Are You Making a Dalmatian Costume?

That’s what Anthony’s first words were to me one night last week right after walking in the door, home from work.  You see, I had this great plan awhile ago and only needed some white skinnies to hatch it.  After searching on the cheap, high and low, I finally found these babies at my local fave discount store, Dirt Cheap, for $4.  They’re Liz Lange for Target maternity jeans but as you can see, they’re a little baggy:

 

But, after a little nipping and tucking, they’re perfect mediums for this DIY plan I’d been itching to try after stumbling upon and pinning this picture on Pinterest:
 
[via Pinterest via ???]

Behold:
 

Here’s how it all dotted out >>>
[Not pictured:  a measuring tape and pencil for marking out your dots in case you want to.]

All of these things I had on hand – black acrylic paint, fabric medium from this polka-dotting venture, and a random measuring cup and lone plate, both used only for painting purposes.

The foam pouncers I purchase at Michael’s specifically for this project.  Using a 40% coupon (thank you Michael’s app), they added up to $3.  I used the pouncer on the top right for this project but am so excited about all the other sizes and their future potential (baby clothes, scarves, shoes, curtains, walls…the list goes on and on)!

So, after gathering all the goods, I started out by making tiny X’s about every four inches across the front and back of my newly altered pants (check out my tutorial for turning wide leg/boot leg pants into skinnies here).
I wasn’t too picky about perfection here.  I just tried to get evenly spaced X’s as well as I could, knowing nobody but a crazy person would notice minor defects in my dotted pattern.  Honestly though, after dotting I realized I probably could’ve gotten away without the measuring and just eye-balled it.  Next time…

After the entire pattern was X-ed out, I stuffed the pants with some plastic bags to make sure paint didn’t seep through and onto the opposite side.  Wax paper would have worked but would’ve had to have been cut/folded to fit, a step I didn’t feel like doing…luh-azeee me.

Next, I mixed my paint with the fabric medium (2 parts paint to 1 part f.m.), spread the mixture out on my plate, and dotted away.
 

I dotted the back of the pants first, let it dry for eight hours, and then dotted the front.  The next day I dotted the left side, waited another eight hours for drying, and then dotted the right side.

To set the paint, I went over the pants with an iron (iron to pants without anything in between) the day after I dotted the sides and then threw them into the dryer on max heat for extra setting.  And that’s that!  Half a dalmatian costume or snazzy, new pants – whatever floats your boat!

So yesterday, while the girls were clocking in their afternoon siesta, I played dress up to see how many outfits I could put together with my new polka-dots.  Turns out they’re pretty versatile!  Check it:  
I noticed while I was editing pictures last night that I forgot all about accessories!  I’m not a huge accessory-wearer, mainly because I forget about them when I’m in the throes of throwing on an outfit before the twins tear apart my closet, but I am trying harder to add those little details.  :)

I added sources and prices just to prove my point (made in our About page) that you can have a cute wardrobe for not a lot of cash.  I shop a lot of clearance, thrift stores, and discount stores and while I don’t feel I’d fit right in to Vogue everyday, I definitely have found that I can achieve an Anthropologie/J. Crew look with just a bit of cash.

Anyway, the pants are fun, no?  I love that they’re maternity but I’ll probably have to make some non-maternity ones after baby boy makes his debut to ward off any withdrawal…

You know I will.  :)

She's One Lucky Duck!

Our very first giveaway ended last night and entry #17, Lauren, is the winner!!!  Congratulations Lauren!  I'll be emailing you and getting your info so I can get this cool crafting tool set out to you asap!

Have a great weekend all!

Anthro-Inspired Knobs

>>> DON’T FORGET TO ENTER OUR CRAFTING TOOL GIVEAWAY!  TODAY IS THE VERY LAST DAY!  THE LUCKY WINNER WILL BE ANNOUNCED TOMORROW!  <<<

We put knobs on the cabinets in our laundry room.  A boring woo-hoo, right? 
[Left was then; right is now…just to clarify in case the change is too teensy to notice.]

But hold up, they’re not just any knobs.  Nope.  They’re knock-offs inspired by Anthropologie that I spent a small sliver of everyday last week crafting.

 
Theirs are just to-die-for/swoon/can-I-marry-them gorgeous, aren’t they?  The $14 price tag, not so much.  Had we purchased these for our laundry room, our back account would’ve been set back a hefty $84 (six knobs) not including tax and shipping.  Mine cost me $3.  Bean for the win!

