I’m sure I’m not the only one that has a knife block in addition to other knives that don’t belong in the block. I decided it was high time for the block knives to play nice and let is the others from the cold rattling drawer they were stuck in.

And it was after I saw this product on Storage Glee that I found the perfect home for all my knives to live together. {By the way, have you heard Storage Glee? It is a neat blog that opens you up to “out of the box” storage solutions and they sometimes also tell you how to make the solutions yourself. You should check it out.}

Needless to say there was link to the manufacturer who made the neat little knife container was selling for 125 dollars! 125 dollars!!! Are you kidding me! Okay, I’m calm. I should give some credit to the designer, Martin Robitsch from Austria, as he did provide me with the idea.

All I needed was a container and some skewers. I went to the store and all I could find were the really really long skewers. But that didn’t stop me, I could cut them in half and still have right length, that’s how long they were. I bought six packets of the skewers. I don’t remember the count but if I put them in my container it filled up half way; that was what I used to measure how many I needed.

Then came the daunting task of measuring and cutting. I needed them exactly half otherwise they were two small. I actually took my sewing guide ruler {the clear one that you use to cut your fabric} and a marker and marked all the skewers. As you can see below, the skewers I used were only pointy on one end, but it makes for good balance.

Using a utility knife, I slit them half way or less and put them aside.

The third and final step was to snap them off. {This was easier than sawing them all the way through.} Then stuff them in to the container. I put them “cut” side down. You want it crammed in but leave a little give to it. You’ll know if you need to take out some skewers when the knives don’t go in easily.

Really the longest and toughest part was the slicing of the skewers, I may have come out of it with a little blister. All in all, the total cost for me was $12 for the skewers and $9 for a container to hold all my utensils as they were getting booted.

I’d like to know: Have you taken a product and turned in to your own lately? What did you make?

- ASH

I like to wear earrings and for some reason or another most of my earrings happen to be dangly and heavy. My mom keeps telling me that one day my ear hole will split all the way down the edge. While, that has not happened, I do however have a few earrings that I don’t wear because they are simply too heavy.

I bought once such earring a few years back. It was too heavy to wear for more than a couple hours .. so guess what, it sat in my jewelry collection. And oh do I have a collection… mostly earrings.

One day, as I was either washing the dishes, or cooking, or trying to fall asleep, or even driving {My mind works overtime when I’m doing non-brain intensive jobs} I got this idea that I can fix the earring by removing some of the dangly things. {really descriptive, huh? well why don’t I just show you a picture!}

Now take a closer look. You see those dangly loops. {Yup, what the arrow is pointing too.} I started removing them one by one with a wire cutter. I have one that came with my jewelry making kit but any old wire cutter would do the trick.

I cut and I cut and I cut some more. I cut the same amount on either side of the “bell” to make it even and then try it on every once in awhile. And I cut some more … until I ended up with this! 

Let us take a look at the before and after side by side. Earrings that I can wear for an entire day and not feel the weight! Yaay for happy endings.

So, tell me have you taken something you’ve had for awhile and “fixed it up” so that you can actually use it?

- ASH

My absolutely, wonderful, and creative friend, Jenn Walters, and I get together for crafts night once in awhile. The last time we hung out we decided to try out something new .. glass etching.

I had bottles leftover from sparkling cider that I wanted to convert in to oil bottles for my kitchen counter tops. I wanted two: one for olive oil and one for canola. {I use olive oil for everything except for deep frying.} Since the bottles were green I needed a way to tell them apart. That is where the etching came in.

I had some stencils {I got it from Michaels’} that I wanted to use on the bottles. But I wanted to make sure the etching cream didn’t go out of the stencils and not create a crisp line. To fix that, I used painters tape.

First I taped painters tape to the bottle. Then taped the stencils on top of the tape. I used an exacto knife to cut out the shapes on the painters tape. {I didn’t care that if the glass got scratched because..well they were going to be etched away.} Then applied Armour Etch Etching cream and left it on for about 10 minutes. The directions said wait 3-5 minutes but I just wanted to be sure. Finally I washed off the cream to reveal a pretty stencil. 

I thought it was too simple with “oil” and “olive” on one side of the bottle so I repeated the steps on the other side of the bottle too.

Pretty and sophisticated, right?

