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Thursday, July 29, 2010

Etsy Winners!

Thank you SO much to everyone who entered my Ad Spot Giveaway last week!
 
I have some lovely Etsy Store Winners to announce this afternoon!  All the entries were fantastic - and I loved visiting all their stores -- I hope you bloggers did too! :)

Winner Number One:



Tannei Casey Handmade (next week Tannei will be giving one of you a bag of your own! - so stay tuned!!)

Tannei has the most AMAZING purses, totes, bags, diaper bags and baby quilts - they are SO cute!  Here are some of my favorites:

Birds of Feather Pleated Hobo

Bloom in Sand Wide Hobo Bag

Spring Blooms Whole Cloth Quilt
Wood Ferns Weekender Bag



Aren't these just fantastic?!?  Be sure to visit her store and look at her beautiful bags and quilts...I guarantee you won't be able to decide which one you want!!



And Winner Number Two:



Household Words Vinyl Lettering & Decals


Mandie has like a bazillion awesome vinyl letters and designs - and let me tell you, they are ADORABLE!  I don't know how I could even choose a few .... I want ALL of them, but here are some of my absolute favorites from her shop:





Go visit her shop -- and believe me, you'll be looking around for a while!


Thanks again to everyone who entered their wonderful shops -- I loved all of them!





Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Double Framed Clock (and one for you too!)

So by now I'm sure you have realized that the thrift store is my friend (it should be your friend too).  I visit the thrift store weekly -- sometimes I leave with nothing, sometimes I leave with a bag of stuff.    For example, last week when I was there I found a sham for our bedding set from Target still new in the package.  SCORE!  And for two measly dollars I snatched that puppy right up.  Well I ALSO found these two sets of frames:



YIKES, right!?!  But I have to say I'm in LOVE with oval frames right now., and these frames had some character.  I was so excited when I found the first set and then I was ecstatic when I saw the second set.  I was actually going to make these into cute little hooks by adding glass knobs to them, but ended up changing my mind (I've been known to do that).

I decided on making a clock for our living room.  I spray-painted my frames a lovely shade of greyish blue.  I left the glass out of the frames for this project (I'm getting quite the collection of glass from frames -- I better find a project to use it all up!) 

I added some elegant scrapbook paper to the background of each frame.  Next I glued the smaller frame inside the bigger frame. 

Then it was time to add the clock kit, which I painted black.  I found the clock kit at Joann's and followed the instructions on it to install my clock and hands.  I cut holes in each of the frames to push the clock peices through, like this:



After the clock hands were in, I placed my frame on a picture frame stand and VIOLA!


























 Would you like to know the best part!?!  I made TWO of these lovely double-framed clocks!  That means I get one and YOU get the other one!  Just my little way to say THANK YOU for reading.  Thanks all you lovelies, we reached (and passed!) 350 followers! YAY!

CONGRATS TO MICHELLE AT SOMEDAY CRAFTS WHO WON THIS CLOCK!!


Linking up to:
Mondays:Between Naps on the Porch ; C.R.A.F.T; Craft-O-Maniac; Keeping it Simple; Mad in Crafts; Making the World Cuter; The DIY Showoff; The Girl Creative Tuesdays:  All Thingz Related; House of Grace; I'm Topsy Turvy; Lucky Star Lane; Sugar Bee Craft Edition; The CSI Project; These Creative Juices; Today's Creative Blog Wednesdays:  Blue Cricket Design; Creations by Kara; Debbiedoos; Domestically Speaking; My Backyard Eden; Night Owl Crafting; Seven Thirty Three; Someday Crafts; The Thrifty Home; Trendy Treehouse Thursdays: Beyond the Picket Fence; Craftastical!; Fireflies & Jellybeans; House of Hepworths; Life as Lori; Somewhat Simple; The Shabby Chic Cottage Fridays:  Chic on a Shoestring; Finding Fabulous; Fingerprints on the Fridge; Frou Frou Decor; Frugal & Fabulous Design; It's a Hodge Podge Life; It's Fun to Craft!: Just a Girl; Remodelaholic; Simply Designing; The Shabby Nest; Tatertots & Jello Weekend:  A  Little Lovely; Be Different Act Normal; Funky Junk Interiors; House of Thrifty Decor; I Heart Naptime; Kuzak's Closet; Under the Table & Dreaming

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

How Sweet!

