Gold Painted String Lights

Posted on August 21, 2015 by Georgina

Gold Painted String Lights

So remember that time I told you I had become obsessed with gold spray paint? Well….. I wasn’t kidding.

It pretty much all started because of the wedding. Our colors were green and gold and there were some items (like these) that I liked but wanted to have them be gold.

Enter liquid gold.

Then things got pretty serious and I was spray painting anything I could get my hands on. Napkin rings, rocks, vases,string lights…you name it!

I think I just saw an idea like this on Pinterest and decided I wanted to have some of the lights gold for my wedding. My mom found these knock off “cafe” lights on clearance the day after Christmas and snatched them up for me. I only did three strings of them but they turned out great for the wedding and I am also planning and looking forward to using these around the holidays! I’m a traditional green and gold type of girl so these will look amaze-balls around the house for Christmas!All you need is:

Spray Paint (this is my favorite gold)
Painters tape (or any tape I guess)
String lights
an open area to spray paint and cardboard boxes or something like this to paint in/over.
This amazing tool (ok. you don’t NEED this but it will make it 100% easier and you get a really even coat)

Then you just:

Tape up the areas you DON’T want paint on . My bulbs unscrewed so I just took them all off and put a tiny piece of tape over the LED light and also taped the ends as shown below.

Make sure you’re in well ventilated area and following these rules.

Then just go to town! I did two full coats and then some touchups on some weird spots. It’s a little hard to not have fingerprints when you do the whole thing at once as you have to pick it up and move it and twist it and turn it. But the final 3rd spray down for just those spots will leave you with perfectly even paint.

So there you go! Beautiful makeover to make something cheap look fancy and sophisticated. Someone please remember to remind me to take a picture of these around my house at Christmas 🙂

Thank you so much for checking in! Hope you all have fabulous weekends.

xoxo

“Sharpie” Mugs

Posted on October 24, 2014 by Georgina

“Sharpie” Mugs

Hi all!

So I’m sure a lot of you have probably seen these “sharpie” mug craft ideas floating around the internet lately. Don’t be fooled, you cannot use regular old sharpies and have this work. This craft isn’t really as simple as just writing on a mug and voila! Lucky for you the first time I totally biffed it and failed BIG TIME at this but learned from my mistakes and perfected it the 2nd time around. 🙂

Key points to remember are:
– Oil based PAINT Sharpie Markers (or any oil based PAINT pen)
– Clean your surface with rubbing alcohol!
– Only one layer of paint
– HOT oven

Let’s get started and I’ll take you through step by step. If you know these steps it’s really an easy and fun craft!

Supplies:

Cheap ceramic mugs (the cheaper the better)
Oil-based Sharpie marker (NOT regular sharpies!)
Cotton balls and 1-2 Q-Tips
Rubbing alcohol
A pencil

Instructions:
Wash your mugs with soap and warm water. Dry completely. Then use a cotton pad or swab to clean your surface with rubbing alcohol. This will take any residual soap or other things off the surface and insure your paid will hold better. Let that dry too (takes like 2 seconds).

Use a pencil to sketch your design on each mug. There are some really cute ideas out there but you could make up your own, draw a picture, or whatever your heart desires. Once you are happy with your sketch, trace over it with your paint pen. It’s not an easy task drawing on a curved surface but that’s where the extra rubbing alcohol and Q-Tips come in! You’re going to mess up. Trust me. Probably like 5 times and if you’re a perfectionist like me, then probably like 50 times. Once you are happy with your design you have to let the paint dry.

I let my mugs air dry for a good 24 hours before I baked them and I think that is a crucial step, based on my first mishap. To bake, all you need to do is put your mugs on a cookie sheet and place in a COLD oven and turn the heat on to 425. You want the mugs to heat up with the oven to prevent cracking and allow it to seep into the glaze of the mugs. Once your oven is preheated, bake the mugs for 40 minutes. Once the 40 minutes is up, turn the oven off but leave the mugs in the oven with the door closed and allow them to cool completely. This will also help prevent cracking by avoiding fast temperature changes. After about 2 hours they were cool and I took them out.

As far as care for the mugs after they are complete, I’ve heard some people say they are fine in the dishwasher but I don’t risk it, I just wash them by hand and they still look as good as new! I’ve washed them probably about 20 times so far.

This is such a great simple and easy gift to make. The possibilities are literally endless. I want to make more but a girl can only use so many coffee mugs. But this is definitely on my list for Christmas time 🙂 Here are a few of my favorite ones I’ve seen and ones that I want to try and ones I just like!

*None of these pictures are my own

Yay! Hope yours turn out perfect and fun. Stop back and show me some of your designs. I’d love to see them.

xoxo

* Update. Since doing this craft the colored paint has chipped off a bit, but the black is still perfect. I just went over the colored part again and baked and so far so good. Let me know if you have any tips to keep this from happening 🙂

At Home Gel Manicure

Posted on June 20, 2014 by Georgina

At Home Gel Manicure

Ummmm, you guys…… this is a miracle. Seriously.

