Craft Time....Giveaway Time!

More coasters!! Some of these are for gifts, some are for a handmade gift exchange, some are to add more to mom's stash, some are for me.

In the spirit of the season, I thought I would give away a set of coasters. The winner gets a customized set. To enter, leave a comment of what handmade gifts you will be making this year (or buying if you don't do much crafting) and that is all! Well, if your name is not linked to a blog, please list your email address as well so I can get in touch with you if you win. I will randomly draw for a winner on Saturday, Dec 7. So sign up!

Be sure to look through some of the other coasters in my posts to see if there is anything special you would like. And if you would like to place an order for a set, I am selling them for $10 plus S&H. 2 sets for $15 plus S&H. More than that, we can talk. :) Just send me an email to farmgirl.chaos (at) gmail (dot) com with your order.

I haven't yet ventured in to selling on Etsy...but have thought about it. Any suggestions?

Crafts Galore!

While spending a sick day at home on Tuesday, I thought I would try to be a little productive and work on some craft projects to sell to a friends mom, to stock her new store. The fun thing about the store, I was told that she hopes to sell things that people make or make better.

Here we go. I decided to make some labels for my items. Not exactly ideal...but it worked for now. Anybody have any suggestions of where to get some great and fun tags?

Now on to the first project. I picked up these coasters at Salvation Army. Actually, all of things I made better came from Salvation Army.

I sanded them a bit just to rough them up so the spray adhesive would stick. Then I added the paper, a little inking done to the edges, and there you go.

SO MUCH BETTER! Hmm. Too bad I don't keep these for myself. I'm sure someone will enjoy them.

Up next...more coasters! However, these are tile coasters. I used a variety of stamps, and the black and brown Staz-On stamp pad.

(I have a set of the above for myself. My favorite! 4 different belt buckles.)

I believe the next project was probably one of the most dramatic. I like it a lot! First off, we have gross and boring.

Then we come to this. Clean and rustic looking.

This dome display looked pretty bad as well. I had to take some Goo-Gone to the glass part to clean off who knows what. For the base, I sanded it quite well, both top and bottom.

With a couple layers of brown paint and clean glass, you get this.

Last of the big projects...a little crate for a set of coasters. I sanded the wood just so the paint would stick. And it goes from this...

...to this, in just a few minutes.

And because I didn't think I had enough to do, I decided to finally jazz up some hand sanitizer bottles. I will be taking the 2 right bottles to one of the schools I serve. The counseling secretaries enjoy stamping and making cards, so I thought they would enjoy these as well. The one on the left is for me. I thought I should keep something finally. :)

Finally, I decided to bring some life to a notebook I will be using to keep track of the things I make for Farmgirl Chaos.

I hope you enjoyed what you saw. If you have any questions about any of the projects, please let me know. I'd be happy to help.

Happy Crafting!

Tile Coasters

For the benefit that was last night, I decided to make some coasters.

When I got the tiles, I had addition gift ideas in mine. I knew I was going to make one set for my mom...the far right column, since her birthday is coming up. Don't worry, she got them early. So not spoiling the surprise here. :) I also made myself a set. The 2nd column from the left.

I already have requests for some, because the 3 I took for the silent auction were fought over in bidding wars. If anyone else out there would like a custom set of coasters, let me know. I just might have to finally start an Etsy shop.

Crafting Again...

It's been way too long since I have done any crafting. Finally, this past Wednesday night, I had nothing going on. So I spent the evening doing a few crafting projects. I was quite pleased with them. :)

The first project...I can't remember where I saw it, but someone etched words on jars and I LOVED it. (Well, I still love it.) I forgot to take a before picture. But I started with some plain glass jars that I have been using to hold my sugar, sweets, and flour. I dumped out all the goods, cleaned and dried the jars. I then taped off the area that I wanted to etch with painters tape. Then I centered the stickered words on the jars. (I ended up using the middle stickers that were with the pack that I bought. I originally wanted to use a size bigger, but they were too big. So the middle size worked just fine.)



Once everything was set, I used a foam brush and brushed on a think layer of the glass etching stuff. Let it sit for at least 1 minute (I think I waited longer).




Without touching it, wash off the etching stuff. Once it was all washed off, I then took the tape and stickers off.

I then rewashed the jars, dried them, and filled them back up with their item. I apologize for the final picture. It looks much better in person. It was just very had for the camera to see it.





If I get the chance to do something like this again, I will make sure I put the etching cream on a lot thicker than what I did. I thought it was thick, but I completely missed some spots. So if you attempt this project, don't be stingy with the etching cream. Lay it on thick!


Now on to the next project...custom coasters! I got this idea from a fellow TRiO employee, and here is what I ended up with.


I found the ceramic tiles at Lowe's for 28 cents each. The stamps can be whatever stamp design you would like to use. The ink needs to be the StazOn Ink Pads (Hobby Lobby has them if you want to pick one up. They aren't on sale this week and the weekly coupon is not the 40% off one, so my fabulous Stampin' Up demonstrator let be borrow her black and red StazOn ink. Don't worry, I'll be getting her a new black pad as soon as they go on sale or the coupon is out.)

I stamped my design on the tiles, and then let them dry completely. If you mess up, just have a wet paper towel or wipe sitting by, and wipe off the mistake. A few times the row of dots got a little smudged, so I just wiped them off right away, let the tile dry, and tried again. Once all the tiles were completely dry, I then added little felt circles to the bottom of the tiles so they would not scratch tables, etc. Let me tell you....these were not easy to find. At my local Hobby Lobby, the little felt circles are located in the FRAMING area. Not really sure why, but they are. So keep that in mind if you ever go out looking for little felt circles or squares. Or just save yourself a few minutes of walking around the craft section of the store about 3 times, and just ask someone that works there.

In the end, I was quite pleased with the coasters, and I think the people I gave them to liked them as well! Success!!




When I make myself some coasters, I'll be sure to post them. They are also a fun, cheap, and easy gift idea if you would bundle them up in a pack of 4 or so. I just gave them out as an individual gift, since they were given to people who work at the high school I serve.


Happy Crafting!