Here’s a quick and easy Canvas Flag you can make in no time. With Memorial Day weekend coming up, that means picnics and barbecues and lots of red, white and blue! As I was browsing the Pottery Barn site, I came across this Burlap Hanging Flag.

I really liked  the simplicity of the design and although $34.50 is not a bad price, I knew I could make something similar for a lot less or better yet, nothing! At first I thought I’d buy some burlap but as I was looking around my craft room, I spotted some canvases that I’ve had laying around and thought, why not?

Supplies:

• canvas (mine is 8″ x 24″)
• red, white and blue paint (I used what I had on hand; some acrylic, some latex)
• painters tape
• a ruler if you want to be precise (I didn’t measure, just eyeballed it!)
• paint brushes (I used a sponge brush, artist brushes and a stencil brush)
• a star template (I cut a star shape using my cameo and cut if out of contact paper)

On the plain canvas, I placed the star template and painted the entire canvas with a beige colored paint covering the star so that it  would be the original white canvas color when removed. Make sure to paint the edges of the canvas, too.

Don’t worry about being real neat or precise with the painting, you don’t want it to be perfect-looking. Using the PB photo as a guide, I made red, white and blue stripes by placing strips of painters tape to mark off my stripes. I wrapped the tape around the edges of the canvas so the stripes would continue around the edges, too. I wanted the stripes to look a little shabby and worn, so I made sure not to paint thick, even stripes.

You can see in the photo above that some paint seeped under the star template. No big deal. I just went back with a small paint brush and cleaned it up with white paint.

And here it is all finished. It took about 20 minutes and cost $0! My kind of craft!

Linking to these great parties:

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As you know, I’m on vacation this week. I’m “down the shore“. We have had bright, sunny skies all week. However, the wind has made for some pretty chilly temperatures. But, it’s been warming up and the rest of the week is shaping up to be in the 70′s.

I’ve had time to catch up on some blog stuff and also to finish some online classes that I signed up for ages ago but never had the time to finish. One of those classes was a digital scrapbooking class from Jessica Sprague. Since I don’t have any crafting supplies with me, I thought I would share the digital scrapbook page that I made tonight in my class.

I use Photoshop Elements to edit my photos so I know a little about it. I had no idea that I could make this! I will always be a paper scrapbooker, but I gotta admit, this was way cool!
Making this page satisfied my crafty need to “make something” and I didn’t need card stock, a paper cutter, adhesive, stickers, pens, buttons, ribbon, etc. Just my computer! I am now a fan of digital scrapbooking!

A question for the scrapbookers out there: Paper? Digital? Both?

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I am “down the shore”! Wait, what? What does that mean, you ask? I had never heard that term before I moved to Lancaster County almost 30 years ago. (30 years?!?!) When someone says to you: “I’m goin’ down the shore” it means “I’m going to the beach”. It seems that this expression is commonly used in southeastern Pennsylvania and southern New Jersey. So there you have it: a little nugget of useless trivia! You’re welcome!

So since I am down the at the beach for the week, I won’t be sharing any crafting or DIY tutorials with you, BUT I can share some photos and explain why I love coming here so much (especially before and after the official summer season).

Here are my top five reasons for coming to North Wildwood, especially during the “shoulder” seasons (May and September)

1. The wide beaches. The Wildwoods are known for its wide, open and free beaches with a gentle slope making it one of the safest beaches on the East Coast.
2. Hereford Inlet Lighthouse. This wood frame residential style lighthouse is the only one of its kind on the East Coast. It is surrounded by the most beautiful gardens.
3. The Boardwalk. I love the boardwalk…especially at this time of year. The boardwalk is over two miles and makes for a lovely bike ride!
4. BIKE LANES!!!! (Pennsylvania should take a page out of other states’ books regarding bike lanes!)
5. The sea wall. This may be all time favorite feature of North Wildwood. The sea wall was built out of ginormous boulders to protect the property surrounding Hereford Inlet. They topped off the boulders with a wide cement surface that is perfect for walking and jogging. I have logged many, many miles on that wall!

