Kid's room: Double E monogram wall art

I never thought I would be one of those people who names their kids all with the same first initial, let alone the same first and middle initial for both kids, but here I am! Elise Elliott and Etta Emily. It's kind of fun. And not many people have the same initial for their first and middle name. (That was something I really wanted to repeat whether we chose an E name or not for baby #2.)

Anyhow, as soon as we settled on Etta Emily, I knew I wanted to incorporate the double Es somewhere in their shared room. Last summer, I found two E's at an antique mall for $1.25 each. They are made of some type of plastic and are fairly heavy. I don't always have an immediate plan for the things I buy, but if they are cheap enough, I buy them anyway, and they usually become useful later.

I painted the E's a bright pink with craft paint, and then set out to find something to mount them to. I came up short at home, but found this "stunning" piece of "art" in the clearance aisle at Home Goods for $4.50. It's no 

70 cents, but it was the right size (12" x 16") and sturdy enough to hold the weight of the Es on it. A simple piece of lumber would have also worked, but this was halfway finished already.

When I got it home, I realized that the backside was even more perfect than the front. I could make sort of an open shadow box. (And I wouldn't even have to mar the true love print.)

It did have a few staples into the backside of the frame where the joints came together. I used wood filler to smooth those out, then sanded and repainted the entire frame with a couple of coats of white paint. I made sure to tape off the inside of the frame because I didn't want random paint splotches showing through the fabric on my final product.

After not finding anything that would work in my fabric stash, I found this pink scale cotton print at Hancock Fabrics. I bought a half yard, but only ended up using about a fat quarter. The piece I had cut was about $2. Cheaper than paper.

After ironing all the wrinkles out, I used Mod Podge to adhere it to the back of the frame. (For those unfamiliar with how to decoupage with fabric, this post explains how. Don't be intimidated. It's one of my favorite things to do.) After the Mod Podge was completely dry, I used hot glue to stick on the Es. Quick finish!

And it's just the hit of pink we needed on the wall above the crib!

Easy end-of-year teacher thank you gifts: Decoupaged clipboards

With the school year wrapping up, it was time to make more thank you gifts for Elise's preschool teachers. I truly believe that gift cards are sometimes the most appreciated, but it doesn't hurt to pair them with a little something handmade.

Decoupaged clipboards are easy to make, and they're the perfect companion to a gift card. I found plain mini clipboards at my favorite well stocked Dollar Tree, but I've gotten similar half-size clipboards at office supply stores in the past.

This is a quick craft you can whip out in under half an hour. A coat of Mod Podge to stick down the card stock and another to seal it. Super easy.

It's also cheap! A dollar for the clipboard and even less for the card stock -- you're all in for under $2 each!

• See more decoupaged clipboards >>
• Also check out my coin purse gift card packaging >>

Photobooth photo wall art

OK who likes photobooth photos? Everybody? Thought so.

But they are kind of hard to display, you know, other than tacking them up on a cork board or refrigerator.

I wanted to include this one on my bedroom gallery wall, but they don't make long and skinny frames for photo strips.

I decided to go homemade and scrounged up a long and skinny piece of scrap wood in my stash. Weirdly, the size was exactly 1.5 times the size of the photo strip and perfectly proportional, give or take a couple of sixteenths. Sometimes things are easy.

I scanned in my photo strip, enlarged it to the dimensions of my piece of wood and printed it out in two segments (since it was longer than could fit on one piece of paper). After the ink was dry, I sprayed the printed photo with a water-resistant clear sealer. (This is so the ink won't run later when the photo gets decoupaged.)

I painted the piece of wood black, trimmed the photos and used Mod Podge to adhere the photo. A pretty straightforward decoupage job. No tricks!

Fabric wrapped photo frame

I wanted to make an additional smallish last-minute gift for my sister-in-law Laura that didn't require a ton of time or money. I found an unfinished wood frame I had and a piece of fabric I thought she would like, so this gift fell together pretty easily. 

