Vinyl Projects With My Silhouette Cameo

Since I got my Silhouette Cameo a few months ago, I've been making a ton of things with it, but so far my favorite projects are the ones I've made with vinyl!  I love to design them in the silhouette software and personalize them with quotes and shapes, and I love how they look on my walls!!  I've been dying to get some decor and personal stuff up in our house to make it look like we actually live here!  We have been so focused on our yard project that we haven't had a ton of time to work on stuff INSIDE our house! However, this winter, that is going to change!  My goal is to get everything more "cozy" in here and less like a barren wasteland. (It's not really that bad).  But, Chad really really REALLY hates putting holes in his nice, solid, gorgeously painted, perfect walls. Cue tangent:

We rent out a townhouse we own to the sweetest, cheeriest grandma in the world, but you cannot see the walls in her house.  Literally, I have no idea what color they are.  Because you cannot see them.  She collects cats and has sooooo so many hanging on her walls. (not live ones.  She has two of those, but she doesn't hang them on her walls.)  Cat figurines, cat plaques, quotes about cats.  Even her fridge is completely covered in cat magnets.  Not only cats, though. She has a collection of plates hanging all around, she has a ton of pictures of her family, and a million other things, too - doilies, dolls - the list goes on and on...  When you walk into her house it's like walking into one of those restaurants where they nail old stuff up on the walls.  Anyway, we hope one day she'll buy this place from us, because if she decides to move out we are going to pretty much have to spackle every vertical surface in that house in order to cover up all the holes.  So, needless to say, my husband wants to keep the holes we put in our walls to a minimum.

That is why vinyl is a perfect option for us in many of the spaces of our home.  It's really cheap to make yourself, it's so customizable, looks great on the wall, and when you're tired of it, you just pull it off - no damage!  So I'll definitely be hanging some pictures and maybe a few other pretty things, but vinyl is my favorite option right now!  I have two designs up so far.  The first one I did is right inside our front door.  This area is really tight and it would be hard for me to put much of anything else here that would stick very far off the wall.  I may eventually put a thin shelf above it with hooks, but that's about all that could fit here!

The most recent thing I put up was this saying (which I saw on pinterest and loved, except they used the word "not" which I changed to "never" because I thought that sounded better).  This is above the closet in our master bedroom.

I also love that vinyl can go many other places than just walls.  It sticks great to many different surfaces, especially smooth, hard ones like glass or metal.  The second project I did with the vinyl (which started out a little more frustrating that I was hoping) was making glass laundry containers with vinyl labels for my laundry supplies.

I got the jars at Wal-Mart and Target.  The biggest two (2-Gallon and 1-Gallon) were from Wal-Mart, but Target has the smaller size (1/2-Gallon) and sells them in packages of two, so getting those was easy and pretty cheap.  The 2-Gallon was $10.00, the 1-Gallon was $7.45, and the two 1/2-Gallon were $13.00.  And the vinyl I used to make them is $7.99 at Hobby Lobby, but you can use a 40% off coupon on it making it $4.80.  My Cameo was in serious need of a blade replacement and I ended up messing up much more vinyl than I would have actually needed (this is the frustration part I mentioned earlier).  I Probably would have only used about a quarter of the vinyl that comes in the package if I hadn't messed up.  And I have a roll of contact paper that I used as transfer paper.  I don't remember what this cost, but it's not very much and I don't need much of it at all for each project.  I expect to have it for quite some time before I run out - like years!  I really love how these jars turned out, and I'm super glad to get all the cardboard boxes the detergents came in off my dryer and out of my way!  My laundry situation isn't perfect, but these jars make me smile now when I walk into the room!

DIY Lavender Sugar Hand Scrub

Chad and I have both been so busy that it feels almost like we are stealing little moments of time away from Other-Things-We-Really-Should-Be-Doing-Right-Now to work on Things-We-Would-Really-Love-To-Get-Done-Around-The-House! But don't get us wrong, we love to be busy!  It's a great feeling to have purpose and goals! :) 

I spent the better part of Friday in the kitchen working on some yummy treats for a work picnic that we had today (Saturday).  In fact, I wasn't finished washing up the kitchen until about 10:00pm.  Then this morning Chad had a haircut at 8:00am and then work from 9:00-12:00am, and then he and I grabbed lunch at Trickling Springs right across from work, and headed to Lowes.  We were there about an hour and a half (which sounds like a really long time to be at Lowes!!) but it took us that long to find everything we needed!  (Chad was in Heaven! haha!) We got home around 3:00pm, put away the things we just bought, and stole just a few minutes to get a some things together for the outdoor projects we've been working on!  Then we grabbed all the goodies I made yesterday and headed over to Chad's parents house for our picnic!  That was a blast! :)  We had great food, fun conversations, lots of bubble-blowing, and fun fourwheel-riding!  We even had a little time tonight to come home and work a little outside again until about 10:00pm!  Tomorrow, Chad and I also have another gathering at his parent's house with his dad's side of the family! So tomorrow will be another full, busy day! :)

