Make Your Own Vase Fillers with ThermoMorph {Review}

I was provided with this product free of charge for review purposes. All opinions posted here are my own.

Happy Weekend Eve!

While AJ and I were on vacation in South Carolina, Rizzi at ThermoMorph reached out to me and asked if I would review their product.

To be honest, I'd never heard of it before, but when I went on the website, the crafter + the chemistry teacher in me were totally intrigued by these polymorph molable plastic granules.

Basically, they are little white pellets, and when you put them in boiling water, they melt into moldable plastic, then they harden back into hard plastic. And you can buy them on Amazon in a giant tub (500g).

It was really easy to use. You boil some water and let it cool to around 150*F, drop the pellets into the water and wait two minutes for it to get clear. Then you can stretch, mold and play with the plastic.

When I started out, I wasn't sure what I was going to do with it.

I am not great with free hand molding of things, and I found that the material was hard to cut or trim into shapes with the scissors I have. So I tried a few different things, including making a "bowl" with my giant cupcake pan.

Fortunately, the plastic can be melted again and again, even after you've molded and hardened it. I loved that I could just "melt" my mistakes away! And trust me, I made a lot of mistakes creative attempts that didn't work out how I imagined.

When I'd had enough for that, I pulled out my molds. I tried out two different ones. The first one I tried was this red one. It is a soft silicone mold. It worked okay, but I found when I tried to squish the plastic into the mold, the mold squished with it, and so my pumpkin was a bit misshapen.

The second one I tried was this orange mold. I think its silicone too, but it is hard so it held up to my squishing!

These little plastic guys came out great! And a coat of orange + green paint made them look like real little pumpkins.

I ended up making this little piece of framed art with some of the pumpkins. {inspired by this pin} I can't wait to add this to my fall decor...in a few months!

Have you ever tried a product like this before? What would you use ThermoMorph for?

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Chalkboard Banner Burlap Table Runner {Tutorial} Plus a BurlapFabric.com {Giveaway}

Happy Weekend Eve and Happy May!

I love May: the school year is winding down, my birthday is this month and its fun to start sprucing up the house now that spring is here. And you know, since the wedding, when I do some sprucing up, burlap is almost always involved!

As if they knew I was looking for something to decorate my new house, the lovely people at BurlapFabric.com reached out and asked if I'd be interested in creating a tutorial with some of their products + hosting a giveaway for my readers!

You bet I jumped all over that!

The hardest thing was deciding what I wanted to create a tutorial with. We just got our new table delivered, so I knew I wanted something to decorate our table. It was just a question of what?

There were so many table linens to chose from! I was pretty torn between place mats and a table runner. And then I got distracted by this tree skirt and almost went all Christmas on everyone!

Fortunately, AJ was home and I let him decide. And that's how I ended up with a burlap table runner :)

{Materials}

14x90 table runner
Cardstock or heavy paper (I had these index card dividers on hand)
Chalkboard paint - spray paint or paint on would work
Glue (I planned on using tacky glue, but ended up using a glue gun because it dries faster!)
Embroidery floss
Large needle



{Directions}

Step 1 | Decide how many banner shapes you want or can fit on your runner. This one fit 9.

Step 2 | Create your banner shapes. I started with a 4x6 rectangle (after I cut off that little index tab). Then, I cut a 2" triangle out of the bottom to make my pennant shape.

Step 3 | Paint the banners with the chalkboard paint. I used a little trick here and adhered them to the box with repositionable tape so they stayed still while I painted. It worked really well inside...but it was not strong enough to hold them down with the very windy conditions outside. And that's why I was painting in the guest bathroom.

I gave each banner three coat of paint so they were extra chalkboardy. Then I let them sit for 3 days, as per the directions.

Step 4 | Using the side of your chalk, cover each banner totally in chalk to prime the surface. Then wipe it clean.

Step 5 | Glue them down to your burlap runner. I ended up going with a glue gun, instead of tacky glue here. Either way, make sure you put something under the runner. It was a lot easier to separate the glue from this paper than it would have been from the floor!

