ART STUDIO {Part 2: Studio Tour}

July 26, 2018November 12, 2018 | Allison

Hello, dears!

AHHHH I am SO excited about this post! Finally, after many months of working on my studio, I am ready to unveil the (almost) finished product! 😀 I absolutely LOVE it, and I hope you guys do too! If you need a refresher on what the studio looked like before (hint: it was a closet), click here to see part one.

Now. Walk right this way, please… And here we are! Won’t you step inside? Continue reading →

DIY Pallet Christmas Tree

December 13, 2016December 14, 2016 | Allison

The kids made this little tree for our mom’s birthday. It wasn’t that hard (well, we made it ourselves!) and it turned out great! I put together a little tutorial for you guys. 🙂

Pick your pallet. We have a huge pile of pallets behind one of our barns, so we had plenty of options. You don’t want the boards to be too far apart or it looks odd. This is the one we chose: (*Shudder* I know these next few pictures are terrible quality, but I can only say that the lighting in Dad’s shop is also rather terrible. XD )
Draw the line. We simply set a board on the pallet at the angle we wanted, and traced a line with a pencil. You might want to use a carpenter’s pencil or Sharpie so you can see the line better. You can measure and all that boring stuff if you want to be more precise, but we just traced. 😉
Cut it out. We – meaning my brothers – used a Sawzall to cut along the lines. This was definitely the trickiest part of the process, and my brother accidentally broke one of the branches when he stepped on it. O.o (We fixed it by first tracing the broken pieces onto an extra pallet board, then cutting it out, and then screwing it back to the tree’s “trunk”.) Make sure to saw the boards at the right angle so you don’t hit the back boards while you’re cutting the top ones.
Trim it up. You’ll have to cut or break off the back boards so they don’t stick out in front. We did this by a combination of cutting them off with a Sawzall and whacking them off with a hammer. (Be as careful as possible, though – don’t want to break any limbs (human or tree)! XD ) Lookin’ good!
Sand it smooth. We didn’t actually sand it completely smooth because we wanted it to have a rustic look, but it’s a good idea to at least sand the sawed off edges a bit.
Secure the branches. Some of the pallet boards were a little loose after all that, so we put in a few extra screws to secure them.
Paint it. Yay, now for the fun part! We painted ours all green, but you could also do red and green stripes, or leave stripes of raw pallet wood for a more rustic look.
Bring on the lights. This is optional, but we strung some pretty Christmas lights on it to make it more interesting. We used white, but you could also use colored lights.
Display it proudly. Ta-daa! You’re finished! You may want to stop at that, but on the other hand I think it would look neat to make a forest of trees in different sizes and colors. So fun!

I hope that wasn’t too confusing. Anyway, do you like how it turned out? I think it’s pretty cute! You can click here to see my sister’s post which has a bunch more pictures of us making the tree. Thank you, brothers, for doing a lot of the hard work for us. 😀 ♥

Merry Almost-Christmas! (HOW CAN IT BE SO CLOSE ALREADY?!)

***Allison***

Tutorial: Cardboard Roll Organizer + BIBPC # 4

April 30, 2016April 30, 2016 | Allison

Today I have a little crafty tutorial for you, my friends. Bring out your scrapbook paper and that huge stash of cardboard rolls you have tucked away in the closet, and… um, read this tutorial! XD

We are going to make this handy-dandy organizer. It’s perfect for organizing those stray but important knickknacks, or showing off a collection.

What you’ll need:

Toilet paper rolls or similar cardboard rolls
Pretty scrapbook paper
Cutting tools: an X-acto knife and scissors
Glue stick
Hot glue gun (with hot glue, of course 😉 ), or super glue might also work
Pencil

Cut the cardboard rolls into even lengths. It is quite tiring to measure each tube, so I found a much easier and faster way! First, make a template. You will have to measure this one: make marks all the way around the tube using a pencil and ruler, then connect the dots. 😀 I made my template roll about 2 inches long. The longer the knickknacks, the longer the template should be. (As you can see, most of my knickknacks are small, so a shallow organizer worked perfectly.) Use an X-acto knife (and scissors if need be) to cut around the line. Trim the top rough edge with a scissors, and cut a slit all the way down one side, like so:Ta-daa! You have made a template. Now slip it on to the tubes you want to cut, and simply trace around the top with a pencil. No measuring needed! I cut 10 lengths for my organizer, which used about 5 tubes (not counting the template tube).
Cut strips of paper to cover the rolls. Choose a pretty pattern or color of scrapbook paper to decorate your organizer. Cut the strips as wide as your tubes are – if your tube lengths are 2 inches, cut 2-inch wide paper strips. (Yes, you’ll have to measure this time. 😦 ) Glue a strip around each tube and neatly cut off the excess if your strip is too long.
Hot glue your paper-covered tubes into a pyramid shape. Arrange the tubes so the paper seams don’t show on the outside, and hot glue them. I think it works best to glue one row at a time – glue the bottom row of four tubes together first, etc., then glue the rows to each other. Also, don’t glue them vertically on top of each other like it shows here. 😉 You can stand it up like this after you’re done.
Use it! You are done! Give yourself a pat on the back, then go put the organizer to good use. Congratulations on a craft well done!

By the way, the little critters and food in the organizer are polymer clay miniatures made by my sister Megan and me. I made all of the miniatures except some in the last picture, where Megan added some of hers to help fill it up. Which knickknack is your favorite? Of mine I might like the peacock best, and of Megan’s I think I like the cute little crab. 🙂

I hope you enjoyed crafting along with me!

Oh, oops! I almost forgot the BIBPC photo. BIBPC is fun photo contest that my sister Megan is doing. (Read about it here.)The prompt this time was “Funny.” Here’s my entry!

Story behind the picture: This is a hilarious photo of Diamond, my little sister’s rabbit. We sometimes bring our rabbits in the house for a bit, and here Diamond is just hangin’ out like a cool dude with sunglasses. XD You can see more funny bunny pictures in this post.

***Allison***

P. S. I made the white background of some of the photos with FotoFuze. It’s a really neat program! I made the poster with PicMonkey, which I also LOVE. 😀