Room makeover for under $200

1 gallon of red paint - $13

1 curtain rod - $4 (40% off at JoAnns)

2 brass stars - $16 (50% off at Roberts)

4 baskets - $30

4 body pillows - $40

4 sheet of transfer tape - $10

8 yards of denim - $35 (50% off at JoAnns)

14 sheets of vinyl - $40

What do you do with a room with blue carpet and a red rug? An Americana theme of course!

I had never thought I would do an American themed room. It just seemed so overdone. Then I moved in a house with blue carpet.

After being here for 5 months and pondering the decor I decided to do the American theme with a twist. I had just done the older girls room with vinyl and loved the ease and look. The large wall in the basement was just begging for large 12" letters. United we Stand fit the theme and looks great with the kids pictures.

I painted the wall behind the entertainment center red as an accent,

added a blue and yellow star border on the overhang,

found a blue clock from a different room and added the saying Liberty underneath.


My sister helped by sewing the curtain and covering the body pillows in denim. These will become cushions after I make benches next week. I will 2 - 10 make the benches for u

I love the look!

A few tips I learned:

1. when painting red be sure to cover the floor entirely first! (red paint is very hard to get out of light blue carpet)

2. When hanging pictures and you discover your ceiling is not strait just alternate the height of the pictures so you can't tell if anything is not even.

3. To help align vinyl letters straight tape down ribbon or yarn across the wall as a guide.

4. If letters are not perfectly straight add images such as the blue stars to guide your eye across the word and take the focus off the straight part.

5. If you cannot get your connected word straight it is ok to cut part of it and then overlap the cut parts (I did this 2 times on the word Liberty and you cannot tell)

6. Have everything you need before y0u start. It is slightly dissapointing to start the border and get halfway done only to realize at 9:30pm that you will be 2 sheets of vinyl short of being able to finish the blue stars.

Glass Etching

I have always been intimated by glass etching. It seemed so hard, messy, and time consuming.

I finally took the plunge and found out that glass etching is EASY!

All you need is:

Cricut to cut stencils

Vinyl to use for the stencil

Glass Etch cream and paint brush

and Glass!

So far I have etched on pyrex, glasses, picture frames, candle votives and a mirror.

Step 1: Choose image or word you are going to etch and cut it out of the vinyl using your cricut. (You can also buy pre-cut stencils for this).

Step 2: Apply the vinyl to your glass. Remember you are using this as a stencil so you only want to use the outer part NOT the actual image. Make sure the vinyl is down tight.

Step 3: Put in a general layer of the etching cream to the inside of the stencil where you want the image to be. If you get some on other parts just wipe off immediately.

Step 4: Wait 5 minutes and then wipe the cream off. Remove vinyl stencil and rinse the glass.

Done!

See how easy that was? You can do your own glass etch projects in under 20 minutes from start to finish.

Back to School Clipboard

Check out my YouTube to see how to make one of these clipboards.

http://www.youtube.com/user/ohmycrafts

School Time

The kids are starting school in another week and I am determined to be prepared!

Yesterday I made an altered clipboard for each child. The bottom half of the clipboard is a pocket. Each child will bring home any papers that I need to see and clip them to their board. Then each evening I can take the boards down, look through homework, sign field trips forms, review birthday invitations, etc. Once I am done the boards get hung back up and the kids can get their papers to return to school the next morning.

Even the baby has one although he will not have school work it will be great to put his daycare notices, doctor appointment reminders and other paper work on his board.

I made these a little different than ones in the past. These only have flat embellishments as I want to be able to write on them. The pockets wrap around the back for strength and were coated 3 times with modge podge.

I used paper from the DCWV kids paper pack so that it would all coordinate. Their names were cut from the Cuttin Up Cricut cartridge. The rub-ons are WeR and the buttons and flowers were assorted.

Cricut Fan

Anyone who knows me knows how much I LOVE my cricut. I have been using the baby bug since it came out and can't live without my Expression.

I was just given this cartridge:

If you love the first Paper Doll cartridge as much as I do you are going to love this one even more. It has so many images and the accessories are great! I can't wait to play with it.

Just in case you are looking for this it has not been released yet. It will be out around October.