Summary Sunday: Sticky Fingers Edition

Hi there! I'm taking a break from being covered in ModPodge to get this post written before Sunday becomes Monday and I'm a day late again.

I've been working on a pile of projects over the last couple of days. I've been productive, but not as much as I've wanted to be thanks to a few snafu's. I managed to have some serious issues with the ModPodge yesterday and had a couple of foam brushes disintegrate mid-glue. I'm starting to lose my love for foam brushes. To which Collin said "Aren't those meant to be for temporary use?" Ugh. Doesn't he know that logic doesn't apply when crafting?

So now that I'm actually getting some things done, let's see what else I did this week.

Posts I Posted: I finished and posted not one, but TWO St. Patrick's Day projects. Amazing. Both projects are pretty easy and inexpensive to make...just the way I like them.

The banner took Collin two days to notice. I had to point it out for him. At that point he said, "Oh. I thought it had been there for quite a while, so I didn't say anything." My husband, Captain Observant, everyone.

The blocks were the start of the ModPodge mania. I'm still not super thrilled with the fact that the wrinkles showed up the way they did on the "y", but that's the nature of this kind of project. I suppose I could have done some creative photo editing to make it look like they didn't exist, but I both don't have the patience for that kind of thing and don't feel it's fair to misrepresent the imperfection of my own projects. After all, when I make a project based on someone else's post, I like to know that they occasionally struggle with getting things to look just so. So there you go...I struggle too. (More often that I would like to.)

Recipes I Tried: We had some thawed out ground beef that desperately needed to get used and I really didn't feel like doing anything extravagant on Monday, so we tried out the Stove Top Meatloaf. It will not win any beauty awards (hence the lack of a picture for you today), but it was delicious. Both of the boys wolfed it down. It also had the added bonus of being super simple. It took me about 5 minutes to prep and then I was able to work on my St. Patrick's Banner while it cooked.

Books I Read: As long as I finish What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty tonight (which I expect to happen), I will remain on track for my book reading goals. Amazing. I finished Amy & Roger's Epic Detour by Morgan Matson. I loved it! You need to read it. It was just so good. I'm so happy and relieved to finally be on a streak of good books.

Projects I Worked On/Finished: Other that the St. Pat's crafts, I've been busy working on a few other things. I have two projects that will be up on the blog next week and I'm working on putting together a new cleaning schedule for the family that will be my first actual post for this month's theme of spring cleaning & organization. Sad, but true. At least I'm finally getting to it. Once I get that ready to roll, then there will be some other smaller theme related projects that should be able to get tackled. I'm also prepping some projects and photos for the big A-to-Z Challenge coming up in April. It's a monster undertaking, so I'm hoping to be sufficiently prepared come April 1st.

Favorite Pin of the Week: This week's favorite pin had me laughing out loud. It is actually a picture from a t-shirt for sale over at RoadKill T-Shirts that I found via Sugar Bee Crafts. I love it because it actually reminds me of my brother. He has a thing for T-Rex that's too long of a story to explain here and he makes hilarious cards for my family for birthdays...this seems like something he would do.

See. Hilarious. Poor image quality...but hilarious.

And now I'm off to get back to the ModPodge. Don't forget to wear your green tomorrow! Happy St. Patrick's Day!

"Lucky" Wood Blocks

Hey, hey! It's project time. Whee!! And just in time for St. Patrick's Day, how about another piece of holiday decor? Are you keeping track here? Because this makes two pieces of decor for St. Patrick's Day. Whoa. I'm totally getting out of control.

You might remember that I made a set of Trick or Treat wood blocks for Halloween. I like them quite a bit, so they're now becoming a series thing. You know...like I'll have sets for all of the major holidays. Why not? They're easy to make and I have wood floating around. Sounds like a plan.

So, to make these yourself, you won't need a whole lot of stuff. In fact, all you'll need is:

* 5 wood blocks cut from a 2x4. All of the wood blocks I use for these holiday blocks are cut at lengths between 3 and 5 inches. I like to mix and match them. I sanded the edges of my blocks to keep my super accident prone self from getting any splinters. Unlike my Halloween blocks, I didn't paint these ones before getting going. I didn't feel like these ones really needed it.

