Kadbury is... Thinking Out Loud: Elmer's glue

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

DIY Photo Magnets…

I was cleaning off the side of my fridge recently when I noticed this:

It's the photo magnet I ordered when Lovely L was in soccer. Then I noticed all of these:

This is my fridge magnet graveyard. If a magnet had an epitaph, it would read something like this:

Here lies Fred G. Magnet

1990 – 2011

He was once a useful member of the fridge community,

now he lies useless, untouched

because his owners

no longer needed him

FIN

Many of these magnets were from when we lived in Arizona, and a few were just outdated (MN Twins 2009 season schedule? Yeah, I don’t think we need that anymore).

I had thrown a bunch away when I was suddenly struck with a fantastic idea: What if I attached the kids school pictures to the old magnets? Then when I send out the pictures, they're already set to attach themselves to the recipients fridge!

Genius, no?

All I did, was… ready?

Glue the picture on with a little bit of Elmer’s rubber cement, center the photo and trim off the edges!

Uh.. sorry for the blurry picture, but while getting ready to take it, I read what’s written on the side of the pencil. Go ahead, read it… I’ll wait.

BEEF! It’s what’s for dinner, baby! For whatever reason, that struck me as funny and I couldn’t hold my camera steady.

ANYWAY…

Here’s how it turned out:

I once again apologize, but this time I have no excuse for the lousy photo. Well, except that I’m too lazy to leave the basement and retake the picture, of course.

The picture above is a 3 1/2 X 5, but I also found that I could fit two wallet sized photos onto one magnet as well. I hope my relatives aren’t reading, or it’s going to ruin the surprise for them…

And, if you’re here visiting from SITS today, welcome and I hope you stay awhile and enjoy more of my ridiculousness!

Linked up with:

Elphia Designs * A Glimpse Inside * Home Stories A to Z * ChildMade * Lolly Jane * Flamingo Toes

Monday, April 11, 2011

'Fake-upage' with Elmer's Glue...

Just so you know, I have a thing for eggs. And birds. And pandas. And stuff in the Pottery Barn catalogue.

But today, we’re only going to be talking about eggs. More specifically, the plastic Easter eggs that are sitting in my garage. I have a crate full of these things and I’ve been trying to figure out how I could use them to add more spring décor to the house. After poking through my craft area I found a bit of fabric I liked , some twine and a piece of flower trim.

I started with the fabric and cut it into a long strip. I only cut it a little over a half inch wide. If the strip is wider, it’s harder to get the edges to lie down.

I took my handy dandy Elmer’s glue and mixed a 1:1 mixture of glue and water.

Dipping the fabric in the glue water, I randomly applied it all over the egg until the egg was covered.

I had to cut out another strip to cover a few spots I missed the first time, then I smoothed down all the edges of the fabric using more of the glue water. One egg down!

For the next egg, I took the twine (love you, Target dollar bin!) and starting at the bottom, I spiraled it all the way up.

This needs to be done with straight up glue people, or the twine will NOT stay put on the egg.

Continue spiraling twine until you get to the top, then cut the twine where it stops. Easy peasy, one two threesy, as my kids say.

As I was finishing up the second egg, it occurred to me that these would go perfectly in Bitty’s room.

So for the final egg, I found the perfect turquoise that matches the other little accents in her room and simply glued the flower trim on.

I like being able to use what I have around the house. And Mod Podge is not something I currently have sitting around. But Elmer’s glue. . . I can find that in almost any drawer around here.

And now you know how to ‘fake-upage’ instead of decoupage.

This little trio now sits on Bitty’s nightstand (underneath this beautimous lamp!). I lose out for more spring décor in the rest of the house, but win in bringing Bitty’s room closer to being finished.