A Tale of Woe... Pinterest strikes again....

One of my resolutions this year was to craft more.  I have a Pinterest Board filled with fun crafts and projects, just waiting for me to find the time to work some magic on these ordinary objects and make them into something magical.

So, over the past few months, I've gone through my boards and pulled out a few things that I felt like following through with.  They were quick and easy, and I thought for sure I had the skill level to pull these little gems off.

So, without further ado, here is the update on my Pinterest Projects of the year.

Glitter Dipped Mugs

My original post about the glitter dipped mugs was here: Glitter Dipped Mugs.   The original directions I followed were posted on White House Black Shutters. 

The appeal of these mugs to me was that they were supposed to be dishwasher safe.  We have a space challenged kitchen, and I hate hand washing anything, so there was definite appeal to me for a dishwasher safe version of this.  

These purple beauties were my original mugs.

The cheap knock off sealant.

If you read through my original post, I talk about a 3 layer mug that I had to redo.  I had also run out of the dishwasher safe Mod Podge I originally used.  So, I went  to my local craft store and bought a different brand of decoupage sealant that claimed to be dishwasher safe.   Moral of the story here, not every sealant is equal.  It's worth tracking down the "official" dishwasher safe Mod-Podge brand sealant from the store. I ran both cups through the dishwasher on the same day.  (I labeled the bottoms with a sharpie with the initials of the product because I was curious if they would hold up in the dishwasher.)  Imagine my utter frustration when I opened up the dishwasher and found that ALL of my dishes, silverware, everything - was coated with a fine layer of purple glitter....

A disaapointing result.  HOW am I going to get the rest of the glitter off of that cup?

Coke Can Succulent Garden

I found this totally adorable garden, along with instructions on Polka Dot Chair.

Cute beyond words, isn't it?

Alas, my black thumb struck again.  Less than a month later, THIS is all that is left of the garden:

And here I thought cacti and succulents could withstand even ME?

Kitchen Organization

We have been challenged for space in this kitchen since we moved into this house 10 years ago.  We don't have the money set aside for a kitchen remodel, so we've been trying to find space within the existing cabinets.  I found this little trick on Pinterest, and it was awesome!  I found some vertical dividers, specifically for pans at a home improvement store.  They are screwed into the bottom and the back of the cabinet.  Voila!  Look at this!  Space!  The cabinet is not wide enough to hold ANYTHING horizontally - pans, pots, etc.  With this one, wonderful little trick, we now have more than enough space to hold the large, long cookie sheets, pans, and cutting boards!  They're no longer sitting on top of the toaster oven! 

Vertical Pans!  Everything fits!

I'm curious.  What Pinterest projects have you tackled, and how did they turn out?

Cleaning out the Kitchen

I began the #40bagsin40days Lenten challenge a couple of weeks ago.  I admit.  I had dreams of cleaning out my entire house.

Turns out, I've gotten bogged down in my kitchen.  There's a lot more "stuff" in there than I thought there would be.

While I've been at it, husband and I decided to go ahead and fix all of the little stuff that has bothered us about that space since we moved into this house.  It's been on our "to do" list for 9 years now, but it's never been a priority.

We've emptied out well over half of the cabinets.  We've gone through each and every item and decided what we do and don't use.  Items that needed to go away have been given away.  We cleaned out the cupboard which is just behind the kitchen door, and husband is in the middle of building a custom designed rack so that we can rotate our canned goods in and out without losing stuff in the very back corners of the cupboard.  Items that need to be corralled, like the Easter Egg stuff is all in bins, and the bottom shelves of the cupboards contain these bins of items that are not used often, but that we like to keep track of.

I even went so far as to go through the spices.  We had five jars of Turmeric - each with a little less than a quarter of spice left.  Hey, presto, change-o, I consolidated all of the various jars of Turmeric into one!  Sadly, there were many more extraneous jars of spices - not just the Turmeric - that could be consolidated.  In all, I ended up recycling over 20 jars and little containers of spices that had been hogging space in our cabinets.  I can now actually see what I have on the shelves!  That's an unusual feeling!

Yesterday, I emptied out another cabinet that I've been meaning to get to since we moved in here.  There were 5 sets of drip pans for an electric stove in there.  We have a smooth top electric range.  Not sure how long those pans have been sitting in there, but they are gone now!  This cabinet is going to end up housing my pans and cookie sheets that are currently crammed into the drawer under the oven.  I want to store them vertically, if I can, so I'm looking around for ways to hold the upright without spending a fortune.

I still have the largest project left - getting at the island in the kitchen.  It's an awkward set up - the island itself has cabinets that hang down from the ceiling and come to 12" above the counter top.  No space to do anything here except pile stuff.  When we moved in, our intent was to pull down those cabinets over top of the island and move them down into the laundry room to make a nice island there to fold laundry.  I believe we're about to make it happen.  With the space we've opened up in the other cabinets, we should be able to move everything out of those upper cabinets and take them down.  I don't think it will happen before Easter, but it will happen before graduation.  Finally, one of the larger visions we had for this space when we moved in here - opening up the kitchen - will be done!

I have added a Kitchen Remodel board to my Pinterest Boards.  I don't honestly think we'll be able to pull off a lot of these ideas, but it's fun to look at these great ideas and dream!

The bag count so far?  9 bags to Goodwill.  1 to the Public Library.  2 bags to a mission trip to Guatemala.  4 bags of trash. 1 bin of recycling.

Glitter Dipped Mugs

With the winter weather we've had this week, I've been out of work for the majority of the week.  I've worked 2 days this week.  In the meantime, I've been hitting up my Pinterest Boards, and working on craft projects.  This is the latest find!  The glitter dipped mugs look beautiful, and I had to try!

The necessary supplies- glitter and mod podge

 I found the original project here: http://www.whitehouseblackshutters.com/glitter-dipped-mug/

Since the directions for the mug itself are written on the white house black shutters blog, I am not going to repeat them here.  You can follow the link to see the step by step directions.

Setting up the craft area:  lots and lots of newspaper.

The blue stripe is painter's tape.  Pretty purple glitter on my mug!

The mugs have been glittered - waiting for their layer of Mod Podge.

I do have a couple of very important notes on this.  The blue and green glitter is extra chunky glitter.  The purple glitter is superfine.  While the blue and green looks really cool, the purple is a little more understated, and it doesn't "glitter" the way you think it should.  It's pretty, but it's not glittery.

In her blog, Ann Marie recommends waiting overnight before applying anything over the glitter.  The directions on the bottle of Mod Podge say you can apply a second layer after 2 hours.  Don't do that!  Wait overnight between layers!  I waited an hour, and I applied three layers over the glitter on one mug.  On the other mug, I ended up waiting overnight between layers and I only added two layers of Mod Podge.  I also left the tape on my mug and didn't pull it off.  All big mistakes, let me tell you.  The entire purple glitter layer ended up peeling off of my 3 layer mug yesterday.  I'm going back and redoing the entire thing today.  I'm going to wait overnight in between layers, and I'm going to only put two layers of glitter on my mug.

So, was this a pinterest success or fail?  One mug was a roaring success!  Okay, so it was the one that I followed the directions to the letter.... The other one, I rushed and took a few shortcuts.

I'll claim this as a Pinterest Success Story!