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crafting

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Fly Fishing Flies

The gear.. well some of it.

So I was down in Florida a bit ago visiting family, and I learned my grandpa has taken up a new hobby. He’s been known to do a lot of things, including making wine at home. This time, however, I learned he’s into making flies. Something I would NEVER think to do unless my grandpa asked me to.

Let me back up. I am not a fan of fishing. If anyone asks, just lie for me. When I was little, I once made a great catch – my finger. Yeah, it’s traumatized me for life. I am completely afraid I will hook myself again. I also can’t be anywhere near people casting because I’m afraid they’ll hook me. Yes, I have gone fishing since, but I cringe inside the whole time. But I learned that you can buy fish finders to help you find the fish and make it a little easier to catch them.

Anyway, making flies with my grandpa was actually pretty fun. (And the hooks are super small, so even if I hooked myself, it wouldn’t have been too bad.)

I think we made something called a Parachute Adams. There was a lot of “don’t use a lot of thread,” “keep the line tight,” loop it,” and “go this way.” I think it resulted in something usable. We’re still not sure. Mine needs to go on a diet. Apparently I used too much thread, kept the line loose, and had to rewrap it like 10 times. Some guy in a YouTube video (I watched it later to see how it was supposed to go) made one in less than 2 minutes. Mine took about an hour.

Apparently I made the fly too loose, so he had to glue it together. I never said I was great at this.

Isn’t it cute??? 🙂

I tried folks, I tried.

 

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Burlap Halloween Banner

Happy Halloween, everyone!

I know. I know. It’s early. It’s still September. But if you don’t start now, then you’ll never have everything ready for Halloween. I’ve started so many projects, I think I’m moving into the craft store soon. I think the staff at Joann Fabric is starting to know me by sight. The moment they start saying my name when I walk in the door, I know I’m in trouble. Anyway, so I decided I wanted to make a banner for Halloween with burlap.

Needed:
Burlap
Acrylic paint – black and orange
Paint brush
Scissors
Cotton String
Hot glue gun

Cut triangles of the burlap. I used a pattern I cut out of a piece of paper and kept using it to trace my shape.

Pieces at the ready.

Then I painted a letter on each with black paint. Used a Q-tip to make polka dots on the banner to add some orange.

I went back and redid the letters. They were messy, you’ll see in the next pictures.

Then I took the triangles (dried, of course), and hot glued them to the string.

Careful, the glue is hot!

And when it dried… it was sooo pretty!

Love it!

 

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How to mess up painting a wooden bowl… and then fix it

It didn’t start off this cute. Believe me, it was a feat.

So, a while back I scavenged around a  local antique shop in search of wooden items to paint. I found these wooden bowls and got them for $8 (all together, not each).

What a steal

But what I really wanted to do was paint these bowls. Was hoping to do some kind of pattern on the bowls, so I painted one all white first and let it dry. Then I put these stickers on them that was hoping would have the same effect as the LOVE painting I did. So I dabbed blue paint over the bowl.

Looks so innocent and perfect, right?

I let all that paint dry, pulled off the stickers, and…

What the heck? Are you kidding me??

The nerve of that paint! Messing up my wooden bowl. Argggg. (That’s like a cross between a pirate scowl and the sound I’d make if I ever jumped out of a plane – terrifying.) So I decided instead of getting mad, I painted it over. Through my frustration I decided to let that fully dry and put two pieces of tape on it, making a triangle. Then painted the inside white.

Maybe this will make it better…..

I let that dry, this time being way more patient… and Voila!

Added a layer of my Martha Stewart satin finish and it was all set.

See, not everything that is ruined can’t be fixed. Maybe that says something… hmmm.

 

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Canvas LOVE

Couldn’t be happier with how this turned out!

Getting crafty again. This beauty is my newest creation, stemming from a Pinterest pin that had a similar work. (see here) That girl is WAY more ambitious than I am. But it was beautiful and it got me thinking. What could Roni do? So I slummed my way over to Michael’s for some crafts. Found out they were having a “clearance” sale. Yeah, that just means they put stickers on everything to make you feel like you’re getting a deal. I worked in retail once, I know how it works…

So I bought these four mini square canvases (totaled $6, I believe) and some acrylic paint (50 cents a bottle) and a foam brush. Went to Walmart and also got mailbox stickers (L,O,V,E) and some heart shaped stickers on a sheet that were on sale for 50 cents.

Just some supplies, you know, for the crafting thing.

Before we get too far into this, let me preface with it took me three days to get this whole thing complete. I don’t know if it was laziness or me trying to let the paint dry. Either way, I wanted to make sure everything was really dry before putting colors on top of one another. So I started by covering two of the canvases pink and two of them black. In doing this, I decided to opt out of the Miami Dolphins teal and orange for another project. Just didn’t seem to fit here.

Starting to look mighty pretty.

Look how smooth and pretty those came out!

So with those successfully painted and dried, I took care to cut out the letters from the sticker sheets so I could just have their outlines on the canvas. Then I stuck some hearts around as well. The hard part was making sure when I put the paint on the foam brushes, that I remembered to dab some of the paint off so that I could have a light amount on the brush when I dabbed over the stickers. I tried not to cover everything, because I wanted to make sure the opposite color could be seen. So when I was painting the black on the pink, I could still see some pink coming through.

Exhibit A

Then I let that dry and then peeled off the stickers. That way I didn’t smudge anything. Really, I beg you to be patient. It will be worth it in the end.

Then I just hung them up on the wall kinda off kilter so that it looked cool. See?

I kind of want to make a ton of these, but I have no use for more. Maybe Christmas presents? Hmmmm

And ta dah. A canvas set for way less than the $30 price tag I’m sure people on Etsy are selling them for. And you can make it the color and style you actually want!

 

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