Step 6 | This step is entirely optional. I used embroidery floss to stitch a banner ribbon at the top of each pennant. I just liked how it looked, but it is definitely not necessary!

Step 7 | Write a message and enjoy!

Step 8 | Enter the giveaway below for a chance to win a coupon code good for $30 off any purchase at BurlapFabric.com There are so many wonderful things to purchase - from lace ribbon and rolls of fabric to home decor items and bags. What would you buy with the $30?

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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Collage Layout Tutorial + Christmas in New York City Layout

Happy Wednesday!

Last week, I shared a layout using one of my favorite styles - making a collage! There were a few questions about how I put them together, so I decided to put together a tutorial! This one is for you Becky :)

1. Decide how big you want to the layout to be and what size borders you want. In this example, I am using two 12 x 12 pages - so they layout is 12 x 24 total. I also want to have 1 inch borders on all four sides of the layout. This means I have a 10 x 22 space to work with (after subtracting the borders from the total size).

2. Mark the space you have to work with on a cutting mat. Also mark where the center (split) of the layout will be.

3. Layout out the pictures in the grid. If pictures overlap, trim them to fit the space. At this point, I take a fast picture on my phone in case the pictures get knocked out of place.

4. Cut the borders for the layout. You could do this before laying out the pictures, but I like to do it after, in case I need to change the size of the borders after laying out the pictures.

5. Adhere your borders to a base page.

6. Transfer the pictures from the grid onto the paper. I just take each picture, and put it on the paper in the same spot that it was on my grid. 

7. Add colored paper in to the blank spaces in the collage. I line up the paper upside down and mark where it needs to be cut so it fits exactly into the space.

8. Add a title.

9. And journaling.

10. And enjoy your layout!

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Paper Flower Topiary Centerpieces

Happy Weekend Eve! So excited for Thursday :)

I recently made these centerpieces for a friend. She was hosting a party and wanted something small but spring-y for the tables.

She also wanted something she could give to the girls who helped her plan that party (and the guest of honor) as a keepsake.

These Paper Flower Topiaries worked as both centerpieces and thank you gifts!

Fortunately, these are the easiest to put together.

For each centerpiece, you need:
1 terra cotta flower pot (mine is 5 inches in diameter)
1 small wooden dowel
1 floral foam for inside the pot
1 styrofoam ball (mine is 5 inches in diameter, just like the pot)
Ribbon
Straight pins
Moss
Paper flowers (I cut mine with my Sizzix, which was a tad time consuming, but to make this even easier, you could use pre cut flowers!)

1. Place the floral foam inside the pot. You can hot glue it in there, but mine was so snug, I didn't worry about it.

2. Wrap the wooden dowel in ribbon. I secure my ribbon with glue dots at the top, middle and bottom to make sure the ribbon stays put.

3. Push the dowel into the floral foam. Put the styrofoam ball on top of the dowel. A dab of hot glue may also help here.

4. Begin sticking the paper flowers into the styrofoam ball with the stick pins. I usually start at the bottom and work my way up, being sure the cover any blank spots. Continue around the ball until all the spaces are filled.

5. Place the moss around the top of the pot.

6. Enjoy your centerpiece!

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Top 5 {Outdoors}

Is it really Monday morning already?!

How did that even happen? I'm pretty sure it was just Friday afternoon!

One of the many things I didn't get to this weekend was hanging out outside. Now that we actually have an outside space to hang out it, I would really like to take advantage of it. Especially before the weather gets to be 100 degrees and humid, which everyone keeps saying is going to happen!

Fortunately, Pinterest has lots of outside ideas, even when I'm stuck inside!

Bug Spray Before I can actually go outside, I realized I'm going to need some bug spray. My skin reacts really badly to bug bites. Unfortunately, it also doesn't love store bought bug sprays, but I can't wait to try this out and see if it keeps those mean mosquitoes away!

Source

Garden Hose Wreath Okay, so I already have a new wreath that I love, but I can love this one too!

