PAINTED METAL PLANTER

I see these little galvanized metal planters everywhere....JoAnn's, Hobby Lobby, thrift stores and garden shops.  But, usually they are plain, maybe a little too plain looking.  I decided to cute one up a little.

This was a simple project.  I taped off my planter so that I could paint a single stripe on the center.

 I have a can of Krylon paint in a delicious Pistachio color.  Perfect for springtime.  

I also have a roll of flowery fabric lace.  I'm not sure what it is, but it's a little stretchy.  It came in a bag of lace and ribbon I got from my friend Loy at  Grandma Loy's Kitchen when she visited me here at the farm last year.  Again, perfect for springtime!

I wrapped it around the center stripe that I painted and attached it with a few glue dots.  My little potted shamrock that I got for St. Patrick's Day fit perfectly inside it.

 All springified and I can take that flowery lace off if I want a different look later on.  You know me.....I will.

Enjoy your day and enjoy your spring! 

Linking up to any or all of the fine parties listed at the bottom of this page as well as HERE and.....  

MAKE AN AWESOME INTERCHANGEABLE SIGN!

I promised to show you a makeover of that cute little Easter sign that I repaired and here it is....

 I turned that Easter sign into this very cool bee sign with a poem by Emily Dickenson that I just love.  The most awesome thing about this project is that it's totally interchangeable and I didn't have to destroy the original piece, which is this....

 All I had to do was swap out the four pins and put a new sign on the front that I made on pic monkey with a great image from The Graphics Fairy.  Such a great blog and Karen is so awesome! (Thank you Karen for making it all so easy for us!)

 I'm going to show you how you could make this interchangeable sign for yourself in just 6 easy steps.   I had a sign to start with, but you could use a block of wood(any thickness) and it would work the same way.  Let's get started:
 You'll need a block of wood, a couple of mini dowel rods, some buttons and gems, a piece of mylar or clear plastic, hot glue gun and the graphic of your choice.
1)  Drill holes all the way through the four corners of your block.  
     (If you want to be able to put something on top, like I did with
     the egg, drill a hole in the top as well.)

You can see the dowel sticking out on the lower left here.

2)  Cut your mini dowel rods so that you have 4 pieces that fit
      through the block with just about 1/4" sticking out the back.
      If you are making a piece to attach to the top, cut your dowel
      for that as well and make it stick up about 1/4" also. 

I made 4 sets, so I'd have extras with matching buttons for future signs.

 3)  Attach buttons or gems or (like I did, both) on one end of the

     mini dowel rods with a hot glue gun.

Tip:  An easy way to stand your dowels upright while your waiting for glue to set is to put them in a small container some dried beans or gravel.

4)  Make a template out of the mylar that is the exact same size as
      the front of your block of wood.  Trace the holes and punch 
      them out with a standard paper punch.

5)  Make your graphic in whatever program you like and size it to 
     to fit the template.  Now lay the template over the graphic and 
     trace around it with a pencil.  Trace the holes as well.  Cut it
     out and punch the holes with your paper punch.
6)  Put the graphic over the front of your block. Add the Mylar 
     template over the top to protect it.  Push your dowel rods 
     through from front to back so that the decorative buttons are 
     on the front side.  If you have made something to attach to the 
     top, put it on the dowel rod and insert it in the top hole. 
  There ya go! Your sign is finished in 6 steps!      When you want to change it out...just make a new graphic, remove the pins, use the mylar template to line it up, insert new graphic and and replace the pins.  It took me only about 5 minutes to change the Bee sign into another sign using the logo from my good friend Mel's blog, Mellywood's Mansion.  I put a little crown on top because she is indeed the queen of her home, which she is making over one awesome room at a time!

  Now how fun is that?!  I'm pretty sure I'll be making this sign over a bunch of times.  (Once you have made one, the rest are just new graphics!)  Mother's Day is coming up.....maybe I'll start there!
But for today, I'm loving the bee poem.  I love the simple message behind those words. 

***This project is dedicated to all of my blog friends who are constantly emailing me telling me NOT to take apart something that I made!  You know who you are!***
Enjoy your day and go make a sign for yourself!

  
  Linking up to any or all of the fine parties listed at the bottom of this page as well as HERE and....      

FAUX CABBAGE FROM COFFEE FILTERS

I made a head of cabbage for my Easter bunny out of coffee filters and you won't believe how this project came about.

 Tina at What We Keep posted a picture of a floral arrangement that had faux cabbage leaves in it that was so gorgeous, that I couldn't stop looking at it.  Click HERE and take a look at it.....I'll wait for you.
Wasn't that a beautiful arrangement and weren't those cabbage leaves cool?  If you read that post, she told you that she made them herself....by accident.  I was so fascinated by those, that I made that picture be my screensaver and looked at it all day.  Then I contacted Tina and told her I wanted to try it or something similar and asked her permission to link to her if I did.  She is so nice, of course she said "yes".  
So I set to work...... 

 I gathered some acrylic paint, a styrofoam ball, and a stack of coffee filters.  I ended up only using 2 of the colors shown.  I mixed up a little bit of the Apple Green acrylic paint with a lot of water and set the whole stack of filters in the bowl to let them soak up the color.  This happens VERY fast.

Then I mixed up some Foliage Green acrylic paint and water and flipped the filters over so just the tops were dark green.

They still absorbed the color very quickly, but you can see the effect above.
Then I spread them all out on a table and let them dry overnight.  Patience is always the hardest part of any project for me!  When they were dry, I stacked them back up and I painted the edges with a little more of the dark green, just to give them some definition.

 Using straight pins, I pinned them on to the styrofoam ball in layers, just kind of crumpling them around as I went.  I didn't get any pictures of this, because it's a two-handed job and went so fast it wasn't funny.  I kind of folded down the edges on some of the leaves in hopes of making them look more realistic, something I noticed on Tina's picture.  What do you think?

Not as cool as Tina's project, but fun in a different way.  A note about Tina and her blog.....
Did you ever notice that button on the right side of my blog that says "Proud Member of the Nothing Will Happen Club"??  Well that's how I first met Tina...by stumbling on to THIS page about the Nothing Will Happen Club.  I applied what I read there to myself, when I was stressing about blogging...you know...you've probably been there.  It changed my attitude and my blog quite honestly.  So go read about it and ask Tina if you can join...she'll let ya...then you can have a button too, and maybe even eliminate a little self-imposed stress in your life as well!
I hope you enjoyed this project and this post.  If you didn't..well...

"Nothing Will Happen"!!! 

Thanks Tina....You are Awesome!

Linking up to any or all of the fine parties listed at the bottom of this page as well as HERE and.......