Before Meets After ~ Picture Frame

A trip to The Goodwill landed me with my next 'Before Meets After' piece - a 5x7 solid oak wood frame. Since Halloween is only a couple weeks away and I have so many crafts that I would love to do (but unfortunately won't get to before the holiday) I thought this would be the perfect piece for a simple transformation.

Switchy-Witchy.....

The frame

Look at the price tag - gotta love $.49!

Spray painted it black

Cut a piece of white textured scrapbook paper to size

Using my Silhouette and the free shape of the week, I cut out the witches hat in both black and orange

I created a witches hat using pieces from both cutouts and used some great rub-ons that I found in Target's dollar bin last year and you have.......


A great Halloween sign

Simple and easy! I can't think of a better way to add festive holiday decor to your home without breaking the bank.

Breast Cancer Awareness

I think we all know someone (or know someone who knows someone) who has been touched by cancer. Unfortunately, this is a subject I know more about than I would like. I lost my father in 1991 to prostate cancer and lost my mother in 2007 (just two months after the birth of my son) to esophageal cancer. And if that wasn't enough, while my mother was losing her battle my sister was diagnosed with breast cancer. I'm happy to say that my sister is a SURVIVOR - three years strong now!

October is Breast Cancer Awareness month. 1 in 8 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer during their lifetime. 38% of breast cancer cases are preventable. Join me as I do my part to help fight this disease....because sometimes the only way to win is to FIGHT LIKE A GIRL!



Ladies (and guys too) remember to 'Feel Your Boobies' by doing your self breast examinations and if you are over 40 have a mammogram. Let's help kick cancer's butt - early detection is the key!

Guitar Decoupage

I began working on this project sometime mid summer and ended up setting it aside to work on other things. I like the idea of decoupage so I wanted to try it out, but after finishing this I think the jury is still out on whether or not I'll attempt this again in the future. I wouldn't necessarily call this a crafting "fail" because I think it turned out as well as could be expected but I'm not terribly thrilled with it - I'll let you decide.

I took a plain canvas I had on hand from another project and painted it with red acrylic paint and let it dry

Using the music note scrapbook paper I used on the toy bin from this project, I cut out a guitar shape and small 1"x1" squares. I also used black scrapbook paper I had on hand to cut rectangle shapes to create a border. The edges were cut using decorative scissors

Using the same black paper, I cut triangle shapes to fill the remaining space. I used Mod Podge to glue each piece to the canvas then applied a medium layer as a sealer. I then finished it off with a coat of clear acrylic

I love to learn from my crafting - what I like, don't like and what needs improvement. For a first try, I think this is good so I'll try not to be too hard on myself about the end result.

Crafting is like life - sometimes you make mistakes but the growing happens when you learn from them. So I guess it's back to 'learning' for me (smile)!

Dinner with Friends

We've been in our new hometown for about three years and though I'm beginning (and that means recently) to feel like this is "home" for me, I've found it hard to make friends. Who would have thought that making friends at this stage of my life would feel more like it did when I was fourteen...lol. Anyway, I've met a great lady that has shown as much interest in a friendship with me as I am with her so I invited her and her family over for a night of dinner for all, fun for the kiddos and great conversation for us. This was no elaborate spread - just pizza, fruit and cupcakes for dessert - but we had a great time!



Even my little pumpkin made an appearance as decoration(smile). Now that the fun is done, back to work I go. Let's see what the creative spirit cooks up for me this time.

Pumpkin Decor

Boy, I never thought that once school started back it would be this hard to carve out time to craft. As I continue to work with my schedule to find a way to get my projects finished and get them to my blog, I've decided that I can fill space with a few simple crafts that require little to no time (and of course little to no money...lol).

On my trip to Target, I found this great little grapevine pumpkin in the dollar bin section for $2.50 that I thought I would spruce up a bit and use as part of my Fall/Halloween decorations.



The flowers are from the Dollar Store and the ribbon was on sale at Michael's. I used my glue gun to attach both to the pumpkin and voila, it's finished in a matter of 30 minutes. It's going to make a great addition to my table for our dinner date with friends!