Aunt Peaches

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$9 Glitter Dishes

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I have been wanting glitter plates for years. Have I been able to find them? No.

Glitter toilet seat? Yes. Glitter spoons? Yes. Glitter plates? No.

So I made my own. And they are awesome.  

Dinner time is looking like a night at the disco. Thank you Martha Stewart paints!

Martha Stewart Multi Surface Craft Paint is safe to use on glass. It’s non-toxic, and and after curing for 21 days, it is safe to use in the dishwasher.

DID YOU HEAR THAT? THE DISHWASHER.

*Note, I am jumping the gun a little here because I’m posting these only a few days after painting. In a month I’ll write a follow up to tell you how they hold up in the dishwasher, but in the meantime, I can tell you I painted them Saturday morning, ate on them Sunday night, and washed them in the sink Monday morning. So far, so good.

The best part of it is I have a whole new set of holiday china for under $10. Where can you beat that?

Materials
*$6.00 for six glass plates (most any dollar store or thrift store will sell these)
*$3.00 one 2oz bottle of Martha Stewart Multi Surface Glitter Acrylic Paint ($2.99 at Michael’s) PS: It comes in a crazy variety of colors. I used the coarse glitter in Florentine Gold, but I might go back and do some candle votives with the fine glitter in lime green.Woot!

Directions
Clean and dry the plate really well. Paint the back of the plate. Let it dry an hour and paint it again. Let it dry 24 hours before you eat on it.  

Yup. That’s it!

The most complicated part in all this is making sure you don’t get paint on the front of the plate. If you can handle that much, you’re good as golden glittered.

Tip 1: Give up on the idea of making the glitter lay even. It’s not going to happen. Embrace irregularity. Glitter wants to dance, so let her do it.

Tip 2: After the paint is on, run a clean fingertip around the edge of the plate to keep it clear of glitter. This isn’t a big deal but it will keep your plates looking pretty when they are stacked up on the shelf.

Tip 3: Don’t smear it on like regular paint, stipple it on by bouncing a small sponge up and down, or by quickly tapping your paintbrush all over. Smearing across the surface will just wipe all the glitter into your sponge/brush, which is probably not where you want to keep it.

I know some of my food blogger friends are reading this and thinking how much they need a glitter plate as a photo prop. And it’s true my friends, you do!

This post is sponsored by Martha Stewart Paints, a Plaid Crafts product, in conjunction with Blueprint Social. The opinions expressed in this post are entirely my own. Martha Stewart Paints can be found in every color on the shelves of your local Michael’s craft store, aka The Mother Ship.

Check out Plaid Crafts on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.

No-Sew Mini Skirt Pillow

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I bought a skirt on clearance thinking it would look sooooooo cute that I didn’t even bother to try it on at the store.
Then I got home and it was sooooooo bad that I sat on the couch and ate my feelings in croissants.

Then my feelings got butter stains all over the skirt and the opportunity to return my purchase flew out the window then and there.

So here we are two years later, Me and Skirt, and Skirt is still wearing her original tags.

Skirt said, “I deserve to come out and play!”

I said, “Not on my ass you’re not.”







Will any skirt work for this project? Sorta. Thicker fabric like corduroy, denim and velvet would work best, as would any skirt with straight lines. This zebra skirt is actually slightly A-lined but you don’t notice it at all once it’s stuffed. This is important: look for skirts that have a lining or inner waistband. You can glue the seams together at the bottom pretty neatly, but in order to get the top  to lay right you will want it to grip onto something. By gluing the inner waistbands to each other (not the actual skirt fabric), your pillow form can eventually slide up to fill the skirt right to the top of the waist band. Gosh, I hope that made sense.

Can I use hot glue?  Yes but it will fall apart after a couple weeks of regular use. I suggest Aileen’s fabric glue (about $6 a bottle). It dries 100% clear and the bond is strong enough to last through the washing machine’s gentle cycle (I speak from experience on this front).

The key here is to stuff the pillow form, pin it inside clear away from the seams, and THEN get the glue out. When you lay down the glue, run a generous zig-zag along the inner seam, but also run a thin line half an inch from the edge.

The clothespins keep everything clamped together as it dries (No clothespins? Use paperclips).