There are SO many sweeties out in blog land that featured some of my projects this last week; and I'd like to say a huge "THANK YOU!" to all of them.  So here we go:

Bonnie at House of Grace
Stephanie Lynn at Under the Table and Dreaming
Michelle at Someday Crafts
Amanda at Home and Garden Craft Gossip (twice!!)
Leslie at Bargain Shopper's Paradise (twice!!)
Kara at Creations by Kara
Becky at Beyond the Picket Fence
Ginger at Super Stinky Boys
Valerie at Nettacow


My floors and socks also have a Thank You - to the Sisters at Kuzak's Closet - they had a WONDERFUL giveaway last week for a Swiffer Sweeper Vac - and I won!  All becuase I linked up to their fantastic weekly party, Sister Sister Sunday. (Stop over for a visit and link up - it's such a fun party!!)

Sister Sister Sunday



And can I just tell you HOW EXCITED I was that that I won?  Well I was.  Up until a few weeks ago I had my own lovely Swiffer that we used ALL the time.  And then, out of nowhere my Swiffer died.  Okay, it's not exactly out of nowhere - my hubby broke it.  And would you like to know HOW he broke it?  Well that's quite a story.....

He's been on this weird kick of taking kettle chips and sprinkiling them with seasonsings and then puting them in oven underneath the broiler.  Yes, it's weird -- or at least I think it is.  Apparently Champp's has some kind of chip like this?  I'm sure they don't make them like this, but whatever works, I guess.

He put his seasoned chips on a pan and put them under the broiler.  I suppose I should also tell you that I had moved the top rack ALL the way to the top while I was making room in there to bake my Mod Podge Lantern.  Do you see where this is going?  No, he did not move the rack, he placed his chips just inches away from the broiler, and walked away to make himself a sandwhich.  I was in the basement working at the time, when I heard stomping and running above me.   Before I knew it I heard, "Um! Can you HELP!?!"  As I go up the stairs I can see orange reflecting off of the walls -- I turn to see my sweet husband holding a pan of fire.  Seriously.  Flames everywhere.  We ended up taking it outside, but not before the smoke alarms started going off.  Also not before the smoke enveloped the rest of my house making it smell like an old cigar.  And also not before my dog ran out of the house and would not come back in for an hour because of the flames.

Anyhow, later on when I went back in the kitchen after everything was cleaned up, I saw my Swiffer in the trash.  I asked him how THAT happened (isn't a kitchen fire enough for one day?!?) and apparently in his mad dash to get the fire extinguisher (which was in a cardboard box that we couldn't get open - we've since removed the box in case there was a fire we needed it for) he somehow snapped the head off the Swiffer Sweeper.  I honestly can't figure out how one does this -- but he did.  So we were Swifferless.

According to him it's my Mod Podge Lantern that started the fire that broke the Swiffer Sweeper -- but I blame Champps.   Either way -- I'm SO happy I won that giveaway! :) 

Monday, July 26, 2010

The Best Stuff on Earth




Yes I AM talking about Snapple.  And to be more specific, I am talking about Snapple Trop-A-Rocka.  I CANNOT get enough of that delicious stuff!  And sadly, I can never find it at the store.  They are ALWAYS sold out -- so when they do happen to have it, I buy several cases...sometimes I buy it all -- even if I have to dig to the back of the shelf to get it.  Yes, I am THAT lady at the store.  Embarrassing.  Well since I'm guzzling this stuff all the time I had been recycling all those lovely glass bottles....until recently.  After taking a longer look at the bottles, I realized they were really cute -- they had a lovely shape, plus I had like a bazillion of them.

Now, I'll warn you  - this is not an original project.  I've seen people do this with other bottles...so unfortunately, I'm not the genius behind it's originality. But I did make it my own with some added decorations.

I peeled off the labels from my bottles, but it left a sticky residue behind.  Yuck.  

I took some goo gone and removed it and then cleaned the bottles so they were ready for my paint.

