DIY: Wax Paper Chandelier

This is another craft that I made "for the engagement party" but in all honesty it was for me! :) I was inspired by a Pin for this one but spent a lot of time searching for different tutorials. I wanted to know the best, easiest, fastest, cheapest way and than pick the best way for me. I recommend you do the same before you start this project. There are different ways you can complete it and some might suit you better. Warning: This project takes time! I spent a grand total of 8-10 hours in the living room for this one. Not to mention the time gathering supplies or hanging it.

My supply list:

• $1 white laundry basket ($ Store)
• 2 boxes of wax paper ($ Store)
• Iron
• 2 long strips of parchment paper
• Sewing machine with white thread
• Cricut OR 2'' (or similar size) circle punch
• Tape
• Hot Glue
• Snacks + Free Time! :)

1. Roll out 2 long pieces of parchment paper.



My "set up" in the living room. I ironed new sheets of wax
paper while the cricut was cutting. I placed my circles in
the bowl for easy access while sewing for the next step.

2. Lay 3 similar sized pieces (slightly smaller than the parchment paper will be best) pieces of wax paper in between your parchment.

3. Make sure all the paper is lined up and than iron the wax paper strips together. You are doing this to make a thicker piece of wax paper that has a more opaque look.

This shows the "why" behind the ironing process. You are
taking the wax paper and making it look more like parchment
paper by ironing a few sheets together. Somebody tell me why
we don't just use parchment paper for this project?

4. Once you have ironed them completely together (5 minutes was about how long it took to do a 5 foot section for me) cut the wax paper into sections. I did 12'' sections because I was using the Cricut.

5. Using your preferred method to cut circles from the wax paper. I taped down the wax paper to the Cricut mat, loaded it, Auto filled, and cut 20 circles per sheet.

This just shows my cricut mat with the wax paper taped down
and the final product being 20 perfectly cut circles.

6. Sew your circles together. This was my favorite part! As long as you keep a good pace you can just slide circles under the needle at the correct moment and finish this part very quickly. You want to keep the circles as close together as possible without overlapping them. Do not worry about perfection. Some of mine were overlapped and others had 1/4'' gap in between them.

7. Chose your desired length for each string of circles and cut them. (My number was 8 circles)

8. Hot glue your string of circles to the laundry basket starting from the middle and bottom and working your way up. I used the same length of 8 circles up the entire basket.

This shows me working up the basket. I didn't add
a string of circles to each level.

9. Add extra strips where needed to make it full enough.

This shows me adding another layer of circles to the top.
You can see the clear difference in fullness. I placed
a new string of circles in between my first layer.

10. Enjoy!

Want to enjoy a wax paper chandelier in your home without spending hours in your living room? I am thinking about making a few to sell on Etsy. Let me know if you would be interested. Have you made a wax paper 'capiz shell' chandelier? Have any tips or tricks? Share a photo- I would love to see it!

  

Engagement Party: Wish Lanterns

 

Wish Lanterns at Sunset

My absolute favorite part of the entire engagement party was releasing the wish lanterns. I just wanted to share pictures and a little information on how easy it really was.

Each wish lantern requires two people to release. If you have children wanting to do this it would probably be best that anyone under 10 has two adults and that anyone under 16 is paired with an adult. You just open up the lantern, one person holds it from the top while the other lights the fuel cell.


Here is the couple lighting their wish
lantern. HMS Photography

Then you wait for the fuel cell to burn and for hot air to fill the lantern. You have to make sure that it is not too windy or else this process will be very difficult and your wish lanterns will become dangerous.



The party guest on the pier holding their wish lanterns as
they fill with hot air. HMS Photography

Eventually you will feel the lantern begin to pull up and you release it!


The very beautiful results of our wish
lanterns released at sunset.
HMS Photography

Each lantern cost about $3 since I bought the eco-friendly lanterns that have no wires (there is no other option in my mind). I bought mine from Event Lanterns It took about 30 minutes for the entire process from teaching everyone how to release to watching the final wish lantern burn up in the sky. We picked the most amazing time to release them. The sunset was just perfect as they were floating and as we walked back to the pavilion the wind really started to pick up.

The great part was after we left the pier somebody across the lake lit their own wish lantern. It was red and we got to watch this one float into the sky too.

I think for every party or even just a small celebration in our future will have wish lanterns for the finale. It was absolutely stunning to watch and everyone from young to old and both guys and girls loved it.

Go find a Geocache!

