LacysLeftovers

Only one week left of these blogs, and all I can think about is how I will probably miss it! It has been pretty fun to show some of my favorite crafts I’ve done in the past 6 months, and I have a feeling this is just the beginning. I’ve decided to just do more crafts and sell them, and see where it takes me! Who knows, maybe I can have my own store with the word “leftover” stuck somewhere in there LOL. 

But, with the end so near, I wanted to go ahead and post two windows I did a while back. I did one for my Grandmother as a gift for Christmas, and on it painted her favorite Bible verse. My Grandfather is a retired preacher, and I knew that it would be a good addition to their home out in the country in Louisiana. The other window I did was a graduation present for a friend. 

Personalized items are way more fun to do, because they are really special gifts! Here’s to many more window paintings in the future (whatever my future holds after 17 days!!!!)

We’re in the single digits people! YES, only 6 more days of classes before finals and I really don’t think I’m going to make it. Pretty much the only thing I’ve been good at this semester is this bog when it comes to school. Sad, I know, but I tell you it just isn’t my fault anymore! The weather is too awesome, and I’m feeling way to old to be involved anymore, so I’m just gonna coast this thing out for a couple of more days and hope I survive. 

Thinking about being done of course leads me to my craft for this blog! I’m going alum from my sorority this coming up Tuesday and I wanted to make something for my littles as a gift that means more from me than just going to the store and buying something. But, I have a lot of littles and not a ton of time to make them all something different (dumb college and internship). SO - I decided to do something fun and different that I’ve never done before. CANDLES! I wasn’t sure exactly what kind of candle I wanted to make, or even how hard it would be, so I took to Pinterest to find something that interested me. After looking at a couple of different tutorials, I decided to go with a coffee candle because one - I’m obsessed with coffee and it smells amazing and two - the video seemed super easy, lolz. 

What you’ll need to make candles: wax and candle wicks (I purchased mine at Hobby Lobby), whole coffee beans, some type of container, hot glue gun, ribbon and wrapping (optional).

First things first - Get to a thrift store and pick out some fun containers! Second thing, sprint home and wash them! lol but no seriously one of the cups had like a spiders web and a dead spider in it, so really give those babies a scrubbin. I chose tea cups, old mason jars, jam jars, coffee cups, and even an icrecream bowl. All of my littles are different, and I wanted them to have something that fit their personalities!

Step 2 - hot glue in your wicks. I found both wax wicks and wood wicks and was like “Hey why not get both cause it will be fun to try new stuff - yeah!” Turns out the wood is way easier, and they’re actually pretty cool when they burn so if you need an opinion just get the wood wicks! A little dap of hot glue on the bottom and pressed down in the middle, and you’re good to go!

Step 3 - get your melt on! Here’s the thing with the wax - I also got one bag of block wax and one bag of shredding wax. GET THE SHREDDED WAX. It is meltable in the microwave and it is SO much faster! I was all like “Hey I’m gonna try both - woo!” I’m glad I tried both so I know which is easier but like no, do not get the block wax because you have to cut it then double-boil it and it takes forever. I didn’t have a double boiler, so I just stuck a mixing bowl on top of a pot....cause I’m poor....and in college...

After wax is melted down completely, stir for two minutes and add coffee beans to container. Then, poor wax over the beans. If you want a layered effect, poor small amount of wax into different containers - let harden, add more beans, then poor more wax until container is full. 

Let harden over night and they are good to light! I tired to make sure that the coffee beans weren’t touching the wick, but doing 11 candles at one time made it kind of hard for me to keep track of everything! I’m going to wrap these up and tie with ribbon (you can kind of see the ribbon to the left of this picture). 

It was a fun project that turned out good! It was a pretty easy candle to do for my first time, and I’ll be even more excited to give it to my littles knowing that I made it myself. 

So I may have had a crafting melt down last week. I really don’t have a solid area for all of my crafting supplies. There is an area in my house that has a desk in a corner and my supplies kind of just end up all in the cabinets, in the desk chair, and on the desk itself. But, there is one bag that I put all my go-tos (paint and brushes and weird stuff). It’s just a large Kohl's plastic bag (first off I don’t know where that bag even came from) that had a hole in one of the sides that my brushes fall out of. I’ve told you all of this because the one day I leave my boyfriend to clean, I come home and HE HAS THROWN AWAY MY RIPPED PLASTIC BAG. He organized my paint and brushes and pretty much crushed my heart. I didn’t have it in me to tell him I was about to have a heart attack, but I’ve been freaking out trying to find all of my supplies ever since then. 

