Being Featured is FUN!

At least I think it is! :-) I love the actual crafting, the spraying of the paint, browsing the thrift store or dollar store and wondering “what can I make out of that?”  I also love comments, they make my day!! But when I see my name in print …with a picture of a project…on someone else’s bog, it gives me goose bumps! I love  that something I was able to create inspired someone else!

Lori at Life as Lori and Veronica at Veronica’s Korner featured my Bird Bath Planter this week.

Many of my projects have been inspired by others and although I don’t do a regular “feature” I always try and link back to my original inspiration and then let the original poster know that they have inspired me. I think that’s what it’s all about…inspiring, sharing, and having a great time while we are being thrifty and creative!

Have a great weekend!

 

PS If you think you can’t be creative, look at the project below…EASY and creative!

Check out this party and meet new friends!

Easiest “Stone Planter” EVER!

Wow! What a whirlwind of activities! I never dreamed that it would be almost a week before I would be able to post! It all started at 8:30 am Saturday morning when 4 of my daughters and I drove 2 hours to a 5th daughter’s house so that we could all go shopping in Atlanta. It was an awesome day with my girls (missed you Steph! :( ) and I did a little Dollar Tree shopping!
I also took lots of pictures of things that inspired me to try and make my own version…cheaper…way cheaper! I will share those soon.
My girls found some great things and then we had some awesome food and family fun! I planned on taking pictures of the girls, but do you think I remembered???NO! Shame on me. :(  We got home at midnight…and that is the end of the first day…
The busiest week ever needs the easiest project ever, right?This is hard to even call a project, but I am! At the Dollar Tree, I spotted these white plastic pots trying so hard to look like real stone pots, they had a nice pattern and even a rounded edge,
but they still just looked like plastic Dollar Tree pots. Guess what popped into my mind? Yup! “How would those look with at couple of coats of the multi-textured Caribbean or Desert Bisque from Rustoleum?” I brought some home and gave it a try.

I started with a coat o f the primer for plastic. You don’t have to have a heavy coat of it either.   Then I sprayed away with the Desert Bisque…I got so carried away that I sprayed all 3 of the round ones, forgetting that I wanted to do one in Caribbean! It doesn’t take much for me to get carried away…

Voila! Stone planters!

Three round for $8.77 and that includes the cost of the paint.  I got 3 planters done with one can. The oval was only a $1 plus a third of a can of paint!
Here’s my little “inside secret” I don’t spray all the way down inside…It’s going to be filled with dirt and a plant anyway, right? I just let it fade away as I spray over the edge!

This is SO EASY, even someone who says “but I’m not creative…” can DO this!With or without a very hectic week! :o)

I’m off to the ball field where both of my boys have games at 7:15.  Thankfully, the fields are side by side, and I can go back and forth!

Sharing this at these places:





‘Til Tomorrow…I hope…

I Made Two Buttons!

I was going to make myself a button and found a couple of tutorials and codes to make the html and text box. After I got my button made…so much fun!…it was kind of like digital scrapbooking! I uploaded the pic to photobucket and listed my code but no luck! :( It showed up but wasn’t “clickable” and the html in the text box didn’t work. So I googled for another tutorial and found this site:

 

 

The code worked just fine! So, I uploaded my button and one for Beth Anne over at Thethrifyba for her Thrifty House Party. Check it out, she has room for more guests!

 

Here is mine:

There are a couple of places that I was supposed to send my button, but I forgot where! Oh Well.

If I am missing in action for a few days it’s because they are going to be jam packed with family activities! Tomorrow I am going shopping with all of my daughters but one (we’ll miss ya Steph!) so hopefully I’ll have some thrifty and creative finds to share!

If you need a craft “fix” check out some of the new parties in my sidebar, there are LOTS of creative ideas out there!

Here are some “new to me” parties with great projects listed too.

Have a great weekend!

Parties and Giveaways!

