Feature Friday - Signs of the Times

My wonderful friend Andrea is basically the female version of my husband.  Her name is even the female version of his name.  It's so crazy.  We laugh about this often.  She's so fun and she is extremely talented.  She even has her own company making these...

 This is her real laugh and I absolutely LOVE this picture of her.  Isn't she adorable?

Aren't they awesome?  So yeah she sells these custom chalkboard designs.  She can do anything you want.  I am going to get one, but I don't know what I want.  I need some suggestions.  Tell me, tell me, tell me, your fickle friend, what to get on her chalk board.  I really want a huge one, but I don't know where I would put it, so could you also give me your house?  Just kidding.  I'm going to have to start with a small one and work my way up to the one on the left because it is my all time favorite. 

So now that I am done rambling about my indecisive ways go to her facebook page here and "like" Signs of the Times and order your custom chalkboard sign today.  They make GREAT Christmas presents and Christmas is just around the corner. 

Also, if you're wondering what to get ME for Christmas you should go to The Painted Dresser's facebook page and "like" it too. 

I suck!

I realize I have really sucked this week. I could have posted about how I was sick for Mishap Monday or done a tutorial of how to clean out your storage unit for Tutorial Tuesday, but I didn't. I didn't even post for Rescue Thursday which I was so excited about because I have these fabulous tables I did. They look awesome. My neighbor, who doesn't even have the same style as me, came in my house and saw them and said they were really cool. That must mean they're really cool right? Anyway, I will post those tables next week along with what I'm working on tonight, but in the meantime it's Feature Friday, so make sure to check out my post about SIGNS OF THE TIMES! Seriously an awesome little company! Love it!

Made from Scratch Sundays - Caramel Apples

Hello all! My name is Joelle (aka Kitchen Dweller), and I was asked by Jessica to share a delicious recipe with you. And boy, do I have a treat for you?...literally! Caramel apples! There is something so satisfying about a caramel apple in the fall.

Disclaimer: Before you view the following photos please note I do not profess to be a professional caramel apple decorator. I am more the type to just throw on the goodness because I will just be eating it right after the picture is taken. Am I alone in my thought process? I think not.

The first step in making caramel apples is unwrapping the dreaded little caramel squares...very time consuming....very rewarding.

Make sure you have all your topping laid out, because you will need to act quick when the caramel is hot.

 Melt the caramel and milk together on low heat.

 Place the apple in the caramel and use a spoon to cover the apple with caramel. (Wax paper was a terrible idea, I would just use a greased cookie sheet next time.)

 Cover with your favorite toppings.

 Slice and enjoy!

Ingredients:

4 granny smith apples
1 14 oz package caramels (I just bought bulk and used 47 pieces)
2 tbs milk
4 popsicle sticks (if you want to put them on sticks, I didn't)
any delicious toppings you desire

Directions:

1. Grease a cookie sheet. Melt caramels and milk on low, stirring constantly.

2. Once caramel is melted cover apples with the caramel and place on cookie sheet. Decorate wtih your favorite toppings.

If you like what you see here, come on over to www.itkwib.com and check out my other recipes and daily happenings!

Sewing Saturday

Today is supposed to be the first Sewing Saturday, but it's Sick Saturday for me so pretty much nothing, but sleeping and surfing the Internet has happened.  I did however participate in my very first link party.  I totally want to start these as soon as we get enough followers.  It's on the blog Under the Table and Dreaming so go check it out and link up your own projects so people can check your out.  So fun!

Feature Friday - Eyes Wide Open Photography

We had our family pictures taken about a week ago from the most amazing photographer.  She is here in Utah and she is seriously the best which is amazing because she is also the cheapest.  haha.  For $40 a session which includes a CD with your awesome photos.  I think she's seriously under priced, but I won't tell her that just in case you want to get your family pictures done.  ;)


Here's the before picture.  We asked someone at the mall to take our picture.  This was on our Christmas card last year.  So sad, but I was pregnant and we didn't have $100+ dollars to shell out for professional family pictures.

This is the after.  WARNING:  THERE ARE ABOUT A THOUSAND PICS!!! 

I think the pictures speak for themselves. And since you are now dying to do your own pictures visit ewophoto.blogspot.com or email our photographer Erica @ ewophoto.gmail.com  Then you can come rave about her on this blog post.  Oh yeah and You're welcome.  haha

The Plan

After contemplating the direction of this blog and viewing the method to other blogger's madness I have devised a plan.  Does that sound evil?  Halloween is coming up soon so I guess that's OK.  Everyday I will be posting a different type of post.  Here are the titles I came up with.

