Paint Sample Banners.

A couple of weeks ago we repainted a lot of our house, so of course when we went to the local paint store I had to grab tons of paint samples. It's just a thing I do, mainly because I love using them for art projects! I remember doing a mosaic in high school for an art class using them, and people seemed to liked it.

My mom's birthday was on Sunday, and Saturday night I decided that I should make these banners that I had been planning in my head to use for a 'happy birthday' sign! So I put on some indie rock (Yellow Ostrich Pandora station) and got to work.

I started out with a bunch of different green and blue samples. I decided to stick with the same color scheme instead of making the banners more like rainbows.

Next I cut out a bunch of hearts. I did it by hand, giving them an imperfect look, though I might think about getting a stencil or punch for the future, but the hand cut look does look nice too!

Then using my needle I pre-poked two holes in each heart.

Using a thick white thread, I strung the hearts, tying knots about two inches apart, but I just eyeballed it. You can make them as long or short, as closely strung or as far as you want, this is a very simple a project that can be customized just to your liking. 

As you can see, my hearts are quite rough, with the words sometimes included. I wasn't looking for perfection, I think they look great just they way they are!

Here is the  final product! I also made a simple little 'happy birthday' sign using similar colors to the banners. I did one with triangles! My mom liked the display and said it was cute. I'm going to hang on to these to put up for birthdays in the future!

Now it's time to apologize for my photos. A lot of the time the lighting in them is awful. Especially on this post, I don't know what it is but this house is not made for taking pictures! Next time I'll have to do some editing before I upload them, have patience I beg of you haha. 

I hope some of you grab paint samples next time you find yourself in a Lowe's or wherever and try out some sort of project like this, I know that I'm going to make many more with lots of colors! Have a terrific Tuesday.

Naomi Odlin

Crafts

When my sister went off to college, she got rid of (and replaced) many clothes that she no longer liked or did t fit her anymore. Lucky me, I got to go through all these hand-me-downs and make my picks before the rest went to consignment shops or Goodwill. I grabbed some jeans and immediately cut them into capris, though now that I did I I realized that they don't exactly fit me that well. But alas, they've been cut and cannot be uncut. So I was left with some ill fitting pants and a couple of pant legs.

I remember pinning on Pinterest something about turning the scraps of cut off jeans into little containers for different things and decided to search through my many pins, and finally found it. The project was so simple, straight forward, and quite useful in the end, so I just put on an episode of Sabrina the Teenage Witch (my latest obsession on Amazon Instant Video) and busted out a couple. 

All you need are the scraps from your cut offs, thread of any color, and scissors!

Turn them inside out and sew a straight line across the cut part, at least an inch down.

This part may sound tricky, but isn't. Fold the fabric in half so the seams are opposite each other, fold the sewed part down to one side, and make a sort of triangle. Sew a straight line across. Repeat on both sides.

Turn it right, fold the top down a bit, and there's your upcycled jean container!

I used one of them to hold my acrylic paints and brushes, and I haven't found a use for the second one just yet. Though I'll probably hold some other craft supplies once I get all of those better organized. 

I just love to upcycle things into art or useful objects, it's one of my favorite things ever! Does anyone else out there like to reuse old things? Let me know some other projects you've done before! 

Naomi Odlin