Now, let’s just get this out of the way. I know some people are going to look at this and think, A no-sew pillow? Why not just sew it? To you, good seamstress, you are right. I did it that way on a sequin skirt a while back. But not everyone knows how to hand sew or has ready access to a machine. If you can sew, awesome. But on a project like this, a good quality fabric glue is a great alternative!
I know some people also worry about removing the pillow to wash the sham. Why? Just wash the pillow inside the case. The pillow fluff is where all the dust mites and dead skin cells build up. Wash your pillows, y’all! I mean it. Don’t believe me? Watch this video.

And that’s it. Boom Chaka Lacka.  Hope this makes sense. Let me know if you have questions or concerns. I know the concept of gluing fabric can be intimidating, but you’ll just have to trust me, it’s more fun than you think!

PS: Have a long flowing skirt that isn’t just right for pillow making material?  Turn it into curtain in less than three minutes. 

A Good Use for Leftover Paint

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I hate wasting paint. I’m trying to get better about letting go of unnecessary things, but paint feels like such a luxury. Wasting it, even a drop of the cheap stuff, makes me nervous. To counter this problem,  I pair my leftover paint with my leftover shopping bags and presto-chango I am ready for gift wrapping at any time!

Okay, I lied. That part about leftover shopping bags is only half-true. Sometimes I buy packages of plain white bags at my local dollar store for this express purpose. But I still save gobs of money in the long run, so, I’m okay with that.

I would also like you to note that I use leftover egg cartons as paint pallets. If you are sensing a theme here (and hearing the theme song to Hoarders), you are not alone.

I happened to have some Hanukkah stickers in easy reach so I used them, but you could certainly use whatever you like. In the top image, on the big bag, I used those office label dot things. Use whatever you have around or your kiddos are willing to forgo. When I was a kid I didn’t share my sticker collection with anyone. ANYONE I TELL YOU.

Sweet Valley High, I have such a thing for patterned tissue paper. It makes everything look better. Simple patterns like dots and stripes are my favorite, especially with an abstract bag like this. I’m considering buying a carton of leopard print tissue to get me through the holidays. This place has the best stuff. 


Not into painted bags? Use envelopes. They are just as fun.
   

 

A Family Portrait, Coloring Book Style

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Eat your heart out, Olan Mills!

I’m a wee bit addicted to my new favorite iphone app: Sketch Me!  It converts digital photos into sketches. The black and white sketches are nifty enough on their own, but the fun really kicks in when you print them at home and break out the crayons. Hello custom coloring book!

PS: Don’t worry if you do not have a smartphone, you can mimic the Sketch It! effect with photoshop, or register at Crayola.com to use their Lights Camera Color tool. 

Months ago, when I committed to assembling a portrait gallery, I decided I wanted this fabulous Olan Mills portrait of my cousins up on the wall. Not just because they are some of my favorite people, and they were really cute kids, but because I have a thing for retrotastic Olan Mills portraits with fake fall scenery. I mean, Hello Awkward Family Photos. 

Wondering when this picture was taken?  Well….

Welcome to the world baby Luke!


So, after converting the photo and printing it out on letter size paper, I took it to my local copy shop and asked them to enlarge it to just over 16″x20″, the size of my frame. It cost $5.95, which I probably could have reduced if I had done it myself, but I wanted it to be a specific size and I get mighty irritated when it comes to messing with machinery. Some things are best left to the professionals.

My friend Ann’s dog, Cody, posing on the yellow brick road.
Stephanie looks surprisingly good with pink hair….
and as wrapping paper…

More Liberace Pumpkins

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Last year I made two snazztastic Liberace pumpkins. Now this year they made three friends. Okay, maybe I made them. Just the same, they are altogether now a happy gang of five. Next year I’ll aim for nine. I figure if Liberace appreciated anything above all else, it would be abundance. 

My favorite is the one I am calling The Snooki Pumpkin (not to be confused with Alexa’s amazing Snooki Pumpkin). Mine started out as a $1.99 foam pumkpin from Goodwill. It was a little rough around the edges so I decoupaged it with leopard print tissue paper, sealed it with Mod Podge mixed with a spoonful of gold glitter, then just to keep things classy, I topped it off with some randomly dispersed orange rhinestones ringed with concentric circles of puff paint. The painted dots are so simple but they add a sort of ethnic flair I think. I’m not sure what kind of ethnic flair that might be but I know it’s there.

