Painted Shutters

My favorite craft blog is probably got to be www.crapivemade.com. Seriously this lady is awesome. She’s got fun ideas, funny kid stories and well she just seems like she’d be a cool person to hang out and craft with. She shared this about painted shutters a while back: http://www.crapivemade.com/?s=painted+shutters and I’ve been searching for a reason to make some. And I finally found one.

My good friends decided they’d get married (well them and apparently everyone else I know…did I mention I have 3 weddings this summer? No I didn’t? Ok well now you know. 3! And I’m in 2 of them and my daughter and my husband are in all 3 of them! You’re totally jealous of how awesome we are right now aren’t you? Oh No? Ok that’s cool…

ANYWAYS these cool kids : http://www.ryanchristina.diandraann.com/ are getting married soon and bridesmaid duties call for a bridal shower! Perfect excuse for shutters! I went to the habitat for humanity ReStore (we went to Norwalk but there are lots more locations, check here: http://www.habitat.org/restores/default.aspx) and found two for $4. Cheap!! 

How I got them to look nice: I went home cleaned them off, sprayed a coat of off-white spray paint and then used distress ink (another tip from Crap I've Made) to create the distressed look. You can find distress ink in lots of colors at Michael's. I think I picked the walnut brown. Now I had no idea how to use this stuff so first I tried using a makeup sponge and that looked awful and well spongy. I tried paper towels, also awful. I ended up just using my fingers to smear it on. Unfortunately I had 3 stained brown fingers for a few days….oops…

Also I was in a time crunch so I did it quickly and then quickly applied a polyurethane sealer, this one to be exact: Rust-Oleum 12Oz Out Clr Gls Spray 250081 Polyurethane Int/Ext Finish(more on how this is good stuff in another post). Unfortunately doing it quickly = a little sloppy. If I were to do this again I would allow adequate drying time in between spray coat, distress ink and sealer. But from far away they look cute right? No one notices the drips except maybe for me (and consequently now all of you reading this if you ever see them in person...)

Dress them up however you like and have them as a backdrop for a party or as decoration on a mantle or side table. I think I’ve even seen them used at a wedding to hold table number cards…I wish I could remember what site I saw that on it was REALLY cute!

As you can see above I just got some pictures of the happy couple and clipped them on with clothespins. Then I made a quick LOVE banner on some simple colored card stock and clipped them up as well. If your wondering the font I used was called Graceful Ghost. I think it's my new favorite font! And I found it for free!

Where could you use some painted shutters?

The Start of Something New

Here we go….

I’ve been obsessed with crafty blogs for a long time now. I love searching through all these fantastically creative people’s sites, filled with amazing ideas and thinking oh man if I had the time I would do them ALL. Well sometimes you just have to find the time or you make the time to do something that you love to do. And that’s what I’ve been doing. A lot of the things I put together I do for friends and family. Baby shower presents, wedding shower/birthday party decorations. I absolutely love it all. I’ve found that the craft blog world is a GREAT place to share ideas and I wanted to become a part of that.

Anyone who knows my family knows my mom as the Craft Queen. She’s been putting amazing things together since as far back as I can remember. If any group at our church needed a craft, my mom would put it together. She gets together with friends often to quilt and craft. She always made everything look so easy! One of her longtime friends once told me a story about how they were putting together an ornament for a Christmas craft. There she was working diligently and carefully to get hers just right and when she finished she was about to celebrate when she looked to my mom….who had about 5 of them already done and perfect.

The point is we’re OWL (read ALL…get it?! get it?! I sure hope so…) crafty in some way or another. And I hope to share some of the craftiness I’ve either created myself or have seen from some other amazing people.

Hope you enjoy!