I got my first gel manicure about 2 years ago and obviously loved it. It stayed glossy and shiny and chip free for almost two weeks! Butttttt I cried a little when I had to take it off and my nails peeled and cracked WAYYYYY more than normal. 😦

I got a few here and there in-between then and now but I didn’t go in regularly because a) it’s a freaking expensive habit! and b) the state it left my nails in for about a month afterwards.

I saw someone post on Pinterest about this magical base coat that would make any regular old nail polish last for weeks! Needless to say I was highly skeptical. When I paint my nails at home I’m lucky if I can get 3 chip-free days. Well, I’m a sucker so I went to Sally Beauty and picked up the base coat. It’s like $5, that’s less than a Starbucks.

I would not lie to you. This worked sooooooooo good. All you do is:

1) Clean and prep your nails.

Whenever I paint my nails before I put anything on them I’ll shape, cut back cuticles etc…. but last step is to wipe the nail down with rubbing alcohol. It cleans the nail and makes sure you get a really good bond with the polish and actual nail.

2) Apply 1 coat of the Gelous Advanced Nail Gel Coat. Allow to dry

3) Apply 1-2 coats (as needed) of ANY COLOR NAIL POLISH YOU WANT!

Yep no special ‘Gel’ colors to buy. You just use anyyyyy color you want! From expensive Butter nail lacquers to $1 NYC Color and anything in-between!

4) Finish with a your favorite top coat!

Hands down my favorite is Seche Vite. Not only does it protect well but leaves your nails looking fresh and GLOSSY for days ❤ ❤

5) ENJOY your nails for up to 2 weeks!!!!

Yeah, I’m not lying. Up to two weeks. This picture was taken just after one week.

Yes, I got engaged a while ago for all of you that didn’t know 🙂 Wedding is next summer!

ONE WHOLE WEEK PEOPLE! And virtually still perfect!

And one of the BEST parts about this?!?!? Is that it comes off extremely easily with regular old nail polish remover. No soaking your fingers in that poison for 15+ minutes. (Seriously you guys know that acetone is a carcinogen and is really, really, really bad for you? Yeah it is. I try to only put it on my nails and not all over my fingers skin to soak in and never do I soak my whole freaking hand in it! OK rant over). Just take it off like a regular old manicure, super simple!

I am honestly so excited to have found this and I can’t wait to paint my nails again and again.

This is almost TWO WEEKS People! I know the pointer has a chip but the others are still perfect

Go pick this up and try it yourself! Tell me what you guys think!

xoxo

This is really the first post I’ve done raving about a product. I just want you all to know I am in NO way being paid by or endorsed by any of the companies of the products listed above. This is just a product I found that I fell in love with. I’m not being paid to try to get you to try it too 🙂

Cork Letters

Posted on February 2, 2014 by Georgina

Cork Letter Craft

Sooo- I LOVE making homemade gifts for Christmas. Throughout the year I will save ideas for certain people and usually on December 20th I start working on them….. Kidding. Well sort of- my plan is usually to get started wayyyy earlier than I do.

This year one of the gifts I made for a friend was a cork letter of her new last name (she recently got married and decided to take her husbands last name) the idea came from something I saw on Etsy selling for about $100. Um no. And plus I could make that! Soo I did. And you totally can too.

Here is what you’ll need:

hot glue (duh- craft staple)
burlap or some fabric to wrap your letter
knife (be careful 🙂 )
corks , the real wine corks made from you know, cork. Not the plastic ones.

Here is how to do it:
I went to Michaels (but any craft store has these) and bought a wood letter, in this case a ‘C’ . It was really inexpensive, I’m talking like $4, PLUS those places always have coupons.

I basically just wrapped the letter in burlap- my thought with this was that the hot glue and corks would stick better to the burlap than the plain letter and my letter was white instead of a wood color and I was going for more of a natural look- anyway, uses some hot glue and wrap the letter. It doesn’t have to be perfect because you’re covering it.

Then I honestly just cut up corks in a random fashion in tons of different shapes and glued them on! I tried to get them pretty tight to one another and overlapped a lot. Um seriously that’s it! It turned out perfect. I was soo proud of it. Haha. I am totally going to make more.

I feel like I should share that somehow my family came into a trillion corks. So no I’m not boozing on wine every day to save up- though I do have my own little collection started, if only boxed wine had corks, then I’d have a lot 🙂 hahaha- my dad probably isn’t too thrilled about that comment 😉 anyway I am fortunate enough to be able to have TONS of corks at my disposal. Someone we know had asked a restaurant to save them and then realized they didn’t have anything to do with them so they passed them to us. No complaints here!