Here’s what they looked like before I got all snazzy on ‘em: 
I have actually been wanting to put some knobs on those cabinets for some time because they just get so finger-printed and dirty so I headed out to our local ReStore one day awhile ago and snatched up six of these shiny gold knobs.  I could’ve gone gold with them to get Anthropologie’s look even more, and boy did I want to, but I  just didn’t want the gold to clash with the big chrome rings on our washer and dryer.  I mean, I’m all about mixing metals but this is one time I went matching.  So, silver they became.  

My first step was covering up the gold and getting them all nice and prepped for paint with a few coats of white primer (Rustoleum).

I made sure to leave the screws in the back to keep the paint from getting in and clogging up the hole back there.

Once they were nice and dry, I flipped them onto their faces since I didn’t need silver paint there and sprayed the stems and backs with some Rustoleum silver metallic spray paint.
I used the chrome silver, not the brushed silver, but I’ve found that there’s really not that much of a difference between the two.  The chrome is unfortunately not as chrome as the cap of the can would have you believe.  :( 

So after the silver was even and dry, I taped off the faces of each knob and took them back outside where I sprayed them with some plain white spray paint (Rustoleum…again).

After I sprayed the faces white, I let them dry and made sure to leave the tape on (usually I’d take it off right away to prevent peeling but since the coat of white was so thin, I had no problem with it) because next up was…
 
Yep, nail polish!  After a search through the Martha Stewart specialty paint at Home Depot left me hanging for pearl paint, I did some brainstorming and dug through my polish where I found this pearl color by NailSlicks.  I’ve never used nail polish in DIY and I wasn’t sure if it’d work but there’s a first time for everything, right?

Well, it worked and it worked well.  Here are the knobs after I painted their faces with my pearl nail polish:
It’s a little hard to see in the above picture (I was lazy and used my iPhone for pictures) but they’re not perfect; the coat isn’t smooth and even.  But, that’s exactly what I needed considering the pearl on the Anthropologie knobs is laid in squares and not one smooth layer.  The nail polish was a little difficult to paint as it dried quick, making my desire for the imperfection in it all a little easier actually.  All I did was paint diagonal lines out from the center of each knob.  Here’s a closer look:

Also, I took the tape off each knob as I went because I was afraid, had I left all the tape on until I was done, it’d take the thicker nail polish layer off with it.

Next up, the design.  First I made myself a little stencil…I’m no good at drawing perfect shapes freehand.  Oh no, give me a roller and I’ll paint big Ws on a wall but perfect circles and squares you will not get.  Plus, from here on out there were to be no mess-ups or all would be lost.
  So, I actually just traced the design from the Anthro knob from computer screen to a small piece of wax paper, cut it out, centered it over my knob, and traced it on very lightly with a pencil. 

Then I used a silver sharpie (which I made sure matched the color of the spray paint before I started) to permanently draw on my design. 

Here they are, all designed!!

Last, I spray each knob with several coats of the same spray lacquer I used on the knobs in the girls’ room to give them a nice glossy finish.  This part was a little disappointing.  I found that the lacquer dulled the silver a little and really didn’t even make it that glossy.  The faces of each knob were a little glossier after finished but not what I had in mind.  Either way, the knobs had a nice coat of protection and were ready for use.

So pretty, no?
 

Back-tracking a little here…to figure out where I wanted the knobs placed on each door, I googled “where to install knobs on cabinets” and got my friend Lauren to send me a picture of the knobs in their kitchen.  The general consensus was that the edges should be 1/4 to 1/2 inch away from the edges of the door.  After I did some measuring and marking, I cut out some circles the same size as my knobs from a piece of paper and stuck them on the cabinets to see the placement before the holes were drilled.  Fake paper knobs:

Later, after all the knobs were ready to be up and functioning and I was happy with their future placement after staring at the fake paper knobs for a few days, my main man got out his drill and drilled six holes.  And that was that.

    

So, in the end I only shoveled picked out $3 for this entire project because I had everything on hand but the knobs.  If you had to buy everything for this project (somebody puh-lease make them in gold…pllllease!!), you’re looking at around $20+ (primer, silver, and white spray paint, tape, pearl nail polish or some sort of pearl paint, a silver sharpie, tape, and thrifted knobs) but you’ll have loads of supplies left over at the end to be used for other things.  So, when all is said and done, it’s a pretty cheap project…especially when you think about how much you’re saving by making your own version vs. buying the real things.  :)




So, anybody else DIY-ed some knobs out there?  What about knocked-off an Anthropologie or upscale object/design to save some cash but still get the look?  Or maybe you just save up/splurge for the real thing?  Either way, it’s fun to get some character up in herrr, no?