My number one reason: It’s quiet! Very quiet. There is hardly anyone else here. There are very few cars on the roads, making them even safer to ride our bikes. In fact, we are the only guests in the cute little motel. Once school is out, the motels and condos will fill up with families. Very loud families with children. Which is great if you have a family with children. My family was once one of those loud, noisy families, once upon a time! But now that my children are grown, we like the peace and quiet of pre- and post-seasons.

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Today is the Pinterest Inspiration Party over at Young House Love.  John and Sherry host this link party 4 times a year to encourage us to actually make something that we have pinned on Pinterest. I think that’s a great idea. I have boards full of great projects that I pinned in the hopes of getting to “some day” and joining in this party motivates me to just do it!

This pillow is my inspiration. It has been on my Pillows, Pillows, Pillows board for quite some time. Isn’t it pretty? I just love it!

Suzanne from Just Another Hangup made this pillow and has an incredibly easy-to-follow tutorial on her blog. I followed all of her directions (except for the top-stitching, I kinda forgot that step). She explains how to make evenly gathered ruffles which in my opinion is a fool-proof method. Please go over to her blog on how to make this pillow. I’m not going go over the steps to make this pillow because Suzanne did such a wonderful job with her tutorial. I’ll just show a few photos of my pillow-making:

All done! What do you think? I love it! Thanks Suzanne, for a great tutorial!

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To celebrate my love of both bike riding and scrapbooking, I made a scrapbook page about, you guessed it, bike riding. While I am an avid bike rider, it has been a lonnnng time since I’ve made a scrapbook page. Back in the day I was a real scrapbook enthusiast. A friend and I would travel many miles to go to a “real” scrapbook store. Back then, scrapbook stores were few and far between and A.C. Moore was the only show in town and that time, they carried very little. Our pages consisted of mostly solid colored card stock and a few stickers. Oh how times have changed! Today, shopping for scrapbook supplies is as easy as opening your email inbox.

Okay, that’s enough of my walk down memory lane. Let’s get to my page:

By today’s standards, it’s probably on the simpler side, but I like to focus on the photos more than the embellishments.

All of the supplies are from a kit that I got from peachycheap.com called Lime Twist by My Mind’s Eye. Peachy Cheap is a daily deal site that I subscribe to and I love it and highly recommend it. The letters and bicycle are Silhouette Studio files that I cut with my Cameo.

Let’s talk about my bike. Dan  surprised me last summer with this new bike!

Isn’t she a beauty! Here’s the thing. See those plain ugly fenders over the wheels? I had them installed recently and here’s why: Did you ever get caught in a rainstorm while riding a dirt/gravel trail? If you haven’t, then you’ve never experienced a “racing stripe” of mud down your back. That’s if you don’t have fenders on your bike. I always thought fenders were so not cool. Until that day it rained. hard. And I got my first “racing stripe”. Not cool. And no, I don’t have a photo of it. ; )

So here is what I’m thinking:

Pretty cute, huh!?!
I told Dan about my idea and he just rolled his eyes! What do you think? Washi tape the fenders?

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Today I want to show off my Monogrammed Dollar Store Eyeglass Case.

Have you noticed that monograms are a hot trend? Monograms are everywhere: fashion, home decor and jewelry to name a few. It makes sense. Why carry or wear items with the designer’s monogram or logo when it can be our own personalization. One problem: to have an item personalized with your monogram is going to cost extra. Solution: do it yourself!

I bought this plain eyeglass case at Dollar Tree.

Using my Silhouette Cameo, the Vine Monogram font (purchased font) and some leftover glitter vinyl, I cut out my monogram and ironed it onto my $1 eyeglass case. See my tutorial here where I wrote about using glitter vinyl instead of rhinestones. One important step to remember before cutting a monogram: reverse the image!

If you don’t own the Vine Monogram font, the Silhoutte Online Store has monogram files for 50 cents. Also there are free monogram fonts available for download such as Monogram KK font from dafont.com.

As for how my monogrammed eyeglass is holding up, it’s been banging around in my purse for about two weeks and it’s still looks good. If it only lasts through the summer, I’m happy with that. After all, it only cost $1!

Linking up here:
Whipperberry

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Spring has finally sprung here in the northeast. We had beautiful, warm weather over the weekend and we finally got to ride our bikes! It was great to be out on the trails, pedaling past farmland being plowed and readied for planting, and over bridges that cross clear, cool streams lined with gorgeous wild flowers and foliage.

