Eternal Love

On Saturday I attended a bridal shower for my niece Taylor.

Here is the beautiful bride to be. I just love her to death. She is more like a daughter to me than a niece.

So for her shower I wanted to make her a gift. I wanted to give her something that she knew came from my heart.

Now you know how I love my letter art. So I thought I would make her a sign that would mean something to both her & her fiance Michael.

They will be getting married in the San Diego Temple on August 14th where they will be sealed as husband and wife for not just time here on earth, but for all eternity. Their marriage will be eternal. So ETERNAL was the word I decided to use for their special sign.

Here is the finished sign. And because I am such a procrastinator, I made it Saturday morning. Right before going to the shower.

How did I make this? I'll show you. If I can do this, anyone can. All you need is a camera, a printer and a little imagination.

First you need to look at everything to see if you can find a letter somewhere in the shape.

See this iron scroll work? The end looks like an "E".

So you take a close up photo of the portion that makes your letter. And now we have an "E".

Next I needed a "T"

This is a plate rack that hangs on my kitchen wall. See how the railing in front looks like a bunch of "T's"?

I just took a close up & like magic, a "T".

Next I needed another "E". But I wanted a lower case version. It really doesn't matter if you mix lower case with upper case, but since I had two E's in this sign, I wanted them to be different.

One of my patio chairs looks like it has a lower case "e" on the back.

Yup, I was right. I did have to lay the chair on the cement to get this photo.

Next I needed the letter "R". But I couldn't find another shaped like an "R" in anything around my house. So sometimes I cheat a little & use actual letters from something else.

Like this Merry Christmas glitter sign. I just took a close up of an "R".

And got this "R". I love how the glitter gives it texture. Luckily I already had this letter from photos I took last winter. But I had not used it yet in a letter art sign.

"N" comes next. But "N" was a hard letter to find at the last minute.

Luckily I have this apothecary jar full of letter balls. And look, the "N" was right there front and center. I didn't even have to dig through all the balls to find it. It was meant to be. And yes, my patriotic decor is still up. Got a problem with that?

And here is the result for "N".

Next comes "A". The only thing I already had for "A" was an Eiffel Tower. But I wanted to try and find something else. So I was at Target on Saturday night & came across a fold up chair in the garden department.

The side view of the chair looks like a letter "A". So I snapped a quick pic & was done. I forgot to take a photo of the entire chair but you get the idea of what it looked like.

And finally I needed the letter "L".

This glider bench was where I found my "L". Can you see it?

I'll give you a better hint? It's down here.

Did you figure it out? If you use your imagination you start seeing letters in most everything.

Once you have taken your photos. You then upload the photos to whatever photo editing software you use. I use Picasa. It's free.

Once uploaded to Picasa, I crop the photo to whatever size I needed. In this case 4" x 6". I then make the photo black & white and add a little tint to make it darker. I then print it out on white card stock, cut it out & place in frame. I actually tape the back of the photo on top of the display paper inside the frame. That way you get the photo positioned in the right spot. Plus it is easy to remove & change out the letters to change up the sign.

This particular frame came from Kohl's last year. The positioning of the openings are a little skewed. But that makes it more fun.

Kohl's has been a great source for finding frames with numerous openings for making these letter art signs. Just be sure to wait until they are 1/2 off. I've even found frames at Walmart that work. You could also use a separate frame for each letter if you wanted.

And here is my niece after she opened up my "Eternal" sign. I wish I had snapped more than one photo as she is making a funny face in this photo. Doesn't show her true beauty or gratitude.

Here is a better photo of Taylor with her fiance Michael. Aren't they a cute couple?

And one final look at the sign. My niece loved it and so did everyone else at the shower.

Have you priced this kind of sign? They can be quite pricey. Since I already had stuff around the house & yard I could photograph, and I already had the frame, all this cost me was my time, a few pieces of card stock and some printer ink. And we can't forget a whole lot of love. This was the biggest ingredient in this project. But we all know that I have a lot of love to give, so it was a pleasure.

Thanks for taking the time to look at my letter art transformation. Now if I can do this, you can too. Now get out there and find some letters and make your own, or if you want, you can borrow mine. Be sure to let me know if you do, I want to see what you make. I'm noisy like that.




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Easy summer crafts to celebrate the 1st day of Summer

Edited 7/20/10: Linking up to the impromptu mantel party over at The Stories of A to Z.



Today is the first day of summer. Welcome, welcome.

As much as I love summer, I hate the heat. Here in southern California, June is usually the coolest month of summer. We can get what is called "June Gloom". It will be overcast and cloudy in the morning & be quite cool. At the beach, the sun sometimes never comes out in June. But I live inland, so the sun usually breaks through the June Gloom between 9-11am. So the temps only reach the mid to upper 80's. Sometimes the 90's. By late afternoon the marine layer starts creeping back in and it starts cooling down. Then we get a cool breeze off the ocean. Nice early summer sleeping weather.

But in another week or two that all goes away & it will get hot, hot, hot. And the monsoon season starts so it will get humid. Nothing like the south or back east. I know you are all laughing at me complaining about humidity, I've been to Texas, Florida & Washington DC in the summer before. How do you stand it? But I'm talking humid by California standards. And it won't cool off much at night. August & September are our hottest months. But sometimes June & July can be just as hot. This year we are lucky to have a cooler June.

So for now, I am enjoying the cooler summer temps. In celebration of the first official day of summer, I thought I would make a few easy summer crafts to decorate my mantel to welcome summer.
I decided for my summer mantel I wanted to feel cool. What better way to feel cool than to use green, blue & white for my colors.

My favorite summer flower are white daisies. I found some this spring at Dollar Tree and thought I would make me some more flower balls. I made some green ones for spring, and I thought white ones would look great for summer.

