If You Give A Bethany A Blazer Loss...

 ... than she wants a drink of whiskey... if you give her a drink of whiskey, she'll want it out of a cute flask...

Recently, while watching my beloved Portland Trailblazers lose to a team I can't stand (but dare not name), I also happened to be online. I updated my Facebook status claiming that after this game I was going to need a drink. In a new tab, I was on Etsy and saw a cute flask featured, which lead me to an adorable little shop kryan2designs where I found a cute zebra print girly flask that I absolutely love, so I linked it to my Facebook.

One of my friends left a comment on my link asking the question that all my friends seem to ask me when they find something really cute online that they don't want to buy. 

"Can we make that?" 

The answer is... duh!!!

Wanna see how I did it? 


Supplies: 
metal flask
scrapbook paper
measuring tape
outdoor mod podge
paint brush

I found some cute little 2 oz. stainless steel flasks online and you can find them here. I started out by measuring my flask. First I measured the height of the flask and then the length.

Once I had my dimensions, it was time to cut my paper. My measurements had me cut pieces 2 1/4" x 7 1/2". I miss measured at first and cut 3 1/4" tall, but cut an inch off and was fine.

When I had my pieces cut I wrapped them around the flask and cut off the excess length.

Once I had my paper cut it was time to mod podge. I painted a section of mod podge on the flask and put the paper on. I repeated to paint on sections and smooth down the paper, making sure to smooth the paper down really well to avoid getting air bubbles.

When the little flasks were covered with scrapbook paper, I made sure to let the mod podge dry. Then I applied a coat of mod podge over the top of the paper to seal the paper onto the flask. I did a total of three top coats of mod podge to make sure that it would stay sealed. I chose to use Outdoor Mod Podge to help protect the scrapbook paper from getting wet.

Update 2/3/12: After drying for 72 hours like the instructions said, the Outdoor Mod Podge on top of the paper was still a little tacky. I added a coat of Hard Coat Mod Podge and now the top coat is perfect. 

When I was finished I had some cute little flasks that will make some adorable little gifts for some ladies that I know!

I have plans to make a few more of these, maybe even one for myself! 


I'm sharing this project at the following link parties: 

~ What's In The Gunny Sack @ The Gunny Sack ~ Make It Great Monday @ Etcetorize ~ The Cure for the Common Monday @ Lines Across My Face ~ Craft & Tell @ Cherished Bliss ~ Talent Tuesday @ Vintage Wanna Bee ~ Tips & Tutorials Link Party @ Home Stories From A to Z ~ Tuesday Talent Show @ Chef In Training ~ Take-A-Look Tuesday @ Sugar Bee Crafts ~  Too Cute Tuesday @ Funky Polkadot Giraffe ~ Show Me What Ya Got @ Not Just A Housewife ~ Tell Me Tuesday @ Me and My Boys ~ Your Whims Wednesday @ My Girlish Whims ~ Wow Me Wednesday @ Ginger Snap Crafts ~ Lil Luna Link Party @ Lil Luna ~ Show and Tell @ Blue Cricket Design ~ Show & Share @ Southern Lovely ~ Wicked Awesome Wednesday @ Handy Man, Crafty Woman ~ Creative Juice Thursday @ Momnivore's Dilemma ~ Transformation Thursday @ The Shabby Creek Cottage ~ BFF Open House Link Party @ The Answer Is Chocolate ~ T.G.I.F Link Party @ Craft Junkie Too ~ Anything Goes Link Party @ Bacon Time ~ Creative Genius Link Party @ The Creative Paige ~ Delicately Constructed Friday @ Delicate Construction ~ Weekend Bloggy Reading @ Serenity Now ~ Weekend Wrap Party @ Tatertots & Jello ~ Free For All @ Young and Crafty ~ Strut Your Stuff Saturday @ Six Sisters Stuff ~ Show and Tell Saturday @ Be Different Act Normal ~ Saturday Seven Link Party @ Positively Splendid ~ Sunday Link Party @ Twigg Studios ~ Sister Sunday Link Party @ Sisters of the Wild West ~ Sundae Scoop Link Party @ I {heart} Naptime ~ Sunday's Best Par.tay @ My 1929 Charmer ~  Think Pink Sunday @ Flamingo Toes ~

Let Me Spell It Out For You

Two of the greatest friends I have, Brad and Naomi, are going to be having a baby girl in a few weeks! 

