Home Accent Piece Made of Toilet Paper Rolls

I've been making so many craperific things this summer.  Unfortunately, I haven't posted much because my computer broke and I've been borrowing my daughter's.  Ripping her away from Facebook has not been easy.  I can't wait to buy a new laptop but I'm holding out for a deal.  Here's a quick little project that I made months ago.  

This is actually a freecycle project that anyone with a tush can make.  Here's what you are aiming for: 

You can go with any shape really.  I just wanted to make it square because I love it like that. 

This is basically all you need to make it.  Obviously, you will need more than one roll of toilet paper.  You can also use paper towel rolls.  Be sure to cut the slices all the same size.  

Arrange and glue the pieces together in any form and shape you like.  I made a square because it looked feminine to me.  Once I had the shape I was looking for, I spray painted the whole thing white. 

Isn't this chic?!  By the way, I found the owl at a thrift store for a buck and the candle tray came from Ross for two bucks.  So this little vignette cost a whole three bucks to put together.  This came together quite easily and it's a great, easy project for little girls to make.  I hope you give this one a try.  

Nydia 8)

A Simple Laundry Room Sign DIY

Have you ever forgotten a load of wet laundry in the washer?  I think most of you can agree with me when I say NASTY!  Double NASTY if the washer is in a basement because for some reason the clothes get moldy and stinkier much faster.  If you follow my blog, you might know that I have major laundry issues.

I am terrible with keeping up with the mounds, hills, mountains of laundry that my small family of four creates.  Don't get me wrong, I do manage to get it all done before I end up having to wear my wedding dress to work, but still the mere task of Laundry Day is an all day event for which a national holiday needs to be declared - at least at my house.

So you see it's understandable when I say that forgetting a wet load until it's stinkier than before is a complete frustration for me.  I've found the solution though and I'm going to share it with you.

Since my laundry room is in my basement, when I close the basement door I tend to forget laundry exists.  My solution was to create a sign that reminds me of exactly what's happening down there. When the laundry is in the washer, the sign is turned over to read WET.  When the laundry is in the dryer, it's turned over to read DRY.  It's freaking stupidly GENIUS!

To make this low tech device of sheer genius, I used a scrap board from the garbage garage.  

This piece of crap scrap. 

I stained it with some left over stain.

I cut some letters out of scrap vinyl using my Cricut and placed them onto the stained board.  Then I spray painted it lightly using white paint.

I attached a wire to the sign and hung it up.  Ta-da!  A sign that basically says, "Hey stupid, don't forget your laundry!"

Nydia 8)

Slip Through My Fingers Bracelet

Finger knitting is old school.  I'm talking summer camp, girl scouts, back in the day old school.  It's made a vicious comeback though.  I believe the official name is macrame.  Correct me if I'm wrong cuz I'm wrong a lot.

I saw a bracelet that I simply had to have.  It just screamed summer-ya know what I mean?  It just had such a nautical look.  I just had to make it.

Here's what I produced:

Not bad for a first timer.

I should mention that the materials used for these puppies are actual old t-shirts that I was throwing out.  They weren't donation worthy so I turned them into t-shirt yarn.  To make t-shirt yarn all you need to do is cut a t-shirt into half inch strips and pull the strips until the material curls onto itself making a yarn of sorts.

Ok so the finger knitting process is easy once you get it going, but getting started with it can be somewhat complicated.  Pay attention because I'm about to bombard you with pictures.  This is a step by step tutorial but you can always go on You Tube and check out the eleventy-billion video tutorials on the subject.

First step:

Place the yarn like this on your hand.

Go around the pinky and intertwine again ending at your starting point. 

Go around one more time.

Then again to the start.  At this point you should have each finger wrapped twice; front and back.

Starting with your pinky, take the bottom loop and go over the top loop.  Remove it from your pinky leaving behind the top loop as such.

Keep doing this all the way to the index finger.  Once you are at the index finger, you will just take the end of the piece and simply move it back behind your fingers like so:

Intertwine the yarn again to the pinky and back to the index finger.

Starting at the pinky take the bottom loops over the top loops.  Do this for each finger until reaching the index finger.  Pull that loop and intertwine the yarn again.  Repeat this process until you have a desired length to fit snuggly around your wrist.

Now to finish off your piece.

When you're ready to finish off, you will NOT go back and intertwine.  You will simply go to your pinky loop and pull it onto your ring finger like so:

Then you will take the bottom loop on your ring finger and pull it over and off your ring finger.  This will leave the loop that came from your pinky.

Then you will take that loop and pull it over your middle finger.

Take the bottom loop and pull it over the top loop and off your finger.

Now pull this loop over your index finger and pull the bottom loop over and off your index finger. 

 You will then have a single loop on your index finger like this:

At this point, I took a crochet hook and put it through the loop and crochet the two ends together using a single stitch.

I'm a beginner and here's what I ended up with.

I guess you could say these are finger licking good!

A little complicated but once you get the hang of it, it's a piece of cake!  Good Luck.

