DIY with Flower Petals!

I LOVE to treat myself to flowers from Trader Joes.  The price is right, they always have a nice variety of flowers and a great selection of colors.  I fell particularly hard for my last bunch, a beautiful bundle of the most perfect big, fluffy, peachy/pink/soft yellow roses.  I was so sad when they started to fade and droop.  Death was inevitable, but I found a way to enjoy them for a bit longer!

I carefully pulled all the petals off of the stems and used a needle and thread to make them into a necklace of sorts.  Who did I know who needed a flower petal necklace?

This guy! 

 Look at him all secure in his masculinity wearing a flower necklace.  

I am not sure what will happen to them over time, but I will report back!

Watercolors!

These may look like Easter decorations, but here at the Factory, we use SO many egg cartons to organize things we have hoarded supplies.  We have a weekly supply of egg cartons and an endless supply of doo dads, thing-a-ma-bobs, doo hickies and general "stuff" that needs to be corralled.  

I painted these guys with water colors and then splattered some metallic gold paint on them, cause everything is better with a little splash of gold paint! 

See?  Little things all nicely organized in their own little spot!

What do you do with your old egg cartons???

Happening!

This is the situation at Factory 506 right now.   

Things are happening...

And they are all very PINK!!!

Tassels!

Anyone who knows me knows that there are not many things that I love more than tassels!!!  They are so pretty and so easy to make.  I LOVE to make them!!!  Look at the pretty pink and gold ones that I made!  What do you think???

I just love how this one looks against the color of my armoire!

Cement Candle Holders

After seeing tons of cool cement projects on Pinterest, I decided it was time to hit up Lowes, buy a bag of cement and get going on my own!!!  I started with these adorable little candle holders.

I had been saving/hoarding the plastic containers from my favorite Sunburst tomatoes.  It has the cutest star shape, perfect for little candle holders to use out on the patio.  Although I would totally use these inside too.  

This is the cement that I used.  There were a ton of different kinds, who knew, and all of the packages sounded similar, so I just went for one that supposedly had a more "fine" appearance.  I have no idea what the sand/topping mix means.  But it worked for me!

I dumped some in a big bucket, added water and mixed it up with a stick.  I just kept adding water until it was kind of thick, but I could still scoop it out with a cup and pour it into my mold.  Like thick batter I guess, but I don't really deal with a lot of batter.

I sprayed my mold with cooking spray and sprayed the outside of that little cup that is on the inside too.  Then I just filled the tomato container with the cement mixture.  I put the little apple sauce cup inside (to make the spot for the candle) and when it kept floating to the top, I put some rocks in it to hold it down.  Make sure that you have it kind of straight.

The hard part is not bothering it for about 24 hours.  When it "looked" dry, I took the inside cup out, and the whole thing cracked.  Don't do that!  Then a couple of hours later I took another one out of the mold, and it cracked.  Don't do that either!  Just wait 24 hours so that you can pop them all out without any problems.  I ended up with six of them, after the cracking.  I filled some of the molds higher than others so I would have a little variation in size.  

I just love my first cement project.  I think they are as cute as can be, and they could not have been any easier to make.  Now I have a lot of other cement projects in mind.  Good thing since I probably have 49.5 pounds left in my 50 pound bag!!!  

Have you ever though of making things out of cement?  I am completely hooked.....

  

Shells

I am a freak about shells.  I LOVE looking for them, and I LOVE making things with them.  When I am on the beach, my inner OCD comes crashing out and I become even more obsessed than usual with shells.  It is like a drug, just one more good one, one more pass by the rocks, one more look in the tide pool.  It is pure crazy!  We were recently in Florida for my son's spring break and I actually mailed six boxes of shells home.  My sweet husband is a saint!

We gathered a bunch of shells that had holes in them, perfect for stringing!  So my son and I strung them up on copper wire and we have them hanging in the trees around our patio.  It looks so sweet and we love that when we notice the shells, we start talking about our vacation again!

Do you have a bunch of shells from a vacation?  What do you do with them, I would love to know...

Little Paintings

I made some little paintings.  I love to paint on cardboard, I like what the dark brown background looks like with lighter paint colors on top.  I also love using something that I have saved, you know, because I am SURE I can make something with it someday.  (I may or may not have a supply hoarding problem).

Little paintings made with cardboard and acrylic paint.

PS.  I will work on my lame photography skills!!!

I'm New!

Woo Hoo

I started a blog, now what?????

So I am thinking that this will be the place for me to document all of my projects, experiments, ideas and general nonsense.  It will be fun, and I need an outlet!  

Ok, I am off to the Factory to create my first project!!!