Cha-Cha-Changes...

I wanted to do a real quick update to share just a few things. I will be posting a few real quick crafts I did this last month and also share a few personal items.

First off the month of March was a very crafty month indeed. I did cut off the tops of a few beer bottles to use in a future project. I made a Tardis Top Hat for a friends Doctor Who Tea Party Bridal Shower, I painted my shoes to match the dress and hat, did a wood photo collage transfer for my boyfriends Birthday/our 1st anniversary present and I made a Bride and Groom Survival kit. These are going to be quick posts showing the end results and the few I took in the process of. IF someone actual stumbles across this blog and wants more information, please just leave a comment and I would be more then happy to go further in depth.

First up is taking a large sized beer bottle and using a glass cutter to remove the top. I have a few projects in the near future that I will be using the bottles for.

Nifty labeled beer bottle provided by the lovely boyfriend.

After washing the bottle out well and drying it completely, follow the instructions for your glass cuter to etch a like around where you want the bottle to separate from the neck.

Here is a closer look at the etched bottle. 

I was too busy handling boiling water to capture the next part so I am just going to briefly explain. You can use your coffee pot of just boil a pan of water and transfer the boiling water into a large measuring cup or boil water in a tea kettle. Either way get very hot or boiling water into some kind of container that is easy to pour from. Put on safety glasses and turn on the water in your sink to the coldest temp in a steady trickle. Take the bottle in one hand and your container with boiling water in the other and while barely rotating the bottle, dribble a bit of the hot water right on top of the etching. You can actually see the glass fog when it heats up and then drip on ice cold water on it next. Keep doing this back and forth between hot and cold while slowly rotating the bottle. Eventually the glass will stress enough around the etching and break away cleanly. If you find it is cracking outside the etching then your water it too hot and you need to turn the temp down. When you are done, let the glass cool down and use fine grit sandpaper to sand away the sharp edges. These can be used for beer drinking glasses, candles, vases and a million other things.

Next up is my Tardis Top Hat. Again I was so caught up on crafting that I didn't get  chance to take that many photos. Start by taking a piece of string and cut it to the circumference you there you want the hat to rest on your head. Find a round object with a very similar circumference. I was a big head so I actually was able to use a pan for myself. I then traced a perfect circle onto some cardboard. Then found a slightly smaller bowl to trace a smaller circle inside the larger one.   

The bigger circle will be the brim and the smaller circle will be cut out and this is here your head should fit.

I don't have any picture for this next part you will then take more thick paper or card stock to make the top hat part. This is just my card stock pieces taped together to see if the proportions looked good on me. I ended up shortening the height of the hat by quite a bit.

I knew I wanted the very top of the hat to have a dip in it so I free handed a pattern where the bottom edge was perfectly straight and then made the top have peaks and valleys. I then traced big circle, small circle, and top hat pieces on to a yoga mat. I cut them all out with a exact o knife and then used contact cemement to glue the straight edged part of the top hat to the inside of the brim and then the smaller circle to make up the top. I let this dry for about a half hour.

Here it is after painting it blue, adding lace, feathers, pocket watch, and glass squares for the windows, and black ribbon for the Police Box sign.

There will be a better photo of the complete project since I had my boyfriend help me by painting the Police Box sign later.

And then I made a survival kit of my soon to be Bride and Goom friends. Just take a cheap dollar store bucket, paint it the color of your choice. I then made the labels and card inside using PicMonkey.com. I LOVE this site. It is free for the basic version and extremely user friendly. I then had my printables printed at Fed Ex Office and then bought a bunch of small items that I thought would be handy the day of the wedding.

I added write ribbon to the top and bottom after gluing on the label. I then added all the items and made it pretty and done! I did the same for the Bride's kit.

And then there were shoes! I needed blue shoes to match my blue dress but didn't want to buy shoes because I was poor. I swear acrylic paint solves everything. I just painted the shoes the color I needed. I didn't seal them or anything either and they have yet to run, even in water.

Here was wood photo transfer collage for my boyfriend. I was too impatient and removed the paper too early causing not everything to stick properly. This is the the only picture I have and it is before I gave the project some TLC.

I ended up sanding the edges further and then took distressed ink on a cotton ball to even out the color and give the whole project the "I meant it to look all vintage and wonderful.." look. I sealed it with some Mod Podge and I was done.


The collage was made on PicMonkey as well....I LOVE LOVE that website.

So yes, lots of crafty and fun times. I had some other plans in the works for more upcoming projects but was let go from my job last week unexpectedly. I have a lot of things in flux and my projects do require me buying materials, so those are put on hold for now.

Thank goodness for my friends, boyfriend, and family. Without them I would be loosing my ever loving mind at this point. I do plan on still posting here more regularly but future posts are probably going to be geared more to book reviews, writing and general musing.

It is almost 3am and this girl is tired so that is all for now.

Until next time...

-Candis