Anyway, I wanted to steal a few more minutes to write a quick post about the very quick DIY project I worked on this morning while Chad was at work!  It only took me about 45 minutes, and really it could take as little as 10 minutes if I didn't get all fancy! ;)  I saw this Gardener's Hand Scrub on Pinterest not so very long ago and wondered to myself if it really did do anything to make your hands any softer than just normal soap would.  I constantly have my hands in water, covered in dirt, greased up with oils from the kitchen, or dried out from dust in the warehouse at work, and they are not, almost ever, in anywhere remotely close to "good" condition.  So I thought this Scrub sounded like a great easy way to get clean soft hands, should it actually work, and I figured it would be so fast and easy it was worth the effort!  I'm so glad I tried it! I thought it turned out super cute and I definitely think my hands felt softer even after the first use!  I liked it so much I even made Chad try it as soon as he got home from work!  He even told me that he really liked it, and that his hands felt nicer, and that "it actually smells really nice".  Hahaha!

So here's my final product:

(For all you Spelling Police - I do realized I spelled "Lavendar" wrong :(... oh well. This should not come as a surprise to you... Hahaha!) 

The original "recipe" is only 2 ingredients and doesn't give any real measurements because this largely depends on what container you're putting it into and what consistency you like your scrub to be.  I'm not entirely sure what size my container is (because it was a recycled pickle jar and I'm terrible with estimating sizes), but I think it may be about a pint.  For this size and for a consistency just a little on the thicker side I used:


*about 1 & 3/4 cup white sugar (You can also use brown sugar!)
*1/3 cup dawn Hand Renewal Soap (The original recipe was with the pink pomegranate color/fragrance but I found the lavender one much more appealing, so that's what I bought!)
*about 1 tsp. Vitamin E Oil (This wasn't in the original recipe but it's so good for moisturizing and I already had it on hand for making homemade chapstick.)
 

I just stirred this all together until it was mixed well and transferred it to my jar!

At this point I could have been done!  I, however, decided that it needed to be prettier! Of course...  So I dressed it up a little, starting with the lid!  It had the original price of the pickles that used to be in it written on the top, so I used scrapbook paper to cover that up and to add some cuteness! I forgot to take a picture of how I did this, but I used the method found here.  It was really easy and fairly quick! All I needed was a single 8 &1/2 x 11 inch piece of pretty scrap paper, Mod Podge, and and sponge brush!

For the label, I simply found a printable one online in the shape I liked, and printed it out in two sizes: a large one and a smaller one that would fit inside the larger one.  I cut these both out and traced the larger one on the same scrapbook paper that I used for the lid, and the smaller one on a piece of white cardstock.  I then cut both these out as well, and on the white one I wrote the name I decided for this concoction: "Lavender Sugar Hand Scrub" and drew a little dashed-line border, and then I stuck both of these into my hand dandy sticker maker that I love love love!! love love love love. really love it. love.

And then all there was to do was to stick the white name label onto the center of the larger scrapbook label and then stick that one onto the jar!  And, of course, I tied a little piece of lace under the mouth of the jar to finish the look!

 

Needless to say, I'm very excited about how easy this was and how nice it feels on my hands! And it's a really fun and fast DIY project that you can squeeze in, even in the middle of a very busy weekend!  In fact, I think it's taking me more time to write about how I did it than it actually took to do it! hahaha! :)  I love it! I foresee this becoming a future homemade Christmas gift! It would even make a really sweet party favor in cute little mini-jars!! :)  I think I need to have a party! ;)

DIY Living Succulent Picture

As most of you probably know by now (due to the fact that I'm constantly posting pictures on facebook), the hubs and I (with lots of help from family and friends) have been working on our "outside" for quite a while now. The yard, the landscaping, fixing water run-off issues, reworking the deck, creating a patio space, making new flower beds, adding retaining walls, and making probably close to every other possible change you could think of! :) this has been a loooong and wild process and it is still not done!  I have thought many times of writing a blog post about this process, but every time I think about it, I am overwhelmed.  There is just way too much to cover!  I have a ton of pictures on facebook, though, of our progress if you want to see it, and I think when we are completely, 100%, for sure done with this thing, I am going to make one (probably very long) blog post to showcase the before and after. haha! :) But, even though we are still not quite done yet, we are definitely seeing things take shape now.  Most of the major changes are getting finished up and that means we are finally able to start the fun stuff! YES!!! :) The little details! Decorating! Furnishing! and all those fun little (and not-so-little) DIY projects I see floating all over Pinterest!  And that is what I'm writing about today!

