Thursday, October 31, 2013

Modge Podge a Pumpkin


Thanks to one of our readers who sent me this pumpkin! It is too stinking cute. This whole project was done by modge podging (that's a word, right?) fabric onto the pumpkin and then wrapping the stem with burlap to create a bow. Excellent job, Shelly! Thanks for sharing!

Do you have a pumpkin you would like to share? You can comment on the bottom of the picture and share your e-mail address and I will contact you - or shoot me an email! 


Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Houser Home

I don't know about you, but laundry and dishes pile up at our house quickly. We have the 2 girls 100 percent of the time and share 50/50 time with the 3 boys, so our home pretty much stays a disaster area. With that being said,  I've been thinking about how I can provide a responsibility/chore list that is also a cute display - I think I have found it.



You can use chalkboard paint on anything you would like to get this look. I didn't use it here, but this is chalkboard so it makes it super easy to change who does what on a weekly basis, then I just added it to a cookbook holder that I had. I put the picture above that just says "Houser Home" so that you can see how it would look if you just wanted blank space to put whatever you want for the day or week (quotes, dinner, etc.) As always, I used my silhouette cameo to cut out the shapes and letters. 

Winter Wreath

We have all seen the burlap wreaths that look like this:


Today, my Mom and I have been working on a different spin to the beautiful burlap. Who doesn't like everything winter - especially when it co-exists with burlap? Unfortunately, we ran out of burlap tonight - but I'm going to go ahead and show the tutorial for it and I will post the picture of the finished wreath tomorrow. 


First, don't try to do this with regular cut burlap...we tried and as you can see it began to fray - so we went another direction. 




Cut your strips of burlap into about 2 inch wide strips at 9.5 inches in length. 



As pictured above...further up...like a few pictures. You take the burlap and pull it through and tie into a knot. You do this on each level of the wreath ring. 


We got this far by using 2 rolls of the burlap ribbon from Hobby Lobby. It's a little pricey for this burlap with the white lace - $13.99 a roll. To finish it off it will take 1 more roll. This obviously is super easy and didn't take long at all. Especially when you have someone cutting the burlap ribbon for you. I will post the result tomorrow! 

UPDATE: Here is the finished project. It actually became the "Baby Shower Wreath"...slight change in plans. 







Monday, October 28, 2013

Pumpkin Cupcake Box

I tweaked one of the cupcake boxes a little bit to make a gift for the teachers at school. I liked how it turned out, but in the end...probably should have just gone with straight orange for color since it is borderline looking devilish. Anyways, here it is!



The idea is to add either candy, cookies, or a pumpkin bread muffin inside. These are great inexpensive ways to show your children's teachers that you are thankful for taking care of them. Here's the how-to:




All the pieces were cut using the silhouette cameo. 



I then used glue dots to glue down the pieces together. I used a sandwich bag that I cut for the front opening, but you could use anything you want (even the plastic wrap from sliced cheese I suppose). 


Fold it all up and insert the cupcake holder - or leave it out depending on what you are putting in there. 


Here's the back of the box. If you like the idea of having the inside be a surprise, then leave the face off and just use it as a cute little box! 






Sunday, October 27, 2013

Expanding

I have expanded Bride of Craftenstein to Facebook! I have somehow, hopefully, connected my blog to the Facebook account. Make sure to become a fan so that you can see all my updates on there! As always, let me know if you have any suggestions on some crafts you've been wanting to see tutorials on. Don't be shy.


Saturday, October 26, 2013

The Paper Pumpkin

Today I wanted to attempt something a little more fun...and use a lot of glitter doing it. I came upon a wonderful post by Jenice from Lolly Paper and she did such a spectacular job creating her paper pumpkin that I had to have one for myself. Well...mine didn't turn out near as amazing as hers, but it still is pretty - as long as you're not looking at the picture asking yourself...what is that.






I'm not real big on the leaf...I think it looks odd. I added a combination here...you can add burlap for the stem, or use something else. Here is the how to:


 Take your silhouette, or find a shape of the size pumpkin you want and trace it and cut out 6 pumpkins. The cheez-its in the picture have nothing to do with the tutorial. 


Glue them together at the sides. At this point it doesn't matter the color paper you use unless you plan on keeping it that color. 


Glue your pattern pieces to the pumpkin - I used spray glue because it's amazing, but it is very VERY sticky. 

Create a guard to spray adhesive on your pumpkin - again this stuff is STICKY (I have scrubbed my hands and still have glitter glued on them - I assume it will never come off - yeah...this stuff is that good). Next pour your glitter where you sprayed and finish all sides of the pumpkin. Do whatever your heart desires to make your little paper pumpkin extra amazing. You can find this pattern in the silhouette online store here. Have fun! 

Friday, October 25, 2013

"Witch" One?

When I was growing up I don't really recall having a say in what I was for Halloween....or maybe I didn't care due to my infatuation with candy - it didn't really matter as long as I got my bag filled. My oldest daughter, she's almost 3, gave me a run for my money. She was all about Doc McStuffins and couldn't wait to get her costume...and then it got here...she wanted to be Princess Sofia. Yep. Nothing else would do except Princess Sofia - so since I am mother of the year to quiet the madness...we went with Princess Sofia. If you read my post last night, then you were able to see my youngest, 15 month old, wearing her witch outfit.