Spring also means that my tulips are up! I have a bunch planted on the side of my house for the purpose of cutting and bringing Spring indoors. Anyone that knows me knows that I’m not much of a gardener. I just looked at the photos on the packages of bulbs and picked my favorites. If these purple tulips have a specific name, I don’t know what it is. I just know I like the vibrant purple color.

As soon as the tulips were up, I went out and cut them for my vase. My plain, glass, boring vase. I immediately thought: I can do better than this! So up to my craft room I went and saw my ridiculously large and ever-growing collection of ribbon. I could have just wound ribbon around the vase, but then I remembered how we wrapped the bouquet stems for my daughter’s wedding. Hmmm, I could do that with the vase!

It was so easy and took about two minutes. You need nothing but ribbon to do this. Just bring the two end of the ribbon to the front of the vase, twist it twice, take the ends to the back, cross over, bring to the front and twist twice. Repeat one more time and then knot the ends in the back. That’s it! I just happened to have this ribbon that goes perfectly with the color of the tulips. I love how it makes my vase of flowers look so pulled together and kind of “designer”!

What about you? How are you bringing Spring into your home?
Linking here:

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Pick Your Plum is my favorite daily deal site. They offer amazing deals for crafty folks every weekday at 9:00 am EST. I look forward to that email every day. You can sign up here so you don’t miss a deal! It’s not a club; you’re not obligated to buy anything. You will just get an email every day with their pick of the day. Many times the product is so popular that it may sell out early, so you gotta act fast!

Here are just some of the projects I made with Pick Your Plum products:

1. Bakers Twine
2. Ric Rac
3. Burlap Ribbon
4. Frames
5. Paper bags
6. Washi tape

To celebrate their birthday, Pick Your Plum is offering SIX products today AND if you go their Facebook Page here, you can get a code for an additional 20% off! Then come back here and click below and Pick Your Plum!

Disclosure: There is an affiliate link in this post

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I am so excited! For the past three weeks I’ve been scouring the internet, stalking reading my favorite blogs and perusing Pinterest. Wait, I do that all the time! But this time was different. I wanted to round up the best Kitchen Makeovers and feature them all in one place.

Today on Looksi will be my curated collection of DIY Kitchen Makeovers. I can’t wait for you to see them. Get ready to be blown away. Be sure to click on each photo and see all the before and after photos. Everyone loves before and after photos!

I want to shout out a big THANK YOU to the talented bloggers that have allowed me to feature their kitchen! You ladies rock! They have inspired me to makeover my own kitchen. It is still a work-in-progress, but it’s getting there. I have learned so much from these bloggers and from many more like them. I CAN makeover my kitchen and so can you!

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My kitchen is going to be primarily black and white so I’m thinking it needs a few pops of color. That’s a pop all right! Don’t panic; that vibrant, beautiful apple green color is just for the pantry door. And the fabric? I am going to attempt to make Roman Shades.

Since the last Kitchen Update, there hasn’t been a lot of progress. Twelve-hour work days and working opposite hours from Dan is preventing us from getting much done. I did manage to paint the trim around the windows and as you can see, I painted the pantry door.  That took 4 days because of priming and drying time between coats. Painting that six-panel door took me back to many years ago when I painted six-panel doors in my first home. I didn’t know what I was doing! I ended up with drips all over those poor doors. I have since realized I was doing it all wrong. Now I’m no painting expert by any stretch, but this is how I now paint six-panel doors and it works for me.

Step One:

• Remove the door and lay flat
• Thoroughly clean and dry door
• If using a bright, crazy paint color like mine ; ) you have great taste, but you will probably have to prime first (advice from my paint guy)
• Use a good brush (mine is a Purdy – if you take care of it, it will last a long time!)

1. Paint the grooves around the panels first
2. Next paint the panels above the grooves
3. Then paint the inner rails (horizontal, then vertical rails)
4. Lastly, paint the outer rails

Like I said, I’m not a painting expert, but this method worked for me and I had no drip marks and the door looks perfect!
Oh, and I spray painted the door knob and hinges with the same Oil Rubbed Bronze I used on the cabinet hardware. Love it!

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