Coasters, man.

Coasters, man, coasters. I'd been wanting to do this foreverrrr, but until recently I've had a serious fear of Mod Podge. I don't know, it just seems so...intimidating? Like, Mod Podge projects are for the "crafting elite", if  you will. But, Christmas is coming up and I bought 12 tiles for $1.69 so I was like, this is gonna have to happen. Away with you, crafting anxiety! I'm about to decoupage my butt off. but anywho, here's the list of what you'll need if you wanna make some! (Ps. These pics are just off my phone and they stink, I"ll have to use my Nikon and upload some better ones later.)

Materials:

• Tiles - I got 12 4x4 porcelain tiles from Home Depot, they have them for .13 a tile. (Yes, I still used my debit card for the transaction. The cashier judged me. I felt it.)
• Scrapbook paper- at least that's what I used. but I've seen these projects with printed out pictures and stuff. The paper was pretty affordable with Michael's coupons, btw.
• Mod Podge - This stuff is expensiveee, in my poor person opinion anyway, (about 6 bucks a jar) but I've read that there really is no replacement and you shouldn't try to replace it sooo, I caved and bout it. (I used the gloss finish.)
• Felt - for the bottom of the soon to be coasters, I got 2 yds for about 8 bucks at Michael's (because, where else)
• Spongey, applicatior thing -they're those sponges on a stick, literally .49 a piece for the small ones.

-So first, I cut the felt as best as I could to fit the bottom of the tile. I honestly just laid the tile on the felt and cut around it. because I am lazy. and I don't have one of those nifty, crafting, slicer cutting things (you know what I'm talking about) It didn't make for the best cut, but for a first attempt it worked good enough. After I cut out all the felt pieces I glued them to the back.
-I pretty much did the same thing in regards to cutting the scrapbook paper pieces, except this time I was fancy enough to use a ruler. I wanted to have a little bit of white around the edges so I used it to try and get the edges as straight as possible when I trimmed the paper down.
-After choosing which papers I wanted to use and cutting them out, I used the sponge to apply a thin layer of the mod podge to the back of the paper and then placed it where I wanted on the tile. Let it dry, about 15-20 minutes.
-After it's dried, place a layer of mod podge on top of the coaster in even strokes, again let it dry. (the let it dry parts are actually pretty important, you don't wanna rush these) I did a total of 4 coats to make sure it was sealed, I've heard people say they use an outdoor sealer to make sure they're really waterproof, but with a 9 month old crawling around I don't even know how much actual use these bad boys will get because he is the reason why I can't have nice things, so I didn't find the outdoor sealer to necessary. But if you plan on getting real use of your coasters, I'd say it couldn't hurt.

All in all I'm pretty happy with them, I think they're kinda sloppy, but I have a feeling I'll get the hang of it once I do more (and there will be more, if you're my friend and you're reading this...merry christmas early?) but most importantly I'm happy to have conquered my mod podge anxiety! I've always said crafting is my therapy haha. Hope ya'll enjoy this one! :)

Cinnamon (and pine cone) wrapped candles.

So I'm sure if you frequent Pinterest at all, (and come on, you so do) you've seen those cinnamon wrapped candles floating around on there. I thought they were cute and would be a nice touch for a thanksgiving centerpiece. They were pretty easy to make, I'm just cheap and refused to pay for more than 1 bag of cinnamon sticks sooo when I started to run out for the second candle I had to improvise:

Yes, I did have to shove pine cones in there to plug up the empty space. Did you know hot glue guns don't work on candles? I did not. and now I do. haha, so the second candle is pretty sloppy looking, buuuut I think in the scheme of things it works well. here's a quick how to!

Here's what you'll need:

• Candles - I used 2 warm vanilla scented candles from the dollar store. 
• Cinnamon sticks - found these for about 4 dollars at Walmart.
• Rubber bands
• Twine, burlap, raffia - basically something to tie around the candles to hide the rubber band/decorate.

First things first, place the rubber band around the candles, then cut or break the cinnamon sticks to fit the size of your candle. After that, begin placing the cinnamon stick pieces inside the rubber band until no more can fit. You'll probably want to hide the rubber band so that's where some twine or burlap comes in. All I had was raffia, which is a little harder to make look neat, and if I could justify spending more money I would have gotten a taller candle for a little more contrast, but all in all I think they turned out pretty cute! Another fast and easy craft. Hope ya'll enjoy! :)

Mason jar lumineries.

So I did these a while ago and I just thought they were so cute and a fun and quick way to decorate for fall. (Mommyhood generally leaves you pressed for time.) I didn't document the whole process, but it was so simple, hopefully a detailed explanation will suffice haha.

Here's what I used:

• Three mason jars - I bought mine for about $1.49 a piece at Michael's.
• Burlap garland or trim.
• Raffia or twine - whichever you prefer. I just so happened to have Raffia on hand so that's what I went with.
• Some sort of foliage - Dollar Tree had packs of detached leaves that worked PERFECTLY for this.
• Candles - tea lights or whatever you can get to fit inside
• Hot glue gun - for, you know, the gluing and stuff.
• accessories (optional) - I used two of the mason jars as actual lumineries and filled one with cinnamon scented mini pine cones.

Okay, so here's the basic rundown of how to put these together. First, I removed the inside lids from all the jars. Then I measured how much burlap to cut by wrapping it around the mason jar until it came together, I allowed for a little extra room because cutting burlap can sometimes be tricky. Next, I glued the pieces together, and repeated this process for another jar. Then I placed a leaf in the front of each of the jars and tied them in place with a strand of raffia. The next step was just to place a tea light candle inside. For the remaining jar I just filled it with pine cones and tied a raffia bow under the top rim. and VOILA!! prettyness! Like I said, super easy and fast. Hope ya'll enjoy! :)

well, hey there! I haven't quite figured out this whole "blog thing" as I'm a rare breed of technology inept in this day and age, but I'd figure I'd give it a try. My goal here is to post some crafts, some recipes (both baby related and not), and the occasional introspective rambling about my life as a single mother at a very pivotal age, but we'll see what actually happens. As I'm typing this, I've almost talked myself out of doing this approximately 4 times. Classic Deanna. But it's come to my attention that "classic Deanna" might not be the best at, well...life, soooo against my better judgment, here we are! I'm working on changing some things and adding more positivity to my life and I'm hoping this will be the place to do that. I can't wait to post some crafts and get started. :)