 Today Miranda had to be a witch too. Hello number 3 costume. She put it on and loved it for about 4 minutes and then wanted to be Sofia again. Goodness gracious. Long story short...she will be a witch for Halloween. Tonight they went to a 'trunk or treat' and sported their cute little outfits.
 

When I bought Maggie's witch hat...I did not realize that I was going to need another...and of course they did not have anymore left. So, the only thing left to do was to break out the silhouette machine and get to work. Although, you don't have to use a silhouette machine - it just makes life easier. First thing first, I found a 3-D witch hat pattern (which is really used for candy holding) on the online store and printed it out on card stock. I don't have the fabric cutter so that wasn't an option for me - but I will get it one day. 
Top pieces are the card stock and bottom are the fabric pieces. I just traced the pattern onto my fabric and used my scissors. 

Next I pinned it right sides together and sewed it up. After that I turned it right side out and took some odd looking tool that obviously belongs to  my husband, although I have never seen him use it - or many tools at all for that matter, and poked it up the top to get the pointed look. Then I proceeded to fill it with stuffing.







Pin the round circle piece to the bottom of the hat, right sides together and then hand sew. When finished sewing, tack down a piece of felt or any thicker material to cover up the hole in the middle. Add a headband or whatever other tool you need to hold this to your child's head. 



And BOOM...there it is. I somehow misplaced the green strip of fabric that I was going to use around the hat, but I have every intention of gluing some orange ribbon around it. So there is an example, although it is not complete yet. 






Here is my Lovey. I used alligator clips to hold the hat to her head - I just slid them underneath the thick felt piece. 

Thursday, October 24, 2013

Boarding the sleepy train

Another post from the comfort of my bed, just minutes away from boarding the sleepy train. I apologize for not posting any projects today....even though I have done some and I could easily upload them right now from my phone, but I'm not. Tomorrow I will upload some uber fun things. Also, don't be scared to comment on my posts! I get emails from y'all but no comments, what's that about? :-)

If you have any ideas that you would like me to create, let me know and we can either make a mess or make the best out of it!

For your viewing pleasure, here is my little witch. Blog you tomorrow. Night.

Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Painted pumpkins

Tonight, from the comfort of my bed, I'm sharing a painted pumpkin idea inspired by the minions on Despicable Me. Kenny, one of our readers, did an excellent job replicating the little yellow lovies. If you have any questions or would like a tutorial - shoot me an email and I bet Kenny would love to share how he made this work. Thanks for sharing your idea!


UPDATE: I've had a couple of people ask about this amazing pumpkin. Spray paint was used for the yellow, weed eater string for the hair, jar lids for the eyes, acrylic for the details, and buttons for the overalls. Good luck! 

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Decorating Pumpkins with Vinyl

I love to carve pumpkins, but when you do it too early then all you have on Halloween night is a rotted corpse of a pumpkin and nobody ringing your doorbell for candy. So, with that being said...I decided that I would fix up one of my pumpkins with a little vinyl.

After I put the vinyl "H" on, I decided I wanted to spruce it up with spiders and a cobweb...well I had to go with white glitter because there was no black in the double sided adhesive kit I got from the Silhouette store. For the spider and the cobweb I used the double adhesive paper - so that allowed me to add glitter to the top. I think that this project turned out alright...it's not my favorite, but it is definitely something to set out on the porch. Oh...and my dog chewed the stem of my pumpkin for me...how nice. 
Prior to the glitter and dog chewing. 



My girls at the patch. 

Monday, October 21, 2013

Free of Charge

I told you yesterday that I was going to do a tutorial on how to curve your letters in Silhouette Studio...so here it is. I'm using it on the wonderful Starbucks Logo since that is the one I mentioned yesterday. This is my first video ever...aren't you excited? I had to use my phone because I don't have any software that lets me take a video straight off the computer.



If you have any questions just let me know...I promise I won't charge you.



I just watched my video on here and it is quite possibly the worst video ever. Sorry about that, but hopefully you get the point.



Sunday, October 20, 2013

Charging someone??

I've been surfing the net this morning for different ideas and I came upon a blog that was actually charging people to shape letters to fit in the Starbucks personalized logo. I am WOWED by this. It isn't hard to curve letters and I'm going to do a tutorial to show y'all how....free of charge. I'm not ready with my pictures yet to do the tutorial, but I was so appalled that I had to share this with you. See you back later this afternoon for the tutorial. Get your Silhouette studio ready!

Saturday, October 19, 2013

Cupcake To Go

This is a real fun project! If you have any parties coming up and you want to go all out...these are the things to do. First, I used my Silhouette Cameo to cut out the design that I found on their online store.

After they cut out you just pull them off and this is what they look like. 




Take the pieces and fold to shape the box. 



Take a glue stick or glue of your choice. I used those little glue dots and glue together where the pieces fit. Then I took a sandwich bag and cut it and inserted it where the window box is. I'm sure there is something else you could use, but this is what I had...so I utilized it. 


Here it is! That's a muffin...not a cupcake - but you get the idea. When I noticed that the picture was blurry...I had already eaten the muffin :-/

Happy Cupcake Boxing!