To begin this post I would like to explain what a geocache is. Geocaching.com describes it as a real life treasure hunt and honestly I couldn't put it any better. You use a GPS to find the general location than search for the "cache" that could be smaller than a penny to larger than a tackle box.

 

Geocaching.com is the place to visit to find all
about geocaching and make your own account!

To me geocaching means great family time. It means using teamwork to use the GPS (walking in circles sometimes) and then when you find the general area it turns into an outright dash to find the cache. Honestly it does feel like finding treasure even when some of them are just a tube with a piece of paper to write your name on. It also doesn't have age limitations. As long as a child gets the idea of looking they are capable of finding. They rank the difficulty of caches on the website so you can easily take a 4-5 year old and trust me the feeling of finding a cache is amazing (and makes you feel like a child yourself). I have also used this as an activity when I was a counselor. I had teenagers who barely participate in other activities running around the camp looking for caches I had personally created and really interacting with other campers on their team.

 

Geocaching also means getting outside. Caches are supposed to be certain distances away from eachother and are also supposed to take you "somewhere". It mostly means that you are taken to parks or nature centers but sometimes there are really great geocachers that know how to teach you while you are on your journey. Either way you either get to go someplace new, go for a nice walk, stop and visit the playground, or at the very least get some fresh air.

 

How to begin a geocaching journey!
1. Make your geocacher account (read up on the "rules")
2. Find a few geoaches in the same general area with varying difficult. In the beginning pick on the easy side. Write down the coordinates and if you think you need the clue write that down too.
3. Get your GPS device and head out the door with family or friends. :)
4. Walk around (hopefully not in circles) until you find the correct coordinates.
5. FIND THE TREASURE!
6. Replace the cache to the same spot you found it.

 

This shows a small geocache. They can get smaller!
There is also micro caches
which are smaller than a dime. Source

 

Some tips:

• Starting on the easy side boosts your confidence and honestly introduces you to "how far" your cache might be from the coordinates.
• Honestly its not the same unless you bring a companion, bring someone with who might be skeptical trust me they will get in on the game REAL quick.
• When you start thinking some of the caches are too easy. Look for ones in your area with the most stars. This usually means that they are pretty creative and makes it much more difficult for you.
• Next time you plan a trip (road trip, camping trip, family vacation) look ahead for some caches you might want to find. What a great way to spend some family time together while away from home.

 

Good luck & have fun caching!
Let me know how your adventures go and make sure to let other people know how fun caching is! :)

DIY: Chalkboard Signs

The next project I want to share is super simple. I made chalkboard signs for the photobooth at the engagement party and honestly anyone can do it. I wanted to make homemade chalkboard paint but I had A LOT of trouble finding dry non-sanded grout in anything but a 2 pound bag (if your interested in that project just search Pinterest!) so I just bought the spraypaint version with my 40% off coupon at the craft store.

Supplies:
Pencil
Poster Board (thick)
Exacto Knife
Scissor
Chalkboard Paint
Chalk


1. Make the outline on your poster board. I made a speech bubble and a thought bubble.
2. Use the exacto knife to cut into the poster board.
3. Slowly make your way around your shape cutting off chunks. The exacto knife will most likely not be thick enough to cut through.
4. Evenly spray paint in a ventilated area. (Optional: Add a second coat)
5. Allow 24 hours to dry
6. With the side of a piece of chalk cover the entire board to prepare it for writing.
7. Enjoy!

The signs being put to good use at the engagement party.
Photo: Heather at HMS Photography

DIY: Photograph Art

I am just going to tell everyone, right now, when I get an idea in my brain it is really hard to extinguish. I mean really hard. So for the next two projects I will be sharing I had a dilemna; I had the idea in my head and then I had limitations making it extremely difficult to bring the idea to reality. For the first project I wanted to do a window repurposing which is a project growing in popularity And the second project was a frame that I bought from a thrift store which was simple and had a quote from Winne the Pooh, I think? I am going to take you through my process and hurdles of each first the frame.

Project 1: Repurposing Window Picture Frame



Here is the window being displayed at the engagement party
Photo: Heather Schwartz HMS Photography

My second project took a little while to even start. I had no idea where to buy an old window until I realized I had the perfect store, the Habitat for Humanity Restore (if you haven't heard of their mission look them up!). I took along my little sister and walked up and down the window aisle about 4 times. I was about to give up when I told her I wanted to walk down one more time (if you ever go shopping with me you will know how undecisive I am and how long it takes me to shop so I always feel bad for who accompanies me). But then there it was! The perfect window and not just one but TWO. One for me and one for the engagement party. It wasn't what I had initially been looking for. The projects I had seen and got inspiration from had always had six panes (2 rows and 3 columns). My find on the other hand was 5 straight panes across but the windows looked brand new and were a steal! ($5 each). I bought both and I was giddy the entire way home, ask my sister, I just kept repeating "I'm so happy" all night!

