Wine Bottle Re-Do

Well I can definitely say that I had multiple ideas for this project AND I still may do another one of said ideas.  For now though I wanted to share one of them.

I started saving wine bottles a few months ago.  Normally it would have taken a while to save up enough bottles, but with my sister visiting and a few neighborhood block parties it didn't take as long as expected.

I washed the bottles out and ran them under hot water to remove the original labels.  I thought I might need goo-gone, but surprisingly the labels came off VERY easy.  I turned them upside down and let them dry for quite a few days.  I did not want any moisture left in them...these would be decorations and then stored, so I wanted them dry.

I gave them a couple coats of black spray paint.  Note to self...the darker bottles take less paint because they are already pretty dark. 

I had planned on buying the Martha Stewart beverage labels, but wondered if I could find anything from Silhouette.   Of course I could!!  I might have gone a little overboard and purchased EVERY Halloween label that I found.  Ugh...this is the problem with having a membership...can't let any $$ go to waste.

I printed the labels on shipping label paper that I bought at Staples and cut them with my CAMEO.  You could probably print on regular paper and use spray adhesive, but frankly I think that stuff is messy and I wanted them to last forever!!

What do you think?

How cute are these?

I have them up on my mantel and will reveal the entire mantel in another post.  Seriously such a simple project.

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Fall Subway Art

Fall seems to have officially arrived in Denver.  It has been raining for the last four days straight.  From what everyone has told me...this is not normal.  I sure hope not because I hate strongly dislike the rain.  Let's be honest...I strongly dislike anything besides sun, but dry and cold is better than wet and cold!

Anyhoo...

I started decorating for fall last week.  I love when it's time to pull out the bins of Fall/Halloween decorations!!  Although I haven't put any Halloween decorations up yet...it's coming!!   I decided I needed to put a little more focus on the Fall decor because as my mom pointed out...you put up Fall then Halloween and then Fall AGAIN!!

One of the things I added to my collection this year was this cute Fall Subway Art.  I have made subway art in the past using Photoshop.  There is nothing wrong with using Photoshop and it's relatively easy, but this time I used my Cameo.  Besides the great fonts I had...I also had cute images to use.  The only downside to using my Cameo is unless you have one of your own...I can't share it with you. 

I used an old frame I had picked up at a garage sale and there is actually no back or glass.  I have the print attached to a piece of cardboard and it fits perfectly.  The lighting in this room is horrible, so I apologize for the not-so-great pic.

I am trying really hard to get better about creating little vignettes when decorating.  Less is more is NOT what I am going for.  I want more is MORE!!!

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Finding A Use For Broken Crayons

This was a project I did at the end of the school year, but with the move blogging about it was pushed to the back burner.

If you have kids then I can almost guarantee you crayons...and if you have crayons I can also guarantee you have broken crayons.  I tend to be pretty OCD when it comes to the crayons, markers and pencils in our house.  I like them to be put back in their boxes and it drives me nuts when the kids lose any.  But then after a while...one missing turns into two and so on so forth.  Then they break them and well you know the rest. 

Although the broken crayons drive me crazy I have never thrown them away.  We have made our own crayons using the old broken ones.  Super easy and the kids have fun with it!  In that post we used foil pans, but we also have silicone trays that have fun shapes.  Ours were not oven safe so we used the Arizona heat to melt them!!  A fun, summer project if you live where the temps are 100+!!

Anyhoo...

For this project I wanted to give Taylor's teacher something special and something she could keep in her classroom as long as she wanted.  I picked up a cheap wood frame from Michael's and began the worst part...removing the paper from all of the crayons.

Once I had my bucket full of paperless crayons I began placing them on the frame...gluing as I went.  I broke the crayons smaller if needed.

 

 

 

I made a super simple Alphabet print using scraps of scrapbook paper.

 

I stood it up a little too soon when I took this first pic of the finished product and a few of the crayons started to slide.  I quickly laid it down and after drying over night it was ready for display!

  

I absolutely loved how it turned out! I made great use of all those crummy broken crayons!  Because I had the crayons already my only cost was the frame of which I go on clearance for $5.00.  Cheap and original!  Best kind of gifts!

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