Impatiently Praying for Patience: A Feature!

A cupboard revamp at Impatiently Praying for Patience

Today we would like to feature Katie from Impatiently Praying for Patience (that blog name is awesome by the way). I've seen a few of Katie's projects around blogland before, but yesterday I took the time to read through some of her stories that accompany her creativity.
She really had me laughing and crying at the same time!

Blogland has opened my eyes to a lot of different things. When I need to feel motivated or inspired, I come to see you all. When I need to laugh or take a break, I can find a friend here. I know we all have wonderful friends and family that we actually see and live with daily, but blog friends are different. We're real but we're also generally anonymous, and most everyone is here to support eachother. Thanks, Katie, for sharing and being a fantastic blogging friend!

This was an added bonus I found on her blog.

My husband has been describing this wall treatment to do above our mantel for a couple years, and I couldn't envision it. ...now I can. It looks awesome!

Thanks again for sharing your creativity and stories with us. I hope you'll visit Katie at Impatiently Praying for Patience and tell her we sent you!

Hat Box Makeovers with Guest Blogger Mitzi

I'm the guest blogger for Erin and Heather's Monday blog switch, and I couldn't be more pleased to be here with a new audience of readers, and hopefully some new friends. I'm just getting to know Erin and Heather, and have been impressed by their forward-thinking attitude toward their blog. Having a guest blogger each week is a great way to keep things interesting for loyal readers. What a great idea! Right now they are over at my blog, Mitzi's Collectibles, with their guest post.

Let me tell you about myself briefly before we begin today's project. I am a part-time antique dealer in central Michigan, selling my wares in two antique malls. Over the years I have acquired all sorts of fabulous vintage raw materials at auctions and estate sales that lend themselves to crafting. More specifically, old apothecary bottles, bark cloth, buttons of all shapes and sizes, ribbons and trims, colorful millinery flowers, sheet music, and jeweled bits and bobs that can be made-over into new jewelry creations.

If you visit flea markets, estate sales, antique stores, or even garage sales, you'll eventually come across some hat boxes. If you are lucky, they might be covered in wallpaper like one of my examples below. Other times, they might be striped or have the name of the hat maker on them. Since these boxes can be so useful for storage, why not gussy them up so they can be displayed on top of an armoire or shelf in your bedroom or craft room instead or hidden in a closet?

Besides hat boxes, you will need:

Foam brush

Mod Podge or other decoupage medium

Brayer to roll air bubbles out of applied images

Images you wish to ad to your box.

Embellishments such as lace, fringe, or ric-rac

Hot glue gun to attach embellishments

I keep a stockpile of laser copied paper ephemera for decoupage projects, including perfume and soap labels, Victorian trade cards, and old advertising. I've even color copied packages of eyes and hooks and cards of buttons because I like the pleasing patterns. Of course, you don't have to use copied vintage stuff. Other suggestions would be sheet music, wrapping paper, or scrapbook paper.

Apply your Mod Podge to the back of the images with a foam brush, position them on your box in a pleasing configuration, and roll out any extra glue and air bubbles with a brayer. You can use your fingers if you don't have a brayer, but it gets a bit messy! Then, apply a layer of Mod Podge on top of your image. Wait an hour or so, then coat the entire box with the Mod Podge. This is just to give the surface an even appearance.

When your box is dry, add some fun trims. I used blue pom-pom fringe, brown lace, and gold Dresden trim. Using a hot glue gun, apply your trim wherever you want. That's it!



You can see I used the Dresden trim to frame the ladies' fashion print, and the lace I glued around the rims of the box lids:

Here are a few tips:

If you elect to use Mod Podge, consider if it is gloss, matte, or satin. The different finishes will affect your finished project. Personally, I don't think gloss looks good on most paper projects. I used the matte version on my boxes.

I filled in some empty spaces with rose stickers from a simple sticker sheet purchased at Michael's.

If you have an ink-jet printer, buy some spray fixative and coat your images at least once, otherwise the colors will run when you apply your glue. Spray fixative is available in any art supply or craft store in an aerosol can.

Of course, you don't have to use vintage hat boxes. You can buy papier-mache stacking boxes at any craft store that are ready to paint or decoupage.

I hope you have a chance to pretty up some boxes of your own!

Mitzi

Blog Swap with The Girl Creative

Hey Lucky Star Lane readers! It's Diana from The Girl Creative! I'm so excited to be swaping blogs with Heather and Erin today. They have a great blog, don't they? Don't forget to go support them over at my blog today. It always nice to see some familiar faces. :)

This is my first time doing a guest post so I hope you'll bear with me if I start to ramble and talk in circles!

Let me tell you a little bit about myself and then we'll get to the fun stuff. I'm a Christian by faith and happily married to my hunky police officer husband, Tim. We have 2 very, very busy little girls, Emilee, 6 and Gracie, 3 1/2 and an insane dog, Buster. I'm really blessed because I get to stay at home and raise my girls. While our life is pretty ordinary, I feel like I'm living my dream life. When I'm not doing housework (which I avoid on a pretty regular basis and my husband surely puts up with those shananigans!) I like to spend my time crafting and blogging.

I've been blogging for a few years but this is my most recent blogging adventure. I just wanted a place to blog about my little creations (and copy cat crafts) so in October of 2009, The Girl Creative made her appearance in blog land. Every Monday we have a link party called "Just Something I Whipped Up" so I hope you'll stop by and share your projects with us.

Alright, now that all that boring stuff is out of the way, let's have some fun. At my house we have this shelf above the sink that seems to be the dumping ground for anything kicking around the kitchen that does not have a permanent home. Since our kitchen is the main hub I often find myself taking my receipts from the grocery store (and Hobby Lobby!) and tossing them up on that shelf. As you can imagine it gets very cluttered especially since I'm somewhat of a shopaholic! I came across this little project the other day and thought it would be the perfect thing to store my receipts in. I made a few little changes to make it my own but it was really simple.
If you can't tell what it is, it's an accordion envelope that hangs on the side of your fridge. The perfect little out-of-the-way place for your receipts.

The Supplies:
12x12 Scrapbook Paper (I used Amy Butler double sided paper which worked great)
Paper Cutter with Scoring Blade
Double Sided Tape
Velcro
Magnet

The first thing I did was cut my paper down to 12x9. You will need the extra 3" inches so hold onto it.
Next I took my 3x12 piece of paper and cut it in half. This will become your "acordian".

Then I took my 2 halves of paper and folded them like a fan.

Next take your 9x12 sheet of paper and score it at 3", 5" and 8" and fold.

I then took my accordians and attached them to the envelope using double-sided tape.



I noticed that my cover flap (not really sure what to call it!) was a bit longer than I wanted it to be so I trimmed some of it off. I wound up using it on the front of the envelope (the opposite side of the paper so that there was a contrast) to break up the pattern a bit. I know, I'm rambling, but I did warn you! ;)

Next I added velcro inside the envelope so that it would stay closed.

Then lastly I put a magnet strip on the back and hung it up on the side of my fridge.

And there you have it. :)

Thank you so much, Erin and Heather, for having me at your little place on the web. I had a blast!!

Thanks Diana! It was great having you and thanks for sharing your readers with us! We hope you'll all come over to The Girl Creative and check us out...and we really hope you'll keep coming back!