I love DIY!  And now that I've got some great outdoor spaces in the works, I decided to take on a project that I knew would be fun AND contribute to the space! :)  I love succulents! They are gorgeous, so easy to work with, low-maintenance, and hard to kill!  This means we are a match made in heaven!! Haha!  I have been seeing projects left and right that use succulents and knew that I wanted to do something with them! And I can tell you that this project probably will not be my last with them!  They are so cute!! I decided to make this Succulent Living Picture which I originally saw here, and I am so so pleased with how it turned out!

This did take me some time to complete! If I had a solid day to work straight through, I might have been able to do it in a day, but I don't ever have that much time on hand at once, and I don't think I know anyone else who does either! lol!  So by just grabbing a few hours here and there to work on it, this project took me about 5 days to finish!  Let me tell you how I did it!

First I started with the frame!  I got this 14x18 wood frame from Hobby Lobby at 50% off for $11.00.  I wanted to get one that didn't have any glass or backing because I don't need them for what I'm doing!

 

This frame probably is not made to be outdoors, but then again I'm not sure if you can find many that are...  However, I am going to be putting it in a spot that is fairly shielded from weather, and plus it's already very rustic and weathered-looking so if it does get a little more weathered, it will only add to the look.  I'm sure eventually it will decay and I'll have to replace it, but the same goes for the succulents.  Over time they will grow and get too large for the frame and I'll have to pull those out, too, and replace them.  It's just the "nature" of these things.  (hahaha. pun!) :)

Size-wise this turned out about perfect for the space I have.  I may do a smaller one at some point to complement it, though, because I think these pictures would look great in a grouping!  An even bigger one would be gorgeous, but these babies get REALLY heavy once you put the potting soil and plants in them and that definitely affects the ease of hanging the picture.
 

So anyway, then I made a shadow box to attach to the back of the frame.  I needed to do this so that I had a large enough area to fill with potting soil so the succulents can root!  I created this (with a little help from my hubby) by cutting up a cedar 1x4 we got from Lowes for about $6.00.  

I wanted to get a 1x3, which would have made my (husband's) job a little easier, but they didn't have any made of cedar, which I wanted because cedar is a good wood to use outside.  So I got the 1x4 and cut it into a 1x3 by taking an inch off the width and then I cut each of the pieces to match the dimensions of the inside of the frame and screwed them together to make this:

And then I (my hubby) screwed that onto the back of the frame like so:

and I ended up with this:

I then stained the outside of the shadow box with some "cool grey" stain I picked up at Lowes for about $6.00 to match the front!

I cut some 1/2 inch hardware cloth to size and stapled it in right behind the frame.  I also got this at Lowes and it cost about $10 for a big roll of which I used probably like .5%, but hey now I have it and I can make a kajillion Living Pictures if I really want! :)  This was the perfect size wire because the 1/2 inch holes were small enough to hold in the soil once I got the frame together but large enough to "plant" the stems of the succulents between.

Then I had to add a backing to the frame so that it could hold potting soil! For this I used cement board.  

The website that I was using as a guide suggested 1/4 inch plywood, but I didn't have any of that on hand and I didn't want to buy a whole sheet.  What we did have (thanks to my father-in-law) was 1/4 inch thick cement board! It doesn't rot and is water resistant, so it worked out perfect! So we attached that to the back with some screws and voila! Finished frame!

At this point, Chad and I took a Trip to Lurgan Greenhouse, which is a local nursery that I love love love! and picked up quite a few succulents!  Since we are still getting our landscaping done, I have very few plants already on hand, so I had to buy all of these, which is where I racked up most of the cost of this project! I ended up using almost all of the succulents I bought here and had to run out to Lowes to finish up which really frustrated me because I spent about the same amount of money there for about a sixth of the amount of succulents I got at Lurgan!  But anyway, even though I used most of the succulents, I saved everything left over to plant so I can divide them later for other projects! :) But, back to this project!

I then added potting soil (a lot, so much more than I thought I'd need) and also I used a bag of cactus soil that I mixed in which succulents like.  I just used my garden scoop to pour this over the wire and then brushed my hand over the wire to shake it into place.  This took a quite a while longer than I thought it would! There was a lot of dirt to put in there! lol! And then I started adding succulents.  