Mishap Mondays - Crafting is not an exact science and I am not very good at science anyway, so I have a lot of mishaps.  You will get to see these on Mondays.  Seriously, sometimes I'm an idiot, so these should be fun.

Tutorial Tuesdays - On these days I'll show you how to make something. 

Wisdom Wednesdays - These sort of go along with Mishap Mondays.  I will share wisdom I have learned through trial and error.

Rescue Thursday - On these days I will post pieces of furniture or other things I have rescued from their ugliness.

Feature Friday - This idea I sort of stole from someone else.  I don't remember who, but I tweaked it a little.  I will be featuring a newly started or newly found by me business of the artistic type.  This will be fun because I will get to talk up companies or purposes that I am a fan of.  If you have something that you love feel free to email me with a company you think I should feature.  You can email me @ jezzica_rabbit@hotmail.com and put painted dresser in the subject line. 

Sewing Saturdays - I will obviously sew something these days

Made from Scratch Sundays - This will be our cooking segment.  I don't cook, but my husband is an excellent cook and I have some amazing cooking friends, so I will be turning the blog over to those people to work their magic.

I will often need guest bloggers to show off their stuff, so if you are interested please contact me and let me know.  Thanks for reading.  Today will be the first Feature Friday so make sure to check that out.

Fabric covered canvases

The wall above my couch has been bare as long as I can remember.  We moved here a year ago with plans to move 4 months later, but obviously that didn't happen.  We will be here forever.  jk.  In an effort to find a spot for all my crafty stuff I decided to use some of it that has been stored away for the past year.  My mom gave me four canvases and some craft paint for this project she wanted me to do with my kids.  Well, that was several years ago and I have since had another child. I'm pretty sure I have OCD because I didn't want to do the project until I was done having kids (which might be now) and I have three kids and there are four canvases.  Anyway I did away with the craft project involving the kids and did fabric covered canvases instead.  One I already showed in this post that I did with an old T-shirt to make our nightstand more "manly" and the other three I did and hung above our couch.  So fun.  I picked up some remnant fabric from Walmart and already had all the other stuff.  So, it only cost me about a dollar.  I like it.  What do you think?

All you have to do is stretch the fabric as far as you can over the canvas and hot glue it to the back.  Then make the fabric flowers from this post and hot glue those on.  So fun and super easy.  Make some.

Table decorations

I started out with a vision. I went to DI and bought a vase that I wanted to put black glittery skulls in for Halloween.  I had no idea where to find black glittery skulls, but I really wanted them to be cheap.  After talking to my wonderful friend Debbie I decided to go to the dollar store to see what I could see.  I found this really attractive (sarcasm) Styrofoam skull garland.  I bought three.  I took them home, pulled all the skulls off the twine, painted them black, painted them with silver glitter paint and assembled my table decoration.

I'm seriously just putting a comment here so you can't blow up this picture and see my incredibly dirty counter in the background.

A little moss went at the bottom of the hurricane to give it some filler and I cut a piece of the twine from the garland to tie around the vase.  I picked up some cheese cloth from walmart and died it black-ish with my black acrylic paint and some water (saw it on another crafty blog) and laid it out to dry.  I picked up the figurines at the dollar store too and I set it all up.  SUPER EASY! 

Don't judge me and my empty spice rack.  

I obviously thought my vase was bigger than it is because I had about a bazillion glitter skulls left over, so I made a door hanging.  I put the skulls back on the twine and made them look how I wanted.  The hardest part of this whole project was getting those dang skulls back on the twine.  If you do this project I have lots of tips for you, so just ask. 

I STILL HAD SKULLS LEFT OVER!  I was trying to think of something to do with the three skulls I had left over.  I know I only payed three bucks for this garland, but I seriously hate to throw things away that I just bought.  So after considering decorating my son's birthday cake with them and deciding that was a huge fire hazard I opted to take the skulls and left over twine and make a nob hanging to hang on the inside of my front door. 

My door got egged forever ago and it is stuck to the door.  Gross, but I think it adds to the Halloween idea.  Yay!

Don't mind my ghetto door.  We rent so we have no control over the ghettoness or perma-dirty door.  Ahh!  I can't wait to move!

Now my three dollar garland is mostly used.  (I still have a little piece of twine that I don't know what to do with)  I have lots of other Halloween decorating Ideas I want to do, so hopefully I find the time to do them and you will see them too. - Jessica

Finally a before and after

We needed a new nightstand, so I went to DI in search for something fun.

This is what I found.  

This is what it looked like when I was done.

