Rose Covered Book

Have you ever been given roses, only to throw them in the trash after they've wilted? Why not save some of the petals for your sketch book, journal, or even a postcard? This post on Craftbits demonstrates how it would look if you used dried rose petals but I opted for fresh ones, just to see how it would turn out!

Start by gathering your supplies. You'll need:

1. Rose petals 

2. Mod Podge or craft glue

3. A foam brush (or you can use your fingers)

4. A notebook/journal/book/etc. to cover

Start by removing the petals from your rose. I found 1 rose = a 6"x8" book.

Place glue on your notebook where you want the petal to sit.

Place your petal and push out any bubbles that might be underneath it. Then apply the same glue to the top of the petal, securing it in place.

Now place more glue and more petals. Do this over the entire book cover. 

Yes, you'll have a lot of white glue but don't worry, if it's not applied in thick globs, it'll dry completely invisible. Here's what it looks like when I was done covering it...

...and here's what it looked like after just an hour!

I let mine dry overnight (about 12 hours) and here's how it turned out. You can see that some of the glue, where it was the thickest, was still visible so I just glued some more petals over it.



Now it was interesting to see how the petals changed over the next few days... the color faded but the texture stayed the same.

 The last picture was taken 5 days after the petals were first glued on. If you want your book to be covered with bright red petals forever, you're better off getting some fake petals from the craft store!

TOTAL COSTS: $3.50
$3.49 for 4oz. of Mod Podge at Michael's
Rose petals and journal prices vary per person

TOTAL AMOUNT OF TIME: 20 minutes + overnight
20 minutes to add petals to 6"x8" cover
Overnight to dry

EASY-PEASY SCALE (1 super easy - 5 very difficult): 1 out of 5
If you know someone who loves to write or paint, this would be a nice handmade gift for them - it's something they could use daily for their personal work but would think of you every time they saw it! It's quite easy so if kids wanted to make these for their parents, they definitely could, however I would recommend adult supervision because it can get quite messy!

Wood String State Art

Not sure what wood string state art is? I wasn't sure either until I saw this post by The Harpster Home and wanted to give it a try. If you have wood, string, nails, a hammer, and a printer, you too can also make this unique piece of art! You don't have to do a state, either. I've seen some people on Pinterest and Etsy do reindeer, snowmen, polar bears... or you could spend $50 on one like this but making one is MUCH cheaper!

The original post called for a 12" x 12" piece of wood but I went with a 9" x 12" and focused on the lower peninsula of Michigan (sorry Yoopers!). Make sure you have a LOT of nails and a LOT of string before you even get started. I didn't have enough string so I ended up using sewing thread, which worked fine but was pretty thin.

So using scotch tape (or painters tape, as the original post called for), tape down whatever it is you're going to outline with nails so it doesn't move around the wood. Then, one nail at a time, nail down around the edges of the design. When you're done, remove the paper design.

Take your string, tie it around one nail, and start going back and forth between the border nails and the heart nails, just zig-zagging back and forth. Be sure to pop in a podcast or music because this will be as boring as the hammering part.

One big mistake I made? The heart around my hometown wasn't fully nailed into the piece of wood, so the nails got pulled in all directions, making the heart look sloppy:

Once your'e done, though, you'll have a unique piece of art that didn't cost much and would make a great holiday gift!

TOTAL COSTS: About $17 (MUCH cheaper than the $50 piece on Etsy!)
$9.99 for the wood from Michael's
$2.19 for thread from Vons
$5.20 for 4 packs of nails from Home Depot (be sure to go with the nails with heads on top - I ended up using 15 nails for the heart and 125 around the state)

TOTAL AMOUNT OF TIME: Almost an hour
35 minutes to go around the state with hammer and nails
20 minutes to go around with string

EASY-PEASY SCALE (1 super easy - 5 very difficult): 2 out of 5
The hardest part is just making sure the nails are far enough into the wood so that they won't move - don't make the same mistake I made!

State to State Love - A Perfect Engagement/Wedding/Anniversary Gift!

Philly/Kalamazoo Love

A friend of mine posted some photos of her engagement on Facebook and she had decorated her wall with cute sayings, photos, etc. One piece of art that I particularly liked she got from Near and Dear Designs on Etsy. $32 for a very cute piece of art, showing the home states of the bride and groom. I figured, why not try and do it for less?

Of course there weren't any instructions available so I made it up as I went along - feel free to tweak these however you see fit! The original design was all on 1 print so if you have a color printer and Photoshop, you're welcome to print it out there on an 8 1/2 x 11 sheet. I, however, wanted to make it pop just a little more:

Step 1 - Pick your states

Since I'm from Michigan and my husband is from Pennsylvania, I figured those would be ideal for this project.

Step 2 - Take outlines of those states and put them onto a Word doc.

I found perfect examples here: http://www.netstate.com/states/maps/(enter initials of state here)_maps.htm. So for Michigan, I put in http://www.netstate.com/states/maps/mi_maps.htm and clicked on "Blank Outline Map". For Pennsylvania, I entered http://www.netstate.com/states/maps/pa_maps.htm and did the same thing. Just click and drag those states onto a Word doc.

After you've dragged them to the Word doc, double-click on them and click on "Layout". Make sure they are "Behind Text". Also, you'll want your document to have .5" margins around the borders.

Step 3 - Decide where you want to place the states and the ampersand sign (&)

This took the longest for me, because I'm so picky. In the original design, the ampersand sign takes up a quarter of the entire page, the states are relatively the same size, they're close together, and not near the borders. For a perfectionist, this proved to be more difficult than I anticipated. Because the states I chose are so awkwardly shaped (damn you Upper Peninsula!), it took a while to figure out where I wanted to place them. After 45 minutes of moving, resizing, and moving them again, I finally got them where I wanted them. My ampersand was Size 450 and Times New Roman.

Step 4 - Print out your states on white cardstock and cut them out

I recommend states like Colorado or Wyoming...

Step 5 - Print out the ampersand only on whichever color paper you like

In the original design, the ampersand is lighter than the color of the paper. I had to go darker because otherwise it wouldn't show up at all. My color printer wouldn't print out white. Who knew?

Step 6 - Tape or glue the cut-out states to the paper with ampersand

Now I used Elmer's glue and I regret that decision. You can see the bumps under the paper where there was too much glue used so the state is not flush with the paper, which is why you might want to use double-sided tape. However, if your state has a bunch of little ins and outs, the tape might not be your friend.

Step 7 - Print out and cut tiny red hearts and tape/glue them to where your hometowns are on the states

Step 8 - Draw on a dotted line between the two hearts. Another mistake I did - doing it freehand, which allowed for my dotted line to look sloppy. If you can follow the curve of a cup or bowl, do that.

Step 9 - Put in frame!


TOTAL COSTS: FREE
I already had these supplies:

1. Colored cardstock
2. White cardstock
3. Glue (though you might want to use tape)
4. A 8x10 Frame
I bought the frame from Target over a year ago in West Hollywood and I think it cost somewhere in the ballpark of $15-$20.

TOTAL AMOUNT OF TIME: 1 hour, 30 minutes
45 minutes trying to figure out the layout of the states
10 minutes with printer issues
The rest of the time used to cut out states and hearts, glue them to paper, draw dotted line, and put in frame

EASY-PEASY SCALE: 3 out of 5
If you're not a tech-savvy person, placing the states and getting them the size you want on the Word doc might be a little more difficult for you, but not impossible. You're just putting them on the Word doc to see how big they should be before printing and cutting them out. If you're familiar with editing photos in a Word doc, this will be a piece of cake.