Sprout 8: Photo Project

Lydia’s senior pictures:

This summer my sister asked if I would take her senior pictures for her.  This was not because I am an excellent photographer but for two reasons.

1.      She thought most of her friends photo’s looked the same and were taken in the same three locations

2.     She is awesome and even at 17 she is frugal, why spend money when you don’t have to!

So two weeks ago she came to visit with a friend and we had some fun around town.  There were tons of amazing photos; of course my sister is beautiful, although not all were “senior picture” in nature. These are a few of my favorite.

I also took some photo’s of Lydia’s friend any my other sister, maybe I’ll post some of them later.

sprout 7: Bottle Cap Magnets

A few months back I saw magnets similar to this in a store, a set of 12 for around $20, I thought... "hmm, I could make those." I needed to collect bottle caps and then some magazine images that I liked.  So, I need to say thank you to all the people at Jarrett's surprise party last night, they didn't act like it was too crazy when I asked them to save bottle caps for a project I wanted to do.  I took home a 20oz cup full of bottle caps.  I had some images of birds that I liked so I used a quarter to get the right shape.  Also I spray painted all the caps white so they would be unified.   I think I may refine this project and make L-O-V-E magnets for valentines day with my special needs class, I am there version of an art teacher.  (the rest of the time I teach personal finance) 

Every thing was recycled, the caps, images, glue, paint, and magnets, so the cost for this project was 30 minutes of my time! Woo Hoo!

Sprout 5: Serving Trays

So a few weeks back I posted about all my scores at Page One, the local thrift shop.  While one of the items I picked up was old picture frames, I got 10 of them. This may be a bit psychotic but I needed to fill up two trash bags ($5.25 including tax) with stuff for the projects I was brain storming.  Now no normal person need two trash bags full of stuff for DIY projects, but I was so excited about my “crafting” goals that I managed to fill them to the point that you had to force them closed.  As I posted before my total per item purchased that day was $.07, yes SEVEN CENTS.   

Back to the frames about half of them had images in them, and they were pretty tacky.  I knew I wanted to make serving trays so I focused on ones that were pretty hefty and had different shapes. The one on the right is the one used for this project, pretty tacky huh.  Reminds me of 1989.

I had these drawer pulls from a dresser I had refinished a few years ago and thought they would make perfect handles.  Although I’m not a fan of the glossy gold, so I used a cream colored paint to mute them down a bit.

For the inside I got a cute skirt, it is a size 26 and has about 3 yards of cute damask fabric and an awesome pair of vintage pants (each also part of my bags at Page One). But for this project I decided to go with a fabric left over from a sheet set I had used to make the shower curtain in our guest bathroom. 

I was disappointed that the back still looked like a picture frame so I decided to paint it. Originally I was going to do all brown, but then I decided to make a “reversible” serving tray, since the front was kind of springy I decided to paint something a bit more fall.   After much debating I went with a simple sketch of leaves similar to one I had painted for my bedroom years ago.  I liked the back so much that I debated not putting the handles on and just hanging it as Art. It doesn’t quite match my décor and I although I thought of a few people I could give it too, I decided to stick with the plan and make a serving tray. 

The "back" side!

The final project sitting on my ottoman!

Sprout 4: Feather Headband

My goal for this summer was to do 10 projects in the 8 weeks that I have off from work.   Its half way through the summer and this is Sprout 4, and still I feel that I'm behind on these projects.  The reasoning for this is two fold, First I am in the midst of 3 projects and was with out a camera this past week to Photograph the progress. (more on cameras to come) Secondly, although it is 4 weeks till back to school I only am home next week and am feeling the pressure to complete 6 projects before August 2nd.    Here is a project I have been waiting all week to do and it took oh about 10 minutes.  I have been wanting to make some headbands and clips for a while now, and here is one I made today, I have two more in the works.

I used a thin black headband that has been
sitting in a drawer for years.

 I layered two types of feathers.

The Final Project

Sprout 2: Cake Plates

 Sorry for the delay, Joey and I just returned from a trip to Philadelphia and I had high hopes of posting this project Wednesday, the day after our return, but have been playing catch up with other things since.
Cake Plate:

About a year ago the cake plate given to us when we got married fell and ended up with a rather large chip on the edge of it. Now I don’t know about you, but it doesn’t seem to be a great idea to serve cake off a broken glass plate. It wasn’t a priority to get a cake plate immediately; I often would just place a glass or bowl under a dinner or serving plate to make things work. Although this seemed to get the job done I was still keeping my eye out for a cake plate that I liked, that was unique and most importantly inexpensive ($5 max). So about 2 months ago I saw a Rachel Ray episode with a DIY party planner and she was “making” cake plates for elaborate parties the same way I was making them at home with just a few tweaks.

The idea - find an interesting plate and base at your local thrift store and glue them together. Page One, the local thrift shop, has odd hours so I had to wait until school was out to make the trip, but lucky me the day I went they had buy one bag get one free. Page one sells its fantastic wares at $5.25 a trash bag, so I went crazy and decided on a few plates I liked and them some candle sticks, candy bowls and other things for bases.

I also got some picture frames and unique buttons for later projects.  All total I spent $.07, yes that is SEVEN CENTS on each item purchased that day. The single tier plates have 2 parts (14 Cents) and the two tier plate has 4 parts (28 Cents).  My only other cost was $1.27 for a tube of dishwasher safe adhesive. 

step one: get your stuff together

Step two: tip your plate upside down, find the center and glue together following the instructions for the adhesive (mine called for sanding the surface first).

     

The finished product:  L- Cake Plate R- Candle holder

So in my excitement I made 5 single tier and 1 two tier.  To make the two tier you need to follow steps 0ne and two, using a taller candle stick for the top tier.  You may adhere the whole thing together or keep the pieces separate like I did (see top photo).