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Someone say party?!  Yep, I’m cruisin’ in from March 2014 and linking up with East Coast Creative for their week of knock-offs!  Click over to see some pretty amazing knock-offs!

Five Faves >Unconventional Beauty Products<

>>Before I delve into my five favorite unconventional beauty things, let me make excuses for the couple of blurry pictures…I didn’t enlist the husband – mistake #1, my priorities for the day were to 1) get this post up, 2) keep my kids from whining (fail) and ransacking the house, and 3) eat, therefore I forwent getting the best of the best pictures.   Also, somebody apparently hasn’t been spending enough time pinning “how to take in focus pictures” and that somebody is me.<<

On the plus side, we’re a linkin’ up with Hallie at Moxie Wife where there are a lot more favorites to be read!

SO.  With that said, here are five wonderful things I use on a regular basis that aren’t quite considered “normal” parts of a beauty routine. 

 
>>> Coconut Oil as Face Lotion <<<
[or “Medusa called and Wants Her Top Knot Back”]
I think it was my sister maybe who introduced me to coconut oil and it’s many uses, one being face lotion.  My skin is normal/dry so I stay away from all oil-free daily lotions which dry my skin out and instead swirl this on after washing my face each and every night.  I won’t tell you it’s given me the skin of a five year old or given me that airbrushed complexion we all desire but it does keep me nice and hydrated and dare I say “dewy” even?

>>> Olive Oil as Belly Butter <<<
All I have to say about this is that while I was pregnant with the twins I gave my burgeoning belly a rub-down with this stuff daily during the last four or so months of the pregnancy and I have not one stretch mark…nothing short of a miracle considering this:

Yep, that’s me at 37 weeks hauling 13 pounds of baby (eh-hem…babies).
I know that whether or not your skin stretches with or without the appearance of those marks has a lot to do with the skin your parents handed down to ya but I’m still giving this liquid of zee olive lots of credit.  It also helped ease all that itching due to the stretching even though chances are if you saw me during those months, I was usually scratching somewhere on that big ‘ole belly.
(Oh and p.s., I am in no way trying to brag about not having stretch marks or saying they’re bad or unwanted!  They are the beautiful marks of a mother and in not having them I, in some ways, missed out.)

>>> Baking Soda + Hydrogen Peroxide + H2O = Teeth Whitener <<<
My other sis introduced me to this concoction and then I stumbled upon it on Pinterest.  The recipe calls for a mixing of 1 tsp. baking soda, 1 tsp. hydrogen peroxide, and 1/2 tsp. of water.  Brush that on your mouth bones once a week (I just dip my toothbrush in the little cup I’ve mixed it in, brush, dip, brush, dip, and brush until it’s all gone) and I promise you you’ll have whiter teeth in just a couple of uses.  I’m so bad at remembering to do it every week but my sister, well, you should see her pearly whites…blinding.  Did I mention this is like 1000 times cheaper than white strips or professional whitening?  Right up my cheap alley.
(UPDATE:  I forgot to mention that when you brush with this mixture, make sure you ONLY brush your teeth, not your gums.  I learned the hard way and my gums were sore for at least 24 hours…ouch!)

 

>>> Conditioner as Shaving Cream <<<
I saw this little tip on Pinterest and gave it a shot one time after I’d run out of regular shaving cream and now I won’t turn back.  After shaving with regular shaving cream my legs used to always itch like mad around the 3rd or 4th day after shaving and I never knew why…still don’t but after switching to conditioner, they don’t itch one bit, ever.  Weird, huh?  I guess it’s just the increase in hydration conditioner gives vs. the stuff in a can?  Either way, I like it and you only have to use a little bit which equals $$$ saved.

>>> Straightener as a Curling Iron <<<
I don’t use a straightener much anymore unless I’m giving myself a cut but I used to and when I did, preferring slightly curled ends over stick straight ones, I’d use my straightener to get that curl instead of straightening and then heating up the curling iron.  You won’t get ringlets like you could if you used a curling iron but the subtle curl/wave is great for everyday and is so natural looking.  All you have to do is pinch a section of hair in between the plates, twist the iron like the middle picture shows, and pull all the way down the piece until the end.  Wa-la.

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Any other wise ones out there with some unconventional beauty tips?  I’m always in the neighborhood for more!!!  :)

Cup of Dirt

Or a mug of dirt but either way, it’s not a science experiment like Brian’s, or Brannammananan’s was.  Lost?  You have to see this video complete with voiced-over animations.  Brian Regan…comedian extraordinaire…the best of the best…watch out or you’ll pee your pants.

