Silo Hill Farm: April 2012

Monday, April 30, 2012

IMAGINE........

Last week I said I had a new favorite color. I guess that was not exactly the truth as I suppose green will forever be my very favorite. However, I have fallen in love with a second color.....scarlet. It could be magenta, or in depending on the shade...almost a fuchsia. Whatever you call it.....I love it!

This cute little sign is my first scarlet project. I have more. The funny thing about this sign.....it started out white. Well, actually it started out as just a piece of wood:

It wasn't white until I painted it white.

I punched some flower shapes out of a a couple of paint chips.

Using some Tacky Glue, I put the flowers on the painted wood. I added the word "Imagine", which was just a sticker I had. (I still dream of a Silhouette machine!) I also glued a piece of ribbon to the edges of the wood for hanging, then embellished the paint chip flowers with some cute gems for just a little sparkle.

I thought for just a second that I was done, but it was just too stark and I didn't like the way the sticker lines were visible. I decided to add a piece of scarlet ribbon all around the sign and I was so pleased with the way it turned out. It kind of added some shimmer as well as disguised the sticker lines while still letting the gems sparkle through.

The image isn't blurry....it's hard to get a picture of shimmery, gossamer ribbon.

Do you like my new favorite color?

I'm having fun imagining all of the scarlet projects I'm about to do!

Linking Up:
Monday:

The Delectable Home: Show & Tell, The Gunny Sack: What's In The Gunny Sack?, Revamp Homegoods: Not Your Ordinary Show & Tell, How to Nest for Less: Just a Party with My Peeps, Vintage Wanna Bee: Talent Tuesday,

Tuesday:

Dragonfly Designs: Inspiring Creativity,

Wednesday:

Someday Crafts: Whatever Goes Wednesday

Thursday:

Live Laugh Love Craft: Tickled Pink,

Sunday, April 29, 2012

Award Remiss

I have been lucky and honored to get 3 awards and I have been remiss in passing them on. I have been fortunate enough to receive these:

from Melissa at Serendipity and Spice and Natalie at NorthShore Days

from Randee at Randee's Organized Chaos,

from Allie at The Inspired Momma

I thank all 4 of these wonderful bloggers who inspire me all the time!

It is not that I am ungrateful......I am thrilled and a little overwhelmed!

The first one requires you to choose 5 other bloggers to receive it.

The second one requires you to choose 10-12 bloggers to receive it.

The third requires you to choose 15 other bloggers to receive it.

I'm workin on it! I want to do this right and I want to check out the other bloggers and make sure they don't already have these awards. It takes some time. However, I wanted to post that I'd received these because I don't want to keep a worthy blogger from getting an award.

Sooooooo.......give me some time and I will pass these on. In the meantime...I am honored and I am workin on it!

Saturday, April 28, 2012

BEACH BOTTLE

I've been dreaming of the beach lately, so I made a beach bottle!

I liked everything but the top of it. For some reason, the coral on top just looks too much like antlers. I'll probably change it. Nevertheless, here is the run down:

I've had this bottle forever. It had bath salts in it and it will probably always smell like lavender!

I wanted to paint it some pretty sea glass color, but, I didn't have any paint that looked good enough to me and I also wasn't sure how to paint the inside of the bottle. I decided to try a variation of an idea I saw at Serendipity and Spice which you can find here. Melissa used food coloring and watered down glue. I wanted a thicker coating, so I used Mod-Podge and a blend of craft paints to get the color I wanted.

I poured it in the empty bottle and rolled it around until I got it colored almost to the top.

If you are planning to leave a clear space at the top like I did, here's a tip I learned the hard way.....Don't put too much paint in at first. You can't pour it out and still have a clean line at the top. Better to start with a little and add more if you need it. (Otherwise you'll have to let it dry out like I did.)

I made a template out of some plastic and used a piece of craft paper to cover the label. I wanted a kind of worn look to it, so I crumpled it up and then smoothed it back out. I adhered it with some Alene's Tacky Glue. I love that stuff!

For the center part of my bottle, I used a circle cut out of a piece of coconut shell. I have about 50 of these that I saved from an old wind chime that didn't survive our ice storm. I drilled some holes in the sides, painted it blue, and then coated it with some Triple Thick to make it look wet. I love that stuff too. It's a glaze that has a glass-like finish. I got it at Hobby Lobby.

I put a little dried starfish on a piece of glass tile with some hot glue and then attached it to the front of the blue coconut shell also using hot glue.

To attach the center piece to the bottle, I strung some garden twine through the two holes and tied it on to the bottle.

I hot glued a piece of coral to the top of the cork.

That was pretty much it!

Oh how I wish I had a beach out my back yard to make this picture complete....but alas...it's just a farm field!! Maybe I'll put a message in this bottle and throw it in the ocean next time I go. (Probably should take that silly piece of coral off the top first though.)

