Jen Caputo

2 Quick Home Decor Art Projects

I made two super quick home decor projects this weekend (about 20 minutes tops for each) and I thought I'd share :)

For this one I:

1. Spray painted a frame with glossy white
2. cut a piece of scrapbook paper to fit the frame
3. used a scallop punch on some white cardstock
4. wrapped ribbon around a chipboard M (to stand for Murphy, my future last name)
5. stuck it all together and framed it
6. tada!

Next, I was flipping through the latest Real Simple and was totally inspired by one of their Thanksgiving tablescape ideas. And it had a tutorial!

You need:

• A bottle or vase or anything else you want to cover - dig through your recycling bin for a bottle you were going to throw out!
• Twine or string
• super sticky tape (I used a roll of red-liner tape I had around, Carpet tape from the home improvement store would work great too)

My  bottle is from Koval Distillery (local in Chicago!) which used to house "my crack" (as Adam calls it), their Organic Ginger Liqueur. It is heaven on earth. I've been saving the bottles because I really like their shape.  For a while I was taking the labels off but they do not come off easy. As you can tell I got half done with this one and gave up.  Which made it a perfect candidate for this project!

1. Wrap your bottle in super sticky tape
2. Peel of the section you will work on first
3. Wind the twine around the bottle
4. and wind
5. and wind
6. and wind
7. I secured the ends with a drop of super glue

And in just a few minutes, you have a pretty new vase recycled from your favorite liqueur!

Well, we're having a party tonight so it's about time for me to jump in the shower and clean up my art projects!

And while I'm here - here's one more way I've recycled a Koval bottle:

To hold dish soap. I just added a liquor bottle spout.

Kitchen Renovation: Day 13

No big changes today... they took the old fridge downstairs, painted all the trim, finished painting the ceiling, and prepped the walls to be painted on Monday.

The windows don't get delivered until Wednesday so I think we're in thumb-twiddling mode until then.

Meanwhile, I was home alone this weekend so I tackled a few projects for the new spaces. First off, since we have the stainless steel fridge that isn't magnetic I wanted something to be able to stick notes on that wasn't glaringly tacky. I decided that some cute cork boards hanging inside the cabinets with Command hooks was just the thing!

Supplies
Cork Tiles (4 come in a pack, they're 12x12, about $6 at Lowes)
Ribbon (mine is from Papertrey Ink)
Buttons (mine are from Papertrey Ink)
Thumbtacks
Nailheads
Super glue
Scotch Command hooks
Vodka Soda (w/limes to go with the color scheme of everything else on the table)

The cork comes with adhesive squares you are supposed to use to stick them on the wall, instead I used them to stick to tiles together to get the thickness I wanted. I added some super glue too since I heard those sticky tabs that come with the cork really aren't that good.

My cork sandwich

 

Then I went around with ribbon, more superglue, and nailheads, and trimmed out the edges to hide my sandwich.

Then I just tied a bow to use as a hanger on the inside of my cabinet.

Next I needed some cute push pins!

I stuck all the plain thumbtacks into the cork, dropped a dab of superglue on each one, then added a button.

I had more cork leftover and wanted to do something different so I went shopping in my basement until I came across this frame on the bottom of a closet that I had previously painted and stuck pictures from a calendar in.

I gave it a coat of white paint, removed the pictures and glass, stuck the cork in, and attached a ribbon hanger with super glue and nail heads.

Here are my lovely creations in their new home:

 

Gotta love the use of cabinet space here and how it keeps all your notes easily accessible yet tucked away. Plus, because I used those Command hooks, they can come down whenever I get tired of them!

My second project was to do something with the shelves from the old pantry/new storage closet.

They used to look like this:

I cleaned them and primed them

And then painted them all a Robin's Nest blue.

By the way - see that roller in the picture. I am in LOVE with it and it was super cheap at Lowes. Best roller I've ever used by far! I had both sides of the shelves painted in no time. (by the way, these are the refills I bought - they come in foam or terry cloth, the foam are awesome!)

The closet isn't totally done yet but I think the pops of blue will look so fun in the all white closet! I'll be sure to show the finished closet. Best part of this project: besides the new paint roller, it was totally free as we already had the paint and primer left over from when our bedroom was painted!

Herb Box

Who doesn't love the $1 aisle at Target?  A few weeks ago I found these tins and seed packets w/pots there and couldn't wait to set up a little window herb garden!

I used PTI's Life set in various shades of green which made them look very herb-like in my opinion!

The ribbon was attached by punching holes through the tin with a crop-a-dile. 

I made labels for each pot with a toothpick, some nestabilities, and a few more PTI stamp sets.

All in all, this project cost me less than $5 to make 0 wouldn't it make a great gift?  The herbs have been growing for about 10 days now. It'll probably still be another 2 months before the edible but in the mean time, they sure are cute!

Supplies
Stamps: Life, Borders & Corners: Circle, Simple Alphabet
Ink: New Leaf, Ripe Avocado, Spring Moss
Paper: Stampers Select White, Ripe Avocado, Spring Moss
Ribbon: Ripe Avocado Grosgrain
Other: Brads, Scallop Scissors, Circle Nestabilities, Paper Crimper

St. Patrick's Day Backyard Fun

As I haven't been shy in telling you all before, I love my backyard. And I love parties.  And since it got up to 74 degrees in Chicago yesterday, I was thrilled to have the opportunity to have a backyard St. Patty's Day gathering.