Happy Halloween!

Let’s Get Leafy

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It’s fall y’all. 
…or autumn y’all. 
…or pumpkin latte season at Starbucks y’all.  
Let’s embrace it.
Let’s get leafy.

If you have followed this blog for a while you might recognize this project. It’s a lot like the valentine garland I hung up last February. It was supposed to come down by March but I liked it so much I let it hang up year round. Which is really just a nice way of saying I was too lazy to take it down, so okay, you got me, my butt is a lazy one. Revelation I think not. 

I like this project because 1. It was 100% free, and 2. I can leave it hanging September to November, and even after that it can stay on display in my pantry window or some corner of the house that doesn’t need to look all seasonally fancified. 

I know someone is going to have a  fit because I’m promoting the use of plastic bags, so let me get this out of the way: I double dog pinky-swear to you that I own a hundred reusable bags and use them on a regular basis. They just don’t always come with me when I need them. They sit at home all day watching Sister/Sister marathons on off-network cable. If they don’t show up when and where I need them, it cannot be helped. So sometimes, just sometimes, I resort to using plastic bags. I already feel guilty about the matter so please, oh please, EASE UP ALREADY.
OK.  
Now let’s get back to the pretty parts 🙂

Materials:
  • 15 Plastic grocery bags (5 will get painted, 10 will remain unpainted)
  • latex paint
  • electric iron
  • parchment paper
  • tin foil
  • sewing machine (or needle and thread)
If there is a stereotype about women refusing to read directions and only looking at the pictures, I am walking confirmation. I hate following complicated directions. Hate. It. First, I have unfold the damn paper like it’s some old-timey road map to Jellystone National Park. ThenI have to find the half-way point where I can skip to because, obviously, I am superior and know all the pre-cursor steps involved. Thennnnn I get tired of that so I just skip to the pictures (that’s pretty much my life motto: skip to the pictures).
So, with that in mind, I am going to try to demo this project with just photos and captions.

To start out, take 15 plastic bags and paint the inside of 5 of them

When the paint is dry, trim of the bag handles and the bottoms.


To fuse the plastic together, sandwich the painted bags in-between the non-painted bags, then sandwich that in between parchment paper. The thickness of the plastic bags will determine the thickness of your leaves. Personally, I like 6 layers of plastic Target bags (=3 target bags total), but you could do this with twice that many if you wanted super thick leaves. Your sewing machine might not like them that thick, but we will get to that in a minute. 

Iron it flat using slow circular motions. Give it a few seconds to rest, then peel off the parchment paper. The end result should look and feel like a giant plastic potato chip.

Cut leaf shapes shapes. You can trace. I free formed. ‘Cuz I’m ballsy like that.

Cut strips of old tissue paper roughly 2″ wide and as long as you want your garland strips to hang.
Allow for 10″ of thread, then begin sewing a line down the tissue. After a few inches, insert one leaf. Sew several more inches, then randomly insert another leaf.You could follow a pattern, but if the nice thing about autumn is how lush and random everything looks. Embrace the randomness!

Note: If you do not have a sewing machine you could do this by laying your leaves out in a row and laying a glue-drenched piece of cotton string across them. It will take two days to dry, and won’t look as pretty from the back, but who cares? 

Use your fingers to tear away the tissue paper. Tip 1: The smaller the stitches the cleaner the tear. Tip 2: tear away from the thread instead of tugging side-to-side.

Use simple knots to tie it to a tension rod. 
Shazam. That’s it!

The sun filters through the layers of paint and plastic in a way that my camera cannot capture. It’s nothing less than spectacular.

Hang them behind a curtain and they make the niftiest shadows. 

Let me know if you have any questions. I hope to see these hanging in your window soon! 



Stuff worth saying…

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You might recognize the Picasso in  Daley Plaza from the car chase scene from the movie, The Blues Brothers.

