Art Necklaces

I have so much wonderful art work from my kids around the house. This year I decided to make something from one of the pieces my daughter Ellie made in Art Class. 

Here is the original piece, a quilt piece, made with crayon and water color paint. I love this piece and it was on our refrigerator for a long time. I finally wanted to try to do something with it. Here are some instructions if you want to make your own!

First, scan your original piece, the width was a bit too big for my scanner so I cropped it a little on both sides.

Next, print your image on a piece of "shrink" paper. I actually didn't use the "shrinky dink" brand, I bought a generic paper on amazon, just make sure it is suitable for your printer if you plan on printing on it (you can always draw on it with sharpies). I filled up my piece so I wouldn't waste the paper, and so we could have many necklaces.

After the ink dries, cut each piece out, and punch a hole with a hole puncher so you will have a place to attach the chain. Preheat oven to instructed temperature, my paper used 325 degrees. Line your pan with parchment paper so the paper won't stick. 

When the oven is at temperature, put the pan in the oven. The shrinking will happen pretty quickly, so keep an eye on it. The pieces will seem like they are getting completely out of shape as they shrink, but as they get smaller, they flatten out. Once the pieces are flat again take them out of the oven, it was only about 3-4 minutes for me. If any pieces aren't as flat as you'd like use the back side of a spoon to press them down before they cool.

Here is the final piece with the ball and chain necklace attached. Ellie loved giving these as gifts this year, she was so proud.

2nd Floor Bathroom

When we moved in the 2nd floor bathroom was not in great condition. Someone had tried to remove the wall paper, but had given up, there was no cover for the light, the previous tenants did not use the beautiful claw foot tub, and the mirror covering the medicine cabinet was missing. This bathroom has a lot of potential, in the last month I have made a few improvements but we are still waiting for the owner to fix a few things.

Here are some before photos:

To update the wall paper, I used a heavy weight fabric and tacked it into place. With a mixture of cornstarch and water that was boiled and cooled, my friend Heather and I brushed the walls, then the top of the fabric to adhere it to the walls. I let it dry over night then trimmed the excess fabric, and re-sealed the edges with the cornstarch mixture. This temporary "wall paper" can peel right off, perfect for our rental. It has been up for a month and has not peeled off at all.

Here the fabric is pinned up, with the excess hanging over, before we adhered it to the wall.

Heather is helping me pin up the pieces.

We are still waiting for the owner to fix the slow draining tub, and put the mirror back on the medicine cabinet, but it has definitely improved. I made the curtain for the window and painted the shelf we hung on the wall.

Here are some after photos:

Crate Shelf

We accomplished a lot over the weekend although it still seems like the list of things that we want to do is endless. Here is the crate shelf on casters we made with the crates from Aunt Sue.

Even with so much to do inside the house, we still make time to enjoy the beautiful weather. Soon it will be too cold to be outside so we have to soak it up!