It doesn’t take me long before I have 3 or 4 different crafts going on at once. If the projects are big, I tend to just leave my small projects lying around until I finish. But, if the projects are small, my living room turns into my very own crafting-messy-paint plates everywhere-room. It annoys my boyfriend (and probably my dog) so much due to the clutter. I’m like “HELLO you people need to realize that you can’t touch my creative activity!” This past week, I’ve had a break from school tests, so I did several fun crafts!

My grandmother sends me huge baskets of candy and chips and cokes for different holidays, and normally I end up giving most of it away due to the fact that I’d gain like 50 pounds if I ate it. I decided to give gifts to my greek family in a cute way! I did not get a final picture of the wrapped jars, but I just added fake moss to the bottom and threw some chocolate eggs in there to give it a cute Easter Theme, along with my grandmaws gifts. It was a fun way to get rid of some things I didn’t need and put a cute spin on a mason jar gift with the moss. 

I officially sold my first coffee pallet to a customer! I showed mine several weeks ago and it’s almost just like this one, but I wanted to make all of my crafts unique, so I just did a different font and cup. 

So even though I like to craft, I may possibly still have my winter wreath on my door. I wanted to make something fun that didn’t involve a circle wreath and BONUS - I added a plant! I am gonna start selling them for personalization, so we’ll see how this endeavor turns out!

So happy Friday! I normally blog at the beginning of the week, but this week has been such a break for me, I’ve taken full advantage of being lazy and watching all of season 5 of Modern Family. My boyfriend did a craft for me that I showed on here not very long ago (window table), and honestly I’m gonna say it’s not fair that his crafts are cooler than me because he can use power tools and I can’t (not bitter at all). 

The biggest thing with him is that he makes things to sell, and so do I, but when I make something I always end up wanting to keep it because I love the way it turned out! We normally go to an antique store about every two weeks, and he picked out a door to do a craft with! I was eager to see what he was thinking, and it was a fun process for him. 

The door he picked out was pretty worn out, but it gave him a lot to work with.

He cut the door right through the middle and angled it so that it would fit in a corner.

For the shelves he chose a wood that had different types of wood pressed together to give it more of a DIY look, and stained the pieces. If you want to do something like this, you can get both of those things at Lowes. 

He brought me out and let me put some decorations on it before posting it for sale. I begged to keep it, so he hasn’t sold it yet, but I’m sure we will! It’s a really fun piece and I think it will be special in whatever home it ends up in!

Happy hump day to all those who cherish the countdown of a week! I just wrote a press release about the Little Rock Zoo gaining 3 new camels, so hump day is  pun-ny (funny) to me today! But it is only Wednesday, and honestly I’m so over college classes right now, I’m writing this blog to avoid studying for a test tomorrow - no big deal. 

Everyone that follows this blog already saw what I painted my sister for her wedding two weeks ago. It was a large window that had her whole bridal party on it with names and pictures. It was a fun personal touch for her guests, but there was no way she was wanting to keep that after she got married! SO - I painted it with chalk pens and after the wedding, I wiped the window clean! 

A couple of weeks ago, I actually sold my Arkansas flag pallet. I know, sad. BUT this gave me a reason to paint something awesome on this window and hang it up where the old craft was! Again, I decided to go with an Arkansas theme just because I don’t know if I’ll live here after college, and I wanted something that people will love to see when they come over to my house!

Please refer to my old blogs if you’d like to see how to paint a window! 

Here’s the window when I painted it for my sister - this is just to show how big the window is 

When I was tracing, I thought - what would be cooler than Arkansas will all the cities, along with what goes on in each town?! Obviously, you can’t fit every town with a symbol, but there are some pretty significant and not so significant cities on there. 

I painted per color to keep my paint brushes as simple as possible. It turned out to be a pretty good technique!

Tod was right there with me the whole time. I think the weather change and pollens got him feeling weird because he’s been so sweet lately LOLZ.

I did a little bit more after this, but I was pretty pleased with the way it turned out! The true meaning of using leftovers is that I was able to use this window more than once, and we got it for super cheap at an antique store! The longer I live in this great state, the more I come to love it! Very excited to hang this up in my kitchen!

