Crafting 2.0

  Okie dokie so it's been awhile.  In fact, I was actually about to start a completely different blog-- and was in the process of thinking of a good "crafty" name when I said to myself "Self!  You already have a perfectly good and sadly neglected blog!"  So why start a new one when I can add to this??

  Life is crazy but super happy right now.... my friends are all about to get married or married and starting to have kids... it makes me so excited!!  It's also equally as exciting that with weddings/engagement parties/bridal showers/baby showers come opportunities to be creative for the people I love.  Hubby and I also bought a house and will be moving in one month exactly which means I'll finally be able to make some of my cute little home decor projects that I've been pinning on Pinterest.

  With me FINALLY having stable hours and reliable job I can at last start to integrate fun back into my life.  :)  So with any hope, I'll be able to maintain this blog a little better and post various crafting projects.

  One of my most favorite things to do lately is go to BYOB painting classes where an instructor shows you how to paint something that you can bring home that night and display on your wall.  In fact, a nearby ceramic studio owner and I were talking about those classes and she mentioned she wanted to start having more of them... and actually asked me if I wanted to teach one!  I still haven't taken her up on it, mostly because of time reasons but I'm thinking that I can start using some of my free time to decide on a painting and actually teach a class.  I've never done anything like that before but it seems like it would be fun!

  It is this invitation to teach a class that caused me to start thinking about an idea that's been sort of brewing for a little while.   Now that my friends and I are older and establishing ourselves in our new lives, we are sort of past that go out/bar scene that used to be so much fun during college.  We love getting together and catching up and chatting.  That's the nice part about those painting classes... you go with a friend and catch up, sip some wine and munch on a couple snacks.  Perfect evening.

  Well since I feel like I am always thinking of little projects to do and it seems like everyone is enjoying "DIY" projects lately and had a thought.... what if a bunch of us hosted a "craft night" every month or so?  It would be a chance to get together, make something fun and useful, and catch up on life.

  Last weekend, I joined a couple of friends to make these cute hand painted stemless wine glasses which I had actually made awhile ago and posted on Facebook.  The girls who commented on them wanted to make them so we finally set a date to get together and paint.  The glasses were from the dollar store and the paint and brushes I already owned so it was pretty inexpensive for everyone and was such fun!  Since I had already painted my stemless wine glasses I actually painted another set of dollar store glasses to give as a gift.... they were cactus stemmed margarita glasses.  They turned out great!  (I forgot to take a photo... whoops!)

  Here are my stemless wine glasses:

Yes, they are on top of our bar right now (hence the Stoli Razz in the background).  I love them!  Technically they are supposed to be top rack dishwasher safe but I haven't wanted to chance it so I always hand wash them.  The hubby is trained to do so as well. :)

  I think these glasses make a great housewarming gift or perhaps bridal shower gift depending on the couple!

  My next favorite new project/craft is based off of something I saw for $80 on the Red Envelope site.  I rarely buy stuff off the site but love perusing it for project ideas.  I think the item was a print on canvas or something... but I figured why not HAND paint on canvas?  Seems more special to me.  This gift is actually still sitting in my home waiting to be mailed so if for some reason you are reading this Christine... here is the first half of your wedding gift tee hee!  Hope you like it.  :)  Excuse the poor photo... it was dark outside when I took this hence the glare.  I also have an iPhone 4s so my camera isn't as amazing as the iPhone 5.

This gift has so many possibilities with color, etc and it was a lot of fun to make!   I think my next one will be an eggplant purple background with maybe light blue birds.  Or yellow.  We shall see!  Any color suggestions are appreciated.

Lastly,  I have been snapping pics of my crafts on my phone lately and haven't done anything with them so I figured I'd share a couple here.  This tray below was actually at the ceramic store where I may be teaching the painting class.  The owner is super sweet and my friend Tamara and I had a ton of fun painting our ceramics.  Tam made a beautiful Chip N Dip bowl which she uses regularly (in fact we used it the other day during our wine glass painting!).  My tray is obviously only for around Christmas but I couldn't resist the cute little penguin cartoon that I found online.  The only problem is I hate covering him up!

