Craftackular

I love summer, and this year the break was much needed.  School takes up my weeks and grad school has occupied my weekends since last October, so one of the things I had been looking forward to all year was working on some projects I'd had in mind for a while but hadn't had the time to complete.  I was able to ramp my projects up a notch when, at the beginning of the summer, I bought a Silhouette machine with my birthday money.  I had wanted one for awhile, thanks to playing around with my friend Amber's, and have not been disappointed!

Here are a few of my projects:

This is just a simple moss M that I made.  When I initially got the materials to make it, I intended to put a bow on it and to hang it somewhere, but I really liked the simplicity of the moss.  It was simple to complete.  I used spray adhesive, a wooden letter from Hobby Lobby and a sheet of moss.

I sprayed the letter with the adhesive and placed the sheet of moss on top.  Then, I cut the moss around the letter, leaving enough to fold around the back of the letter.  I simply went around cutting, spraying and folding until it was complete.  If I were gifting it, I would probably back it with card board or something.  This one's mine, though and I'm loving it sitting on my mantle.  

This is an ottoman made from an old end table.  We cut the legs off of the table, put high density foam on the top and covered it with upholstery fabric.  It's incredibly sturdy and works wonderfully as an ottoman or extra seating, which we really needed.  Francis also likes to use it as a dog house.  

This was a Silhouette project I did today; it took about 3 minutes, really.  I just made a monogram out of vinyl and applied it to the toes of my rain boots.  I've seen some with ribbons attached, too.  I may try that later; they're pretty cute!

These are the beds that we were able to get from the CALL Mall; thanks to extremely gracious friends, we also have mattresses that look brand spanking new to go on top of them.  We are picking up a chest of drawers (or chester drawers) tomorrow and the room for our prospective foster children is coming together.  

We have used Jeff's Bolt-On sander (gosh, I love that thing) and I've stained these espresso (like everything else in our house - I'm addicted to that shade).  I'm very pleased with how they are turning out.  Now to figure out how to remove the stain I splashed all over the porch.  

I'm thankful to have gotten a few things accomplished, but thanks to free time to peruse Pinterest, I have plenty more on the list.