Martha Stewart Knit and Weave Loom Kit

I am finished my blanket!! I worked on this darn blanket since Boxing Day - 20 different squares, each one taking around 2 hours. But now it's finally done, and I'm so proud!

The Martha Stewart Knit and Weave Loom Kit is one of the best crafting kits I've ever been given. There's so much potential to make so many other projects. It's definitely worth checking out!

In the middle of far too many projects...

Due to the nature of my schedule, I only see each art class once every two weeks. Since the average project takes two classes to complete, it's usually at least a month before I have some finished work. I am in a period right now where all of my classes seem to be right in the middle of something, and I just haven't had any finished work to post all week.

In the interest of keeping this blog somewhat current, I'm going to post a craft I did tonight. I got the Martha Stewart Knit and Weave Loom Kit for Christmas, and have been fervently working on a woven blanket ever since.

Tonight I decided I would make this project take even longer by cross stitching a heart onto the square that will be used in the bottom left corner. This was so really simple to do, and I think it looks really cute!

 This makes me very happy. Only 3 more squares left until I'm done my blanket!

The making of my Red Sox Lego Man Halloween Costume

This Halloween, I decided to be Red Sox Lego Man. Altogether the costume took about 8 hours, but it was in front of the TV, and really enjoyable. I made it all using bristol board, tape, poster board, velcro, and foam. It turned out very nicely! I am not going to bother with directions, as it seems pretty straightforward, but I can answer questions if there are any!

 Netting was put in the smile so that I could see out.

So happy with how it turned out!!

La fin - Homemade art shelf part TWO

Sooo my art shelf is all finished!

First of all, if you don't remember art shelf part 1, please refer to this post.

Basically where I left off, everything was done except for the top, caulking, painting, the siding for the back, and moving it into my classroom.

The first thing that I needed to do was go to Home Depot and get paint.

Simple, right?

Obviously you've never been out with me.

Apologies to Home Depot for this one.

Anyway. Let's move past that, shall we?

The first thing I had to do was caulk the cracks in all the corners. If you haven't used caulking, it's FUN. Really, it's super satisfying, it's like playdoh mixed with glue and it makes everything pretty. It's awesome. 

 Then I had to paint the wainscoting that I bought for the back pieces. 

 While I waited for Cody to come cut the wainscoting, I started painting!

 And painting.

 Then Cody began attaching the back panels. While I painted.

 And painted.

 And then.. it was DONE!

 I absolutely adore it. It reminds me of Cape Cod, and I feel so happy everytime I see it. Especially when you know what shelf it's replacing.

 See? This is what my art supplies were stored on before.

 And here they are now!

Huge thanks to Cody for all of the help with this project. I am not confident with power tools yet, so he did all of the hard work while I held things and used Gorilla Glue and made sound effects (read: eeee ee ee e ee oooh ooh ahh ahh.)


Aaaaaaaaaand that's it!

My biggest project to date

This is the first time I'm going to post a half finished project, only because I have been on it for the past month and we made such progress today and I want to share!

Basically, I decided about a month ago that I really wanted to have a great art shelf for my classroom. Something like this. But look at the price!! Obviously I don't have that kind of money. So one day while I was working at the daycare, I drew up what my dream cabinet would look like:I even tried to write down measurements, so that Joel would be more willing when I asked him to make it for me. Joel and Cody took me to Home Depot, and we bought a huge piece of MDF (which was terrifying to bring home, but I won't start on that.)

When I got the MDF home, I traced out all of the pieces onto it (which I planned on a piece of paper first) so that Joel and Cody could make the cuts. A couple of days later, I had this:
I did a REALLY quick, sloppy white coat of paint on the pieces as a base. These sat in our living room for a few weeks, until today, when Cody and I finally got a chance to go out and build the start of my DREAM SHELF! I took some pictures as we worked. Cody did all of the nailing, but I had the important job of putting GORILLA GLUE on everything. Here's me holding the bottle:
I did appropriate sound effects every time I glued, don't worry.


Great paint job, huh?
This is where I will store tupperware buckets full of markers, pencil crayons, etc.

I must have been Gorilla Glue-ing in a lot here, because there are no more pictures until the end:

Yay! The right side is for tupperwares, and random supplies on the top. On the left side, paint bottles will go on the bottom, legal sized paper on top, and the three shelves above are for regular sized paper. Beside that, I will put scrapbooking papers standing up.

Isn't it wonderful?
Here's what's left to do:

• Buy a bit more MDF for the top
• Buy thin slats of wood for the back
• Caulk the little gaps between the shelves
• Paint the whole shelf the color of the second swatch here
• Decide if I want to do a lip around the top

Hopefully I will be done this next week, so I can put it in my class before the beginning of school!

My new lamp!

Today I completed my project of turning this
into thisWhen we were on vacation in Maine a few weeks ago, I saw this amazing lamp at an antique store that was worth the effort of hauling home on the 9 hour car trip. I paid $20 for it. The thing I liked most about it was the eagle on the lamp base:The first thing I did was trace the lampshade onto bristol board and cut off the old lamp shade (it was garbage bag material, just wound around the wire!)

I decided to cover it using an idea I had seen on mama-says-sew, which was for a nice, ruffly lampshade. I bought a rough, almost burlap-like fabric to cover the bristol board with.

First, I cut it into strips:
Then I ironed them down the center so that there would be less hangy threads (without having to do any sewing).
and I was left with this:

Then came the VERY long process of gluing the little strips onto the bristol board!

Basically I would just put glue either on the board or on the piece, and desperately try to get it glued on nicely before it dried or I burnt myself.
As a result, there are some big clumps of glue hidden nicely under the fabric. My fingers are also quite burnt.This took several hours to finish, and got really boring after a while! I definitely had to split it up into several sessions to save my sanity (and my fingers.)

Next, I took the lamp outside and got to spraypainting:
Thennnn all I had to do was put the lampshade on and:
Very happy with this little guy!