I grabbed a can of my Valspar Gloss White and gave the bottles a few coats of white loveliness.

Then I dug through my scrapbooking stash and added some rub-on vinyl I had leftover from a scrapbook page.  I thought my bottles needed a little bit more, so I added some of these jewels stick-on things to the mouths of the bottles.  If you decide to do this, you might want to glue them on -- mine kept sliding off after a while, so I decided to take the hot glue gun to them.  

So are you ready to see?


Cute?  And here's the close up of those jewels:


For a zero cost project I think it'll do. :)  And I'd love to show you where I put them.......but you'll just have to wait.  I have a whole room transformation that I can't wait to show you!  (but the paint's still drying, so I'll have to share another day).




Linking up to:
Mondays:Between Naps on the Porch ; C.R.A.F.T; Craft-O-Maniac; Keeping it Simple; Mad in Crafts; Making the World Cuter; The DIY Showoff; The Girl Creative Tuesdays:  All Thingz Related; House of Grace; I'm Topsy Turvy; Lucky Star Lane; Sugar Bee Craft Edition; The CSI Project; These Creative Juices; Today's Creative Blog Wednesdays:  Blue Cricket Design; Creations by Kara; Debbiedoos; Domestically Speaking; My Backyard Eden; Night Owl Crafting; Seven Thirty Three; Someday Crafts; The Thrifty Home; Trendy Treehouse Thursdays: Beyond the Picket Fence; Craftastical!; Fireflies & Jellybeans; House of Hepworths; Life as Lori; Somewhat Simple; The Shabby Chic Cottage Fridays:  Chic on a Shoestring; Finding Fabulous; Fingerprints on the Fridge; Frou Frou Decor; Frugal & Fabulous Design; It's a Hodge Podge Life; It's Fun to Craft!: Just a Girl; Remodelaholic; Simply Designing; The Shabby Nest; Tatertots & Jello Weekend:  A  Little Lovely; Be Different Act Normal; Funky Junk Interiors; House of Thrifty Decor; I Heart Naptime; Kuzak's Closet; Under the Table & Dreaming

  And don't forget to enter our Ad Giveaway HERE!

Friday, July 23, 2010

More Exciting News! (plus another giveaway!)

As promised I have another exciting change in store for The Hand Me Down House.  I'm so happy to announce that we are now accepting sponsors!  Be sure to visit my advertising page for all the rates and information.  And since I'm so new to the blogging world - feel free to suggest another form of advertising that I haven't mentioned - I'm open to any suggestions or ideas you may have.

 
But what I think is even more exciting is that to kick off our new venture, we're doing a giveaway.....a special advertising giveaway.  I'm going to give away TWO ad spots on my sidebar for the entire month of August.

So link up your stores below (I won't be using the comments for this giveaway, just the links).
    
Rules to participate-

1. It is required that you be the owner/operator of the shop
that you link up. (It doesn't have to be just Etsy)

2. It must be a family friendly items for sale.

3.  Although it's not required - but I would LOVE it if you were a follower! 


I'm hoping this link party will also bring some business to your stores, too.  If this link party is a success, I'd love to do this giveaway again. (So get the word out!!)


There you have it!  Link up until the end of the day, Wednesday, July 28, 2010 and next Thursday I will announce the winners!





Thursday, July 22, 2010

And The Winner Is....

It's time to announce our winner of the CSN $40.00 Gift Certificate!  Are you all excited!?!


The winner is #49:  Adam & Wendy at A&W



CONGRATULATIONS!



I wish I could give all of you a gift card!  But don't worry - we'll do another giveaway soon (like maybe Friday??) -- I have something very different, but very fun planned for this week and another next week -- so be sure to check back.

For today I also have a little something else to share with you -- we have a bloggy button!  YAY!  Do you love it???  Feel free to grab it and put it on your blog if you want! :)


The Hand Me Down House 
 




Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Hydrangea Topiary

Don't forget - today is the last day to enter our giveaway!

With summer in full swing in Minnesota, we've been enjoying fresh flowers a lot.  And I LOVE fresh flowers right from the garden.  But sadly they don't last forever.  Before I know it, it's time to replace my little lovelies with a new arrangement.  And even though artificial flowers last forever, they just can't measure up to the real ones....most of the time.