Here are my supplies for making the flower balls. Styrofoam balls (picked up at the thrift store for super cheap, you can even find them at Dollar Tree sometimes), the flower heads pulled off 3 bunches of flowers (Dollar Tree), my trusty glue gun and some glue sticks.

I just glued the flowers all around the ball. Easy, peasy.

And I ended up with a pretty flower ball for decorating with.

I made 2 white daisy flower balls. I wish I had purchased more bunches of flowers as I would have really liked 3 flower balls. But I didn't get enough & now they don't have them. Boo hoo. I placed the flower balls in tin buckets that I picked up from the Dollar Spot at Target awhile back.

Then remember my empty photo frames from my last mantel? I decided they needed some art for summer. I found some file folders at Dollar Tree last month that I liked. I thought I could cut it down & use in the frames. So I did. I just plopped them in the frame & taped on the back. You can make art out of just about anything. Another easy project.

And finally I decided I needed some blue vases to hold some more white daisies. But I didn't have any blue vases and I didn't want to spend a lot of money. So I decided to make my own.


I picked up 3 clear glass vases from my local thrift store for 50 cents each.

Then I bought the cheapest craft paint from Michael's. This was 59 cents a bottle. I got Robin's Egg Blue.

Squirt some paint inside the bottle & keep turning the bottle until the inside is coated with paint. Just squirt a little bit of paint at a time. You don't want to use too much or you'll have a ton at the bottom. I did turn upside down & poured out the extra paint. Be sure to wipe the paint off the lip of the vase. And no, this is not my hand. I had hubby demonstrate while I took the photo.

After each vase was coated with the paint, I placed on their side to dry. I kept turning them every 5 minutes or so for an hour. You don't want them to lay on one side for very long or all the paint will go to that one side. Darn that gravity. Keep turning them every few minutes. After an hour or so I felt it was dry enough to stand up.

Super easy to do. And I love how they turned out. They were still a little wet inside the next day. I guess I could have put them in the oven on low to dry even more. But I was too anxious to decorate.

I may try this again but instead of adding paint to the inside. I may try spray painting the outside.
With paint on the inside, I'm not sure what water will do to it.

I just used my "faux" flowers as I didn't want to take the chance with water right away. Who am I kidding. The real reason for the "faux" flowers is that I don't have any "real" daisies yet. I just planted some seeds this weekend. I won't have any real flowers until end of summer. If I'm lucky.



All in all I am pretty happy with how my summer mantel turned out. But are we ever really satisfied?

Besides, I now need to do some patriotic decorating for the 4th of July. But my summer mantel will reappear once the 4th is over. By then, I'm sure I will have found my box of shells, so who knows what my mantel will morph into by then.

Stay tuned.




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I finally got it done!!!

Did I tell you that I was the queen of procrastination? Well I am. And here is proof.

See this bare wood trunk? I've had it for over 15 years. That is fifteen years!!!! 15!!!

I purchased it from JC Penney online in it's unfinished state for about $100.00 plus free shipping. I had always planned on painting it. But year after year, after year, after year, it sat in it's unfinished state. Getting dirtier, and dirtier and dirtier. You get the picture.

If not, here is the proof of how dirty it got. Fifteen years is a long time to go neglected.

I finally decided enough was enough. I had procrastinated this project long enough. Plus I had a little motivation from Donna over at Funky Junk Interiors. She is having a "Gitter Done" party this week. So I had to "gitter done".

So I got to work getting hubby to sand it down for me to get rid of the 15 years of neglect. Looked like new when he was done sanding. Too bad I didn't take a photo.

Then I started painting it white. Did you notice that I said that I started painting? Hubby didn't like the sloppy way I was painting, so he took over. Works every time! I'm good at getting other people to do my work.

Once it was all painted white. I thought it needed something (it was really hubby). He suggested we add a wood applique. I thought it was a great idea. Why didn't I think of that? So off to Home Depot we went.

This is the one we picked out. They don't have much of a selection. I think this was our only option. We glued it on the front and added some new wood plugs as a few had gone missing over the years. Painted the brass handles ORB and had hubby finally put them on. I then distressed and antiqued the entire trunk (yes, I did do this part of the project).

And here is the pretty lady now.

I'm pretty happy on how it turned out. What took me so long?

The wooden applique was just what this trunk needed. Thanks honey for suggesting it!

The back.

The handles were originally brass and had never been put on the trunk. I spray painted them Oil Rubbed Bronze (ORB). Much better than brass.


This was a pretty easy project. Why did I procrastinate it so long? If I had known how fabulous it was going to turn out, I would have done this years ago. Like fifteen!!!!

On top I placed a little vignette of some thrifty finds.

The subway art tray came from Target a few months back. I got it on clearance for around $10.00. Clearance has to be one of my favorite words.

I would love to travel to all these places some day. The only ones I have seen are the Golden Gate Bridge, Big Ben, Vatican, Roman Colosseum (hubby's favorite), and the Eiffel Tower (my favorite). Someday I hope to see all the rest.

The urn was a recent thrifty find from an antique store in Riverside, CA. It was only $2.00!!!

My fleur de lis finials also got a mini makeover. They were originally brown and came from Dollar Tree for a buck each. I spray painted them Heirloom white & then antiqued them. I love how they turned out.

I still need to make a burlap runner for the top of the trunk. I hope that I don't procrastinate that too much longer. Knowing me, burlap will be out of style by the time I get around to it.

Thanks for stopping by & taking a look at my long awaited trunk makeover aka: "Gitter Done" project. And I hope that I won't procrastinate the next project as long. Do you have a project you have procrastinated? Can you beat 15 years?



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