Personalized Crown Royal Bottle Soap Dispensers

Lately I have found myself saving all the glass bottles and jars that we use in my house.  While going through them today I decided that the crown royal bottles would make good soap dispensers for my bathrooms!  They look better than the plastic bottles that were already in there.

While I was letting the bottles soak, to easily remove the labels, I thought that the bottles have enough room that I would be able to monogram them with our initial.  So I brought the initial up in the silhouette studio and sized it to fit on the front of the bottle.

While the initials were cutting, I removed the labels and used a little acetone to wipe down the areas where the labels were to ensure there was no glue residue left.

While the bottles were drying I trimmed the initial and put transfer paper, for glass etching I use contact paper to cut the stencil and for the transfer paper, on top for easier placement on the bottles.

I centered the initial the best I could and removed the clear contact paper.

I put a coat of Armour Etch on the stencil and let them set for about 5 minutes.  I them rinsed each bottle and removed the  stencil.

Here are the finished bottles before I added the soap and pumps.  I found that the larger soft soap pumps work great for these bottles.  

This is the soap dispenser I made for my kitchen.

DIY Embroidered Dishtowel

While looking around the silhouette blog I came across a project where a flower was cut out and embroidered onto a piece of linen for some cute wall art.  I decided that I could do this too!  Anyone who knows me, knows that unless it is a button needing to be sewn on or a small repair, I can not sew at all.  One day I will learn to sew with the sewing machine that is sitting in my daughter's closet, but until then, this will have to work for my new found fascination with needles and thread.

I decided to make some personalized dishtowels for my kitchen.  I found a 4 pack of plain white dish towels at target for about $2.50, so with this project in mind I got them.  My next stop was Michaels to get embroidery floss and needles.  I got so many different colors to choose from, including some varigated colors.

To start this project I decided on the monogram I wanted on my dishtowels and loaded it on the silhouette studio.  I resized it to the desired size and cut it out on tan cardstock.

Here is my M monogram after it was cut.  I used spray adhesive and placed it on my dishtowel.  I wanted to make sure it stuck down before I started embroidering.

Once the cardstock was stuck to the dishcloth, I began with the stiching.  I chose an orange varigated floss to use, the orange ties in with the color scheme I have in my kitchen.  It took about 1 and 1/2 skeins to finish this project. 
I really like the lift that the cardstock gives to the embroidery.

Here is the finished dish towel hanging on my oven.