- ASH

I can’t believe I forgot to share this with you all! I was so proud of the final product and it has been hidden away?!

I took a jewelry box and painted it to give it a new look.

Sanding of course is the worst part of any wood working job.

I got the paint in the oops section of Home Depot.
50 cents for for a paint sample that no one wanted.. score!

I painted the flower and swirls using craft paint. I didn’t really have a plan, I kind of just went along with how it looked and what it needed more of. I think it turned out nice.

I also mod-podged some scrapbook paper to the insides, but I forgot to take a picture of that… of course! I also painted the handles white (another oops paint score for 50 cents).

- ASH

My friend Jenn Walters and I like to have crafts night every now and then. For our last crafts night, she saw some cute slipper socks that were embellished so she said lets make something similar. Now I have not only warm but cute toes in the house. She – is – a – genius!

The first one I made up was lacing a ribbon through the top. I had to cut slits to allow the ribbon to go through.

The second one I made, I just to add a few gems to the front.

Aren’t they cute?

- ASH

I bought a wood burner. And I used it to make a clock.

I first tried out the burning procedures on something small and easy. The back of the clock has a small merry Christmas note for my niece.

Then the hard task of transferring my design began. I realized I could burn through the paper with the design right to the wood. It wasn’t dark enough at that point but it would be easier to go over the design once the outline was made.

Once the design was done, I drilled a hole in the middle to add the clock piece. Only to realize that the clock piece was not meant for such thick wood. Looking back at the clock packaging, it said, for 1/4 inch thickness. Great, mine was 1/2 an inch too thick!!!

I tried drilling holes to no avail and ended up having to chisel a 2×2 inch wide and 1/2 inch deep hole in the back of the clock. Yea.. the back doesn’t look so pretty anymore.

Once all chiseled and done, I gave it a good stain and then sealed it which makes it look shiny. I’m not sure I like it that shiny but everything seems to stay in place {like that piece of wood that looks to be chipping off}.

In the end, I was very happy with my endeavors of wood burning and will be doing more of it!

- ASH

I know, you are already done with Christmas and New Years. But I was on vacation. A good long one. Making and buying lots of gifts and of course spending time with the Hubster and family. I hope you did too. I was definitely not ready to go to work yesterday!

The one thing I learned about myself is that I can not stick to one project at a time {like my blog title so suggests}. I was knitting one project then sewing another or hammering yet another. I think I drove my husband crazy! But at least he knows what he is up against now.

Doesn’t this look cozy

Christmas Eve and morning, the two of us spent together. I was lucky enough to not have to cook both days! My in-laws have a tradition that on Christmas morning, they eat garlic chicken and toast. I had never had it so the Hubster decided to cook it. It was delicious! And my gift was most wonderful – the Adobe CS5 suite. WOW! I am looking forward to many days spent experimenting with the software.

Speaking of Photoshop, these are the digital copies of the Christmas card I designed.

Okay, I am officially done talking about Christmas and New Years! I hope your year is truly blessed!

- ASH

I bought a metallic light blue sunglass case a while back. I’m sure it was pretty for someone, but not my taste. It was however, my price. But with the help of a little Mod-Podge, it is something I can carry around all the time.

The fabric was something I had around the house. I love the colors. Just the right touch of pink to make it girly.

You can see it is not exactly perfect. I tried to cut open the hinge area and cut a bit too deep. I’m not too worried, but if I get anal in the future I’m sure a bit of brown paint will do the trick.

I left the insides as it was so you can see the color of the case before.

- ASH

That’s how old I am today! Happy Birthday to me!!

In other news.. I made a necklace. I had made the purple fabric flower for a while, but never got around to making the necklace. I had a crafts night recently with my friend and so I finally put it all together. Isn’t it pretty? I love wearing it!

- ASH

Happy tax day! I hope you all got everything in on time. We did well this year, the Hubster and I finished up ten days before! Last year I was in the long line at the post office getting the 4/15 date stamp on my envelopes.

Umm .. I digressed early this time. Back to my chalkboard.