Happy Monday! So my boyfriend and I are working on some F.U.N. crafts this week. It’s coming down to a competition of which will be better (it’s gonna be his because he can use power tools). I’ll tell you guys, this craft I’ll post later this week is the biggest one I’ve ever done and I CAN NOT WAIT to post it! Until then - our dog will keep you company! 

My Siberian Husky was given to me as my 17th birthday gift by my same boyfriend (yes we’ve been dating 6.5 years lol). I’m somewhat - okay a lot - obsessed with Disney movies, and the puppy looked just like the fox from The Fox and the Hound. So naturally, I named him Tod. 

Over the past 5.5 years he has been the absolute best dog I’ve ever had. In 2 years, I’ve had two dogs die, and Tod has been attached to both of them. Since the death of our dog in January, Tod and I have been pretty much inseparable. We’ve moved him inside, and with ALL THAT HAIR, I’ve gained cleaning skills I never knew I’d have to have. 

Everyone that knows him calls him a human, because his actions aren’t like many dogs! He’s an escape artist, a digger, he always pulls on his leash, but he keeps me on my toes - and that’s all I could ever want! I’m obsessed with taking pictures of him, so I have like his whole life documented, but here are some of my favorites of him growing up all the way until yesterday (see dog shamming). 

SPRING BREAK!!! Yes it’s finally come (and almost gone), and let me tell you, I didn’t think I was going to make it. The Saturday that the break started, my sister FINALLY got married. Not that I was ready for her big day to be over, but being her Maid of Honor seriously brought out another side to me I didn’t know was there. The week before I was so stressed, I turned into an emotional train wreck. My week was planned out by the hour between trying to handle the tests and projects that my professors were throwing out left and right, and trying to get all my own projects done for my sister that she wasn’t able to do (most of them). 

I went down the Thursday before the wedding (Saturday) with my mom, and between her and my sister, I became slave girl. Those two had me doing so many crafts, I’m pretty sure I’m a hunch back now (leaning over all those decorations is damaging, I say!) Her theme was that southern farm style because she married a big time farmer! So I chalked out everything from wine bottles to picture frames, but there was one thing that I chalked that took me about 6 hours. A window, duh! It was my special project I did for her and I couldn’t have been happier about the way it turned out. 

Window project: “Meet the Maids, Meet the Men” (bridal party)

I traced out the project to make it easier to do on the window, and it was the hardest trace I’ve done so far. Trying to fit all of her bridal party on one window with pictures was so hard to line up! It took me forever to get it just right. 

The trace took me so long, I knew there was no way I’d paint it, so I went to hobby lobby and bought chalk markers - those things are magic! 

I was so ready to get this baby done after tracing, I didn’t get any “during” pictures. A negative about chalk markers - you CAN NOT touch anything. As soon as something rubs against it, the chalk will rub right off the window. I became VERY protective of anyone touching this bad boy. This window was HUGE, and we found it here in my hometown at an antique store. 

Pictures were added, and wa-la! I did a “every other” staggered look to fill up the window but leave some blank space as well. 

The window was HUGE, and was used by the signing book (she chose to use a large M instead of a book for people to sign when she came in) - notice all the other calked out boards (done by me). 

She also used it right when people walked into the reception. That large M is the M that sits on my fire place mantel daily (I wrapped the old M from a Metropolitan National Bank sign in fabric) LEFTOVER SCORE. Her party favors were tea bags (packed in those tiny burlap bags), that were “brewed with love.” Signs done by me as well. I also forced her into that barn door for her bridal pictures, and they turned out great! 

BONUS CRAFT:

My mother came up with the idea for the bride and groom and their families to light paper lanterns before they left (on a huge tractor). Turns out it was raining all day, so the lanterns didn’t even work! But, thanks to Pinterest, my mom had me do a huge craft for everyone to know what we were supposed to do. 

About 3 hours to do, and I replicated a picture she found online. Turns out, a groomsmen was carrying this into the reception area the day before the wedding, and he SHATTERED this. Not gonna lie, I cried. But, what’s a wedding without something going wrong!

So - the groomsman dad went out and bought the biggest frame he could, and I redid the lantern art. It wasn’t nearly as big, but we rolled with the punches!

I held that train more than anything else that day, but I absolutely loved getting to stand by my baby sister on her big day! I can’t wait to get her back when it’s my turn ;)

I hope you have all started to get used to the time change that only started yesterday, but man am I SO happy to have light past 5:00 at night! It is one of my favorite parts of spring and summer time - to actually be able to have the sun for hours more than in the winter. But with the winter (and snow) hopefully coming to an end, I wanted to go ahead and share my Christmas decorations before it seems to out of place.....I'm only 3 months late, it's totally fine. 