Then my next dilemna set in. I had NO idea how I wanted to design the window. I knew I wanted to put pictures in each pane but I honestly had no "flame". I had seen a tutorial on Pinterest for using Vaseline to distress paint (Shanty-2-Chic Tutorial) but I also didn't know if this was right for my project. That was until I was at work singing to myself....."There might be a little dust on the bottle...but it's one of those things that gets sweeter with time". And then THERE was the flame I needed. I was completely inspired by the lyrics.

I than realized that the distressing project was perfect to give the frame the "timed" look. So I got out the vaseline and followed the great tutorial.

My base coat. Im using our kitchen table "legs" our table is not
actually bolted on at this point.

I painted edges of the frames a deep brown. Than I put vaseline on the edges where I wanted the paint to "chip". I than painted the whole frame an off-white and waited 12 hours for it to completely dry.

Using sand paper to distress the edges of the window.

I than used sandpaper to rough up the edges and easily remove the white paint. It some areas I used the sandpaper to even remove the brown base coat to reveal the original wood.

The clock I bought at the
thrift store to steal the
clock movement.

After painting my next step was adding the clock which was my focus of the project. I bought a clock and removed the clock movement.

My initial idea was to drill a hole in the outer frame. I soon realized the shaft was not long enough to go through the frame of the window. I knew I would be completely disappointed in myself if I didn't figure out a way to add the clock-it makes the whole idea come together. Finally I thought putting the clock in the center window pane and only have 4 photos to showcase. Honestly, it barely worked. I glued my scrapbook paper to a piece of cardboard the size of the pane. I than made a hole in the center of the cardboard for the clock shaft. I added the hour minute and second hand. The clock movement was too thick though so the cardboard was 1/8th of an inch higher than the frame when placed in the center pane. I just hot glued all the edges down.

The materials needed to make the clock center.

Than I added the photos and scrapbook paper to the remaining panes. I used cardboard pieces behind each of the photos so that they had a little more depth.

Giving the photos more depth by adding carboard.

My final project was adding the quote. I used puffy paint on wax paper to write the quote out which I typed in a word program with my prefered font. I waited for the paint to dry and than peeled the letters place them on the frame and when I was happy with the placement used my "mod podge" to glue them in place.

Heres the final product of my hard work:

Do you have an old window lying around? Or another project you plan on repurposing? Let me know how it goes! It is always inspiring to see people reuse old items to makes something beautiful for their home or as a gift. That is real HeART Work :)

DIY: Personalized Etched Glasses

The next DIY project I would like to share from my adventures of the engagement party are the personalized etched glasses I created. I knew from the start of planning this party that I wanted to created a great party favor, not something frimpy from the party store but something that could at least be put to good use (even for just one night). So with a little inspiration from Pinterest (of course) I thought of etching glasses with Ryan & Shaya and their wedding date. Every tutorial that I found was hand cutting each letter on vinyl, mostly because they were only making one or a handful of etches while I was trying to make 30+ so handcutting was definitely not an option. So my adventure began....

Before I really had any idea how I was going to accomplish this project I bought about 30 glasses from my local thrift store. It was 50% off day so the final price per glass was no more than 75 cents. Than I tried to find a way to have die cuts "printed" professionally. My thought process was first there was professional companies that printed than we created the home office printer so that there should be a professional company that creates die-cuts and that afterwards the cricut and other machines were created as in-home solutions. Well I found companies who did do vinyl/die cut work but it was simple and only on large-scale. So my next mission was to find a cricut. Honestly I was on the verge of buying one (would have been a MAJOR investment in something I only needed for one project) but then my lovely Aunt came through and loaned me hers (THANK YOU THANK YOU!).

So I had what I thought to be all my supplies;
Glasses, cricut, contact paper, isoprypol alcohol, exacto knife, etching cream.

I tested my first glass and although I loved it I noticed that the contact paper was extremely thick, meaning it did not lay completely flat and left small gaps for imperfections, I knew I could at least buy vinyl at Hobby Lobby which would be thinner. But randomly while working (I am a merchandiser at Pepsi) I picked up one of our order printouts which come with each pallet of product, I was about to throw it away since it is completely useless at that point when I realized it was PERFECT. Although small it was a sticker and I could easily use it for the project- so I started collecting them. I am glad I work alone so no one would think I was crazy for pocketing them....all of them.