I cooked 3 Corned Beef Briskets and there wasn't a single piece left over!

Remember a while back I was asking about those light-bulb light strings?  Well quite a few of you mentioned that you saw them at Target so I went to Target and they didn't have any.  But then I went back a few weeks later and there they were!  For just $15 a strand too! (The industrial ones I was looking at were going to wind up costing about $250 for the length I wanted).  Now I know these $15 strands aren't going to last forever but I can replace them 10 times before the investment in the industrial ones pays off :)

We only had time to hang up one of the strands but the eventual plan is to hang the other strand from the tree to the garage to light up the campfire area a  little more.

 

I really dig 'em though and can't wait to hang up the second strand!

While I'm here, I'll share a green project with you!

This is a monogrammed card set I made for my Grandma for her birthday.  I also entered it into PTI's Guest Star Stamper contest in February and earned an Honorable Mention!

Supplies:
Stamps: PTI Borders & Corners: Circle, PTI Trajan Monogram Ed. Alpha
Cardstock: PTI Spring Moss, Stampers Select White, True Black
Patterned Paper: PTI Black & White Basics
Dies/Punches: Nestabilities Circles, Martha Stewart Border Punch

I created the clear box top from some of that nasty clamshell packaging that is impossible to open. I had a big enough sheet that I could trim it to a piece suitable for the top. I had to score it slightly with a craft knife to make it hold it's shape.

A few more gift packages

I got a few more gift packages to give to neighbors or party hostesses done this afternoon so I thought I'd share.

This one holds some gourmet hot chocolate along with some peppermint stick stirrers dipped in chocolate. Yum!

Close up of the tag,

I made the patterned paper for these by using the Warm Winter Wishes tag from PTI's 2008 Holiday Tag Collection set.  I created a mask so that I could just stamp the steaming mug and then stamped around them with circles from the Borders & Corners set.

Credits
Stamps: PTI 2008 Holiday Tag Collection, PTI Borders & Corner - Circle
Paper: PTI Spring Rain, PTI Berry Sorbet, PTI Dark Chocolate, PTI Vintage Cream
Ink: PTI Berry Sorbet, PTI Dark Chocolate, PTI Vintage Cream Other: Fiskars Border Punch, EK Success whale of a punch (circle), Nestabilities, PTI Berry Sorbet Satin Ribbon

And this one just holds lots of yummy candy

Credits
Stamps: PTI Snowfall, PTI 2008 Holiday Tag Collection
Paper: White, PTI Spring Moss, PTI Berry Sorbet
Ink: PTI Spring Moss, PTI Aqua Mist, PTI Berry Sorbet
Other: PTI Berry Sorbet Satin Ribbon, Acetate, Nestabilities, Cellophane Bag

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So the other day I went and took a bunch of pictures of my studio to show you everything I'd done lately but before I got a chance to post them, I went and changed a bunch of stuff... (I got this awesome new piece for the top of my desk too - can't wait to share!!!)

Anyway, here are a few pictures I took the other day so I'll share them but it's different now so I'll have to update in a few days.

So here was the view when you walked in

Some of you may have seen this before but I don't think I ever showed it completely together.  The two pieces on the back wall are the 4x4 Ikea Expedit's. 

The island is made from the Crop-In-Style cubes, I made my own top by cutting a piece of wood to size, painting it white, and ordering a custom self-healing mat for the top.

Here is the wall that the door is on.  The shelving unit on the left is the Making Memories Embellishment Center, the one on the right is actually an over the toilet thing from Target.  The embellishment center stores glitter in the top row, small colored embellishments (brads, photo turns, pins, etc.) in the second row, buttons in the 3rd. The 4th is empty, haven't figured out what goes there yet.  And then of course the bottom two are holding PTI ribbon. The green canvas is an art project that may one day get done for my living room.

Here's a view of the top of one of the expedits.  The ink holder is just one of those wooden napa valley cassette holders (you can only find them on ebay these days). The bottom middle two baskets hold loose ribbon on foam core. In the upper right corner is this guy:

It was such a brilliant idea I thought... I took one of these Ikea boxes and punched a bunch of holes in it.  Except, I couldn't punch them because the material was some insane astronaut technology stuff, so I had to drill them... which resulted in shredded box everywhere.... Then I had to go buy the grommets and the guy at the hardware store had no idea what a grommet was... or he did, but he didn't think I did so he kept trying to show me something else. I finally wound up with these but they only had them in brass so I had to spray paint them silver.  A day later, I finally had the front of the box assembled then I had to figure out how to attach the dowels to the inside of the box.  After trying lots of ideas, I finally decided to make some supports out of polymer clay and super glue them to the inside. 

I do not recommend trying one of these yourself :)

This is the die-cut station, it's sitting on another Ikea Expedit, this is the 2x4 one.  I still have the old original sizzix machine but it works with all of the nestabilities and cuttlebug embossing folders so I see no reason to upgrade.  On the far right is my wishblade.  The basket in the middle stores all of my nestabilities and cuttle bug folders and stuff.

Speaking of nestabilities, this is how I store mine:

These are CD holders meant to hold 3 cds. Find them here (did not order mine here, cannot vouch, I happened to have these since college).  I took all of the extra pieces out of the case, added some magnetic strips and I was good to go.  For the inside piece I glued down a piece of chipboard to give me a flat surface to put the magnetic tape on.

Ok that's it for now, I'll have to do a more detailed post at a later time but let me know if you have any questions!