The first thing in your house that stands out at Christmas - the tree, duh! This is my first Christmas with me being the only girl in the house, so I wanted to do something all of my own and unique. I chose to go with black and gold. One because those colors are very in right now, and two, because I black is my favorite color. But, I had a ton of gold ornaments from when I lived with two of my sorority sisters. So it wasn't all to hard as a starting place that I will be able to add on to next year. 

Next, the wreath! I wanted to make something that I could keep up during the winter, not just during Christmas - and this is what I came up with! The inside is just straw that I never took out of the wrapping, and I just wrapped it with yarn. It took a while and it's not perfect, but it was cheap and pretty easy to do. Just time consuming! I wrapped a bow (first time to do a detailed bow so don't judge), and hot glued some fake cranberries to it and WA-LA! Simple, and fun to do. NOTE: I totally forgot that my door was white so take it from me and don't get the same color yarn as your door. Oops.

I know y'all are used to seeing my painted windows - but this is the first one I ever made! Hence the fact that I don't have any pictures but the final project because I had no idea what I was doing! 

I stuck it up on my mantel, and made a "Merry & Bright" banner to hang off of the mantel instead of using a ton of garland. 

BONUS DIY: 

To make your house smell just like Christmas, boil about 4 cups of water and add some wintery ingredients! I used one lemon, one orange, one apple, 4 cinnamon sticks, 2 bay leaves, 2 cups of cranberries, and some cloves. Y'all. This smells amazing. Sometimes I do it on a random day in the summer. It's just a comforting and calming smell to have in your house. I made it before a party and just let it simmer on my stove, and my guests loved it!

My Christmas decorations can only get better from here considering it was just my first one. But there's nothing like adding my own touch through out my whole house with seasonal decorations. 

Hey leftover lovers! LOL okay, don't even know if you guys like DIY stuff, but I have a pretty cool leftover craft to show y'all. Over the weekend, I went to Memphis, TN for my very last Greek formal. Two weekends in a row now I've been getting down with the get down, so I haven't been in the craftiest of moods! BUT, that doesn't mean that my house hasn't been taken over by a huge craft like it always is! 

My boyfriend has been nagging about our coffee table in our living room since forever. Of course you guys can probably guess what's it's made out of - pallets. I KNOW - SO MANY PALLETS. I can't help myself. So props to him for actually signing up for PINTEREST and finding a table he wanted to make! 

What else do we love in my house? Windows! He went out and found some old windows and grabbed them to find a top for the table

Something else that you all could guess that he is better than me at? Using power tools! I am not kidding when I say that this man loves his power tools. He'll use just about any excuse to go buy new ones. SO with this being HIS craft, he was nothing short of a perfectionist. He sanded off every bit of old caked on white paint that was on it before. 

Next, he dragged me out to the store in the dang snow to pick out the size wood we wanted for the box. 

He also added a bottom to the box for bottom support. 

For the bottom of the box, he covered the support wood with pallet wood. 

He removed the glass to be able to paint the window frame, and added them back right before mounting the window to the box. 

We also took the legs of our pallet table and added them to this box. 

Woo! We moved the table into the living room before adding the final screws. And Tod was not happy that he wasn't allowed to touch the table - just look at that attitude. 

The  only thing I did with the box - add the decorations! 

It turned out absolutely AMAZING. Turns out, I may just be rubbing some of my love for crafting off on him after all. I am so proud to add more of our own work to our home. 

Here at UCA, I've been a member of a sorority for almost 3 years. During this time, I have flouriest on my college campus in numerous other student organizations, and within my own sorority. But, the thing I am most happy to brag about is my Greek family. I don't know if it's that I am an older sister to two  little sisters, but I've always had a better relationship with my Greek littles rather than with my Greek big sister. 

One of the things I love doing as a big, is doing DIY gifts for my littles. Whether that be a huge basket the night that I find out who my little is, or something I made for Valentine's Day, I want to pass down a trait that hopefully will be passed down through my Greek family. 

Over 3 years, my littles have gotten their own littles, and my Greek family is close to the biggest one there is. I love every single one of these girls, and hope to be a positive influence on them!

For Valentine's Day, I made them all a treat that was perfect for the day! Popcorn popped from the stove, almond bark, and M&Ms. 

Super fun, and super simple to do!