I am hesitant to write this blog post because it’s not related to creativity or fun stuff in any way. But frankly, I’m still feeling rattled by the incident and sometimes it’s good to vent about these things. And if there is a learning curve in here somewhere, for myself or anyone reading this, then that is well worth the price of any awkwardness raised by what I’m about to write.

So I’ll just come out and say it: Last week I was taking a break with a friend over at Daley Plaza when a man attempted to kidnap a small child. The perpetrator was a total stranger. It’s the sort of thing you see in the movies and assume you would know what to do in real life…but that just isn’t the case.

Thank goodness her father saw what was happening, tackled the guy, chased him down and flagged the police before he got away. You can read a full account here. It’s pretty creepy. What rattles me is knowing that this all went down less than 100′ away from me, clear in my line of sight, and I didn’t even notice it.

In fact, neither one of us realized the extent of what had gone on until we saw the police commotion down the street and read the details in the paper the next day. Clearly this situation was the result of an individual with rampant mental illness, but that does not make the incident any less disturbing or excusable.

So what am I trying to say here?

No 1. Props to all you parents out there. No, seriously. I never understood that phrase, “Having a kid like letting your heart walk around outside your chest.” But now, I think I just might get it. 

No 2. One of the reasons that child’s father was able to prevent the abduction is because he saw it happen. His daughter was too young to look away for even a minute. Had she been a year or two older, maybe that would not have been the case. Maybe he would have been checking his phone or paying attention to his other children at that moment. Who knows what could have happened. Thank goodness she is alright.

So…since last week I have found myself cruising the internet looking up all sorts of articles and information on child abduction. That must seem pretty weird to you considering the fact that I don’t have any children, but it’s all I can do to ease some frantic sense of urgency that this sort of thing could happen any minute. And here is the really scary part: it happens all the time. A child goes missing or is abducted every 40 seconds in the United States.

Look, I don’t want to be an alarmist. I don’t. I won’t. But if you have little kids at home, can you do me a favor? As soon as your kids are old enough, please teach them to look for strangers.

Note: I said look for strangers. I did not say teach your kids “Don’t talk to strangers.” Most folks my age grew up knowing the latter, but really, it’s the looking you want them to know about.

As a non-Mom, I’m not about to give advice on this subject. I am, however, going to direct you to a website busting with oodles of information that I’ll bet my parents never knew. If you want a synopsis read this: “Tricky People” Are The New Strangers from ChecklistMommy. What it all boils down to is that your child’s ability to spot and avoid “tricky people” is the most effective way for them to prevent harm in the first place. A child’s self-reliance is always the first, last, and best line of defense. 

Stuff my parents never knew

Look, I know we all grew up knowing about Stranger Danger, but you need to realize that those “Strangers” were kids once and they all grew up learning the same warning signs as you…..well, now what do you do?

I don’t know.

As a latch-key-kid, I grew up with an overly-protective father who insisted on me wearing shoes with hefty heels at all times, even to the beach, because 1. He thought they would make the difference if I ever had to run away from something or someone and 2. “They’ll do more damage if you have to kick someone in the eyes” (his words — not mine). I have an uncle who taught me how to bust up a grown man’s kneecap with the single jab of a fork. Another uncle who showed me I could disable a car by ripping a button off my shirt and jamming it in the ignition slot. I have lived in pristine wilderness and rough urban neighborhoods and taken every survival precaution I could think of. Currently, as a single woman living in a major city, I know dozens of tricks for keeping myself safe from harm. I have taken adult self defense classes and even spent a birthday or two a firing range. A week ago, if you had asked me if I was comfortable defending myself and those around me, I would have said “Yes.”

Now I’m not so sure.

I don’t want to end this on a down note, so I am going to ask you to just take a second and think about it. What would you do if you, or someone you knew, or someone right in front of you, was hurt or harmed in some way? How would you react? Don’t assume you will be a hero. Don’t assume you will even know that it happened. Just think about it and put a plan in place as best you can. God forbid something should ever happen, you might just know what to do.

