Race Bib Display

I am sooooo not a racer.  But a friend introduced me to Couch to 5K awhile back and I gave it a shot.  It was a lot of fun in the beginning and I was so proud of myself.  Then it got hard.  HaHa.  But I stuck with it and before I knew it, I was running a 5K on the treadmill.  I have not been as successful running outside but I did attempt my first 5K in March and my 2nd in April.  After my 1st race, I was going to throw away my bib and the Hubs said "you have to save that, it's your first race".  Which got me thinking... do people save them and what do they do with them?  So of course I checked Pinterest and found lots of ways to display them and some of them were really cute.  I decided to make a display for my friend and her husband.  And, since I am now kinda, sorta, maybe hooked, one for me too.  I started with a plain piece of wood I picked up at Michaels, along with some paint.  I printed out some vinyl using my Silhouette to use on each board. I went with Peace Love Run for mine.  And His and Her races for their boards.  I used the vinyl as a reverse stencil - painted the colors I wanted to show up first, put the vinyl down, and painted the top coat over that.  Then removed the vinyl. 

This was my first attempt at the reverse stencil technique and they are not perfect, but Im pretty happy with them.   With the boards and paint, I spent maybe $10-15.00 and was able to make 3 and I still have some leftover paint.  My husband helped me attach the hooks, and I put some extra at the bottom for medals - I don't expect to win any but I know my friends have a few. 

I hung mine by my treadmill for motivation. 

DIY Personalized Pennant

I saw the cutest little personalized pennants at P.B. and thought they would be so cute in our basement, which we call The Dugout.  Unfortunately, they were very expensive.  So I decided to see how the Silhouette does at cutting fabric.  I ordered my fabric blade from Amazon and some black pennants from Hobby Lobby (1.99 for a 2 pack).  For my fabric, I wanted to try and keep the cost down so I went with fabric quarters from the fabric store.  They are 18" X 21" and were more than enough for this project.  They average $1.00-$2.00 each.  For the Hubs pennant, I went with a good ole bandana from the dollar store.  The first one I did was for our Lil 4-Legged Girl.  

I cut the letters out with the Silhouette.  I swear that machine is AMAZING.  I did go through my blade quite quickly though, and had to use a 2nd one for the last few letters.  I used an extra scrap of fabric for the end piece.  Here is Lil Girls all done.  

 And here is the whole family done and ready to hang.  

Not too shabby.  :-)

FUN Photo Craft

I should have called this dollar store crafts as well because this was another super cheap project and I was actually really happy with the way to turned out.  Yeah Me!!! 

This one started with some paper mache letters that I got on sale at Hobby Lobby for 50% off which worked out to somewhere around $1.50 each.  Not bad especially since I was only using 3 letters... FUN.  I was originally planning to do the word EAT for the kitchen with coins - you've seen that on Pinterest right, so cute but changed my mind at the last minute.  So I got the letters, spray painted with with a silver spray paint and then tried to decide what I wanted to decorate them with.  

I finally decided on family photos.  Family is fun.  Now here is where it gets a little more technical.. I used Adobe Photoshop, scanned each letter in so I would have the correct size, and then just added a bunch of fun family photos within Photoshop. It took some sizing, some shifting, some time... then I printed out each letter.  I just used regular paper because I didn't have any photo paper at the time.  I cut them out, trimmed them where needed and mod podged them on the top of the letters.  It worked great.  Now if you don't have Photoshop or some other type of graphic software, you could also print mini photos and cut and size them as well.  I hung them on the wall in the basement - they are so light I only needed to use poster mount squares to hold them, and cut a big family vinyl with the Silhouette - have I mentioned how much I love that thing?  Here's the final product:

Even the teen took the time to look up from his video game and say "cool" so I'd have to say this project was a success. 

Dollar Store Crafts

I love the Dollar Store.  Its one of my favorite places to visit.  I picked up some 8 X 10 frames on one of my recent visits and decided to try and fix them up a bit.  So here is what I started with...

The frame, some black foam board (also from Dollar Tree), some black chain, fabric, brads or decorative pins and the command hooks, which I actually ended up not using.  

I covered the foam board with the fabric using spray adhesive or whatever glue I had handy, removed the glass from the frame, attached the chain using the lil hooks on the back of the frame.  Attach the photo (5 X 7) using the pins.  Voila.  I have a frame that I can easily change the picture on anytime I want.   Its super light since I took the glass out and the most expensive part was the fabric.

I made two more for the other boys and hope to do one for lil girl soon. 

Tinting Mason Jars

Im going to backtrack a bit and show you some projects Ive "attempted" recently.  Im really not as crafty as I think I am, so a lot of my projects end badly.  Therefore I suspect a lot of my posts will be more about what NOT to do in your projects, but here we go...

Ill start with a simple one.. Tinting Mason Jars.  I thought this was such a cute idea.  Now that I've done several, Im not quite so sure.  They look amazing but know before hand what your going to do with them because you can't put water in them and you probably won't want to put food in them either.  So what??  I have a few in my Laundry room (another organization project I'm currently working on) and a few in the craft room for storage. Here is 1 of my completed ones: 

I followed the tutorial I found at Momspark - her instructions were so easy to follow. 

Note- I put water in mine to see what would happen... it definately ruins it.  The glue begins to quickly pull from the sides and you can actually pull it off.  Soooo if you don't like the final product, soak it with some water and a lil Dawn for a day or so and pull all the color right off and start over.