Anyway, let’s cut to the chase.  I planted some herbs in mugs only right now they’re still seeds so we’ve got three mugs ‘o dirt on our kitchen window sill.  A few weeks ago Deme at House For Five made another genius move and transplanted three herb plants into mugs and set them in her window sill and they looked amazing!  So, I did what any smart follower of hers would, I copied.  Thanks Deme!  :)

Instead of using the same Target mugs Deme used (I thought I’d let her claim some originality), I took the opportunity to try out the ever popular DIY sharpie mug project that floats around all areas of Pinterest.  So many people have tried it and so I don’t know who gets the credit for the idea in the first place, but if it’s you, way.to.go.  It is genius.

First, I needed some plain mugs.  I hunted through a few stores but per the usual, didn’t want to spend loads.  Then one day last week me madre and I were in Bed, Bath, & Beyond and on a center aisle shelf, these oversized mugs were calling my name.  They were clearanced down to $1.50 a piece…I’ll take three please.  And I did.
Part of me loved the white and didn’t want to taint them with sharpie but the thrill of a project won me over.

Here’s what I did to each: 
The pink/coral/red one at the top is scripted with the words of our song “When God Made You”, the second is a green, ikat scallop (which I originally just had scalloped minus the ikat until I made the third mug then went back and changed it), and the  third is a bronze, ikat, aztec design.  The ikat was so easy.  All I did was draw out my design and then I went over it with up and down scribbles.  No staying in the lines and no perfection, just four-year-old skillz at their bestest.  I also drew a ring around the top of each mug in the same color used on the mugs design for kicks.

Then I threw them all gently placed them in oven and baked them at 350* for 30 minutes.

Before I started this project I did a little research.  I found a lot of people saying their sharpie mugs didn’t work and some saying theirs did.  This is what I took away from all of the trial-and-errors of others:
-Make sure you clean your dish/mug/bowl/whatever before you start!
-If you make a mistake while drawing, a little rubbing alcohol supposedly works like an eraser.
-Put your sharpied whatever in the oven before you preheat it and allow them to heat with the oven.
-Bake anywhere from 30 to 45 minutes.
-When done baking, let them cool with the oven…a.k.a. don’t take them out until the oven is cool.
-Hand-wash only unless…
-You use oil-based sharpie markers which seem to be dishwasher safe.
-More expensive dishware means more expensive glaze which means your dish/mug/bowl might not take to the sharpie as well.  Cheaper dishware works best.

One thing I found is that the fine point sharpie I used (the coraly-red), scratches off a little more easily than the wider tipped green and bronze I used.  Either way though, you have to scratch pretty hard.  Also, the bronze sharpie I used is a metallic one but I found that baking the mug took away some of the metallic sheen…boo.  I love how the sharpie looks like it’s underneath the glaze of the mugs though.  So pretty and think of all the design options!

Here are the mugs all baked and sitting pretty on our sunlit, kitchen window sill:

[Update:  Read about how these sharpied mugs are holding up here!]

Next up:  planting the herbs.  It would’ve been a lot easier for me to go grab three small herb plants but I had the seeds on hand already so I figured I’d give my green thumb a work-out since it’s been dormant for a couple of years.

So first I put a layer of rocks in the bottom of each of my mugs for drainage purposes.

Then I packed in the dirt, planted a few seeds in each cup (only to weed out all but one once they sprout), and gave each a little drink of H2O.

Last I created three tiny greenhouses by placing a piece of clear plastic wrap over each.  These will come off once there are shoots.  I didn’t press the wrap tightly over each for fear that a tight seal plus condensation might hurt my sharpie.  Just playing it safe.

And that’s it!  In a week or so we should have tiny sprouts of basil, oregano, and cilantro!  My mouth is already watering at the thought of fresh herbs in pasta and my fave salsa recipe by the Pioneer Woman herself!  :)

Cost Breakdown
Mugs:  $5 (with tax)
Sharpie markers:  $0 (already had but $3-$10 in store)
Herb seeds:  $1.75 (had to buy basil; already had the other two)
Dirt:  $0 (borrowed from an empty pot outside)
Grand Total:  $6.75

Have you ever sharpied and baked?  What did you write on and how is it holding up?  Or maybe you’re dying to try it like I was?  I say go for it! 

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P.S.  It’s not too late to enter our Giveaway!!  So easy and you might win some craft essentials!