Source

Vertical Flower Tower My mom has a special rod thing that makes these vertical flower towers, but I don't, and I don't know where to buy one! But now I don't have to worry about it :)

Source

DIY Citronella Candles A fun project + candles + keeping the bugs away? Yes, please!

Source

Frozen Yogurt Drops I love that this are so so easy to make. And we always have yogurt in the house. Now I just need to find 5 minutes to make them!

Source

I'm feeling really inspired to go outside now! Too bad I have to go to work...when I get home! I'm going outside!

What is your favorite outdoors activity for the spring?

Thanksgiving Feast Candles

School starts today! Well, for the new teachers it does, the students still have about a week and a half of summer left!

But, the start of school has got me thinking about fall.

AJ and I went to the Dollar Tree this week and picked up some votive candle holders. I originally had another idea for these candles, but they were much wider than I thought, so I had to change it up!

I already have a "give thanks" decoration, so I wanted something different, and it had to be 5 letters or less. Fortunately, AJ came up with the word "feast". Yay!

These were actually super easy to make!

First, I cleaned the votives using rubbing alcohol.

Then, I cut out the letters using my sizzix eclips Christmas and Traditions font. I ran them through a Xyron with temporary adhesive and placed them where I wanted my letters to show up.

After that, it was just painting left. First, I tried painting them with a mix of modge podge and a little brown paint and brown glitter, but I didn't love how it looked. So, while the modge podge/paint was still wet, I covered everything with fall colored glitter.

I pulled the letters off and let it dry overnight. The glitter was shedding a little but, so I covered it all with a clear coat of modge podge the next afternoon, and now the glitter isn't shedding anymore!

I can't wait to get the right candles and see how it looks all lit up, but for now, they are packed away until after Halloween!

Well, I am off to the first day of school! Do you have any first day of school traditions? My mom always used to take a picture of us on the first day of school, but AJ's already at work, so there is no one to take pictures!

Olympic Rings Embellishment Tutorial

Hi everyone! I hope you had a great weekend. Ours went by way too fast!

We watched (some) of the closing ceremonies last night, and I decided to make another Olympic rings journaling card to record to final medal tallies for Project Life.

So enter:

Supplies
1.5 inch circle punch
1 inch circle punch
cardstock in red, yellow, blue, black and green

Step 1
Punch out 1.5 inch circles in each color.

 Step 2
Punch out the center of each circle with the 1 inch circle punch.

Step 3
Adhere only the top of the blue, black and red rings onto your paper. You want the bottoms to be free so you can link the yellow and green rings to these.

Step 4
Cut a slit in the yellow circle.

Step 5
Link the yellow circle around the blue and black rings. Then adhere it so the slit is hidden underneath the black ring.

Step 6
Repeat Steps 4 and 5 with the green ring.

Step 7
Enjoy your Olympic rings!

Today is my last day of summer break. I have to say that I'm a little nervous about going back to school! I always am! Are you getting ready for back to school now too?

Ombre Glitter Scrapbook Title Tutorial

Ombre has been everywhere lately, in nail polish, on cupcakes, in denim skirts, I could go on and on and on...So of course I thought it would be perfect for my summer list scrapbook page title!

Supplies:

Martha Stewart Glitter Lapis (blue)
Martha Stewart Glitter Peridot (green)
Martha Stewart Glitter Tourmaline (pink)
Martha Stewart Glitter Fire Opal (orange)
Modge Podge
Xyron Create a Sticker with Repositionable Adhesive
Foam Brushes
Extra Card Stock for Stencil

Directions:

To create the stencil, I used my eclips to cut out the word "summer" on a piece of card stock. I ran the negative of the image through my Xyron Create a Sticker that was loaded with repositionable adhesive. Then I stuck it down where I wanted my title to appear on my page.

Today is the first Monday of summer (well, for me at least!) AJ is working nights this week, so we stayed up super late every night this weekend so he could stay up all night for work. But that means my sleep cycle is all messed up! How was your weekend?