 Naomi is decorating the nursery with a touch of a cowgirl theme and showed me a beautiful wall hanging made of rope that spells out the baby's name. However, to order one that spells out Abigail, the name they've chosen, would be almost 250 dollars!!! 

Crazy, right? 

So I decided to make one of my own as part of my baby shower gift. 

It might not look exactly the same as the original, but I think it turned out pretty darn cute!  

 I started out shaping some metal wire into the outline of the name Abigail.

Then I heated up my glue gun, Debra and went to work hot gluing sisal rope over the wire outline. When I had all the wire covered, I went over the rope with a layer of mod podge to keep the rope from unfraying. 

 The other part of my gift was my second baby blanket, that I knitted using Bernat Baby Blanket yarn. The yarn was a variegated pattern of pink, orange and fuchsia. I didn't realize it, but ABF pointed out when I was about half way done that it kind of looked like pink camouflage, which was not my intention at all, but was very fitting for this family.

 Naomi was pretty thrilled that I remembered the rope name, which she'd kind of given up on and was excited about the baby blanket as well!

I can't wait to meet their new little one, I'm sure I'm going to love her as much as I love her parents!




I'm sharing this project at the following link parties:


~ The Cure for the Common Monday @ Lines Across My Face ~ Make It Great Monday @ Etcetorize ~ Tutorials & Tips @ Home Stories From A to Z ~ Talent Tuesday @ Vintage Wanna Bee ~ Craft & Tell @ Cherished Bliss ~ Tuesday Talent Show @ Chef In Training ~ Take-A-Look Tuesday @ Sugar Bee Crafts ~ Tell Me Tuesday @ Me And My Boys ~ Show Me What Ya Got @ Not Just A Housewife ~ {Wow Me} Wednesday @ Ginger Snap Crafts ~ Your Whims Wednesday @ My Girlish Whims ~ Lil Luna Link Party @ Lil' Luna ~ Share The Wealth Wednesday @ Laugh, Love & Craft ~ Wicked Awesome Wednesday @ Handy Man Crafty Woman ~ Show & Share @ Southern Lovely ~ Transformation Thursdays @ The Shabby Creek Cottage ~ Creative Juice Thursday @ Momnivore's Dilemma ~ T.G.I.F. Linky Party @ Craft Junkie Too ~ BFF Open House Link Party @ The Answer Is Chocolate ~ Free For All @ Young And Crafty ~ Weekend Wrap Up Party @ Tatertots & Jello ~ Whatcha Got Weekend @ Lolly Jane Boutique ~ Strut Your Stuff Saturday Link Party @ Six Sisters' Stuff ~ Show and Tell Saturday @ Be Different Act Normal ~ Weekend Bloggy Reading @ Serenity Now ~ Saturday Seven @ Positively Splendid ~ Sundae Scoop Link Party @ I {heart} Naptime ~ Sister Sunday Link Party @ Sisters of the Wild West ~  

Alright Mother Nature, I Get It!

Dear Mother Nature, 

I will be the first to say, well played. Being that spring equinox was yesterday, this was hardly the scene I expected to wake up to this morning. 

What a joke you must have thought you were playing on us unsuspecting Oregonians living in the Willamette Valley! I was just noting yesterday the wonderful bright colors of the daffodils and how pretty the cherry trees are in bloom. Than today, they are all covered in the most respectable layer of snow that I've seen this year. 

I would ask one little favor though, since I know that you like to play such practical jokes with our lovely Oregon weather. On September 8th, when I'm getting married, can you just decide to go fishing and let mr. sunshine take over for a day or two? 

With great love and respect, 

Bethany

Top O' Tha Mornin' To Ya!

I have a special fondness for St. Patrick's Day. It might be because I have quite a bit of Irish blood running through my veins or the fact that it's the closest holiday to my birthday, but I just think it's such a fun holiday. 

I didn't get to do a lot for the holiday last year since we had just moved, although I did make some pretty stylin' St. Patty's day t-shirts for Amazing Boyfriend and myself. 
 

