Featured!

I was featured today on Ashley's Craft Corner! Check out the post and have a look around, she's got some really great crafts and recipes posted!

Texturized Vase Tutorial

I wish I could take credit for this awesome idea, but I can't. I found it here. And thought it looked so cool, I had to try it!

I'm sure you all know what very big, important day is right around the corner. My birthday! Okay, that too, but I was really going for Valentine's day. So rather than make a sensible vase that can be used year round, I made a cute V-Day one! It was a bit time consuming, but pretty easy.

Materials:
Vase (dollar store)
Hot glue (on hand)
Tissue Paper (on hand)
Mod Podge (on hand)
Acrylic Paint (borrowed from sister)
Clear Spray Paint (on hand)

This project cost me a grand total of $1. Awesome! Want to know how to make it? ... I'll just assume that's a yes :-)

First, pick a design. I knew I wanted to make it Valentines-y, but I didn't just want hearts. That's so predictable, and I pride myself on thinking outside of the box. Or... vase. After extensive google image searches, I settled on a picture of two swans kissing, making that little heart between them.

Next, print out the image (I printed it in several sizes so I could figure out how big I wanted those swans to be!), then tape it to the INSIDE of the vase.

Then, on the OUTSIDE of the vase, trace the image with hot glue. It doesn't have to be perfect (and actually looks better if it has some flaws, in my opinion!), but if you make a major oops, you can always cut off some of the hot glue using an exacto knife. It comes off the glass pretty easy.

Ignore the gross yellow-ish color of the glue on the right - it was a bit old. Still works just fine though!

One thing that was a little tricky with this step was figuring out where exactly to outline. I closed one of my eyes during this process to make it a bit easier.

While your hot glue is drying, you can prep for the next step. Take some tissue paper (you'll only need about half a sheet, depending on the size of your vase) and wad it up into a ball. Lots of wrinkles will give you lots of texture! Lay it out flat, then tear it into small squares roughly 3" by 3".

Perfection is NOT necessary here. This whole project is all about bringing out the flaws, so leave your inner perfectionist in a different room when making this vase!

After your glue is all dry and your tissue paper is in wrinkly squares, it's time to bust out the Mod Podge. Brush the Mod Podge directly onto the vase, then lay a piece of tissue paper on top, and pat it on with your fingertip. You might get some Mod Podge on your finger, just use another finger or keep a moist washcloth nearby and wipe it off.


When you're Mod Podging the tissue paper around the design, be sure to get into all the little creases and crevices. That will give it more texture! If you accidentally tear the tissue paper, no worries, just put more tissue paper on top. I did that plenty of times, and it still turned out cute!

Give the tissue paper PLENTY of time to dry. I did the next step the next day to make sure it was completely dry. If it's still at all moist, when you go to paint it will tear the tissue paper and cause all sorts of problems!

Once it's dry, bust out that paint! For my vase, I did a very light pink for the base, then a dark red-maroon for the outer accent color. I forgot to take a picture of the vase when it was pink, but just imagine the image above in pink. Or the image below without the red. You're all smart, I'm sure you'll get it :-)

After the base color dries, get your other color ready. This is the part I was most worried about, but it turned out okay. Get some paint on your brush, but get as much of the paint out of the brush as you can. You want it just barely moist. Then gently brush a bit of the accent color on. If you accidentally get a huge spot of the accent color, just brush over it with the base color, let it dry, and try again. It's very forgiving, just don't give up if you mess up.
Once that is dry, cover the whole vase with clear spray paint to seal it, and voila! You're done! I also tied a little ribbon around mine, but that's totally optional.


I hope you guys like the vase, let me know if you try it out! I think I want to make one for St. Patrick's Day. How cute would it be to have a light green background with a dark green shamrock? Really this could be adapted for any holiday, or you could do a shape like a fleur-de-lis and leave it up year-round!

Leave me a comment if you plan to try this or if you have any questions!

