Latest Painting

I found a brief moment between all the craziness of school work and clinical to paint for a bit. Enjoy :)

Find time to do something you love,
Happy Painting,
Susie

Susie's First Apple Pie!

So I baked my first apple pie this past weekend! We had all the ingredients but that good ole frozen pie crust...so I had to make one from scratch. What an adventure! My baking savvy mama taught me how to roll the crust up on the rolling pin in order to roll it out over the pie plate. How cool was that?! I also learned what a pastry blender was. All these years I had been using that thing to mash potatoes. Embarrassed! Anyways, here are the pictures from our baking adventure. PS - It was quite tasty.

Here is a pastry blender. You use it for pastries...not potatoes...

Thanks so much to Mom and Liz for helping me learn how to bake an apple pie!!!

                                                                     (me using the pastry blender correctly!)

 Happy Baking!
   Love, Susie

Red Velvet Cookies

Hey y'all! I felt the need to bake the other day and had an extra box of cake mix. So...I decided to try these red velvet cookies. They were delicious!

All you need:
1 Box Red Velvet Cake Mix
1/3 cup oil
2 eggs

Combine the ingredients and bake on 375 for 8-10 minutes. They would be great with cream cheese icing on top! It made about 45 cookies! So yummy :D

Happy baking!

Susie

Collaged Heart!

I just moved back into the dorm and was looking to brighten up the walls a bit. On pinterest, of course, I saw a girl who made a giant heart out of pictures. I tried. I failed. It was super tough to make the pictures look like they were arranged in a heart. So, I came up with this way to do it a bit easier.

 Lay out pieces of paper (I used card-stock to give it some weight)

 Duct tape them together and sketch a heart (then flip over)

Collage pictures on the non-duct tape side (using duct tape). Then, turn it over and cut out the heart you traced.

Enjoy!!!

Happy collaging!

Susie

Flyeyze!

I, with the help of my dad, have come up with a line of button earrings called Flyeyze. I love all things vintage and sought to recreate vintage styles through these earrings. Email me at susiehomemakercrafts@gmail.com if you are interested in a pair!

Love always,
Susie

Painted Canvas Art

I am really thrilled with the way these turned out. At a concert at my church, the choir sang this song. I just couldn't get it out of my head. It's a huge blessing and hope that we can know that, because of Christ, there is far better for us beyond this world.

The background: I just got three canvases that were the same side and one color of blue, yellow, and white paint. I made a stencil for the chevrons out of construction paper. I would tape it on to ensure that it does not move. However, by the second canvas, I was just free-handing the pattern. I started with the original color, then added a bit of white with each next stripe. 

The words: Once the background dried, I used paper stencils from Joanns to do the letters. I soon discovered that they were too large, so I free-handed some of the words instead of the stencil.The paint was pretty thin, so I had to paint over them a few times.

That's it!

Happy painting!

Love,
Susie

Wicker Table Redo!

My mom and I were out and about yesterday when we saw this adorable wicker table on the side of the road. Determined to give it a good home, we picked it up and put it in the trunk of the car. After a hard power washing with the hose, some serious sanding on my part, and a fresh coat of paint, this little beauty is looking good!

Love,
Susie

Trunk Redo!

One of my favorite things in the whole world is to go thrift store shopping. At school this past year, I ran across this old trunk. However, I just didn't see a need for it and left it at the thrift store. Later that day, I had to return to get it. I just couldn't leave it there! So here is my attempt to clean it up a bit!

Fixing the giant tears with some duct tape :D

 After three coats of spray paint

 After one coat of of-white interior paint from Walmart.

Here is the finished product! I ended up doing two coats of the off-white paint to make sure it was coated really well. I used 1/2 the quart of paint which was only $9 to begin with. Overall with the spray paint, brushes, quart of paint...etc...it cost me about $20. Yay for a brand new trunk!

Happy furniture re-styling!
Love,
Susie

Crafty Summer - Picture Board

I had planned this summer to be much more relaxed and slower pace, but as with any summer, it is slipping away very quickly. It'll be time to go back to college before I know it. So, I had to get underway with all my summer craft ideas. Last year, in my dorm, I really never found a good place to hang up pictures (they ended up being held up by tape on my walls). Of course, pinterest gave me this wonderful idea for a cute photo board.

What you need:
-cheap frame
-spray paint (if necessary)
-some sort of cute lace or ric-rac
-wire (mine was 14 gauge silver jewelry wire)
-hammer and small nails
-mini clothes pins (found them at the local craft store)

1) Hammer two nails across the frame (on the back) from each other.

-Let's be real...I have never used a hammer in my life. It's really not that hard. Just take it slowly, and hold the nail to make sure it goes in straight. Once it's in a tiny bit, just pound away until less than 1/4" of the nail is above the frame.

2) Wrap the wire around the nail. Then string it across to the other nail.

3) Spray the frame. I did this after I put on my wires since I was painting the frame the color of the wire. However, for most situations, you should probably paint the frame first.

4) I painted my mini close pins blue (the colors of my room are blue and yellow).

5) Glue on the ribbon to the back of the frame at the top.

6) Enjoy all of your lovely photos!!!

Enjoy all of your summer craftings!
Love, Susie

Framed White Board :D

This past semester was wonderful, but I am already thinking of ways to decorate my room for next fall. One thing I really missed was a cute white board to keep up with my to-do list. Oh my word...I am so excited about this craft! I saw a version of it on Pinterest, so I decided to take it and make it my own.

Springville, AL, has a wonderful antique store. I went there to peruse the different frames. After an hour or so of lolly-gagging, I found this beauty for $5.

What you need:

-frame

-spray paint (mine was called "ballet slipper")

-fine sand paper

-scrapbook paper

-white sheet of paper

-dry erase marker

Here are the steps for how to make the white board!!!

1) Disassemble the frame and take out the glass

2) Paint the frame with spray paint (let dry 1-1.5 hours)

3) After letting dry, sand down the paint lightly to rough it up a bit

4) Measure and cut the scrapbook paper to fit the inside of the frame

5) Place the white sheet of paper on top of the glass, layer the scrapbook paper on top of the white paper, and reassemble the back of the frame.

6) Dry and erase on your new white board and ENJOY!!!

Much love,

Susie

Paint Chip Art

My walls were looking bare in the dorm, so I decided to make some new art. Overall, since paint chips are free and I had all the other elements, the project cost me $0 monies! Wahoo!

 Above - Paint chips plus white canvas

Below - Paint chips cut up and arranged in a 6x6 square (the size of the canvas)

 Above - Painted the canvas blue

Below - Glued on the paint chips (sandwiching the canvas with a book to make sure the chips dry on the canvas flat)

Finished product!!!

Happy Crafting!

Love,

Susie

Using a Label Maker for God's Glory :)

I set out today to do one of those cool photo transfers that I have seen all over Pinterest. It failed miserably! But the background it made was really interesting looking, so I decided to make it in to a sort of collage thing.

A while back, I was given a label maker. I hadn't used it a ton, so I thought I would incorporate it into a new craft. Here are some pictures of how it went down.

 (That is where I was about to wet it to do the photo transfer)

(And...that's how it turned out - well, I added the white paint, but you get the picture...FAIL)

 (Here I had doodled a picture on some tracing paper - I am just painting the back of the paper so that it is opaque)

LABEL MAKER :D I layed out the words before I stuck them to the picture.

This picture is after I glued on the doodle with some mod podge

So that's it!

Thanks for reading!
Susie