Guys' Weekend Flasks

it's becoming an annual event where my husband and some guy friends go on a weekend fishing trip to canada. last year i started making guys' weekend favors and i started with an etched pub glass http://boogiebeans.blogspot.com/2011/08/bass-glasses.html. this year i decided a personalized flask would be fun. i designed the look, which includes the year, lake they're fishing, the event, and an old fishing quote "may the holes in your net be no larger than the fish in it.

i printed all the papers out on a laser printer and mod podged them to the flasks. then i added several coats of a sealer mod podge - it's specifically for furniture finishes. making sure that all the seams were covered and no water could get down to the paper. after the sealant is done you have to let it cure for about a month before you're completely water safe. then my husband filled them with liquor and gave them to the guys on the drive up. i think they all enjoyed their weekend favor.

origami bows

i love doing origami and i love bows, so when i saw this how-to-make origami bows on pinterest i knew i had to create some. of course, the instructions are in japanese, but luckily the photos are nice enough that you can figure it out. the left side of the picture above are the instructions that i found on pinterest and all the rest are the bows that i created. i made the bright lime bow first as my test, which alex ended up using on her gift to her cousin-to-be. i created four more origami bows and used those to decorate all the other gifts for the recent baby showers. they're so cute and really easy to make once you figure out the instructions. and depending on where exactly you put your folds you can make a bigger center part or smaller and so forth. i think i might have to create these for all my gift giving.

Cupcake Bath Bombs

it seems lately that it's quite the trend to make cupcake bath bombs and i wanted to try too. as a gift from my husband i received a starter kit that came with everything you needed for one batch of full size cupcake bath bombs along with a recipe and instructions. these are cream cheese frosting scented - oh yum they smell delicious. it is surprisingly easy and fun to make bath bombs, but watch out with the weather conditions because humidity and rain can really mess up a good bath bomb (hence why i haven't been able to make any lately with this insane amount of rain we're getting in ohio). plus, there aren't that many ingredients needed to make a basic bath bomb. so the bottom of the cupcake is regular bath bomb packed into lined molds (after they have set and hardened you can peel off the paper cupcake liner) and the frosting is a sugar meringue mix that's piped on and then glitter sprinkled on top. i found some clear cupcake boxes that would be cute but they were kind of big. to fix that i took some decorative paper and cut out a strip with a hole in it to keep the bath bomb in place. i think that paper holder along with the label i glued on really makes for a cute package. and these are super fun, great fizz and your bath will turn blue (but don't worry, you won't).

the facebook craft-it-forward project

at the beginning of the year there was a status message thing on facebook that was basically a craft-it-forward event. someone would post their status message promising to make a craft for the first five commentors and in turn those commentors had to post that same status message on their page and so forth and so on. i thought it was a fun idea so i commented on someone's and copied to my status update. well, i only had four people that were brave enough to comment on my status, which actually made things slightly easier. at first i wanted to create a unique gift for each person, but i decided early that this idea wasn't going to happen. and several of my friends had commented on how much they liked the crafts i did for the alex in wonderland party, so i tried to think in that mindset. what i came up with was chalkboard placemats. i started off with what they call craft board, which is basically really strong balsa wood. i wanted to make four mats for each person, therefore i planned for sixteen boards. i got long pieces and cut them in half - that wood is stronger than you think, i ended up using a power saw to cut them. the boards weren't long enough to cut in half and have a rectangle placemat so they turned out more square, but i kind of like that. next step, i painted them all front and back with green chalk board paint (i took over the living room with newspaper so i could lay out all the mats to dry between coats). then i found some fun craft papers, all different styles for the utensils. i used my craft robo (a cutting machine that you hook up to your computer. you can draw what you want in illustrator and send it to the cutter just like it was a printer) to cut out all the utensils - and it did a great job of it too. i glued all those on to the boards, each person got two sets of two different paper designs. after the utensits were all set and dry, i outlined their shapes with a white paint pen and added some doodles around the edges/sides. finally, i wanted them to washable so i coated all the paper and paint doodles with a clear coating of furniture sealant leaving as much untreated space for chalking as possible. i think they turned out super fun, but i did not test the washability of any of them so i hope that is working well too. i added a bar of lavendar jasmine cold process soap that i made along with a large bath bomb cupcake (i'll talk about those in another post) and some chalk of course. it turned out to be a rather fun little set and i think all my friends enjoyed being on the receiving end of these surprises.

making an ipad cover

i decided last minute to make this for my mother-in-law for mother's day. she just ordered an ipad 2 and i learned that she did not order a sleeve for it. i found this out on saturday and decided on sunday to make one for her. i had fabric to choose from, large sew-on snaps, and more of the padding from the baby crib bumper (wow, we never used the bumper in the crib but i have been finding all sorts of uses for the padding after i ripped it all apart for pieces and fabric). my husband has an ipad so i used that for my measurements - i am absolutely horrible at fitting things correctly and apparantly that goes for glorified rectangles as well. the first one i cut and sewed the seams was already way too small (but i found a use for the mess up - i think i'll show that next week) so i cut out pieces to try again. i sewed the outside seams (this time i was pushing it on how much fabric i had left) and then cut the rectangle of padding and fit that inside. the outside fabric is cotton and the liner fabric is soft corduroy. the padding inside of the fabric is way too poofy so i quilted the whole piece - i didn't even think about the fact that quilting the whole thing would make it smaller - oops. i was planning on machine stitching the side seams at this point but because it was so much smaller after quilting i had to hand stitch the sides together and then i stitched on the snaps. it is a really tight fit, but i was fitting this to an ipad 1st generation and the 2nd generation is noticeably thinner, so i'm hoping that it fits perfectly on the new ipad 2. oh, and this only took me a few hours total to make (not really counting the time i spent on my sidetrack project of repurposing the mess up). i'm going to inherit my husband's ipad soon...i might need to make myself a cover next.