Memory Prisms

My mother knows an artist who does these prisms. When my great grandmother passed away in December, my mother had these made. We gave the artist a few trinkets that reminded us of her and she made these prisms. I think they're great! We gave one to my granddad for his birthday and he really liked them as well!

Mine had a card (we liked to play cards), an amber earning (we went to the Museum of Natural History in NYC one year when they had an amber exhibit), a purple bracelet (her favorite color), a dolphin (we went to Sea World one summer), and a few other little pieces. The artist is local to Georgia, but the prisms are awesome!!! She has different sizes. This one is about 3" on each side.

Memorial Day Weekend

Holy crap! After looking at the list, we accomplished A LOT! I mean a whole lot. We had already planned to do the floors, which were so much work, but turned out fabulous!

Friday:
I did the heart frame map art to give to my in-laws. I need to think of a better name for it, but I can't think of a good one off the top of my head.

Saturday:
Alex's parents & sister came over to look at the floors. I added the flowers to the bathroom & created the craft room! Alex was trying to throw furniture away, and his sister said to use it in storage for the craft room. Go her! Saved an argument & the furniture! 

Sunday:
My parents came over to see the floors. I attempted the curtains (both the Roman Shades & the Kitchen ones). I also did the art work.

Monday:
Alex's parents & sister came over again to use the pool for a few hours. I burnt myself (it was cloudy...I thought I'd be lucky and not burn...oops). Then we did the Beer Bottle-Cap Trays & the Conversion Chart.

It was a jam packed weekend. We got a lot accomplished, still have a lot to go, but it felt good to cross things off our list!

Beer Bottle Cap Tray

We've been collecting beer bottle caps for about 4 years now. We had a bucket and just tossed them in when we grabbed a beer. We've been trying to figure out a way to use them, and I stumbled upon this blog from Inspirations & Decorations. I had two different designs, and this was my first attempt with Modge Podge & Resin. I did one tray with both. After several hours - Modge Podge is the way to go. It's cheaper, dries clear, and is much easier to put on.

Where I got the Idea: Inspirations & Decorations

Time: 4 hours (plus overnight to dry)

Shopping List:
2 Trays
A whole lot of beer caps
1 Bottle of Ice Resin
1 Bottle of Modge Podge
Cheap Foam Brush
Black Spray Paint

Instructions:

1. Prep
I decided to start finding all of the Sweetwater & Terrapin caps first to make a Georgia tray. I've learned we drink a lot of Sweetwater & Terrapin caps bend way to easily. I was hoping to do a cool design, but because most of the Terrapin caps were too bent, I stuck with a Terrapin boarder.

I started putting them on the tray to figure out how many I needed. I did the same thing with all of the other craft beers. It's fun to see how our tastes have changed between the "Old Faithful" - Sweetwater; "Cheap" - Bud Lime or Miller Lite; or "Trying something new" - Red Hook IPA. We also drank a lot of Stone IPA, which has a lot of cool caps.

2. Paint - We painted both of the trays black and let them dry. Seeing how amazingly hot it was this weekend, this took no time at all!

3. Arrange  - So now is time to put all of those bottle caps back on the tray. There is clearly a better way to do this, rather than doing it twice (i.e. wait until AFTER you paint it to do this), but I didn't want to do that for whatever reason. Anxious maybe? So here are the two different trays.

 

4A. Glue Part One 

 Okay so we had  bought Ice Resin, at Hobby Lobby. I'm not convinced this is the greatest thing ever. I also bought a bottle of Modge Podge. I decided to use the Modge Podge on the Hodge Podge of caps! Okay so the Modge Podge, I poured out over the tray and pushed it around with the foam brush. I was a little nervous about the white, because well I had never used Modge Podge before! Turns out...it does eventually dry clear. This morning we had about 1/2 of the glue had dried up. I'm very pleased with this attempt!

 4B. Glue Part Two

So we decided to use the Ice Resin on the Sweetwater/Terrapin trey. That one didn't turn out quite as good...meaning it didn't work. So I guess we need some more Modge Podge. I may change the design too...I'm not loving it.



****UPDATE: The Modge Podge eventually dried (I do think I used wayyyyy too much, but for my first experience with it, it was a breeze!). The Ice Resin never really worked. I rearranged the design making stripes (two diagonal rows of Sweetwater followed by a row of Terrapin). Next time I go to the store, I'm getting more Modge Podge to finish the tray. All in all easy peasy!

Repurposed Craft Room

As my supplies are growing, I realized I need a room. We have a perfectly good room that's only purpose was to house the cat liter box & cat food. So that needed to change. I pulled out our tailgating table (which will be moved on days we go to UGA games), rearranged a few shelves, added our UGA Wall decals, and boom! I have a nifty little craft room. To the left is the before (the liter box was over in the corner).

I did use Tilex Bleach on the floors, because they were nasty. It needed to be done weeks ago. Between the bleach, stain & polyurethane WOW our house smelled interesting! The cat already found it to be interesting :). I consolidating my sheet music into one container and had a whole extra set of shelves (the blue thing) for an extra set of drawers. I quite like it. Plus the dogs can't come in (or they stare at the cat food and slowly creep toward it to eat it. Instead they just look through the cat door we installed through the door.

Finds

My neighbor bought an old trunk on Sunday, and this was in there. How cool is this!? The second hand has a little bulldog on it too. I'm not sure if it is antique or just looks it, but with a little TLC, this is really cute! It works too, which is even better!