Nydia 8)

Drink Cooler Transformation

I'm sorry it's been so long.  My computer met an untimely demise.  I am currently using a borrowed computer because I'm waiting to buy a new lap top.  I have been working on some things though, so I thought I would update you on some of these.  I got the inspiration from another blogger which you can check out here.  As soon as I saw it, I knew it was destiny for me to recreate the look.

Here's what I ended up making:

Style-ish!  I love it !  Best of all you can write whatever message you want. 

Remember, here's what the cooler looked like before it got the makeover:

Pretty Uggo! Besides Gatorade doesn't sponsor my pool parties so why should they get credit? 

So I started out with the ugly cooler and covered it in a layer of primer.  As thus:

I think primer is necessary because it's such a smooth surface.

After the primer dried, I covered it in about 50 bazillian layers of chalk spray paint.  Once that's dry you're pretty much done.  Easy right?  So stinking easy.  I love chalk paint!!!!

Nydia 8)

A Bracelet Inspired by Anni Albers Washer Necklace

I use my summer to multilax.  You know; do multiple relaxation activities such as, chill pool side while working on a tan, while drinking a cold one, while reading a book.  Hard stuff!  I know I could be doing other more important things but summer comes but once a year and who am I to waste it?  The guilt of my sloth like behavior began getting to me and so I decided to work on a little productive procrastination project.  (Try saying that three times fast!) These are projects I work on while ignoring the actual important chores like mowing the laundry.  Ugh!  I know the laundry won't go away if I ignore it, but a girl can dream. 

This little bracelet was inspired by the Anni Albers washer necklace original.  You can make that using my same technique and staggering large, medium, and small washers.  A few bloggers have attempted to make this but I'm not much of a necklace person so I decided to make a bracelet instead.  This was so easy to make, even the village idiot could make one!  I'll cut to the chase, here are the instructions.  

This is what we're aiming for people.

My Amazing Tutorial

I used gray grosgrain ribbon.  It was free.  It came off some packaging. 

I stole eh-hem My husband gave me some washers.  Use as many as you need for the length you want.

Thread your ribbon through your washer.

Thread a second one.

Thread back through your first washer.

This is what you should have at this point.

Add another washer.

Put the ribbon back through the previous washer.

Keep going over and under in the same pattern until you have the length you need.

Super cute!!! Am I right?

Here I am holding a pineapple because I'm classy like that.  Oh by the way, this was FREE!

Nydia 8)

Photo Canvas How To

Lately I’ve been battling obsessive computer disorder.  What do I mean by that? Well simply put; I’ve been surfing the net obsessively.  I have a lot of down time in the summer because I’m off from work.  This usually gets me in trouble, so I’ve been trying to keep myself occupied with all the pretty pictures and such.  That’s where this quick little project came in.  It kept me busy enough to take my mind off the strong desire to purchase pleasure myself.  You see folks, here’s how the math works with me: bored>broke, bored=spending, spending=debt + clutter, debt + clutter>paycheck + patience.  It’s very clear to see.  Here's the project I'm talking about. 

 I had seen these little canvas prints on a few blog sites such as here, here, and here.  Check them out I urge you.  These ladies actually do this with love, not out of necessity for the sake of mental health.  All I did was follow their tutorials, half-assed, with my own special twists. 

Here’s what I used:

3-  8x10 canvases ( I had them already but they originally cost $5 for 3.)

3- printed pictures (I used regular copy paper because I didn’t feel like looking around for photo paper. I suck, I know.)

Modge Podge

A foam brush

Scissors

Decorative paper

Black fabric marker (you can use whatever)

Brown acrylic paint (seriously use whatever- coffee grounds- anything really)

Step 1- Coat the entire canvas with Modge Podge and let it dry.  This makes it less porous I think. 

Step 2- Cut the strips of decorative paper that will cover the canvas’ edges.  Also cut the picture to size. 

Step 3-  Re-Modge Podge the edges of the canvas and also the paper strips.  Adhere the strips to the sides and smooth out the bubbles.  Work quickly!  This crap dries fast!

Step 4- Re-Modge Podge the front of the canvas and the back of the picture.  Stick these two together smoothing out bubbles as needed.  Seriously hurry up!  I wasn’t kidding about the drying.

Step 5- Modge the Podge out of the whole thing.  Just brush it all over the darn thing in light, even strokes.  Don’t worry it will dry clear.  Let it all dry for 20 minutes. 

Step 6- Dry rub some brown paint of the exposed edges of the canvas.  Once this has dried go over the edges again with a black fabric paint marker and wipe off as you go.  This gives it an aged look. 

Notice the dark edges around the pictures?  I forgot to take a picture of that part.

That’s it!  These make really nice gifts and my cost was only $5 for the canvases.  All the other materials were things I had around the house.  Here’s an idea; take pictures of friends and family throughout the year and hit them with these around Christmas (or whatever time) as a thoughtful gift!  They don’t have to know how cheap they were to make.  Shhh…. It’s our secret.

Nydia 8)