My smaller family tree includes these 3! I got a new little this day (top right), and I was the only senior to take a little. Of course, I knew I had to give her even more love!

I got her a huge basket filled with crafts and goodies I hand maid for her, as well as some of my old t-shirts I knew would be perfect for her!

Baskets have become somewhat of my go-to for when I want to give gifts. It doesn't have to be any special occasion, and it's a lot funner to get several little things instead of one big thing in my opinion. It's also really good for a college girl budget. 

These are examples of other baskets I've made for different members of my greek family through out my time in AST. 

If you are in need of fun gifts, homemade treats or gift baskets are fun and show that you care about your friends favorites (candy, drink, treats, lotions), and are really easy to put a personal spin on!

Another Monday down, and I'm ashamed to say I didn't make it to class today. I just got back from my sisters bachelorette party in New Orleans, Louisiana last night, and I wasn't in the bestttttttt condition. But it was so much fun, and I'm glad to make those memories with her before she says "I do" in 19 days! 

Having so much fun this weekend made me want to share a project that I did a few months back for a greek pageant I was in, back in October of 2014. I was nominated by my sorority and by a fraternity to represent them out of 15 other contestants. These types of pageants are normally a big deal, and I wanted to do whatever I could to be a strong competitor and win for them! And it turns out - I did win! Hours of getting ready for my talent, making costumes, and painting banners paid off, because I had so much fun on stage, and the judges picked me to win the overall talent and winner of Greek Goddess. 

I knew I wanted to do something for my personality (talent) round that no one else had ever done before at my college. About a year ago, I saw a funny skit on Facebook and sent it to my boyfriend and told him to save it if I ever had to do something like this. 

Here is the skit that I found online. If you want to watch it, just go and google "The Amazing Christopher," and his videos will pop right up! 

I decided to go with an "Alice in Wonderland" theme for the whole night, because themed acts normally are the ones that win the pageant. But, little did I know it would be such a funny and slightly challenging experience to build this prop!!!

Some of my best friends came and literally spent several all nighters at my house helping me build this prop. We bought pipes for the frame, painters suits for the body, stuffing to fill the suits, gloves and sponges that we spray painted red for the hands and feet, and SO MANY ZIP TIES to hold everything together. I'll tell you - if I never use another zip tie again, it will be too soon. 

Luckily for me, my friends dad owns his own sign shop, and was able to print heart faces and card bodies for me for free! (BONUS: that car back there was mine, and this is one of the last pictures I have with it because my boyfriend wrecked it later that week.) 

First time trying it on! The whole plot was to be able to build something that would move with me when I moved. It was about 50 pounds total. And doing a dance around 3.5 minutes long was a lot more tiring than I thought it would be!

On stage, I had the time of my life. About 30 seconds into the dance, the rope that was tied around my chest fell about 6 inches, and I thought there was a big chance that it would fall off - so I danced twice as hard incase things went wrong near the end of the dance! All went well, and I'm so proud of the way it turned out!

With a couple of peoples help, I painted this banner that went with my theme! Girls held it up for me while I danced in front of it with my heart of cards men! I literally was so tired of working in my garage that I brought this inside in my kitchen and moved my kitchen table outside. 

My best friends that helped me build my prop, happen to be twins! So I made them costumes that went the theme, and they were in my opening round where I introduced myself as Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum! If you google these characters online, the resemblance is hilarious!

After I won, my whole sorority came up to congratulate me. I was an awesome feeling to be able to represent them and win. 

I definitely felt like I was in a wonderland after winning! It was the funnest thing of my college career! And building my talent prop was seriously the biggest DIY crafting job I will ever do! 

Another day - another painted window! A couple of weeks ago, the weather was GREAT. So great that I went out and bought several windows and painted them all within like 12 hours and sold them....all but one! Windows are fun DIYs that are quick, unique, and can be used anywhere inside or outside for a fun decoration. 

Just refer back to my older posts to find out what tools to use on a painted window!

Small windows are easy, and can be found for a cheap price

~sidewayz picx~ I got CrAzY and choose an actual color other than white or black! 

Of course, I traced this first to get the words exactly where I wanted, but I love the way it turned out with the florals above the verse. 

Again - the weather was glorious, and God provided me with a beautiful sunset just as I went to take pictures of my finished product. I'm definitely dreaming of warming weather to return soon with all of this snow so maybe I will start crafting again instead of watching so much Netflix. This window is looking for a good home! There's nothing like bible verses that can relate to someone everyday.