Sailboat Door Decs!

Hello hello! It is back to school again, and I want to share with all of the RAs that follow my blog my door decs for the semester! I made 45 of these things and it took weeks to complete them. I will warn you that each door dec cost me a little less than $1 so if you are interested in recreating this idea and not spend as much I will be sure to include a cheaper supplies list at the end!

What I used to make the Door Decs:

This Template

Colored Cardstock (one piece for each door dec)

Brown Cardstock (bottom piece of boat)

Lighter Brown Cardstock (main boat frame)

Flat craft sticks

Fabric for the sales

Cotton Balls for clouds

I printed the template out onto cardstock and used it to trace out the different parts of the boat and sails. You would think that would be the most tedious part of the whole thing, the tracing and cutting out of all the pieces. Nope! Gluing definitely took the longest, I would glue 15 together and be done fore the night! But once I had them all finished they looked fantastic. To make the clouds you just have to gently pull at a cotton ball until it looks like a cloud and glue it on! I think the template made this so much easier than it would have been if I was just working from scratch.

Here are some more pictures!:

 This was the first one I completed, I was super proud.

 These are the different designs I made for my residents.

My finished works of art taking over the dining room table.

Because I did not want to include a Resident's name or room number on my blog I will show you the personalized door dec I made for myself!

I used two different fonts, one to write the name of the resident and the other to do the room number.

I even included cats!

I know that not many RAs are interested in spending $1 per door dec so here are some different ways that you can make this door dec with cheaper supplies:

Instead of Cardstock, use construction paper! It is much cheaper and you get a lot more for the price.

Instead of fabric, also use construction paper, or possibly tissue paper, get creative!

Hand write your resident's names instead of using computer paper and ink to print them out.

Superhero Door Tags

So better late than never... My door tags! The building theme this semester was Superheroes! Each of the RA's needed to think of a way to display the resident's names in a way that went with the theme. I really, really wanted to make each of my residents into their own superhero on their door tag. I wrote their room number on the capes and I made a spotlight (I was thinking it was like the Bat Signal from Batman). I found two different boy superheroes and I traced them from my laptop, and traced another pair and turned them into girl superheroes. Just that alone does take a while, and then personalizing each superhero to make it look like my resident took a few days setting aside a couple hours to work on them. When they were finished they looked fantastic! Here are some larger photos in case you cannot get the full idea from the little one above.

My neat little stack of door tags--so easy to travel with!

All finished! Just need to add names!

Pre-yellow name signals!

DIY Dreamcatcher!

I am sorry that I have been away, school has been super busy and so has work! But moving on to the tutorial. So I did a program of making dreamcatchers for my residents! It turned out really well, and I was able to get enough materials for 30+ dreamcatchers at Hobby Lobby for less than $13! This can be done with anyone that has some basic craft skills, but I wouldn't recommend it for young children. This craft is probably 8 years and older.

Materials:

-Pipecleaner (I chose brown)

-Yarn (I chose a brown/beige/white tie-dye type yarn)

Cut your yarn into one long piece (at least 1.5 feet) and three smaller pieces for tassels

-Beads (I bought a bag of teal ones)

-Feathers (I chose a more natural brown/white/black bag)

Step 1: Gather your materials

Step 2: Make a circle with your pipecleaner

Step 3: Tie the long piece of yarn onto the pipecleaner circle

Step 4: Use this video (skip ahead to 1:15 for the important stuff) to learn how to make the inside of the dreamcatcher!

Step 5: In order to make sure that the middle of your dreamcatcher stays secure, tie a knot in it and add a bead for embellishment! Cut off any little strings of yarn you do not want hanging.

Step 6: Add your three tassels to the bottom of your dreamcatcher (or anywhere you want them) and cut them to desired length. Also, cut a small piece of yarn and make a loop at the top in order to hang your dreamcatcher.

Step 7: Add beads and feathers to your tassels and you are done! But beware: this could take a very long time depending on how detailed you want your beadwork/featherwork to be.

Hang your dreamcatcher over your bed now that it is done. The Ojibwa tribe hung dreamcatchers over their heads so that only their good dreams would be filter through, and would slide down the feathers to their heads.

Doorstop!

So as an RA we like to have our doors open so that students can always come see us! But up until a few days ago I was stuffing a flip-flop in my door to prop it open. Not cute. I got a wooden doorstop and some hot pink paint and glitter nail polish and now I have a beautiful doorstop!

Materials You Will Need:

-Paint (Any type of paint will do, in any color I chose a washable paint)

-Glitter Nail Polish (Probably 1/3-1/2 a bottle)

-Wooden Doorstop!

I took this picture after I finished my doorstop so that's why I didn't include a "before" picture.

Just so you know, my doorstep took four coats of paint--waiting for each coat to dry in between. This project took a couple of days to complete in my free time. So I know you're all dying to see--the finished product!:

So pretty! I love having my door open and propping it with this piece of art!

Sooo...I Redid the Anniversary Present

Remember way back in March when I made Chris the shadow box for our anniversary? A place to display the Playbill, tickets, and pictures we took when we saw Les Mis? Well we did end up seeing it in August (it was amazing!) but I wanted to re-do the shadow box to make it look something like this, an "Admit One" box where we could put all of our ticket stubs because I keep all of that stuff for sentimental value. So last night while I was on duty (RA terminology meaning I was the "on call" resident advisor for the night) I re-did the box! This is how I did it!