1. Clean the glasses with alcohol (which is better than than cleaning with Windex which has extra additives).

2. Cut stickers with your preferred method (R&S, 10.5.13)                  

                     Warning: Make sure to double check EVERYTHING.

 I made the huge mistake of making about 10 glasses

 with the wrong date on them. Their wedding is actually

 10.4.13 >:|  I almost ripped my hair out when I figured that out!

3. Peel the letters and stick the negative on the glass. I added extra tape alone the edges to protect the glass.

4. I applied a thick layer of etching cream with a popsicle stick while wearing latex gloves.

5. Allow the glass to sit 5-7 minutes while mixing the cream to move the crystals about the half-way mark (moving the crystals allows for a more even etch)

6. Rinse in hot water to remove the tape and the etching cream.

7. Enjoy (I did until I realized my extremely stupid mistake!)



Here are the glasses being used at the engagement
party I made mugs that said "Congrats Man"

SURPRISE! Engagement Party: Invites

Warning: If your name is Shaya and you happen to be my best friend and it is before May 12th at 7:00 PM please exit this window and shut down your computer (just to be extra cautious!)

Alright... I don't plan on publishing this post until after her surprise engagement party but just to be safe I had to post a warning. :) I plan on sharing all of my ideas for this party over the next few posts so check back to see and of course come take a look at the pictures of the end result! A lot of my ideas were inspired through an intial idea on pinterest that I somehow wanted to incorporate into the party.

My first project was the invitations. I wanted to create a balloon invite. The problem was no matter how much I scoured the web I couldn't find a DIY balloon invite. They were always purchased and I realized why very quickly. When you write on ballon the ink always smears and comes off. I didn't let this stop me. I just didn't touch the ballon after I wrote the invite (I found that a regular ink pen smeared the least) and hoped that when my guests opened their invites they would blow up their balloons and there would be minimal ink smearing.

The supplies needed.

So here is my "step by step" guide to creating invites. Supplies needed: envelopes, cardstock, photo corners, pen, exacto knife, balloons, and your invite. Personally, I always make a photo print invite. I edited mine on Picnik- RIP :'( and printed it out at walgreens. 50 invites cost me a total of 5 dollars with a spring coupon. It is peronalized with a photo and you don't have to hand write each invite.


The first thing I did was make a template for cutting the cardstock so I could hang the balloon, than used the exacto knife to cut the two rectangles. I printed "inflate me" on top.

Template, card stock, final product with balloon attached.

Than I turned the card over and used the photo coners to attach the photo invite.

She said YES! Balloon invite
written with ink.

I did both the ballon and the invite because I knew that the balloon would smear and didn't want to trust important details of the party to the balloon. So I wrote a simple poem on it:

She said Yes!

A great party is planned,

You're invited too!

Just keep it a secret,

The couple doesn't have a clue!

Mighty binder clip!

To write on the balloons I simply blew them up, clipped the end with a binder clip. I used a word program to find the font I wanted.

I put the balloon through the invite, placed it in my addressed envelopes and sent them off. A regular stamp did the trick and everyone really enjoyed the invite!

 

Do you have your own creative invites? Or have a brilliant solution to the balloon smearing?

Birthday Cake! ::Photoshoot::

I was planning on buying this mini tier cake pan. I knew that it produced cakes a little big bigger than what I had hoped for by reading the comments from other purchasers but it did get great reviews on how well it worked so I decided to get it anyways.

I (obviously) needed to test it out so the day it came in the mail I got my nephews and neice together and we baked mini cakes! They came out flawless. The pan really did work great. And so did this recipe for Miracle Pan Release. I filled them up a little too much but I just chopped off the excess while still warm. We then got to work decorating them and the kids did awesome. It happened that their moms birthdays were very near, I knew that the cakes would never make it home in one piece so instead we did a photo shoot! I absolutely loved all the pictures, I edited with Picnik (R.I.P), printed them out and mailed them to their moms! Along with fingerprint charms.

Here are some examples of the photos we took (please ignore the tattoos on their faces!) Just part of being a kid....

I am hoping that I will find plenty of events to use my mini cake pan. We celebrate half birthdays in this house so I am sure I will have a cake smashinig photo shoot for my sons half birthday in May!

If you take any cute cake photos please share!