colored tape that I got from Oriental Trading Company years ago. You could just use a rainbow sticker or something though.

And for my garland, I keep the grapevine up all year long, and then change out the decorations. For this I had a shamrock die cut that I traced on coordinating pieces of scrapbook paper, and then cut out. I ran a ribbon through the grapevine, and tied the ribbon in several places to the curtain rod. To attach the shamrocks, I used gold brads that I put through the paper and the ribbon. And I attached some butterflies that I bought at Michael's to the grapevine. The butterflies came on wire, so I just wrapped the wire around the grapevine. Pretty simple, but I like it!

Project Report

Can I just say that I love that I put my list of projects up here? This way I'm able to self-check and make sure I'm getting things done. And getting things done I have been (too bad my house isn't as clean as it should be, so my budget for next month will be a little tight).

Things I've completed:
Love Blocks
Pink flower hair clips for BIL's wedding
Vinyl Nativity Glass Block
Redecorating for Valentine's Day (this was easy because all I have is two small metallic garlands and two sets of gel window clings (and now the wooden blocks too!)

Things in the works:
The coat hangers/shelves. I've stained all the wood (still need to do a coat of poly on top) and spray painted the baskets ($3 at DI!). Need to get the nail gun back from a friend so the bad boys can be assembled and installed.
Seed packet wall hangings. I figured out where to put them, but I need to take down the other ones, putty, texture, and touch-up the wall, then rearrange them all, since they are all going together. That's why it hasn't gotten done yet. So many steps, and so much laziness. It took long enough just to figure out where to put them. :)

The skirt idea got scratched off the list, since I found a super cute eyelet sundress at DI for $5. It does need a cardigan to go over it, but I'm hoping a few more trips to DI should solve that problem. Can you tell that I love thrifting?

Something I might do soon:
Work on my quilt. It would be nice to have done, but it's such a big project, involving pulling out the sewing machine and making a mess of the living room. Oh how I wish I had a craft room.
Oh, and I might work on painting those wooden fences from the dollar store. They will be super cute hanging on a wall in my living room if Spring ever shows up. Which should be around June here in Idaho.

And, some eye candy:

These blocks are so easy to do! If you have a huge stockpile of scrapbook paper and scrap 2x4s, they are basically free! These papers I actually printed off my computer. I have a former roommate that designs digital scrapbooking materials, and this is from one of her kits, Sweet Love O' Mine. Go here to get it. Go here to visit her blog. Yari is awesome and I love pretty much everything she designs! So, to make these blocks, cut some 2x4s. I don't measure I just cut some bigger, some smaller and really just eyeball it. Then I measure so my papers will be the right length. The papers need to be 3" wide, and whatever length. Mod Podge the background papers to the blocks. If you have a Silhouette or Cricket cutting out letters is easy. I don't, so sometimes I use an alpha set from a digital scrapbooking kit, but this time I made my own using a font from Photoshop, and then using the masking text tool and a few other steps to make the font, including a layer style to get the ridges around the edges. So, after I Mod Podge the background papers I Mod Podge on the letters, then put another coat of Mod Podge over the top. This can all be done in about an hour, if you don't have littles (children) distracting you. Or husbands, or pets, or life, or whatever. I might still add some ribbons or flowers or something, but I still have bathrooms and a kitchen to clean.

My vinyl Nativity. I love how this turned out. I ordered from the site Say it on the Wall and was very pleased with the outcome. Laura has an offer for people who become "affiliates" so I got $5 in free vinyl from her! I did have to pay shipping, but that's okay. And this was a custom design. She had quite a few Nativity designs, but I wasn't completely in love with any of them, so I asked her to tweak the "O Holy Night" one, and she was more than happy to oblige. She was great to work with! And her vinyl was the easiest to work with that I have ever done. I thought the hay in the manger was going to be a pain, but it was EASY! It was actually the bottom corner, under Joseph that almost ripped because I wasn't paying attention. But it didn't. Thanks, Laura!