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! 

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!

A New Love in my Life...

I'm beginning to think that I have a new love in my life. 

(Sorry Amazing Boyfriend, but it's true.) I am totally in love with fabric paint!!! 

After reading other blogs talking about using fabric paint and freezer paper here, here and here, I decided that I had to totally steal the idea give it a try myself. Since I got a new Silhouette machine for Christmas (thanks, Mom and Dad), it meant that I already has the super lazy easy means to make a stencil with freezer paper. 

 Since St. Patrick's Day was approaching I wanted to make shirts for me and my ABF. 

 This is what I get when I ask ABF to take a pic when he wants a nap

This is the annoyed look I get from ABF when I want a pic

Pretty cute, right? 
(I meant the shirts not the pics) 



Wanna see how I did it? 

I made the designs for both of our shirts using my silhouette software, and cut them out on the freezer paper with my silhouette. (Sorry, didn't get pictures of that process.)

Then I took the stencils and ironed it onto each shirt. Since freezer paper has a plastic coating it will adhere to the fabric temporarily with an iron.

I put a piece of freezer paper inside the shirt to protect it from the fabric paint bleeding through. Then went to town with my fabric paint. White for the ABF's shirt and gold for mine.

After several coats of fabric paint I peeled away the stencil... tadaa!!! 

So happy with my awesome designs. 
I'm really loving my silhouette machine too (but I'll save that for another post)


After the shirts dried, I put a piece of fabric over them and ironed it to seal the paint. Whatever you do, don't iron the paint directly or it'll ruin it. Once you've sealed the paint you can wash it in the washing machine without worry that your design will come off in the wash. 


Now you should try it. It's pretty easy, I promise. And even if you don't have a fancy cutting machine you can still make a design with freezer paper and an craft knife. And when you're done you'll have an awesome shirt to rock too! (And maybe you can get a better pic then I got.)


P.S. Happy St. Patrick's Day