I had this black, framed, plastic thingy that my sister and I had since our college days. It was used as a white board, except you had to have it over something light to see the writing. It was cool, but after the years, the markers don’t erase as well as they used to. It had been hanging around on the kitchen floor. Yea, I know what you are thinking. I have no explanation for it. I promise, my house is not as messy as it sounds .. okay just a little messy. Hehe

Annywhoo.. a few weeks ago, I was cleaning up and I finally got fed up with it hanging around the kitchen floor and I came up with an idea of changing it up to a chalkboard. I already had the paint from one of my incomplete/failed DIY wedding projects last year. So that’s what I did!

The front and back of the chalkboard.

Of course, my impatience got the worst of me as I didn’t bother to spray primer on before hand. But I jorified (jorified: my word for when I come up with a weird way of fixing something ) the process. I painted one thin coat and used a blow dryer to dry it as a base coat. Then with each coat I kept using the blow dryer to dry it until I got a nice smooth surface. It worked out well; except I didn’t get in the cracks so I have to go back.

See that slit of white/cream color, that’s the crack that I missed. 

It looked nice but it needed something more, like designs around the frame. I got this nice template of floral border designs, sorry I don’t have the link for it but you can google “floral border designs”. I couldn’t figure out a way to trace on to the frame so I free handed, while looking at it.

Isn’t the design pretty? I free handed with a pencil first.

Then painted using the paint you get at the craft store.

 Here it is half way done, with just the vines painted in.

I just used what I had on hand. I think it turned out pretty nice. I still need to gloss the frame so that it looks a bit different than the middle chalkboard.

I think it turned out quite nice!! Do you like it? I was thinking of selling it, anyone interested?

- ASH

My mom was going to India and she needed a watch to make sure she took her medicine on time (by EST time). She has never owned a watch before. So the night before, I took a look at my old watches and found this one. It had one of those spring bracelets. But the spring was broken on one end. So i decided to take the watch and add new straps to it. Here’s the watch head.

 Isn’t it pretty!?

And here’s what I did to it. I added straps made from black ribbon that I was using for my slip and attached the hooky thing to it.

Then I sewed the other side slim enough to make it through the hooky thing. I then burned holes into the ribbon by heating up a broken sewing machine needle (there’s a purpose for everything)!

I attached both to the watch head using fishing wire.

I need to find more secure measures of attaching the straps though. Because the “hole” side of the strap ripped off somehow during the trip.

What do you think of it?

-ASH

Aah yes, I know what you are thinking. Christmas has come and gone and I’m writing about it February?!? Yes, I am. I can’t let my decorations go unheard of can I? And this past Christmas was a special one, the first the Hubster and I had as a married couple.

2-D Christmas Tree

So, for the first item today is the 2-D Christmas tree. I didn’t want something big and fancy just yet. We’ll probably wait on that when we have kids. So to save some money, some space, and time I decided to make one out of foam board. You got it. Actually I didn’t come up with this idea on my own. I saw it in a Peir 1 Imports magazine back in 2008. I liked the idea and kept the clipping for later.

Here’s what you need:

• 5 pieces of poster size foam board (about 1/2′” thick)
• Fabric of choice
• batting
• glue gun
• staple gun
• exacto knife

The first thing was to glue (using the glue gun) the foam board all together. I placed 4 of them vertically together, and the 5th one horizontally on top. Not sure what I mean? Check this out:
Then I traced a tree shape on to them in such a way to maximize height and width of the tree. I used the exacto knife to cut the shape out. I exaggerated the contrast in this picture so you could see the different pieces of foam board.
The next step was to make it sturdy and stand tall. I used the left over pieces of foam board and glued them on the “seams”. This part won’t be seen. After that I laid the batting down, folded it over and glued it to the back of the tree.
The final step was to stable the fabric to the back side. I used three different fabrics but you can use 1 or as many as you like. The end result should look like this:

You’re all done! Now you can decorate with ribbons and cards like so.

Wreath

This one is pretty simple. I took a pre-made wreath and some decorations and used the handy dandy glue gun to stick them all together. Of course wreath making is much more fun when you have a good friend to help out like I did. Here are some pictures of the outcome. My favorite part is the red lantern.

Sequin Decorations

For this fun idea, the credit goes to two people. Centsational Girl and her featured guest, Living with Lindsay. I told my friend about it and she suggested doing more than just trees. So we picked up some fun styrofoam shapes and began our project. I will warn you that this take some time and patience! But the results are great.

So there you have it.

- ASH