Happy 4th of July!

After being invited to a friend's house tomorrow to celebrate the 4th with a day of swimming, grilling out, and fireworks, I decided that I needed to make a little hostess gift. 

My oldest wanted me to make cake pops for her to take to her friend's lake house where she will be spending the 4th, so I spent the majority of the day working on the cake pops.

For the hostess gift I took a glass vase and glass etched their initial on it so it could be used later for whatever.  I filled the bottom of the vase with decorative rocks and loaded it with red, white, and blue cake pops.  I also added some cute bags with red, white, and blue M&Ms with red and blue fireworks attached.

Seeing that I had so many cake pops left over I made a little centerpiece for my dining room table.  I just put some of the decorative rocks in the bottom of two different sized mason jars and added the red, white, and blue cake pops.  Hopefully the cake pops will last until tomorrow, so I will still have my cute centerpiece intact!

A Little Red, White, and Blue

Taking a look at this weeks Weekly Shape Challenge on the Silhouette Blog, and seeing that it could be any project summer themed, I decided that I would make a set of 4th of July coasters.

I picked out the graphics that I wanted to use for this project and sized them down to fit on the coasters.  I loaded the paper and went to getting all the pieces cut out.

I added a thin coating of mod podge to the coaster and put the paper design on the coaster and then added another thin coat of mod podge on top to seal the paper. 

This is right after adding the top coat of mod podge, it was hard to get a picture while doing this step.

Here are all 4 coasters while they were drying.  After they completely dried, I let them sit for about 30 minutes to make sure, I sprayed a coat of clear sealer on the coasters.

When they were completely dry I added felt pieces to the back of each coaster so there will be no scuffing of tables when using these.

Here are the coasters tied up with a bit of twine.  These would make a great gift also, but I think I am going to keep these for myself.

DIY Wall Art

I have been getting a little tired of looking at the bare walls in my house, so little by little I am making different things to decorate.  I started with my bedroom, I wanted something different and unique and that would match the colors in there.

I started off with a blank 16 x 20 canvas, luckily I had several of these in my craft closet.  The only thing that I had to buy was one of the colors of paint, which cost me $1.15.  I used painters tape to make the design and used a gift card to get all the bubbles out from the tape if there was any.

Since I have a large area I made three pictures to hang above the bed.  I didn't want them to be uniform, I wanted them all different. 

Then the paining began.  I just used a sponge brush to paint the canvases.  It took 2 to three coats of paint to get the colors to be just right.

Here are all three canvases after 2 coats, 3 for the middle, of paint.  After they were almost dry I painted the sides, which I really should have done first.  I will definately remember that for any others that I may make.

The colors I used are Lilac, Espresso Bean, and Rainy Day Gray.

Here they are after they dried and I removed the tape.  They aren't perfect, there were a few places that the tape came up and paint got under.  I was just going to let it go, but my ocd kicked in and I had to get the white paint out and fix it.

Here is the finished project.  I am very happy with the way they turned out and for me to only spend $1.15 out of pocket for it was even better.  The whole project only took 2 hours from start to hanging them.  Thank goodness I was able to use supplies that I had gotten from family to make this.