Building a Dresser

We built another piece of furniture from ana-white.com.  This time we built a dresser that was modified to have 3 rows of drawers from this set of plans. 

Here is the before:

We got all the wood cut and the dresser framed out during the first weekend.

Here is the front.

Here is the back.  This part alone weighs a ton!!!  But it is solid.

making drawers

drawer parts

assembling drawers

Prime and add drawer glides (so the drawers open and shut nice and smooth).

Add the back.

Getting closer to being completed!

Painting and poly coats.

All done!  Thanks to all that helped!!!

Wispy Feather Pen

I have had this project sitting in my computer for a long time now, so it's time to share it.  I was wanting a really fun, luxurious and frilly pen to use, so this is what I made:

This is a much easier to make than the peacock pens I made.  (If I could find gold duct tape that I like, I would make the peacock pens using this same method.)  This would be great for a wedding to use when signing the guest book.  Or use hot pink or turquoise and make the pen for a teen with a journal.  There is such a vast choice of colors and designs available for duct tape.

Gather your supplies: duct tape, feather, ink pen (a cheap one is fine), pony beads, and hot glue gun

Pull the pen apart like so.  You don't need the little black end cap.

Put the ink and head of the pen back into the plastic tube.  Cut a piece of duct tape and wrap around the tube.

If you feather comes on a long stem, you will need to remove the stem (or it will be too long to fit into the pen).

Add some pony beads to the feather stem and then hot glue the feather into the end of the pen.  To keep the beads from being pulled off of the feather, add some hot glue under the beads

All done! 

These are so much fun to write with!  I feel like royalty!

FREE printable instructions - Happy Crafting!

Very Easy Drawstring Bag

Here is the tutorial for the easy drawstring bag I made for the T E A C H E R blocks for teacher appreciation week.

Cut out 2 rectangles 9"x12"

Optional: serge around the edges

Fold down the top 1" (on the short side).  If you did not serge the edges, you will need to fold over 1.25" so you can fold under the raw edge.  Sew across creating a pocket for the string to go in later. 

When I put the wrong sides together...I saw my terrible cutting job.  I still can't figure out how I managed to do that.

Pin wrong sides together.

Sew along the sides and bottom.  Do NOT sew the drawstring pockets shut!!!!  Start sewing at the base of the drawstring pocket, down and around.

Turn right side out and the top should look like this.

Feed the first string around.  Put a large safety pin through the string to make it easy to feed through.

Once the first string is fed through, feed the second string through the other way.

Now tie knots in both ends and fill the bag with goodies (or teacher blocks)

and your all done!

FREE printable instructions!

Teacher Appreciation Week

For Teacher Appreciation Week at school I made my son's teacher a game she can use in her classroom with her students.  I used wood blocks and put the letters T E A C H E R on them.  Basically you see how many words you can make out of those letters.  I saw this idea on So You Think You're Crafty.

You need wood blocks (I used 1 1/4" blocks), primer, paint, scrapbook paper or cardstock, and either more paint for the letters or stickers.

Prime the blocks and then paint them.  I used spray paint primer and white spray paint.

Then cut lots of little squares of paper.  I had cardstock that looked like notebook paper.  I cut my squares to slightly less than 1 1/4" squares.

Using mod podge glue the squares to the blocks.

To help keep all the corners and edges down as the glue dries, put the freshly glued paper side down on wax paper for a little bit. 

All glued.  Now they are ready for the letters.

I wanted to use a stencil or stickers, but I didn't have either.  So I grabbed a small paint brush and scrap paper to practice making the letters.

Since there are 7 letters and only 6 sides, each letter will be repeated 6 times (except for E which will be repeated 12 times).

Once the letters are dry, go over the blocks with mod podge to seal the blocks.

All done!

Now sew a very easy drawstring bag to hold the blocks.

And add a little note

And your all done!  A tutorial for the drawstring bag is next.