Materials:

-12x12 Shadow Box (I chose black)

-12x12 Piece of Scrapbook Paper (or whatever size your shadow box is)

-Letter Stickers (mine were silver)

-Ticket Stubs, Playbills, or whatever else you want to put in the box!

1) Place the stickers to say "Admit One" on the scrapbooking paper

2) Place all of your stubs and whatnot in the box

3) Close the box back up

4) Optional: Cut a slit at the top of the shadow box to easily put new ticket stubs inside!

I didn't do the optional part because I didn't want to cut a slit large enough for Playbills in case we go to other plays/musicals. It's up to you but this is a really cheap gift if you are a scrapbooker like I am, I found the shadow box only for $10 and that was my total cost.

Finished Product

Nail Polish + Keys = Fabulous!

I saw these keys on Pinterest a few months ago and they inspired me to do this as a craft when I really needed a creative outlet! I am sure that I am not the only college student walking around with a bunch of keys. Two keys to my house back home, one key to my room here in Sacramento, and the key to Carol (my 2002 gold Honda Accord). So obviously I wanted to try this out! I grabbed two bottles of nail polish, some glitter polish, and I went to town. If you live in a residence hall like I do, please ask your RA if you are allowed to paint your key. My res hall does not allow this, so I painted my house keys.

Warning: Only do this craft if you are patient and do not mind waiting an hour or so in between coats of polish, I waited overnight before putting on the glitter polish. So now that you have been warned...

Material's Needed:

-Nail Polish (one color per key, if you want)

-Glitter Nail Polish (optional)

-Keys!

1) Grab your key and paint one thin layer of nail polish on one side. Allow some time to dry. Proceed to painting the inside holes of the key and the outer rim. Please note: you cannot place the key face down on a table at this point because the key may still be wet even if it feels dry! I stuck my keys in a couple of textbooks with the top sticking out so they could suspend and dry that way. Also, only paint the top part of the key (as seen in the picture) or else when you go to use your key it will scratch the paint off in your lock!

2) Repeat step one until desired color is achieved (I did two coats for each color and allowed to dry in between).

3) Let keys dry for a loooong time, I let mine dry overnight because I started this craft at 8 PM, but I would still allow a couple of hours for all layers of paint to dry.

4) If you want your keys to sparkle, apply a layer of glitter nail polish to your keys! I let mine dry while I was at class for three hours and that was more than enough.

5) Very carefully put your keys back on your key ring. This is where your key could be scratched, so be careful!!!

6) Enjoy your beautiful keys!

Finished Product

Products I used: 

-Spoiled (by Wet'N'Wild) Tip Your Waitress

-Claire's Breakfast at Tiffany's

-Claire's Glitter Top Coat

Anniversary Gift

So Chris and I have our first anniversary on Monday (I know, exciting!) and I bought us tickets to se Les Miserables in San Francisco this summer for him. but I was not going to just hand him an envelope with tickets inside! So I bought a scrapbook page shadow box onlin and decorated it as if we had already gone to the show and were putting together a little memory box. I looked up the measurments of a Playbill and made room for a picture of us and our ticket stubs. I taped the tickets inside (carefully so they can be removed of course) and now I cannot WAIT to give him his gift!

Date Jar Re-Decoration

I changed the date jar a little bit, and I am very proud of the results! I puff painted the words and the heart on the clear glass circle! It is very cute. for a link to see the original date jar before updates click here.

Craft Day Saturday Continues!

So I made a date jar! I had seen these online on various blogs and I loved the idea. Chris and I spend so much time trying to figure out what to do with our time together. So I asked him to think up some ideas he would enjoy doing, and I thought up a lot more from different websites, blogs, and Pinterest. So since I was able to use the paint and stickers from my last craft I just had to buy the following items (on my Michael's trip).

• Mason Jar - $1.29
• Red Ribbon - $2.50

What I did to make this jar was paint the whole thing with white acrylic paint (two to three coats, gotta make sure you cannot see through it), and then once it was dry I used a little stick to draw a circle (scratching out paint) and then get all the paint scratched out of the circle. Then I added some Valentine's Day Stickers and a red ribbon! I also puff painted around the outside of the circle just to give it a bit more of a finished look.

I cannot wait to start using this date jar! I will write about our dates from the jar (and our planned dates!). Enjoy your craft day!

Craft Day Saturday!!

So Chris has been mentioning how much he loves when I send him love notes, but he does not have anywhere to put them. So they just sit in a pile collecting dust in his room. And even though this might just be a box that collects dust I am very proud of it and the story on how it came about!

Chris and I went to Michaels yesterday so I could get craft supplies and I was looking for puff paint. I found a store worker and asked him to point me in the right direction and instead takes me to the exact aisle i needed! And then told me that it was "Random Act of Kindess Day" and handed me an envelope. Inside was a $5 gift card! But then I got some even better deals for this craft!

Supplies:

-Craft Box: $2.99

-'L' Letter: $1.99

-White Puff Paint: $1.19

-Red Acrylic Paint: $.77

-White Acrylic Paint: $.77

-Valentine's Sale Stickers: $.89

-Sponge Brush: $.07

-Heart Wood Chips: $.05

So for $8.72 (not including tax, or $3.72 if you include my gift card) I got to add white and red to my acrylic paint collection, white to my puff paint collection, and an adorable box for my love to store his letters! The really great deal was that sponge brush because they were 4 for $1, regularly $.49 each! So when I saw the brush rang up for $.07 it was a pleasant surprise, especially because I was all ready to buy four of them!