What’s not to love????'
Here is a listing of Giveaway’s for the week:

I think this list is redone each week. Check it out! Here is one that caught my eye over at:

She is hosting a $60.00 GC for CSN. I went and looked around a bit and found a few things to spend some money on, like:


They are offering free shipping on a lot of their items too!

Okay…I could sit and window shop there for an hour, but my garden is calling so I’ll stop now.
Here are some parties to get ready for:

This is a Unique New Party!!





And I’ve heard we can expect to find a party at the Thrifty BA on Friday!

Enjoy! I’m going out to play in the dirt!

My Faux Stone Birdbath Planter

My guest post for Nikki was a tutorial for a faux stone birdbath. I thought I’d share the condensed version here too. I fell in love with Rustoleum’s Textured Spray Paint when I did my planter. I used Caribbean Sand on the birdbath and I like it even better than the Desert Bisque! Now I’m seeing different things and wondering how they would look covered in Caribbean Sand? I went through the same thing with Oil Rubbed Bronze! :)
The planter started out as a pasta bowl and candle holder from the thrift store:

I gave them both a coat of primer. I have found that the textured spray paint sticks better if there is a primer under it, no matter what surface it is.

I followed that with a couple of coats of Caribbean Sand and then put them together with Gorilla Glue.

It seemed a little bare to me to I tried making it “tiered” by adding part of a candle stick  leftover from another project and a saucer.

It still wasn’t looking just right to me, so after talking to my daughter about putting a plant on the top tier, I decided to just put plants in the whole thing!

As the Petunias grow, they will fill the bowl and cascade over the side!
I like it better as a planter, but still want  a birdbath. Today at the thrift store, I saw this for only $1.50!!

I was taking it apart, and noticed the date: 1959!! I bet it could tell some stories!

I think it has birdbath potential…we’ll see!

I'm going to share over at:

What’s in a Name?

Alphabet Photography Dollar Store Style!

I first saw alphabet photography over at Little Lizard King back in December. It was something I knew I wanted to do but the cost of the collage frames was way more than I usually like to spend on a project…especially if you have a name or other word with more than 4 letters!
Sooo…I kind of tabled the idea, but I found myself looking for letters of the alphabet everywhere! In nature, architecture, the playground…some popped right out at me and others were difficult to find and the more I tried, the better they hid. I found a few:
An S, U and O. They are unedited here. I have a few others too, but am waiting to share them on another project! :-)
LLK also shared that photobucket is a great place to find alphabet photos. I’ve found some by doing a  google search for alphabet photography, but you have to sift through as most of the results are sites that would like to sell you their ready made art. If you look at some of them you can at least get ideas for where to look for your own “letters” to photograph! ;-)
I shared the idea of names in photography with my “in real life friend”, Cindy. She liked it, so I thought I would try it out as a gift for her birthday (which was Groundhog Day, but we won’t go there….she knows me and how I procrastinate wait ‘til I have everything just right) Originally she thought she would put this on her mantle so I went with the idea of each letter in a separate frame. Then she decided to put it on her wall and I thought, why not? Just because we are seeing this sold in collage frames, why can’t it be done individually?
This is what I did:
I started with 5  5”x7” Dollar Tree Frames, and some really awesome scrapbook paper. The frames are plastic, but you would never know it unless you touch them! The design doesn’t look Dollar Tree at all! The paper is has a texture that is great for mats:
Then I took a 5x7 mat that I already had and traced out 4 rectangles on the back of the paper. I used my paper trimmer and cut them out.
 
I used the mat to trace out the inside of the mat and used the trimmer again to cut it out.
 
I found the letters in her name on the internet, turned them  to black and white if they weren’t already and had them printed at Walmart.
I popped them into the frames, behind the “mats”.
 
 
             

And now “Ryals” is all finished  before the next Groundhog Day!

I am sorry about the picture quality and the glare on the glass. I need a “taking pictures for your blog” class!

Happy Early for Next Year Late Birthday Cindy!!

Maybe Cindy will let me share a picture when they are up on her wall??

I'll be sharing this at Cheri's Blog hop!



And at these parties:



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