Category: DIY & Crafts

I’m not a fan of shiny. Sparkly yes, if it’s gem-sized. Shiny, no. These IKEA spice jars are exactly what I wanted for the Chennai kitchen — the lids tilt out toward you. But I wasn’t loving the shiny.

Solution? The latest DIY craze — chalkboard paint of course!

By using chalk to write the spice names, you can easily change labels as you change spices — simply erase and write the new name.

I scratched up the shiny surface so the chalkboard paint would stick better.

Then I sprayed away. I applied two coats of chalkboard paint. Per instructions, I waited at least 24 hours before writing on the lids. Here’s the result:

I bought only four jars to test this first. As it worked OK, I’ll get more jars at IKEA and make a bigger set of spice jars. Because we use lots of spices for Indian cooking, y’know!

A side story about disorganization: Once in awhile I come across a piece of sandpaper and think, we really should keep all this stuff in one place so we can find it when we need it. Of course what happens? When sandpaper is needed (such as for this project) there’s hunting and running around all over on every floor in the house —

Is it in the basement? Could it be in the house supplies closet? In the toolbox? With the paint? Should I look in the basement again? It’s gotta be there.

Nope, no result. No sandpaper to be found. But it had to be in one of these places before, just had to be. Does this happen to anyone else?!? Then I remembered the scrapbooking distressing kit — it has a big emery board, steel wool and sandpaper. Some running around to find that, but it was located and Making Memories products saved the project without a trip to Menards for sandpaper. After which, I surely would have immediately found the sandpaper that’s in the house! That’s always how it works, yeah?

Our Chicago sunroom is finally warm enough to use! This evening enjoying olive oil, Tuscan bread from Whole Foods, Belhurst merlot from Finger Lakes trip, and our new wine decanter! Cats going nuts running from one window to another watching chipmunks. No flowers are blooming yet in the backyard. Not even daffodils. So meanwhile, I am enjoying this floral view I made a few years ago:

posted from my iPhone

I was inspired to frame a silk Talbot’s scarf that usually you’d wear, but I wanted to hang it our living room wall. The scarf’s theme – exotic travel – goes with our living room things which are from India, Burma, Laos, Thailand, China and Italy. After wearing the scarf for awhile, it was time for it to be where it was meant to be. Here’s how I framed the scarf …

Materials:

• silk scarf 36″ x 36″
• 36″ x 36″ x 1″ canvas
• Matte antique gold color spray paint
• Silk pins from sewing notions
• Nail already in wall from a previous hanging

Here’s the scarf as it’s looked for a few years:

Here’s how it will look on the canvas (next step, ironing!):

Here’s one of my arts n’ crafts assistants demonstrating how big the canvas is:

Next, I sprayed gold paint only where canvas will be visible, plus on the edges. It’s not necessary to paint the entire canvas, so paint can be used for another project. I had to apply several layers of spray paint for even coverage:

After the paint dried, I pinned the scarf to the canvas in a few spots along the edges, and at the corners:

It was as easy as that!

One small snafu. I thought the scarf was smaller than the 36″ x 36″ canvas, but when the creases were ironed out, the scarf became the same size as the canvas. You could choose a bigger canvas so there’s a “frame” of gold around the scarf. But at least you can still see the gold canvas edges here.

The canvas is not the best quality. It’s slightly warped and it doesn’t have a smooth even surface, but you can’t see this once the scarf is pinned to the canvas. If you used a finer linen canvas, you could sew the scarf edges onto the canvas instead of pinning them.

I suppose rather than a framed scarf, this is more of a “mounted scarf.” I chose to mount it instead of frame it because I like the casual appearance of unframed canvas.

Some more images around the scarf …

This is a scrapbook I made that is an imaginery diary that Amelia Earhart would have kept if she really did land on a Pacific island and survive there for awhile:

Below is a prayer bowl from Sikkim, brass weights from an antique shop in Tuscany and travel journals from a place much closer – the Barnes & Noble within walking distance of our house! I keep a written journal of memories of every trip we take:

I like all the colors and patterns, but you need to be closer to this vignette to appreciate them:

I keep turquoise necklaces in the bowl:

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See this project at:

CraftOManiac | DIY Showoff | I {Heart} Nap Time | Just A Girl Show and Share Day | Making the World Cuter | Market Yourself Monday | Passionately Artistic | Weekend Warrior

I posted previously about wanting to create my own block printing on sheets like Les Indiennes or John Robshaw. The set I’m trying most to emulate is this:

The first essential block print arrived a few days ago — a large paisley block print. I found it from Etsy seller textileblocks.

It was described as the mother of all paisley blocks and boy, it is big. It’s probably not as big as the paisley in the Les Indiennes bedding shown above, but it will work. Now I need to find the right smaller block prints. The textileblocks Etsy shop has more nice ones, and they’re also shown with a tape measure so you know the size.