This year I decided I wanted to do something fun for my nieces. 

Last year I found these adorable leprechaun hat treat containers that Jeromina from Paper, Plate & Planes created. Such a clever idea! 

So I picked up some small plastic containers from the dollar store.  

I painted the outside lip of the container and the outside rim of the lid with a small paintbrush. Then I used a sponge brush to paint the rest of the container. I did two coats on each. 

When they were dry, I cut enough black ribbon to go around each container. I used glue adhesive to stick the ribbon around the container. 

When I had my ribbon glued on, I used mod podge to glue on the "buckles" that I had cut out of cardstock. 

Then I added shamrocks. 

Finally I filled it up with leprechaun gold!

I think my nieces are going to love them! 

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Are you wearing your green?

 

"You Can't Drink That!"

Amazing Boyfriend is under Dr.'s orders not to drink alcohol. Since he was someone who loved beer and even brewed beer before he got sick, I know he misses it more than he'll admit. He's also cut caffeine out of his diet, since it's hard on his liver. I recently found an organic caffeine free cola at the grocery store so I decided that I'd dress up a few bottles of cola as a St. Patrick's Day treat for him. 

I found this idea on Pinterest but followed the source until I found the original free printable from Benign Objects.  I've never applied my own drink labels before, but it was kinda fun!


First I wet the original labels with warm water to loosen up the adhesive and removed the labels. 

Once I had the labels off, I rubbed a little bit of lighter fluid over the bottles to make sure all the sticky adhesive was removed.

I cut out the labels that I had printed out from Benign Objects, and glued them onto my bottles using mod podge.

And that's it!

Didn't they turn out adorable?

Super easy, and a nice way to take something really simple and dress it up a little. I'll definitely be doing this again in the future! 

Beware The Ides Of March

It probably should be a little more like, "Beware of babies born on the Ides of March."

So yeah, today is my birthday...

and I don't even have anything cool planned to show for it. 

But the past three weeks have been CRAZY!!!  My Dad was in the hospital for over two weeks, but he's out now and being a cranky old man at home (but only I get to say that because I'm his daughter.) I also have a cousin that went into the hospital and ended up in the ICU, but he's also on the mend. 

Than when all that hoopla started to settle down a little bit, it was time to leave on our vacation that ABF and I had been planning since Christmas. 

We headed over to the Oregon Coast, and the weather was absolutely gorgeous the whole time we were there! I'm a really bad blogger and didn't get hardly any pictures, which I'm kinda upset about now, but didn't really care about at the time. The weather was gorgeous, we went out onto the beach every day, I found the most amazing bookstore (Robert's Books on Hwy 101 in Lincoln City, seriously, you won't be sorry you went), got the other thing ABF and I always go to the beach for - fresh saltwater taffy... 

oh yeah, and I got engaged!!! 

ABF and I went out onto the beach to watch the sunset. There was a really strong wind, and we had lots of extra layers on, but it was so cold out there. We set out a blanket on the beach next to a giant piece of driftwood so that it would break the wind a little bit. I can't even remember what we were talking about, but he pulled out a beautiful stained wood box that he had stained himself and set it on my leg. 

Inside was a beautiful claddagh ring that I had seen before on Etsy. 

sorry for the not so great pic, but it's beautiful, I promise!

And after ten and a half years of happy togetherness, he finally asked me to marry him! 

So now we're trying to figure out how to go about this whole "tying the knot" business, but no plans have been made yet, although expect plenty of wedding crafting to come. 

So now you have an explanation for my bloggy absence, but sometimes you just have to embrace this crazy, beautiful life and enjoy the ride!

Kiss Me, I'm Irish!!!

Did you miss me?

I have certainly missed you! (no, really, I have!) I wanted to have my St. Patrick's Day projects posted before now, but you know, life has a funny way of not always working out the way you planned.  So here's my latest project.

I'm sure that MOST of you have some sort of shirt like this...

No? I'm the only one? 

Kidding! 
 

Well, as much as I love the sentiment behind the shirt and I proudly wore it for a few St. Patrick's Days, I felt like this shirt needed to be given a new purpose. So I turned it into this...

Much better, don't you think? 

I thought so too!