OK. That’s it. Stepping off my soap box now. Thank for hearing me out, guys. I don’t like to bring up bad news but sometimes there is stuff worth saying…

Hugs to you and yours,

~Aunt Peaches

Painted Party Supplies

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I wanted to have a few people over for a last-hurrah in the yard before the cold weather sets in. We had a few things to celebrate and it gives me good reason to make armadillo dip, which, let’s be honest, is in itself a reason to celebrate. I needed some party supplies but didn’t feel like spending the time or money on finding some matchy-matchy shlock down at the party store. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I like Dora the Explorer as much as anyone else, but I don’t like eating cake off her face or drinking from a cup emblazoned with a purple monkey butt.  

¡Hola mi amiga margarita!

So I  rustled through my pantry and pulled out what I could find leftover from previous shindiggery. Paper plates? Sure. White paper cups? Yes. Coffee filters? No problem.

20 minutes to paint and two hours to dry…BAM. Well looky here…. 

Fact: food tastes better on pretty plates (and spoons). Same goes with drinks.  

Tracy made some of her grandma’s homemade bathtub gin (minus the bathtub) that was beyond delicious. We drank it with ginger-ale with lemon and fresh thyme. I’m sure it would have tasted great out old tuna fish cans, but somehow the prettiness of paper cups enhanced the experience.

Learning curve: Make sure to leave an exposed band around the top and bottom. Even if you are using non-toxic watercolor (or food coloring) and wax-lined cups (as I was), cold drinks can cause condensation and the paint may smudge off on your tablecloth. Or worse, your guests. 


Or skip using them the cups to serve and poke them onto string lights. 

 
Instead of having one big bowl of chips or veggies, I like to have multiple small bowls within easy reach of everyone at the table. Problem: I don’t have that many bowls. So I fold up the sides of some paper plates, stapled the corners, and boom it’s a serving bowl (click here for directions).  

The coffee filter adds ruffle and serves as a dish liner, should you want to swap or refresh items mid-party. That’s an old catering trick — use disposable liners to exchange the contents on serving dishes — everyone will think you have an endless supply of crockery.

*Cookie for me for using the term crockery in a sentence. I am THIS CLOSE to living it like Angela Landsbury as Mrs. Potts from Beauty and the Beast. COOKIE FOR ME!

A one-time paper bag cut in half now holds cutlery. It’s sturdy enough to stand up and takes up less space on the table than a big hefty basket.  
Speaking of bags… I have a thing for paper bags. I also have a thing for luminarias. This just needed to happen…

I hope you get a chance to entertain outdoors one last time before the summer ends!

 

Decahedron Himmeli Mobile

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I know what you are thinking: Deck-a-wha?

Here, let’s break it down….

Decahedron: A polyhedron with ten flat faces. Apparently, there are sub-sets of decahedron too. This one is a pentagonal dipyramid decahedron. Just typing that sentence makes me feel pretty effin’ mathtastic.

Himmeli: A traditional Finnish Christmas ornament made from short strips of straw. Back in the day it would be hung above the dinner table to ensure that next year’s rye crop would be plentiful. It was believed that the larger the himmeli, the larger the crop. 

Even though its origins lay in Finland, I know Himmeli as a form of Lithuanian folk art. The two countries are not exactly next-door neighbors, so I hope the folks in Finland don’t think Lithuania is trying to jack their style. This is just one of those old world art forms that is too good to not share.

Here in Chicago, where you can’t hardly swing a dead cat without hitting someone Lithuanian, these little straw ornaments are crazy popular come Christmas time. If you ever have to switch planes in Midway airport around the holidays, I highly recommend you sneak in five minutes to visit the giant Christmas tree decorated by the Lithuanian consulate. The himmelis situation is insane. 

And so what if they are a Christmas project? I am hanging mine up all year round. It’s pretty and modern and mathy. It sways and swivels in the breeze. I want ten of them!



Materials:

  • straight plastic straws, 16 per decahedron (snip off any bendy parts)*
  • extra thin thing florist wire (I think mine here is 26 gauge)**
  • scissors
  • long wooden BBQ skewers (optional)

*Note: Traditional himmelis are made with a needle and thread. I find the florist wire much easier to work with, but I’ll admit that the end result will dangle and move more gracefully if you use thread. Your choice!

**Note: I am using a variety of colored straws for the instructional purposes only. Is that obvious? I’m hoping so.  

Instructions:
Near the end of one straw, poke the wire through the plastic, and twist it back, leaving at least one inch of extra wire. This is your starting point.


