Etched Glass Coasters - {Tutorial}

Hey there!

My name is Melysa and I am just thrilled to be sharing this guest post with 

Courtney and the Between U & Me readers!

A little bit about me; I am a wife, successful career woman, and 

(most importantly) a mom to a handsome, almost 5 year old little man. 

Boy how time flies.  I have a little blog called 

Moments With The Montano's 

where I share crafts, recipes, helpful tips and decor ideas.

I hope you like this post and come over to visit!

One of my favorite hobbies is working with glass in all forms; 

stained glass, fused glass, mosaics, etc.

Today I am sharing a tutorial on etched glass drink coasters.

Below is how I make my own tiles, but you can also purchase 

clear glass 4 inch square tiles at any of the large

home improvement stores.

I start with a large sheet of glass.

I cut it into 4 inch strips, and then cut again to make a 4X4 inch square.

I am cutting 4 tiles for a set of coasters.

Here is my cut square.  You can see the sharp edges.

I pop the squares into my glass kiln for 4 hours to

polish the edges smooth.

The blue you see below is called kiln wash, it prevents the glass 

sticking to the kiln.

Beautiful Safety Pin Bracelet - {Tutorial}

I'm so excited to be here guest posting today.  Just a little introduction, I'm Kimberly from The Brown Eyes Have It.  I'm trying to be the best wife and mother I can be and having a little fun along the way and I blog about all that includes.  Also today is my birthday! Yeah!!  So as I was thinking of what I could post about, what the date was, realizing my littlest three need a birthday present for me, and I wanted a new watch, so that's what we're doing today - an easy safety pin watch or bracelet.

Supplies:
Safety pins - around 60 for a watch, around 70 for a bracelet
Stretchy cord - 2 pieces about 20" each - I used 1 mm thickness, you can use thinner, but the thicker
     it is the stronger it is
Seed beads - picture shows two tubes, but I only needed one
Watch face - I forgot that in the picture, oops.  A face with bars or holes in edge of the face is fine. If
      you use a face with holes, make sure your cord is small enough to fit through the holes.
Clear nail polish or super glue

Open the pins and start loading the beads on.  If you want a random pattern, the easiest thing to do is dump the beads in a bowl and just start scooping the pin through.  Or, you can painstakingly pick out each bead and slide it on the pin in precise color order, the choice is yours. :)

After you've loaded all the beads onto the pins, start stringing the pins on one of the pieces of string.  String them head up, head down, head up, etc.  It makes them lay them nicer.  Also make sure they're all laying the same way, either the clasp (beaded) side all up or the blank side up, just make sure they're the same.  Really, take a look through them and make sure they're all the same, not that I had any experience with this. :)  Lucky for me, my upside down one was towards the end.

After you've got them all strung on one string, string the other cord through.

The Best Of: Crazy Cute Party #35

DIY State Wall Art @ Casa de Luna

Easiest Baby Blanket Ever @ I Can't Stop Crafting

Kitchen Reveal @ Life as a Thrifter

Spicy Chicken Enchilada Soup @ My Happily Ever After

Kids Bathroom DIY Art on Canvas - {Tutorial}

We are always whipping out the markers, chalk, paint, glue, and so on for the kiddos to make their own little masterpieces. I always think that each creation is as good as any Van Gogh or  Monet (I'm there mom, c'mon) and so when I was asked to do a guest post for A Couple of Craft Addicts for their Kids Craft Week, I knew I was putting my little prodigies to work.


The kids have a blank wall in their bathroom that was yearning for some attention, so we decided to spruce it up with some canvas love.

What you'll need:

Four 8x10 canvas 

Assorted acrylic paints

Paint brushes

Foil adhesive letters

1. Smock-up your kids.

2. Leave out the paint, brushes, and canvas. (They'll know what to do.)

Custom Family Subway Art - {Tutorial}

Hi everyone, I am so excited to be guest posting (my very first) here at Between U & Me.  A big Thank You to the lovely Courtney for allowing me to crash here today.

I am Kristel, from the Velvet Door, and I have been blogging for just a few months. I started this blog mainly for a way for my family and friends back home to see my house and what I have been up to in trying to decorate it.  I have also realized that it will be a good archive for me to look back and see all the changes I have made to our home.  

Today I will be showing you this subway art that I was able to make.

I have been playing around with this empty wall in my family room, trying to figure out what I can fill it up with.  For a few weeks now, I have been wanting to create a subway art picture, they are everywhere lately, and I love seeing all those city names on them.  I happened to have on hand some leftover MDF from a previous project, just lying in the garage. I had to do some very minor cuttings, to fit all the pieces to make the frame.  Once those where cut, all I used was wood glue to glue them all together.