I've made a few of these decoupaged frames with paper, but I've never used fabric before. But using Mod Podge with fabric is so easy and yields expensive-looking results.

This fabric was a printed linen-like fabric, but you can pretty much use any woven fabric. Just keep in mind that you will seal over top with a decoupage glue such as Mod Podge so a fabric like velvet or a fuzzy microfiber might not work as well.

I painted the back of the frame first and then decoupaged the fabric onto the frame with Mod Podge. I just wrapped it like a present. The cut edge folded around the back was uneven and ugly, so I hot glued on a length of ribbon to cover that up. A quick and easy solution.

Read more about the process of using Mod Podge with fabric >>

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This is part of my 2011 Handmade Gift Challenge.

Mod Podged tile map coasters

Mod Podged tile coasters are easy to make, and because they're so heavy, they feel more expensive than they actually are. When I came across a beat-up (and surely outdated) road atlas in my stash, this idea came together for my sister-in-law Jill.

But these aren't just random pages from the atlas. My brother- and sister-in-law have lived all over the country, so I made four coasters showing the four places they've lived. I thought that was kind of sweet, if I do say so myself.

The tiles are just 3.5" bathroom/kitchen tiles you can get from the hardware store. These were 30-something cents a piece and had a tumbled/textured surface, but most any tiles should work fine.

You can Mod Podge just about any paper (or fabric!) on them: scrapbook paper, pages from an old calendar, photos. If you are using an ink jet print, just be sure to spray it with a water-resistant clear sealer first. You don't want the ink to run!

After Mod Podging onto the tiles (and when all is dry), you must spray with a water-resistant clear sealer again. The one I use is just the house brand from Hobby Lobby, but I'm sure there are others out there. Read the label! You don't want a sweaty drink to ruin your work!

See more Mod Podge tile coasters >>

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This is part of my 2011 Handmade Gift Challenge.

Record cabinet makeover: Scratched to basic black

My brother found this old record cabinet at a thrift store for $10. I told him to drop it off for a makeover and decided to lump that in as a Christmas gift. It's about the size of an end table, so I knew it wouldn't take long.

It's solid wood and was in good structural shape, but the top was really scratched up. See how sad it was?

My brother didn't have any specific instructions about how he wanted it to look, so I just decided to go with basic black. Keep it simple.

This was my first time painting with latex enamel. I thought it might give me a smoother finish than regular latex wall paint and it did. It comes in a few colors (like black, white, navy maybe?) off the shelf at a similar price point to regular latex paint ($9/quart). I chose a satin finish, but it also comes in gloss. It takes longer to dry/cure than regular latex paint, but I think it's worth it for furniture. It feels smooth and durable and doesn't need a top coat. I hardly used a fourth of the quart on this cabinet, so I'll be using it again I'm sure.

I did not paint the inside. I know it's begging to be painted, but I resisted. With the dividers and all the angles, that just looked like a peculiar form of torture, even for this girl who likes to paint nearly anything. The finish inside was in pretty good shape, so I don't feel terrible about it.

But I did want to put some small surprise on the inside and if it wasn't going to be with a paint color, the insides of the doors needed something. Enter Mod Podging with fabric to the rescue. Seriously, this is like my new favorite thing to do (if you didn't know already).

I found a yard of this home dec fabric on the upholstery remnant pile at Hancock Fabrics. (The remnant pile recently went up from $4/yd. to $5/yd. Oh no!) Anyway, it looked sort of antiquey and modern at the same time. It's mostly traditional, but the parrots make it a little cuckoo bananas. And I like that. A quick google image search tells me it's regularly about $15-25/yd., so I'm happy with the price I paid.

I picked out these glass knobs at Hobby Lobby on sale 50% off, so $8 for the pair. I have to admit, it was unintentional, but the slightly yellowish tint coordinates well with the fabric on the inside.