Friday, April 27, 2012

TISSUE PAPER POM-POM HAPPINESS

I love those tissue paper pom-poms. They just seem to scream fun! So, I gave it a try and here is the first one I made:

When I have the sliding glass screen door in the kitchen open , it catches the breeze and just dances with happiness! Now what is not to love about that?! You can find a ton of directions for making these online. I just googled tissue paper pom-poms and was inundated with directions. These are super easy and you can make them in any size, but the smaller they are, the more difficult they are to do. Surprisingly, Martha Stewart has some very easy to follow directions and you can find them here, but I'll show you how I made mine.

What you need:

Tissue Paper (8-10 pieces, stacked)

Scissors (I used a rotary cutter, but that's because I'm impatient!)

Thin Wire

I cut my tissue paper in 1/2 lengthwise. You could make a bigger one by leaving it whole, but since this is for my viewing pleasure and not a party or anything, I wanted a smaller one.

Next, fan-fold the tissue paper and wrap a piece of wire around the center securely.

After folding and wiring, I cut the ends into points. It's a little thick, for cutting, but manageable. You can play with this to get different looking designs, but I liked the points.

Then, I put it on it's side as in the picture above, and began to pull the tissue straight up, one layer at a time, gently, slowly, because it can tear.

When I reached the half-way point (5 sheets of tissue pulled up) I flipped it over and pulled up the other 5 sheets. Then I made a loop out of the attached wire and used some fishing line to hang it by.

That's it. I made two different sizes, just by adjusting the length of the tissue paper.

This was so easy and inexpensive, I know that I'll make some for my next outdoor picnic/party and hang them in the trees and on the deck. In the meantime, I'm enjoying the one hanging by the sliding door in my kitchen!

Now go make yourself one and enjoy some dancing happiness in your house!

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

I'm a Teacher Today!!!!

I'm teaching school today! You didn't know I was a teacher did you?? Pop on over to Adventures of our Fami-Ly and see what I'm teaching! Here's a little sneak peek......

If you haven't checked out Sarah's awesome blog yet, you are really missing a good time! She's been running a series called Trade School where you can learn some new mad skills or sharpen your old ones. (I can promise you that I've learned some new tips and tricks I didn't know!)

So head on over to Adventures of our Fami-Ly and check out what kind of teacher I am!
(No spitballs and don't be late!!)

Sunday, April 22, 2012

WASHI TAPE COMPOSTER

Just in time for Earth Day..... I made a kitchen composter out of a vintage container and I got to use some washi tape! Check it out:

Here's the story morning glory. I have a farm-style kitchen. I don't mean roosters, cows and hens, farm-style. I mean like your grandma or your great-grandma's 1930's vintage farm-style. I have bead board paneling and I took out all of the upper cabinets and put in white shelves. Lots of them. It's pretty, functional, open and a very calming green. Some day I'll show you. My point is, that I'm always on the look-out for something that goes in my kitchen and when I found this little aluminum container, I had to have it!

I paid a whopping $2.00 for it. These containers were kind of like the Tupper-Ware of the early years. They were used to carry food much like our pyrex today. They would not take up much room in a fridge and could sit right on top a wood stove to reheat. I have also been told that sometimes they were used as lunch pails. But mostly, they were used as food storage containers. I knew right from the start that I wanted this to be a kitchen compost container.

Now I'm not crazy about having a composting container sitting out in my kitchen and this one can easily fit under the sink.......but there is absolutely no reason why this couldn't be "cuted up a little" in my youngest sister, Amber's words.

Before we get to the "cuting it up part", we have to do one thing....drill some holes in that lid. Compost containers need air. I marked where I wanted to drill my holes with a pencil.

I got out the cordless drill and drilled 6 holes in the top of the lid where I had marked out some X's.
That's it.....that is all the prep work required for this project! Now on to the "cuting it up" part.

I would like to just say here that "I found some washi tape!!!" I couldn't believe our Hobby Lobby, Michael's, nor JoAnn's had any. Target had plenty. In the school supply section. Go figure! I think it was like $1/roll sold in 4pks. Yay! The bonus for me was, one of the colors was this kind of funky vintage green, which is one of the accent colors in my kitchen. It took me about 5 minutes to put 3 bands of washi tape around my container.

How cute is that??!! Really, I could have just left it like that and been very happy with it, but.......
I added a little label that had a short list of what can go in this compost container.

Just so you know, you should not put meat scraps or dairy in a compost container. (I rinse my eggshells.) There you have it. Earth Day Project....check. Vintage Project....check. Washi Tape Project....check! Some yummy compost to feed my giant pumpkins I'm growing.....BONUS!

This project was completed for under $4.00. I didn't even make a dent in a roll of washi tape.

HAPPY EARTH DAY!