Crocheted Creation - 4th of July Placemats

Pinterest  basically rocks my world. Just browsing, I happened upon a picture of amazing place settings! So iIfollowed the link to the FREE pattern here, ran out to Michael's and got the yarn! First off, you DEFINITELY need about twice as much blue yarn as red and white. Just an FYI. Also, the pattern is for two settings. I wanted four, so I had to double everything! The stars were tricky to understand the pattern at first, but then I made tons and would LOVE to use just the star pattern to make a mobile or something when I have a babers. Or maybe a cool abstract art thing on a canvas with blowdried crayons????? Ahhh, the ideas!  Anywho, here are some pictures! 

The first set of two I made!

An artsy close up :)

Oh falling stars, how I love you!

For the actual 4th of July, I ended up gettinng white napkins and a white tablecloth (harder than I thought to find for my small dinging room table) and put two settings on the table and two on our bar counter in the kitchen. They were a success! Woot!

DIY Creation 2 - Entertainment Center

A friend of mine posted a picture on Facebook of an old dresser she and her husband transformed into an extertainment center. So clearly I wanted to try! We needed something bigger for our TV anyway, so it was worth the shot! Here's the original dresser:

We took out the top drawers (that look like two drawers, but it's really one!) to start. Bought primer, paint, paint brushes, rollers, tarps, all that good redecorating stuff! We also had to buy a piece of plywood to put on the top of the middle drawers. After a couple coats of primer, paint, and painfully waiting almost a week to make sure it's REALLY dry, it was almost ready! Just one more step... drawer liners! With a little wrapping paper and TONS of Modge Podge, I had beautifully lined drawers! Slightly crooked since everything was too big and some were tilted, but hey, they're closed most of the time. :-p Here is the finished project, followed by what it looks like in action!

Open...

Closed...

In action! We LOVE it!

DIY Creation 1 - Bottle Cap Trays

I have taken a new fancy to not just looking through Pinterest items and dreaming of what I could do with random items in my home, but actually completing some items! This first post is for my bottle cap trays, which Pinterest and other crafty ladies had nothing to do with, actually! 

I was beginning to notice that the wooden trays I purchased at Target a couple years ago had taken a beating. Water stains, other random marks and scrapes. So I decided it was time to fix these with my Crazy Pack Rat Lady amount of beer bottle caps we had. The first one has our last initial at the focal point... in my hubby's favorite beer, of course :)

The next one is much more recent. After making some AWESOME patriotic place settings, I was inspired with my next creation! Why not do a FLAG?! So I did :)

The first time I had the "D" in there, I didn't glue each bottle cap in place. Bad idea. It looked just weird after a few months. So I redid it, just did a little bit of Elmer's in between the caps as I laid them down, and now they're stuck there! The tops are just thick plexiglass we got cut to size at Lowe's epoxied on the sides to seal it in! Here they are together (haha one with flash, one without, couldn't decide which I liked the best!)