To get them ready I just clipped them off at the stems and pulled any leaves off the stalks that would get in the way when planting them.  I poked a hole in the potting soil with a pencil, stuck the succulent through the wire, and then used the pencil to push the dirt in around and make sure the plants were secure.

I just made up the design as I went.  I started with my biggest succulents and only used a few of those because I wanted them to be eye catchers and just started filling in from there!

I tried to keep things in small groups for the most part and I just tried things until I got a look I liked.  It took me a little longer to do this part than it probably should have because I kept changing things to make it the way I wanted it! Sometimes I would redo an entire section until I got it right! :)

But it was so worth it because I just love how it turned out!  I can't wait to do another succulent project again! But I have so so many other ones I want to try out, too! I'm sure you'll be seeing many more of my DIY projects in the future!  Unless they are horrible failures! lol! :)

It has to lay flat for at least two weeks so it can form some roots to hold the succulents in place, though I did risk leaning it up against the brick to get an idea of how it will look on the wall!  I can't wait til it's ready to go! :)

My Probably Most Controversial and Un-Popular Post Ever In Which I Make My Opinion Known Without Actually Writing Anything But Only Linking To Other People's Blogs Who Have Already Expressed This Opinion Far Better Than I Could Have Myself

50 Shades of Magic Mike (In Which I Am VERY UNCOOL)

This Friday I’m Going To See Strippers And Why I Only Read Playboy For The Articles

I'm Not Reading "Fifty Shades of Grey"

The Fifty Shades of Magic Mike

"Fifty Shades" of Double Standards

50 Shades of Grey May Not Be So Gray Afterall

Fifty Shades of Grey-ce

Pure and Lovely?

Why You Shouldn’t Read 50 Shades of Grey

Experiences With Door-to-Door Salesmen and How to Avoid Them

Soooo... A youngish man just came to my door and showed me a very dirty piece of paper which he said verified both his name (which he had written on a line at the top) and the non-profit young-adult organization in East Philly that he worked for (which I could not find listed anywhere on the paper).  He said he had to get people to buy magazines from him so that he could earn 10,000 credits (1 credit equals each dollar of magazine sales - so basically, $10,000) in order for his non-profit organization back in Philly to give him a promotion.  Because, of course, until he gets this promotion, he's not allowed to be a mentor to the teens in the program (what does selling magazines door-to-door in Chambersburg have anything to do with mentoring kids in Philly??)  I told him I'd be happy to take any order form he might have and possibly send something in after I'd talked to my husband about it.  He said the credits only counted if he got the sale "at the door" and he needed to walk away then with a check in his hand, and also, that they didn't have an order form.  What he did have was another dirty piece of paper that listed all the magazines which I could use to make my choices from (I had to pick at least two) and then I would just tell him which ones I wanted and hand him a check...

sighhhhh... I told him no thanks... I'm not saying I'm 100% sure this was a scam, but I'm like 98% sure... The sad thing is that he might not even realize it's a scam either according to what I've read about this stuff.  Sometimes "organizations" (scammers) higher young people - usually fresh out of school or looking to improve poor living conditions - and lure them into employment with the promise of traveling around the country and earning future promotions for steady jobs.  Many times these young people really believe they are actually selling magazines!  Here are 3 informative articles about this scam:

Don’t Fall Victim to High Pressure Magazine Sellers at Your Door this Summer

Don't Buy Your Magazines From Door-To-Door Salesmen This Summer

Watch For Unscrupulous Door-To-Door Magazine Sales

(Apparently, a lot of this stuff happens during the summer) 

I really hope not too many of my neighbors spent a lot of money on these "magazines"... In case something like this happens to you, be informed!  It's okay to say no!  Even to a "good cause"! Especially knowing that there are plenty of other ways to "give back" that you can be sure are legitimately helping people.

On a different note, I had a landscaper who was doing work in the neighborhood knock on my door the other day.  When I opened it he asked me if "my mom or dad was home"... hahaha! oh my.  I stared kind of blankly for a moment at first, thinking, "why in the world would my mom or dad be here right now?" and then it struck me... this guy thinks I'm still in high school or something and I'm too young to have a house! And then I burst into laughter.  I told him (kindly, of course, except for all the laughing) that my husband and I were the owners and our parents didn't live with us!  I felt kind of bad cause he seemed very embarrassed and apologized profusely, and also that I kept failing to hold in my giggles (which probably did make me seem like a young school girl). lol! but come on, dude!! I had make-up on and everything!  I should have looked at least 20! right? ....right, guys?? no one?? sighhhhh...

I almost wish this last guy would have thought I was too young, too.  I could have just said, "Nope they aren't here right now!" and closed the door! ...well there's always next time... :)