And now the cabinet is ready for his record collection. And soooo much happier!

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This is part of my 2011 Handmade Gift Challenge.

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Ugly Craft Makeover: Decoupaged frame

This is the transformation of a factory-made ugly craft, but I'm making it count anyway.

My dad passed this frame onto me after receiving it as a gift last Christmas. I'm not sure why someone thought a 50-something man would enjoy a cutesy holiday picture frame, but whatever.

OK, yeah it's really not that ugly, but it's not at all my taste. It's not that I don't like bows, I just prefer them in more appropriate places like on presents and in little girls' hair. But it's a good sturdy frame and was worth saving. Seriously this thing is so heavy you could use it as a weapon to knock out an intruder or something.

This transformation was too easy. I ripped off the bow and peeled off the glue. Then I painted most of the frame black, but didn't worry about the parts that would be underneath the paper. I chose a piece of scrapbook paper and cut it to size. A little bit of Mod Podge and now it's something that's more my style.

Obviously, my dad instructed me to re-gift (see above), but it looks so good, I think I'm going to hang onto it.

Ugly craft makeover: House shelf turned toddler dollhouse

Elise kind of got the shaft last year when it came to my handmade Christmas gifts. I only managed to squeak out a couple of small items (crayons and a matching game). I finished the playroom in late December/early January, so I made that count toward my self-imposed challenge for both her and Dan.

This year, I wanted to make her something a little larger (and that I could actually wrap).

Before

Remember this beauty I picked up at a thrift store on half price day?

It was only $1.46, so although it was quite ugly on the surface, I couldn't pass it up. That scalloped roof had to be saved! It was in need of an Ugly Craft Makeover badly.

Before

I should mention that this was originally a mass-produced piece, but then someone tried to repaint it with an 80s country blue and did a horribly sloppy job of it.

I started by tearing the thing apart. I peeled off those louvered shutters flanking the upper opening. Then I ripped out all of the fabric that was on the back. That was the step that took the most time (like, maybe an hour!). There was also a hidden wind-up music box in the top opening, which I also removed.

The bottom surface had a couple of holes in it (for what, I'm not sure), so I filled them with wood filler and sanded them smooth. Then I sanded the whole thing with a fine grit sandpaper and wiped it off with multiple antibacterial wipes. Seriously, this thing was filthy.

Then it was time to paint. I spray painted it with Valspar's white in a satin finish. Already looking like a thousand time better, no?

I decided to decoupage some fabric to the backs of the "rooms." In some ways, using fabric is easier than using paper. It doesn't tear and you can peel it up while it's still wet and re-position, if necessary. I rooted through my stash for small scraps (you might recognize some of them from past projects!) and arranged them in a way I found pleasing.

I rough cut some pieces slightly larger than my openings, applied Mod Podge to the fabric and let them dry. (More details about how to decoupage with fabric in this earlier post.)

Then it was time to trim the fabric to size. Every cubby had different dimensions, so I measured each one carefully and cut every scrap to the right size.

I did a "dry fit" before Mod Podging them in place, inserting all of the fabrics to make sure nothing needed to be trimmed further. Once everything looked good, I Mod Podged them in place and when they had dried, I put another coat of Mod Podge on top of the fabric to seal it.

There was a small hole above the arched opening that was for the music box I removed. But the music box made the house top heavy and I didn't want to put it back in.

So I swapped out the heart attached to the music box for another heart cutout to cover up the hole. It's cutesy, but it works. I painted it pink and hot glued it in place.

And the transformation was complete! I'm not sure even this side-by-side conveys the difference in the before and after. The before was so dirty and gross, I'm surprised it didn't get trashed before I found it.

And what's even better is that since I used fabric scraps, the whole project cost around $7 (the house + a can of spray paint).

So who's going to live in this house, you ask? Check back tomorrow for another post on that, but I'll give you a sneak peek now.

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This is part of my 2011 Handmade Gift Challenge.