Grandpas Art and Pixlr Express

June 12, 2015 spcountrygal Printable Printable

“Grandpas are just antique little boys”. I just love that saying. Isn’t it so true? Having a dad who is an antiques dealer, I grew up surrounded by antiques and since he is an active grandpa 43 times over, I wanted to make some sort of printable of this saying.

Baseball just screams “little boys”, so I started out by looking for free baseball mitt images on Stockvault.net. This is the image that I chose:

Next, I went to my new favorite online playground, Pixlr Express. This free online image editor is different than Pixlr’s full-blown site and super easy to figure out. After messing around with “Adjustment”, “Borders” and “Type”, this is what I came up with:

Just in time for Father’s Day. What do you think? Antique-y enough?

If you haven’t done so yet, shuffle on over to Pixlr Express. It is so much fun! Like a day at the ballpark with grandpa.

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Updated Metal Star

June 10, 2015July 9, 2015 spcountrygal Accessories, DIY, Home Accessories, Painting, Quick Project, Spray Paint Accessories, Craft, DIY, Furniture Re-do, Home Accessories, Painting, Quick and Easy, Quick Project, Spray Paint

Once upon earlier this morning, I had a metal star that looked like this:

I bought this 28 inch metal star at a garage sale about 5 years ago for $1. Loved the price, but I wasn’t crazy about the finish. Still, I slapped it up on my wall and forgot all about it. It was up high enough that the unfortunate color and scraped-off paint didn’t really look too bad against the beige wall it was hanging on. As you may or may not know, I’m going gray in my house. The metal star came down so the gray paint could go up.

I will give you a preview of what this star looks like now:

Kind of looks like something that you would see in the aisles of Hobby Lobby, doesn’t it? Do you wanna know how I got this look? So easy! First I spray painted the whole thing black and once that dried, I sprayed on 2 coats of a nice shade of aqua:

Satin Black

Krylon’s Blue Ocean Breeze

I tell you, spray paint these days dries so fast. Of course, the reason that I painted the star black in the first place is because I wanted to be able to distress it and have black showing through the aqua. You already knew that, right?

To distress projects that I paint with water-based paints, I usually rub the areas that I want exposed with a damp rag or scrubbing sponge, but water really didn’t have the same effect with spray paint. I ended up going with pure acetate nail polish remover. I messed around using the scrubbing sponge…

…but ended up liking the look achieved by using Q-tips and cotton balls the best. As the acetone hits the paint, it tends to smear the black beneath into the top coat so I messed around with that a bit :

Heavy distress/paint smear

Less distress

I like the less-distress portion

Here’s some practical advice: be smart and wear gloves. Trust me on this one.

After re-spraying the portions that I over-distressed (which was way easier than I thought it would be) I favored using the Q-tips. Be prepared to use a lot of Q-tips to avoid a smeary look. Really, it is so super easy.

Perched on the same screw that it originally hung from, my updated star really shines. Never to be ignored or forgotten again. I must say that I L*O*V*E the finished project.

What do you think?

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DIY Decorative Foam Stamps

May 16, 2015September 16, 2016 spcountrygal Craft, DIY, Free Fonts&Dingbats, Super Saturday Craft, DIY, Free Fonts and Dingbats, Super Saturday

DIY Foam Stamp2

Did you hear a really loud scream today? A really high pitched squeal? Actually two of them? It was me! The first one was because of this:

If you can’t tell, it’s a SnAkE!!! A really big snake! That sidewalk there is 4 feet wide. Ugggggg……

My husband said that it is a “good” snake. No such thing!

Gives me the chills just to see a pic of it! That was my first squeal and THIS was my second

I made a foam rubber stamp! All by myself! From scratch! Squeal! Want to know the best part? It wasn’t that hard to do. YOU can totally do this, too.

Here is what you will need:

Two paper copies of the design that you want to make into a stamp. You can even just type out a name, a word or a phrase like, “Happy Birthday!” in Word.
Scissors
A sheet of craft foam. I bought this blue sheet at Walmart and it is quite thin. I’m sure that Michaels or Joann’s or any craft supply store carries thicker foam sheets.
Spray adhesive
Something to use as a sturdy stamp base. I just cut a piece of wood to size.
Baby powder (you’ll see in a minute)
An ink pad

I got the idea after watching this awesome YouTube tutorial.

First of all I chose the letter A in the Damask Dings font (dingbat) and, in Word resized it to the size that I wanted. I made two copies of this…hang on and you’ll see why.

My printer is out of toner so I had to color in the lines a bit so you can see the image. See it? Good. Next I roughly cut around my design (only one of the copies), sprayed adhesive on the back and immediately stuck it on the foam board.

At this point I cut around my printed design, and here is where my second copy came into play: As I cut each piece out, I placed it on top of the copy (paper side up) so my placement would be exactly like the original. I ended up using a hole punch to cut out the smaller circles. I’m lazy you know! Actually it was to get perfect little circles.

