Decorative Jar DIY

Last week I made a mint sugar scrub & mentioned that a pretty jar would make it suitable for gift giving.

Materials:

scrapbook paper

paper punch

white glue or mod podge

clean glass jar

clear coat spray

hot glue

ribbon or other embellishments

So first thing is first, get a clean jar. You can buy a jar, or use one that you have.  I used an applesauce jar.  Make sure you clean the jar well if you are repurposing a food jar!  I also boiled my jar to help lift up the sticky residue from the jar label's glue.

Measure your jar's width and cut a sheet of scrap paper fit to wrap around the jar.  I chose to use a decorative punch to get this fun edge.  You could use a punch, hand cut with scissors or a razor blade, or use decorative scissors to create the edge you want.  I only did one edge, as I would later be covering the second edge with ribbon.

As you can tell, I had some slight major issues with getting my decorative edge the way I wanted it to look!

Word to the wise- do your punching over a trashcan or another sheet of paper, so you won't have to waste time scooping up all of this mess!

After you get your decorative edge the way you want, you are going to adhere the paper to the jar.  If you are reusing a food jar, look around and see if there are any markings that you might want to hide or disguise, this will help you with your paper placement.  My applesauce jar had small blue print on one side near the top, so I made that the "back" and that is where my paper seam is on the jar.  You can use a spray adhesive if you want, but I love simplicity so I went with good old fashioned white glue.  I used it full strength, it will work watered down to paint consistency just as well.  Spread  the glue in a thin, even coat, apply paper to jar, and smooth any bubbles out before the glue dries.

Apply a thin, even layer of glue.

Now we embellish!  I used a ribbon in a coordinating pattern to cover my one rough paper edge and line the rim of the jar.  Feel free to use your creativity and what you have on hand.  Buttons, silk flowers, and much more would work perfectly.  If you use ribbon, you will want to go ahead and give the cut edges a quick heat seal, then adhere to the jar with hot glue.  I also found a striped letter L chipboard that matched the colors from my paper and ribbon, so I added that to the front of the jar (L for Linda, my mom).

My tag with heart rub on transfer.

Finally I used a second punch to make a tag, and did a simple rub on transfer for the heart.  To add a bit of depth, I used Scotch mounting squares, which you can find in office supply or craft stores.  You could easily recreate the same effect using a bit of foam or corrugated cardboard and glue.

Scotch Mounting Squares

Finally give a nice even coat of clear coat spray over the entire jar.  Clear? not so much, it left a visible film on the glass, which I think actually works out fine, but if you want a completely clear glass you will want to protect the glass from being hit by the "clear" coat.

Front view of final product.

What can you use your jar to hold?  Add a lid and it's perfect for your sugar scrub, or go topless and use it to hold kitchen utensils, pens & pencils, or whatever else you have that needs a "spot."  I gave this to my mom & she now has a cute place to toss her spare change at the end of the day.

Sweet tag embellishment on the back.

I heart faces - Fix it Friday #64

Another week, another Fix it Friday at I heart faces! 

Here's my edit.  I used the dodge & burn tools to make her eyes pop a bit more and to make her smile a tad brighter, then fiddled around with curve layers, saturation, etc until I got the look I wanted.  

How pretty is this little girl?!  I just love her freckles.

Here's the original:

 And here is the same edit with a different crop:

I did all of my editing this week using Adobe Photo Shop cs4.

Check out what other contributors had to offer

A day in food

I know how easy it can sometimes be to fall in a rut with feeding a toddler...chicken nuggets, pasta, grilled cheese. Sure, they are eating, but are they gaining anything (besides weight) from the food?

I wanted to give some simple toddler friendly ideas for meals, so here is a day in food.

They say breakfast is the most important meal of the day, so why not pack it full of tasty fruits?  Honeydew, cantaloupe,  blackberries, red grapes, green grapes, raspberries, kiwi, strawberries, watermelon, pineapple, peaches & blueberries make up this fruit salad, and yes, it was as delicious as it looks.

For lunch, I threw together a quick chicken salad. We already had the chicken cooked (this was marinated over night in teriyaki, then cooked on the grill, but of course works with any seasonings and cooking style).

Chop the chicken coarsely, add some chopped red onion & mayo, then toast your bread and you are in business!

I added some green grapes & multigrain tortilla chips on the side.

Some high fiber billion grain bread for adison.

White bread & some cheese for Mike.

And what did I eat (I'm vegetarian)?  Cheese sandwich..typical, I did the meal prep and didn't eat the meal!

For dinner, we did big salads..YUM. 

Lettuce, tomato, cucumber, red onion, baby portobello mushrooms, green peppers, snap peas, croutons, and craisins.  Make that cherry flavored craisins.

Let me just stop you before you tell me how weird that is, and say that they are pretty good.  I still prefer my regular cranberry flavored craisins, but in a pinch these worked.  They are better as a snack than in my salad, but certainly a cherry flavored craisin is better in my salad than no craisin at all.

Here's Adison's salad (notice that chicken again, leftover chicken made it into 2 meals in one day).

My salad :mouth watering:

And for dessert? The season's best fruit, watermelon.

Freebie quick page - Fanette Designs

I can't keep myself out of photo shop lately, and I love to share..so I have another quick page for you! This time it's made with Jardin Secret by Fanette Designs.  

Here's my example.

The file actually contains 2 quick pages, the one above and another with the same elements placed differently.  I hope you enjoy it!

Download here.