I keep seeing great projects out here in blogland where people make fake flowers look SO real, and so beautiful.  I wanted to get in on the action....so I thought I would give fake flowers a try this week.

I had found this ugly vase/urn thing at the thrift store last week. 


Eeeeeew!  The green and gold were just NOT working for me.  But what a cute little shape, right?  (I'm just kicking myself that I didn't buy the two other matching urns that were there.  Oh well.).  Step one was to spray paint that vase a more flattering color.

I just needed something to put in my new thrift store find.  While I was at Joanne's I saw that they had all their spring flowers on sale for 70% off.  It didn't matter to me that they were spring flowers - they're still flowers, aren't they!?!?

So I bought five hydrangea stems.

Pretty, right?  I didn't care that they were spring colors - I loved the pink and peach in the middle of the flowers.

I also found a floral  styrofoam ball lying around that I never used for another craft (which just happened to fit perfectly into my new urn - yay!).

I took my hydrangea stems and cut them apart.  I cut each individual flower off of main stem.  You'll want it so that there's about an inch to half inch of stem left off the flower base.


Just like so.  Then I took a pencil and poked a hole into the styrofoam ball (a really professional technique, I know).  


Take one of the hydrangea flowers and poke it into the hole.  You want the stem to go through part of the styrofoam, but you don't want to bend the stem.  I tried poking it in on it's own first and I ended up bending the wire stem and ruining the flower.  So then I tried the pencil method - it worked really well.  Just be careful not put a hole that is TOO big in the styrofoam, otherwise the flower will fall out.


There, one done!  Only like a million more flowers to go.  Now continue pushing flower stems into the styrofoam ball until it is covered with flowers, or your thumb feels like it's going to fall off -- whichever comes first.  My holes ended up being about 1/2 inch apart, depending on the size of the flower I put in.  I tried to make sure I had small and big flowers next to each other to give a varied, more natural look.

I used almost all of the five stems going around the topiary ball.  But I was SO incredibly thrilled with how my fake flowers turned out.  It actually turned out better than I had expected.  Here's what the hydrangea covered sphere looks like:


Do you love it??  Then I placed the topiary ball into my spray-painted urn:

Perfect!  Now I can enjoy "spring" flowers all year long!!

Here's the materials and cost breakdown for this project:

Floral or Styrofoam Ball:  Had on hand
Flower Stems (I used hydrangeas):  $1.05 each x 5 = 5.25
Urn, vase or pot:  $2.99
Spray Paint:  Had on hand
Scissors
Pencil

TOTAL:  $8.24

Not bad, right?  And don't worry, the thumb pain from pushing the flowers in isn't really all that bad - you'll forget all about it when you see your beauteous flower topiary. :)
Linking up to:
Mondays:Between Naps on the Porch ; C.R.A.F.T; Craft-O-Maniac; Keeping it Simple; Mad in Crafts; Making the World Cuter; The DIY Showoff; The Girl Creative Tuesdays:  All Thingz Related; House of Grace; I'm Topsy Turvy; Lucky Star Lane; Sugar Bee Craft Edition; The CSI Project; These Creative Juices; Today's Creative Blog Wednesdays:  Blue Cricket Design; Creations by Kara; Debbiedoos; Domestically Speaking; My Backyard Eden; Night Owl Crafting; Seven Thirty Three; Someday Crafts; The Thrifty Home; Trendy Treehouse Thursdays: Beyond the Picket Fence; Craftastical!; Fireflies & Jellybeans; House of Hepworths; Life as Lori; Somewhat Simple; The Shabby Chic Cottage Fridays:  Chic on a Shoestring; Finding Fabulous; Fingerprints on the Fridge; Frou Frou Decor; Frugal & Fabulous Design; It's a Hodge Podge Life; It's Fun to Craft!: Just a Girl; Remodelaholic; Simply Designing; The Shabby Nest; Tatertots & Jello Weekend:  A  Little Lovely; Be Different Act Normal; Funky Junk Interiors; House of Thrifty Decor; I Heart Naptime; Kuzak's Closet; Under the Table & Dreaming




Tuesday, July 20, 2010

A Buncha Thank Yous!