* Patterned paper. The thinner paper works the best. Cardstock works, but the coated cardstock is a bit of a pain. It doesn't deal well with the ModPodge, since ideally you want the paper to soak up the ModPodge to some extent. You can use just one pattern of paper for all of the blocks, or you can mix it up and use a different pattern for each block like I did.

* Letters. I cut all of my letters out from sparkled black cardstock using my Pazzle. You could also use stamps, stickers or chipboard. Whatever floats your boat.

*Adhesive for your letters. Again, you can go a lot of different ways here. I like to use my Xyron Sticker Maker, but even a glue stick will work just fine.

* ModPodge and a paint brush. For these blocks, I used Gloss ModPodge. I use foam brushes, but any brush will work.

Alright, are you ready to assemble?

Measure the height and width of each of your selected wood blocks. I marked each block with its measurements and the letter that it would end up being so that I didn't get the block turned upside down or accidentally switch two similar blocks when it came time to adhere the paper.

Cut out your paper to the dimensions of each block. When in doubt, cut just a titch smaller. It's easier to adhere paper that's a little smaller than the wood block than it is to mold the paper over the edges...especially if your paper is a little on the thick side.

Adhere letters to their corresponding papers.

Attach the paper to the wood block using the ModPodge. Now...it typically works out better to put the ModPodge on the paper and then attach versus putting the ModPodge on the block. Both options will work, but putting the adhesive on the paper will result in less of a wrinkled appearance when you're done.

Let the blocks dry. Make sure you wait enough time in between ModPodge applications in order to prevent excess bubbles or wrinkles in the paper.

Coat the papers with a thin layer of ModPodge. Make sure you get fully over all edges. Repeat this process two to three times until you get the finish you're looking for.

And that's it! You can finish them off with clear coat, but it's not necessary if they're going to stay indoors and dry.

St. Patrick's Day Banner

Okay, so I'll be honest here. I would've had this post up about 3 hours ago, but I got sucked into Pinterest. Every. Single. Time. It's a complete time suck. But I love it just the same.

In fact, this project wouldn't have happened without Pinterest. I made this project based on merging things I liked about three different banners made by: Rebecca at Simple as That, Tanya at twelve O eight, and Kim at The TomKat Studio for HGTV.

In my quest to increase our holiday decor, the goal for this year is to make a minimum of one new project per major holiday. (I'm not counting things like President's Day or Arbor Day here.) I've already met my one minimum for Valentine's Day, so St' Patrick's Day was next on the list.

Making a paper banner (or bunting, if you prefer) like the one I made for Halloween was the easiest of the options, so it was a natural choice for the first project to tackle...especially since I just got done being sick.

The supplies are simple and inexpensive. You'll need: scissors, book pages (I had some tea stained pages left over from the wedding flowers), green paper, chipboard letters or stickers, some form of adhesive, jute, and a stapler.

I'm all about making things easier on myself, so I used my Pazzle to cut out my shamrock shapes using a clipart file. If you have a Silhouette or Cricut, this is totally the way to go. If you don't have one of these handy machines, print yourself a template from a similar file on the internet and simply trace and cut as many cute little shamrocks as you need.

I trimmed the sides and tops of the book pages to keep the page mostly filled with words rather than blank space. I then trimmed out a triangle shape from the bottom of each page (use a template to keep your shapes similar).

Layer your shamrocks on top of the pages and adhere using your preferred method (I used a tape runner), then adhere your letters to the center of each shamrock. I spelled out "lucky", but you could easily pick whatever term you'd like. This stage took me the longest because I am terribly indecisive and went through four different lettering options before I settled on the black sparkle ChipChatter.

I made one extra shamrock page for each side of the banner as bookends, so to speak. I decorated these with two minibuttons each, again adhered with the tape runner.

Side note: Check your pages before you start gluing them together. I caught a lovely piece of profanity right in the middle of one of my pages (directly below the shamrock stem) just before I stuck everything together. That would've made it interesting.

Lastly, you'll need to string up your individual pieces. I folded the top 1/4" of each page to the back and adhered the jute in between the back of each page and the folded section. To make extra sure they didn't come undone, I placed a staple diagonally at each top corner to hold the jute in place. (I used a box of staples to help me keep the distance between each flag at a standardized length.)

Now just find a nice spot to hang it up and you're all done! Easy peasy. I love crafts like that!