Sugar Scrub DIY

So I was sitting here alternately brainstorming crafty projects and getting annoyed with dry skin on my hands, when it came to me...a project that would eliminate dry skin! :lightbulb:

So off to the kitchen I went in search of ingredients. I came up with a tiny bit of sugar, a bottle of olive oil and some peppermint oil. Planning ahead is obviously not my strong suit! I made do with what I had, which turned out to be less than 1/3 cup of sugar.  I now realize you can't even see the sugar in my supplies picture, but just trust that it's in the measuring cup!

The directions are quite complex, so pay close attention: dump the sugar & oil in a bowl and mix.

That's right, you just blend until moist. Now with my 2/3 full 1/3 cup of sugar I added about 3 tsp of olive oil (which by the way, you can substitute almond oil if you want). If you are making a larger batch, you will want to adjust the amount of oil accordingly. 

After I mixed in my oil, I added a couple drops of peppermint oil.  Again, you can substitute different essential oils depending on what scents you like.  I love the peppermint, it's invigorating and will be a great wake up in the morning. For a night time shower or bath, you might want to try lavender or vanilla.  The possibilities are pretty much endless. 

As for storage, with my little bit I made here, I just threw it in a baggie..it will be used up pretty quickly. If you are making a larger batch, make sure you store it in a sealed container (a glass jar will work nicely).  The scrub will last a couple months, after which point you will want to dispose of it (the oil will eventually spoil), but until that point, you can store your jar of scrub in the bathroom, no need to refrigerate.

Here's my finished product.  I think next I'll work on a decorative jar for storage to hold my next batch(adding sugar to the grocery list!).

I'd love to hear what essential oil combination anyone else decides to use!

Freebie quick page!

Who doesn't love to wake up on a Sunday morning to something free?

I made this quick page using the Easterly Spring kit made by Melissa at Dreamweaver Designs.

(Psst she has a freebie of her own to go with the kit, plus other kits & masks that start at a buck & a half).

Visit her blog for the full kit (and many more, really her kits are adorable)!

Here's an example of how the page will look once you add your own photograph.

It will print as a 12x12 page to fit in standard scrapbooks & is 300dpi for a nice clear print!

Here's the freebie!  

I'd love to see what people come up with, so if you snag it and use it, please share your final product!

Happy scrapping!

I heart faces - Fix it Friday #63

I edited a photo for this weeks Fix it Friday challenge.

Here's the original, provied by I Heart Faces.

And here is what I came up with.

First I brought the photo into Lightroom.  I used a few presets (auto tone, punch, sharpen portrait, tone curve flat) then manually lowered the clarity, saturation & vibrance.

I then took the photo into photoshop, where I added this texture and changed the blending mode to multiply. Next, I duplicated the original image and changed the blending mode to soft light.

Finally, I selected the 2 girls using the quick select tool in the original image, then feathered the edge of the selection, copied and pasted on top as a new layer.  I did this final step because I wasn't really loving the texture being on the girls' faces.  I'm not sure if that is the "right" way to achieve this, but it worked well enough either way.

This was my very first time using texture in a photo..I've wanted to try it for a while, but really just didn't know where to start. I followed this tutorial, which helped me get started.  

Any comments or suggestions are welcome.

Look Who's Cooking Now graphic package

Last time you'll hear from me tonight!  I mentioned the other day that I was making a blog header & buttons for Look Who's Cooking Now, and I just finished them up, so I have to share!

Over my head

This is my first time entering in a photo challenge on iheartfaces.

Family reunion

I've been really busy joining networking sites and sprucing up my blog.  I hope people like the new header & layout!

I just wanted to write a quick little entry about our day!  Today was Mike's family reunion, so we headed to Knox to barbecue and hang out for the day.

The highlight every year is the walk down to a creek where Mike hops in and tries to catch frogs!  While he did that, I took advantage of the opportunity to snap a few pictures of Miss Adison, and look how sweet this one came out!

And another of my favorites from the day (note Adison running away in the background, typical shot!)

And a closer crop, I just love the detail on this little flower!

Thanks for taking a peek, hope everyone else had a great weekend too!

Desktop Pencil Holder

Here's a quick craft that will help brighten up your desk top, a decorative pen/pencil holder.

Supplies:

clean can

scrapbook paper

white glue

hot glue gun/glue sticks

ribbon or other embellishments

Take your clean & dry can, measure paper so it is sized to wrap around the can.

Using a white glue/water mixture (add water and stir until it's a watery paint consistency), paint the back side of the scrapbook paper. I like to paint in small areas, roll around the can, paint another area, roll, and so on, I find it more manageable to do the glue in small amounts vs gluing the entire paper.

Paint and roll, smoothing paper as you go, until the can is covered. At this point, you can trim away any excess paper at the edges, using a razor blade or scissors.

4th of July part 2...fireworks!  Adison, Mike & I went over to Mike's work, where you can see Albany's fireworks over the river...I had forgotten that the display is obstructed by a building in the Plaza :(
I was so disappointed  when I was taking the pictures, but after a little editing and cropping, I am semi decently pleased with the results...I think for a first try, some are not half bad.
 
See the black rectangle? Yup, that's the offensive building!

Next we have this beauty....just some exposure adjustment (it was still really light out, so I had to adjust the exposure on all of these pretty heavily to darken them up and give them a night feeling!)

Which I then edited into this:  Not perfect, but I like it a lot better than the original at least!  Goodbye pesky building!

Some more...hate the crop on this, but I was not feeling the black rectangle yet again!

 

 This one totally turned out like a creepy bug!

My favorite of the night!