My husband thought it was too girly.  His suggestion for making it more masculine was to put duck tape around one of the vases.  (he was joking)  So, I took this shirt of his that was stained.

And wrapped the design around a canvas and vuala! 

This is not a great picture.  I really want a new camera.

It's apparently still too girly.  Sometimes you just can't win.

As promised, but a little late.

Do to my washing machine breaking and me having a mountain of laundry and other stuff to do I did not post my tutorial when promised.  However, thanks to my friend Debbie I was able to make Genna (our winner) her headband last night.  We had such a fun girly and crafty night and we will have to do that again soon. 

So here is the tutorial for the headband.  Please ignore my attractive outfit.

First take a strip of fabric or ribbon.  I use fabric that I've torn to get the frayed look.  Snip it like the picture and then pull.  (You can't do this with stretchy material)

Then hot glue one end to the inside of one end of the headband.  Make sure to leave an overhang so you'll be able to fold it up at the end.  Then just wrap the rest around the headband to the other side.

At the end of the headband you will want to glue and wrap the headband about three times to secure the headband and create a large enough over hang to finish the edge.   Then just hot glue the overhang up toward the inside of the headband.  

 

 

 

 

 

To see how to make the flower check out this youtube video.  Hers are way better than mine, but it's all good.   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DeMTEdjMX0&feature=rec-LGOUT-farside_rn-3r-14-HM

And this is the finished headband.  Thanks Deb for being my hot model.

WINNER #2

True Random Number Generator Min: 1 Max: 8 Result: 8 

Because there was some confusion about what needed to be done to enter I originally just did a random follower, but she didn't really enter, so I decided to do a second winner because I love you guys.  Commenter #8 wins.  I took myself out of the running, so that means Joelle from inthekitchenwhereIbelong.blogspot.com has won a headband.  I too referred Joelle, so it looks like I get two headbands. haha.  Joelle is doing a really cool giveaway on her blog right now to CSNstores so go check that out for a chance to win a $20 gift card.  Congrats Joelle.

WINNER WINNER CHICKEN DINNER!!!

True Random Number Generator Min: 1 Max: 15 Result: 6 Powered by RANDOM.ORG

 

The Random Number Generator has spoken!  Follower #6 has won the headband.  Genna Delaney please email me your color of choice and let me know if it will be for you or for one of the adorable little girls in your life.  And since I was the one who invited Genna to join I will be making myself a headband.  haha.  Everyone congratulate Genna on her glorious win.

 

And before you cry because you didn't win.  I plan on posting the tutorial by the end of the day, so you can make your own.  Also, THERE WILL BE MORE GIVEAWAYS!  I plan to have the next give away when we hit 50 followers.  I know that seems big, but I think we can do it!  Thanks for inviting your friends and the next give away will be awesome, so keep up the good work and invite, invite, INVITE!  

GIVE AWAY!!!

In celebration of my AWESOME friends who have started to follow my blog I have decided to do a give away.  Since I love the head band I made for my daughter I will be giving one away to one lucky reader on Monday.  YAY!  I know you are all excited and I really appreciate your support of this blog, so I wanted to start with a BANG.  I can make the headband any color you want and I can make it for you or a special little girl you love.  Here are the rules. 

You must "Follow" my blog or add it to your RSS feed and comment saying you did so.

Second invite your friends to join and enter the giveaway. 

If you have been invited by a friend please comment with their name.

The BEST part is that if you invite your friends and your friend wins YOU win too.  So I could be giving away TWO headbands. 

I am SO excited.  Thank you everyone who follows this blog. 


Here's a pic of the headband from the last post.

Unexpected Craziness

Well I was planning on having the desk I'm working on done yesterday, so I could blog it today, but I was evacuated due to a gas pipe bursting, so I didn't get it done.  I'd say that's a pretty good excuse, so I'll cut myself some slack.  When I was allowed to go home I hadn't had my craft fix for the day, so I spent some quality time with my glue gun.  I have some pretty cool stuff I'm working on and I'm super excited about it.  When I get back from my vacation I was supposed to go on YESTERDAY I will be a blogging fanatic with lots of cool ideas to show you.  So don't give up on my blog.  I will be back.

PS - ADD MY BLOG!  I need to look legit just in case they mention my blog in the article.



And to keep you coming back for more here are some pics of my beautiful daughter modeling her new headband.  Did I mention I LOVE my hot glue gun.  No sewing involved.

It's a fabric wrapped headband with a little flower on it.

It's kind of blurry, but I love these flowers right now. I have some other projects featuring these flowers, so I'll post a link to a tutorial so you can do them yourself when I blog those.