Next, I cut a piece of foam a bit bigger than the size of the design, sprayed some adhesive to cover the surface and then layed it down, sticky side down, on top of the image. This is how you capture the design in place. If it looks a bit wonky, you have a minute or so to adjust the pieces.

Now the foam backer is all sticky, what to do, what to do? Baby powder, of course! Sprinkle some on the exposed sticky parts, rub it in with your finger, then gently wipe the powder off:

Smooth as a baby’s bottom.

Before mounting the stamp, I inked it up and then stamped directly on the wood. After letting it dry for a minute I mounted the foam on the side opposite of the stamped image. This is where it would have been nice to have better quality foam. With this thin foam I just have to be very careful when inking. Kind of messed up the wood block, but it’s not the end of the world. As you can see, my stamp works just fine.

Made by ME! Squeal! (Did you hear that?!) Since there is a layer of paper sandwiched in there, I wouldn’t recommend washing the stamp under running water. To clean it, just stamp over and over on a damp paper towel until the color is gone.

I have a couple of really great ideas for using foam stamps. I promise to share them soon!

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Dinner in 5 Minutes. Maybe 6.

May 14, 2015September 16, 2016 spcountrygal Quick Dinner Food, Quick and Easy, Quick Dinner

I have never blogged about food stuff before. I love to eat just as much as the next guy (or gal), but this is a decorating/crafting blog, right? Well, decorators and crafters need to eat too, so here goes…

I had no idea what to fix for dinner tonight. Zero. Nada. None. I found this little package in my freezer…

…and a dinner idea was born. Vegetarian tacos. We are not vegetarians around here, but we do like our veggies and we love Mexican food. LoVe iT! We always have all of the fixings on hand.

The veggies took about 5 minutes to cook. OK, maybe 6. While they cooked I fried the tortillas, 2 at a time on our electric griddle

As I waited for each to cook, I shredded the lettuce, cut open an avocado and pulled everything else out of the fridge. By the time the microwave beeped, dinner was ready.

Let me tell you, it was delicious! We loved the different textures of the beans and veggies. Just a tiny bit of kick, unless you add salsa and Sriracha Hot Chili Sauce. Mine was spicy. Just the way I like it!

Here are the nutritional facts from the bag:

I wish that I had thought to get pictures of the finished tacos, but we pigged them down just as fast as it took to make them. This was not a night to sit and have pleasant family discussion. Hubby had things to do before darkness set in. We basically scarfed in silence.

There you have it. Dinner in 5 minutes…maybe 6. Pretty extraordinary, if you ask me.

I wonder if my family would notice if I tried to pull off this quickie meal again tomorrow night! (Wink!)

So, what speedy meals do you fix when time is short?

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Orchids: Silk versus Real

May 4, 2015January 12, 2016 spcountrygal Accessories, Decorating, Flowers, Home Accessories Accessories, Decorating, Flowers, Home Accessories

How do you feel about silk plants? Are you a purist who will only allow fresh flowers in your home? Do you frequent the silk flower section at Michaels, Hobby Lobby or Dollar Tree? Or, are you perhaps somewhere in between? I place myself in the latter category and in just a minute, I will show you why. Before I do, I wanted to show you an article that I found from Architectural Magazine. Let me quote just a little,

“Mention fake plants to most people and the response will be outrage—artificial flora is a soulless simulacrum, they moan, a horticultural travesty, and just plain tacky. John Updike, the novelist, called them an “obscene mockery”. Yet no less a design authority than Mario Buatta swears by potted silk orchids, saying they look like the real thing and are godsend for clients who travel so frequently they can’t keep real ones alive.”

I couldn’t agree more. Case in point? This little natural beauty:

Stunning, isn’t it? Ahem. Actually it looked great for about 2 months I would say. I made sure that I didn’t water it too much. I made sure that no water ever touched the leaves. I made sure that it wasn’t in direct sunlight, yadda, yadda, yadda. I was quite proud of my little orchid and of my apparent green thumb. But, like all good things, the blooms came to an end. I was left with just that one little bloom. After some research I learned that if I continued to care for the “plant” with just the right amount of watering, right placement, etc. it could bloom again! In about a year. Hmmmph. The phrase, “Ain’t nobody got time for that!” comes to mind. Into the trash it went.

And check out the orchid that I have had for almost 10 years:

It is still as beautiful as the day that I bought it. The only upkeep is a light leaf-dusting every couple of months. The only thing that I have changed is the pot color. Teal spray paint with a bit of Minwax Ebony stain to age it.

Here is my mom’s fake orchid:

It’s a beauty, isn’t it? It has been looking this fabulous for 3 or 4 years now. When my sister gave her the orchid, she started messing with the branches to reshape them, and Mom finally said, “I’m afraid that you are going to break it.” My sister then answered, “Mom, you do know that this is fake, right?” She didn’t.

Which makes my point perfectly. Is it really such a travesty to have fake plants, in this case orchids, if they can forever be in bloom, looking vivid and fabulous? My answer? An emphatic “No!” Of course I do still love real flowers, as well. I’m pretty well-rounded that way.