The back part was really curved, so I had to put paint cans on top to lay it flat, once the wood glue dried, it couldn't curve anymore.

I then used wood putty to cover all the exposed edges.  Once that dried, I painted the inside with two coats of Annie Sloan old white chalk paint.  Then, the fun part begun:

I used my Silhouette to cut out vinyl letters and then drew a line into the board, and placed the vinyl there.

After that was done, I painted the whole thing, even the frame, in black satin paint, with two coats.  Once dried, I removed the vinyl, and was left over with a black frame, and white words, which I sanded to make it look a little aged.  I applied a clear wax at the end to protect it from sticky dirty fingers which I'm sure will be touching this.  And here is the final product:

The Best Of: Crazy Cute Party #34

Children's Desk Before/After - Life As A Thrifter

Master Closet Reveal - Two Oh Two Seven

Write It Down, Make It Happen - Etcetorize

Tripod Floor Lamp - Pondered Primed Perfected

Pillowcase Dress - About Blogging Time

Cool Stuff - 10 Lovely Valentine's Crafts

Love is in the air! I LOVE seeing all the beautiful Valentine's creations out there and I have been bookmarking things left and right. Here is a little round-up of some of my most favorite Valentine's crafts!

Red Burlap Heart Wreath @ Gallamore West

Sweetheart Valentine Banner @ Every Creative Endeavor

Sweetheart Napkin Rings @ Echoes of Laughter

Twig Valentine's Tree Tutorial @ Helping Little Hands

Valentine Chair Envelope @ Lookie What I Did

How to Make A Love Boat Out of a Milk Carton - {Tutorial}

This was a pretty popular post from last year and I just wanted to share it with y'all again, just in case you missed it. ;)

--------

Well, Valentine's Day is rapidly approaching and did we get out the Valentine's decorations? -- wait,.. do I even have Valentine's decorations? I dunno,... but, they didn't come out to play this year. I think I'm still soaking in the plain-ness that is my home after all the Christmas decorations came down. Ya' know? I did see an awesome Valentine's project in one of the many magazine's that make a monthly (or weekly) trip to our house and I just couldn't resist. It's so simple and I knew my big kiddo would absolutely adore it.  He's a total boy, so anything plane, train, or automobile (or boat) is a winner. So, today Mommy was "the best Mommy, ever!" I kid you not, he actually said that to me when I got done with this thing and showed it to him. He was a little bummed out to hear that he couldn't "play" with it and that it was only for keeping his Valentine's cards in, though.

Now, I can't for the life of me remember what magazine I saw this in, but here's how you start...

Take a milk carton and either, tape the spout closed or cut off the plastic spout or you can do what I did and just push it in.  Then, cut a piece of cardboard (like from a cereal box) at 3 3/4 x 10 inches.

Pallet Wood Word Wall Art - {Tutorial}

Pallet Wood Word Wall Art, say that 5 times fast. ;) Nevermind, let's just make some instead.

Hi everyone! It's Karah here again, from the space between. Thanks so much to Courtney for having me back. I'm like that last party guest who just. won't. go. home. ;) But, since you're here, stick around to see another pretty simple project I did with a pallet and some paint.

I've have been wanting to make some kind of word art forever, but have just had the hardest time deciding what I want to say. And, I have been collecting pallets here and there for awhile. They just always seem to be lying around this island. So, when I found this perfect little pallet I thought I might finally write something very profound, errr, I mean make some Pallet Wood Word Wall Art. 

Here's the beauty in her original glory.

I loved the aged grey color and I loved the width of the slats on the pallet, it's almost like they were aged down to a narrower size. Perfectly irregular.

I actually lived with the pallet awhile because I seriously considered just adding some wording to it as is. Maybe cut off the top and bottom of the pallet, but keep the slats where they were. I liked the spacing, but it was reeeeeally big. Talk about needing to be reeeeally profound. ;) Apparently "Now pump it up, and back it up like a Tonka truck" as sung by Pitbull in the J Lo song On the Floor was out. Bummer.

And, I don't know, the more I looked at it, the more I worried the end result would be too much like a...you guessed it...pallet. Uhh, yes, this took me some time to figure out. Not so smart sometimes. :/

But, in my defense we have had trouble taking pallets apart before. When we tried the ol' wonder bar (no, not wonder bra, but I could use one of those too!) and hammer technique to pry the slats off of the pallet they would crack or splinter or otherwise render themselves unusable. And, I was so much in love with the perfectness of these slats I was worried they would suffer the same fate.