And lastly, two paintings that I did with my friend Brittany and (once again) Tamara!  (I think she is fully addicted to all things DIY- hooray!)  The first painting is of boathouse row in Philadelphia.  I think both paintings look great and it's cool how much variation is between mine and Brittany's.  In the background you can see some of the other paintings that have been done in the studio... I've had my eye on that Van Gogh Midnight Cafe painting for awhile!  One of these days....

 This second one is continuing on the Philadelphia theme with a sunset cityscape of the City of Brotherly Love.  In the foreground is the famous clock tower with William Penn on top!  This painting was a TON of fun to do and again, both turned out great.  Also note that Tam and I totally match with her red dress and my red top.  :)

Well I suppose it's time to get back to my weekend of packing.  I am attempting to have a large amount of packing completed (well actually ALL of it) before we settle on Sept 24th.  Soooooo exciting!!

Happy weekend everyone!!

Wedding Gift Madness!!

Woah it's been a long time!  Well what can you do... hopefully ONE day I will get to this blog thing on a regular basis when I'm not setting up stuff for my actual career! :)

Anyway, per my convo with my dear friend Stephanie this evening (who reminded me it's been awhile since I posted) I have decided to dedicate this post to wedding-related gifts as I have 7 weddings this year including my own and I will most DEFINITELY be crafting some gifts!  By the way Steph, since I know you'll be reading this.... if you ever see something you like let me know... I'll make something for you and Dave for your next anniversary if you want! :)

Ok.... first up is an idea I got from browsing good old etsy ... if a site could sponsor my wedding it would be this one!!  I love finding ideas off of there... I save all my favorites to use for either my or someone else's wedding.  Anyway, I found these adorable wedding gifts that were for a couple who came from a different state.  The state was cut out and there were dotted lines connecting the two states with the couple's names where the lines met.  ADORABLE!  With that find were a couple of similar examples, this time with the state outlined and a heart over where the couple got married.  Wahoo!  How exciting!  I love giving a piece of art that couples can display for forever if they want to... it's nice to give a gift that lasts.

My first attempt was with my friend Meghan's wedding.... I loved the way everything came out!  I used my handy Silhouette to help cut out Meghan and her fiance's names and wedding date so that the paper behind came through.  Pretty nifty.  I'm so happy it came out exactly like I planned. (Excuse the iphone photo quality... I keep forgetting that I can do HDR photos!)

Excited with the success of my first attempt, I then proceeded to make a similar gift for my friend Lisa.  I changed the font and played around with a patterned background just for fun.  Her colors were black and white which made the gift even better.  I love how good the script looks!

I consider myself very lucky that a ton of my friends are getting married in Pennsylvania this year!

Moving on from wedding art.... I have also been very much into ceramic paint.  Last year for our third year residency class's graduation I painted everyone a mug with their little cartoon character at their grown up doctor desk.  It took a little bit of time but I liked how they came out.... and was instantly excited by the possibility of what one could paint on a mug!  Here are their portraits:

(Sorry I tried rotating the picture but it decided not to work.... grrrr.)

So based on this fun and with my leftover mugs I decided that my friends Tamara and Tony were in need of some adorable mugs to celebrate their upcoming nuptials (a mere 5 days before ours!).  I came up with these:

How great would these be as photo props for the day of??  The only down side to the ceramic paint is that you have to put the mugs in the oven if you don't have a kiln (no, believe it or not I don't own one or have access to one) and our oven was a little dirty so some light brown stains got on the mugs.  I told Tamara who decided that they were eventually going to have coffee stains anyway so who cares... but I may be running to Color Me Mine to make things a little more official.  The mugs there are a little nicer quality too... something I always look for when I'm giving stuff as a gift to my friends!  (You never want to me the girl that gives the awful looking gifts.... well at least I don't!)

I have a couple more items to share but I figure I will call it quits for tonight.  Has anyone received anything hand made for a wedding or other special occasion that they absolutely LOVED?  ( or hated for that matter!)  I'd love for people to share!

Until later, take care everyone!

Love always,
Shell