I'm linking this project up here:

World Nutella Day!

This Saturday, February 5 is World Nutella Day! If you guys like the stuff as much as I do, then you know it's a day worth celebrating!

Here on Creativity Is..., we'll be celebrating in two ways: our first ever LINK PARTY, and of course a delicious Nutella recipe! Check back this weekend for all of the excitement!

Binder Wall Folder

I know this idea has been floating around out there in the blog world for quite some time, but being the literary fiend that I am, I just could not bring myself to destroy a book that someone put countless hours and ridiculous amounts of energy into writing. I've been wanting to make something similar though, so that I have a place to store all my grocery store ads (rather than just in a heap on the floor).

So, I took the concept and used an old binder! I cut out the metal rings from the middle (this part was a bit tricky, I just cut around the two little circles that go all the way through, that way the binder would still be intact. You could also just leave them in if you don't mind them), then covered the whole thing with paper. I mod podged the paper on, used a ribbon so it won't open all the way, and attached another ribbon to hang it from! It was super easy (except removing the metal parts, but that wasn't too bad either, and is totally skip-able), and I love how it turned out!
Another perk of having the wall folder is that it forces me to go through my ads more often. I can't fit an infinite amount of ads in it (unlike the floor - although I guess technically it is limited to the amount of space in my apartment), so every week or so I go through and get rid of all the expired ones! I plan on putting some cute design on the front saying "Ads" or "Advertisements", but that will have to wait until I have time. It's done now, and that's what matters most!

Sugar Cookies

Okay, I'm not very good at this craft blogging thing. I don't have a whole lot of time to make crafts, so I don't post very often. And even when I do craft, I often don't think to post. Sorry!

I'm going to try to get better. And probably expand the blog a bit to include things like reading and writing and such. I'm a huge English nerd; I love to write, and I love reading. Right now I'm really into the classics (let's face it, most authors nowadays just don't put as much time into writing as they used to. Now it's all about meeting deadlines.). Hopefully most of you will still want to read my blog even when it's a post about books instead of crafting. If not, well, you don't have to read. But hopefully it will get me to post more!

Last summer for Fourth of July I made some super cute star-shaped sugar cookies. Well, the frosting recipe I used from Our Best Bites wasn't my favorite in taste, but it did make the cookies very pretty. I brought some of the cookies over to my family, and my dad LOVED them. So, I made him some of his very own for his birthday a few weeks ago!

My dad drag races, so I thought it would be cute to give him race car cookies! I love how the flame designs turned out.

I had planned to blog today about some donut muffins I made today (got the idea here), but when I uploaded the pictures, my computer freaked out, so I don't have any pictures! :( They were pretty good, but I'm thinking I'll tweak the recipe a bit the next time I try them. They were more dense than I was hoping for.

With resolutions to blog more often, hopefully you'll all be hearing from me again soon!

Nativity Wreath

For my mom's birthday a while ago, I made this adorable nativity wreath:

I love how it turned out! Look at their adorable little faces! 

I'm not very artistic when it comes to painting, so I was so happy with how adorable it turned out! 

Homemade Hot Pockets

I made homemade hot pockets today, and they were definitely a success. My husband said he likes them better than store-bought hot pockets, and that these were the best food experiment I've ever made. High praise, considering how he downs all of my food!

They were really simple to make. I used biscuits from a can (though if you're going all out you could make the biscuit dough from scratch). Each hot pocket is two biscuits flattened out. I flattened out the first one, added some meat (here it was Turkey), some veggies (zucchini and tomatoes - I recommend adding tomatoes no matter what else you add, and precooking any other veggies so they aren't too crunchy), and some cheese. I added a bit of salt and pepper, then topped with the second flattened biscuit. I used a fork to secure the edges so nothing would seep out, then did a simple egg wash on top before sprinkling on some basil and garlic salt. I will probably also add some coarse salt the next time I make these.