DIY Clearance Aisle / Donation Salvage Chalkboard

So I found this picture at Marshall's on Clearance a few years ago for $2.00.  It depicted 3 French-looking chefs holding a variety of foods and the image was mounted on a black and white checkerboard background.  It was an odd little picture, but it actually worked really well in our old black and white kitchen.  When we moved into our new house, we now had a grapevine kitchen and the picture no longer fit, so I tossed it in the To-Be-Donated box and forgot about it.  Fast-forward to a few months later, when I realized that I really, really wanted a chalkboard in the kitchen to list daily reminders for the kids.  I decided to make my own and packed up the car to drop some stuff at the Goodwill before shopping there for a suitable frame that I could repurpose into said chalkboard.  And there it was in my box - the weird French chefs.  SCORE!  It was just the right size and shape to become a chalkboard.
I painted over the chefs with gray Martha Stewart chalkboard paint from Michael's (coupon!).  Once that was done (3 coats), I painted the background with a little of our leftover green living room paint and then glossed it up with some antique bronze glaze.  Not bad for free!

My lesson from this - shop in your house first.  You might have the perfect thing languishing in your basement or garage, waiting to be transformed into something fresh and new! 

Paris Party - Art, Fashion, and Cuisine

For my daughter's 9th birthday, we came up with a Paris in Pearls theme because we love all things French and pearls are her favorite.  We decided to focus on fashion, art, and cuisine to reflect the theme.

For Fashion, we created a beret-bar.  I made berets out of fleece (no hemming required and unlike felt, it stretches so fit was easy) for each attendee.  I used a tutorial for a Super Mario hat, but just omitted the brim.  I can't find the tutorial now, but I will try to recreate it in a later post if I can.  I deliberately made them all in ivory so there would be no fighting over colors.  I also made a bajillon pins using pin backing from the craft store (use a coupon!) and  fabric rosettes, beads, pearls, rhinestones, silk flowers, whatever I could find that was cheap and fit the vintage-y color scheme. 

The girls could decorate their berets by selecting items from the beret-bar.  We also provided lots of long pearl necklaces and I made a ton of bracelets using stretch magic and stringing beads and pearls.  I threw a few silk flowers glued to ribbons in there as well.  After adorning themselves, the girls could don sunglasses and pose with French thought bubbles in our makeshift photobooth.

Art was the biggest part of the day.  I really wanted the girls to be able to paint, but knew that I didn't have the table space for all of them and couldn't possibly afford 12 easels.  My solution?  I took to the trees!  I tossed a heavy roll of florist ribbon over a branch, cut off the roll, and stapled both ribbon ends to the back of the canvas.  I then repeated this process to suspend a canvas for every girl. 

Covered with a thrift store lace tablecloth, the picnic table made a great area to hold long paint brushes (bought in assorted packs with a coupon at Joann's) in galvanized tin buckets from the thrift store, repurposed mason jars filled with water, a crate of acrylic paints, and little painting palettes bought on clearance at Michael's.  Those were a huge hit. 

My suspended canvases worked out so well and I loved how it served as activity, favor, and decor in one.  One of the mothers gasped when she saw it and said "It's so magical!"  That was one of my proudest party moments!  Bonus - the paintings dried so quickly as they swayed in the breeze.  AND we were able to just snip the ribbons and send them home with short lengths still attached so that the girls could use the ribbons to hang them at home. 

Cuisine was easy - we served brie and Camembert, mini croissants and quiches from BJ's, chocolate mousse, and they sampled Orangina (big hit) and Perrier (big loser).  We also had fruits and veggies and everything had a label with the food item in French and English.  I had also made French-English phrases sheets with phonetic pronunciations - which I forgot to pass out - oops, so I included them in the thank you notes.  We made French cookies (madeleines) and passed those out as favors for departing guests.  And the cake was my very easy and very beautiful Rose Cake, with edible pearls of course -see post here:  Cake Fails and Triumphs 

Pennants and Picture Display

Yep, I hoped on the pennant bandwagon.  There is something so cheery and fun about them, so I decided to make some for our playroom. 

I used a quick and dirty method with minimal sewing.  I made a template by cutting a triangle out of a cereal box.  I then parked my butt in front of the TV with said triangle, my scrap fabric bin, and a pair of pinking shears from Joann's (coupon!) and pinked my way through a stack of colorful calicos.  Once that was done, I laid out a few lengths of ribbon and pinned the triangles at fairly even intervals.  I then ran the whole thing through the sewing machine.  I didn't even take the time to match the thread to the ribbon.  I kind of like the contrast.  The whole process took me an episode of True Blood.  Once done sewing, I mounted a few clear small Command hooks and swagged my banner around the playroom.  I love them in the playroom and I also love that I can use them for parties as well.

Under the pennant banner, I mounted a wire for displaying artwork.  I don't know why it took me so long to do this - I guess I was nervous about putting a hole in the window trim and then not liking the wire.  No worries now - it was well worth the risk.  I bought a picture hanging kit at Lowe's.  The kit consists of a spool of thin wire and some tiny brass hook screws.  There's other stuff in the kit, but I haven't used that part.  I simply screwed the hooks in by hand, threaded a length of wire through each end and wrapped the tails around a few times.  Easy peasy.  Add a couple colorful plastic clothes pins from the Dollar Store and Voila!  Instant extra art display area does double duty as playroom decor.  And because our playroom was an addition and still has the windows that look into the family room, we can put artwork facing into both room for double the display space. 

Family Rules

There are many versions of the "Family Rules" sign out there - this is mine!  I love it in spite of it's flaws and thought I'd share it and some of my learnings.

I used a canvas that I all ready had laying around - not sure about the size, but I DO know it was too small.  I had way more rules than space.  If I ever do it again, I will get a sheet of plywood cut long and narrow.

I painted the whole canvas in advance, which was overkill - I could have just painted the edges and would have been fine.

Using a set of punch out letters and my Cricut, I cut out letters to form my rules.  I really wanted each font to be different.  In retrospect, it probably would have been smarter to use fewer fonts and focus more on making sure that they were readable.  I also should have done more planning ahead to match up fonts and background paper - some of the combos are not bold enough and the words are hard to read.

Using glossy mod podge (if I do it again, I will use matte instead - they aren't kidding when they say glossy is glossy), I liberally applied a layer to the top of the canvas with a foam brush.  Working quickly, I added my 1st layer of paper and then mod podged over it.  Still quickly, I applied my letters and then carefully mod podged again.  You have to be careful not to apply the pdoge too vigorously or you will shift your letters and could also tear your background paper depending on the thickness of your paper.  I repeated this process down the canvas, being sure to overlap the background papers.

You will notice that the paper will start to bubble up in places.  I didn't worry about it because in my experience, that always happens with mod podge and the paper will settle on it's own as it dries.  This was a mistake.  I was operating from experience mod podging hard surfaces.  Canvas is flexible and responds to mod podge differently.  You can't necessarily trust the bubbles to go away.  Most of them did, but some did not - you can see them in the pinkish paper (which also happened to be the lightest-weight paper I used).  If I do it again, I will use something firm as the backing and I will avoid lightweight paper.

But again, I like it even with the flaws.  It's nice to have a personal piece of art work and it's perfect to occupy that spot when it's not otherwise in use for some sort of holiday decor.  Basically, the month of January.

In case you were wondering, here are the rules that I used:

• Be thankful
• Forgive and forget
• Be honest and keep your promises
• Be each other's best friend and biggest fan
• Family first always
• Use your manners
• Always do your best