Last week was so much fun over here at The Hand Me Down House - and I have some people to thank for that! :)


First of all, there were some VERY sweet ladies who featured me and my projects on their own ridiculously amazing blogs.

The DIY Showoff

C.R.A.F.T

Bobbypins Boardwalk

Just a Girl

The CSI Project (twice!!) 

These blogs are some of my absolute FAVORITES - so I can't even tell you how honored I am that they shared one of my projects with their readers! 

Also - I have updated my Mod Podge Strikes Again post to include some details on the exact mixture of Mod Podge and food coloring I used.  And what's even better is I've given you the link to Autum's blog, Creative Little Daisy.  She is the brains behind baking the Mod Podge mixture (dumb me, I couldn't remember the name of her blog....sorry Autum!!)

Don't forget to enter our giveaway!  Tomorrow's the last day to get your entry in!!



Monday, July 19, 2010

Welcome!

I LOVE  "Welcome" signs....front door wreaths...anything fun for the front door -- I absolutely adore it all (yes, pun intended).  I have lots of welcome signs for different seasons....but just recently I realized that I don't have anything for everyday use. Well how rude of me!!  I thought it was high time we got a welcome sign, inviting people into our house....especially since our pup's barking probably sends people running in the other direction with those terrible high-pitched howls.  


I found this frame at Goodwill last week and I knew it would work PERFECT for a front door "Welcome" sign.  Not that I have anything against rainbows and waterfalls - this picture is just not my style.  But the frame had "come on in" written aaaaall over it!

And as with all fun projects -- the first thing I did was spray paint that little frame.  The thing about our front door though, is that it faces South.  And it is HOT!  (yes even in Minnesota)  Our front door gets SO very hot that anything we hang on the door seems to be affected.  In the winter our wreaths practically fry under the sun's rays and in the summer the inside handle feels like it's on fire.  With that little background on our door, I will tell you, I chose a "high-heat" paint.  The kind that is meant for grills and such.  I'm hoping this will stand up to that Southern sun and not melt away. 

I did not put the backing, picture or glass back into my frame;  I left it open.  I then took these little wooden detail thingies from the hardware store (it was about $5.00 for two) and spray-painted them to match my frame.  Pretty, yes?


I put my square details on the back of my frame in each corner.  That way you don't see the seams where the wood frame and the detail meet, but you do get to see plenty of my lovely square.

<<< Back of frame without square detail.

Back of the frame with square >>>
detail.




Each corner should look like this on the front:


Next I took some leftover ribbon and some painted wooden welcome letters and attached them to the middle of my open frame.  I also used the same ribbon to hang my frame on the front door.  Easy peasy!! That's it - but I am SO thrilled with how it turned out!! :)


Now hopefully my sign will combat that cute barker of ours!


Linking up to:
Mondays:Between Naps on the Porch ; C.R.A.F.T; Craft-O-Maniac; Keeping it Simple; Mad in Crafts; Making the World Cuter; The DIY Showoff; The Girl Creative Tuesdays:  All Thingz Related; House of Grace; I'm Topsy Turvy; Lucky Star Lane; Sugar Bee Craft Edition; The CSI Project; These Creative Juices; Today's Creative Blog Wednesdays:  Blue Cricket Design; Creations by Kara; Debbiedoos; Domestically Speaking; My Backyard Eden; Night Owl Crafting; Seven Thirty Three; Someday Crafts; The Thrifty Home; Trendy Treehouse Thursdays: Beyond the Picket Fence; Craftastical!; Fireflies & Jellybeans; House of Hepworths; Life as Lori; Somewhat Simple; The Shabby Chic Cottage Fridays:  Chic on a Shoestring; Finding Fabulous; Fingerprints on the Fridge; Frou Frou Decor; Frugal & Fabulous Design; It's a Hodge Podge Life; It's Fun to Craft!: Just a Girl; Remodelaholic; Simply Designing; The Shabby Nest; Tatertots & Jello Weekend:  A  Little Lovely; Be Different Act Normal; Funky Junk Interiors; House of Thrifty Decor; I Heart Naptime; Kuzak's Closet; Under the Table & Dreaming