Think of the decahedron as a big fat star. It needs five legs. Start by creating four legs (two straws each) with a bend in the knee. Bring all four points together and use the extra wire to tie them all together in a single joint.

Not that kind of joint.

Note: do not snip extra wire, just keeping adding as you need it.


 Now your big fat star has five legs. You just need to bulk it up a little more.


Ta da! Big fat star is complete. Now thread the wire back up through one of the legs to the center joint and attach one more leg. That’s it.

My mobile contains seven small decahedrons +one large decahedron, made the exact same as the small ones but I used three straws for each “leg” of the star. No tape — I just pinched the end to make them fit into one another and reinforced with 18″ wooden BBQ skewers. For such a delicate thing it is surprisingly sturdy.

In case my instructions do not make sense (imagine that?) I suggest you check out this video on how-to make a four-sided himmeli. It’s in Finnish but you don’t need to understand the words to absorb her directions. Check it:




$3.00 Rainbow Doily Spinners

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I had been saving this idea a for a baby shower, but dontchaknow, all the babies-to-be that I know are being showered out-of-state this year.

Just the same, I’m not letting that stop me — I made a small scale model to share with you guys today. I mean, someone out there must have a baby shower or birthday party or some fun occasion to make them, right?

Right.


These are so fun and delicate looking. I chose a color scheme somewhere between rainbow and Easter egg, but you could customize as you like or leave them all white and use them for a bridal shower. Or go crazy and tie-dye. Or use markers and write messages and stuff. Wouldn’t that be fun?

Materials

  • 40 Paper Doilies ($3.00 at the party supply store)
  • Watercolor paint (don’t tell me you don’t already own this — no creative person can live without!)
  • Tissue paper cut into roughly 4″ strips (any old rumpled paper will do just fine)
  • Sewing machine (or staples — see below)

Instructions
Working in stacks of two or three, use watercolor paint to cover the perimeter of each doily and hang to dry. Working is small stacks will help to stabilize the delicate paper and prevent the laciest parts from tearing, but thick stacks will leave bald batches and that’s no goo good. Unless of course you like bald patches. I myself am not opposed 🙂

I chose to iron  my doilies (sandwiched between an old napkin) because they rippled up after drying in direct sun, but you could probably skip that step if your doilies dried slower and are still reasonably flat.

After they are dry, arrange your doilies in stacks of three, fold in half and cut out the solid patch in the middle, creating a ‘window effect.’


Now for the sewing; using a small stitch (the #2 setting on my machine), begin sewing a straight line down the tissue paper, then a few inches in, insert the stack of three doilies and continue. As long as the stitches are small and the needle is sharp, the machine should have no trouble sewing through paper at all. In fact, if you have never tried sewing paper before, this is a good project to start with.   

To stitch multiple spinners on each strand (I did two to four on each) continue sewing a few inches past the stack of three doilies, then insert another stack. Repeat as desired. When you are finished adding spinners, pull at least 18″ of unused thread before cutting (that will be how you hang it).

*No sew alternative: Skip the stitching and use a couple of staples instead. You might need to skip the cut-out window in the middle, but they would still be pretty darn nifty. Hang with a single piece of thread looped through the top staple.

While they are still attached to the tissue paper, carry the garlands to the location where you will hang them. On a solid surface, flip them over, tear away tissue paper, and immediately hang. I taped mine to a lighting fixture, but they are very light weight and could go just about anywhere.

Important: these garlands tangle very easily. Avoid snags and tears by leaving them flat and attached to the tissue until the last minute, then hang them in place and individually pull them apart.

You may or may not need to crease the doilies so they stand out on their own. I found that sewing machine  I’m tempted to see what happens if I snip the thread from the middle, but to tell you the truth, I sort of like it there. I don’t mind lose threads. They only add to the delicacy and daintiness, you know?

You can see what I mean about those bald patches I mentioned earlier — above on the right — see it’s a mix of white and orange? The paint did not fully saturate. It’s not what I was going for but I sort of like it. I appreciate a happy accident, don’t you?

They flutter and spin with even the slightest breeze. I could stare at them for ages.

Not bad for $3.00.