I don't know if it was the long time I let the baby sit in the harsh sun and often pelting rain, or just the nature of the beast, but these slats came off like buttah. 

To back up just a minute, I had to use a small spackle knife to remove some stuck on spackle (oh, the irony) from the pallet. I had picked it up at a construction site. On a rainy day the blobs of spackle loosened right up a bit and then I just scraped away.

Cool Stuff - 25 Ways to Organize Your Life in 2012

I'm not big on resolutions. Don't get me wrong, I'm not against them as a whole. They're just not for me. It seems like no matter what it is, I can NEVER get close to achieving it. I've done the whole, "don't set the bar too high" thing. And still,... never even close. BUT, I do like a good house organizing and boy, do we need it right it now. So, I lassoed up a big collection of ways to get in gear for 2012.

School Paperwork Storage @ IHeart Organizing

File Folder Paper Organizer @ ReMarkable Home

A Magnetic Makeup Board @ Birchbox

Craft Cupboard @ BHG

Cutlery Tray Jewelry Organization @ Pinterest

Anthro Zinc Letter - {Tutorial}

Hello Between U & Me readers! I'm Karah, from the space between, a little blog I started a couple of months ago to chronicle my adventures in DIY. Due to my husband's work, I find myself moving around quite a bit and I am always trying to find ways to improve our current space, the space between what has been and what will be. Get it? :)

After owning for 8 years and doing some serious DIY home improvement (think crawl space duct work installation) we find ourselves renting on a little island called Curacao. Now I am on the hunt to find inexpensive ways to upgrade our space with mostly things that we can take with us when we go.

Now, I am also a sucker for meaningful, sentimental things so when I saw all of these Anthropologie zinc letter knock offs around I knew I wanted to make one with a letter that represents us. 

Yes, I know I'm pretty much the last arrival at this faux zinc letter party but I have been debating on what to actually make a letter out of. I had thought for a minute that I was going to do something like this pic I found at The Re-user's Guide to Green Living. 

But, in the grand scheme of things that will (hopefully) become a bit of a gallery wall above our couch there are already a bunch of natural items in the works so I thought something with a bit of a metallic finish would be just the right juxtaposition.

Ok, just for the record, I really did just use the word juxtaposition in context correctly and spelled it right the first try, without the help of spell check. This makes me happy since I can't spell jewelry right without a little help. Don't you pronounce it jewelery?

Anyway, when I had decided I needed some juxtaposition (ok, I might be done using that word soon) and then I saw what Becca did over at From Gardners 2 Bergers I had to give it a try.

I had seen a bunch of people buy the cardboard letters and then spray them with a metallic colored paint and distress/dry brush a bit with black paint. Easy enough, right?! But, I don't have access to the cardboard letters and I don't have any metallic colored spray paint and I may just be too cheap to buy a whole can of it for such a little project.

So, when I saw that Becca used tin foil and mod podge I knew I had to give it a try. But, in order to get started I still needed a letter. And on this little island we don't have such things as Michael's or Hobby Lobby, so I made one. Just whipped it up quick like. Out of a cardboard box.

I have to say, I had no idea if this was going to work so the fact that I ended up with a letter, that is totally recognizable as the intended letter, is awesome in my book.

I started with a regular ol' cardboard box. I cut off the 4 flaps and then free handed my letter. 

I cut it out and then used it as a template to make the exact same shape. 

I did a little measuring and cut out the insides of what would become a letter B with a box cutter. Then I cut a few strips 2 1/4 inches thick. I'm not exactly sure why I picked that width, but I wanted my letter to end up about 2 1/2 inches thick. 

The strips that I was going to use on the curves of the B I actually contoured a bit by hand before attaching them, just to try to help them along. I started with the 2 small inside parts and then glued the strips around the outside of the B. I didn't worry about any overlapping on the smaller parts because I knew they would end up hidden inside when all was said and done. I just used hot glue and a lot of patience. 

Spearmint Wreath - {Tutorial}

What you'll need:

4 Bags of spearmints
Styrofoam wreath
Red felt (cut in to long strips)
Ribbon
Alotta hot glue

1. Start off by wrapping the styrofoam wreath with the red felt that you've cut in to long strips. This will give the spearmints something better to hold on to as opposed to the styrofoam and also because you'll be able to see through the gaps on spearmints and the red felt will be more visually appealing than the raw styrofoam.