Martha Stewart Jewelry Enamel Monogram Necklace Tutorial

Among the many things I love are: Instagram, Martha Stewart, crafts, jewelry, monograms, turquoise and Michael's. Imagine my surprise when perusing Instagram and seeing bloggers unbox Martha Stewart Crafts new jewelry line... I went ballistic and set a reminder on my phone to check out Michaels the very next day. Well, I did... and I went a little crazy over the Jewelry Enamel! 

Like most girls I adored painting stripes on my Barbie's car with nail polish. Okay, maybe that was just me. This translated into teen years spent repainting costume jewelry with my neon pinks and glittery blue lacquers. The thing is, nail polish still smells like polish when it dries, it chips off, and never dries totally hard.  Jewelry enamel dries permanently with a hard and glossy finish, no odor, and is just totally awesome. 

Supplies.

You'll need the following: 

• A disposable mixing surface (or Martha Stewart silicone mat) 
• toothpicks 
• cheap paintbrush (or Martha silicone tool; comes with the mat) for large areas
• Martha Stewart Jewelry Enamel
• Martha Stewart Jewelry Enamel Activator
• Metal jewelry or Martha Stewart jewelry pieces
• rubbing alcohol and an old rag or paper towel

One drop Pool, half a drop Yellow Jacket, three drops Meringue

The Jewelry Enamel comes in under 10 colors and there is no purple, brown, or gray so you may want to mix. When mixing, blend your colors together first (after thoroughly shaking and massaging the tubes) mixing with a toothpick. Mix way beyond what you think is necessary, otherwise separating can happen.

You want twice as much Activator as enamel. Activator is thick (E600-ish) and the enamel is very runny, so this can be difficult; add a tiny bit extra Activator if you're unsure. Mix thoroughly. 

Using a toothpick, the Martha Stewart silicone brush, or an old paintbrush for very large areas, you want to carefully apply the enamel mixture to your metal piece that has already been cleaned with rubbing alcohol to remove residue.

When flooding a cavity you don't have to be as precise, but with a flat area like this B necklace, I used too much and had it flood over the sides. It is self-leveling, and therefor drips off the sides like resin. So use less than you need, work on a totally flat surface, lightly dabbing it on.

This is the finished "B" and I couldn't be happier with it! I have a gold-plated custom monogram necklace I ordered a while back, but I really love this because I haven't seen it elsewhere. The resin dried hard, looks incredibly professional, and doesn't have any lingering scent.

If you're like me and you get in a frenzy and forget directions... you might accidentally mix equal parts enamel and activator. If that happens, your piece will undoubtedly not cure and remain tacky for two weeks, like mine did. I finally mixed up a new batch and coated the bezels you see above with a new layer of yellow and my mint green mix. It worked out flawlessly and cured perfectly. As for the little bumble bee, I need to add some yellow stripes onto the blue! 

If you're wondering, I intend to cut my monogram out of vinyl with my Silhouette SD and place them inside of those bezels as keychains or zipper pulls on a bag. More on that later!

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Gelish & Soak Off UV Gel Polish Cheat Sheet

Gelish, Gel Polish, and Soak Off Gel Cheat Sheet

Cure Times?
LED LAMP
Gelish Foundation (basecoat): 10 seconds
Color and Top It Off (topcoat): 30 seconds each
Gelish Structure (soak off builder gel): 1 minute

UV LAMP
Gelish Foundation (basecoat): 30 seconds
Color and Top It Off (topcoat): 2 minutes each
Gelish Structure (thick coating): 2-3  minutes

LED or UV lamp? 
If you have the money and want to invest $100+ in a two-hand sized LED, by all means, do it! They are more energy efficient, the bulbs last for eons, and they cure 10x faster than UV. There are smaller ones sold by Red Carpet Manicure at Ulta (only has 3 tiny lights inside, I found it weak), or SensatioNail (Walmart, GREAT lamp!) for $30-$50 (try Drugstore.com sales!), Sally Hansen, NailLuv, Kiss, etc., but they are travel lamps, which are totally fine and are addressed below.

I use this Thermal Spa 36 watt UV lamp from Amazon. At $45 it is a steal and cures both hands or feet at once, has a nice carrying handle on the top, and feels very well made and durable, something you're not going to get in the $30 UV lamps. I highly recommend this lamp unless you want to go LED.


Will the mini travel lamps from Sally's Beauty Supply, Ulta, Walmart, Target, etc. work? 
Yes they will, and if space is an issue or you foresee yourself traveling with your lamp often, they're a great deal. Keep in mind that most of these mini lamps are LED, not UV, and will have shorter cure times. This might seem alluring at first, but because they're small it isn't actually much faster. This means you're actually curing a minute and a half per coat because you can't do both hands at once and must do the thumbs separately: 30 left hand, 30 right hand, 30 both thumbs together = 1 minute, 30 seconds compared to both hands at once in a two hand sized UV lamp at 2 minutes per coat. Just something to think about!

When I finish curing my topcoat, my nails are sticky! Did I not cure long enough? 
The sticky layer is called an induction layer, and is a totally normally thing that SHOULD happen.  Just wipe it off with some alcohol really well and you're done! The special remover the different companies sell is just alcohol with oils added to it, etc. Rubbing alcohol is fine. I've used hand sanitizer in a pinch.

Can I use my nail polish with Gelish or other gel polish? 
You can paint over cured Gelish or gel polish with regular nail polish and even change colors with non-acetone remover. This is just like getting an acrylic overlay. Also, you can use any brand gel polish (except I've heard mixed reviews about Shellac and Gelish together) in between the Gelish Foundation and Top It Off topcoat. Make sure they are SOAK OFF though. Many of the gel polishes sold on Ebay and the like aren't soak off and require being filed off, which can cause damage to the nail plate.

Can I apply tips or extensions with Gelish? 
Yes, though some people will say no.
Gelish now sells what is called a structure gel (cheapest on Amazon) or "builder" gel which is a thicker gel that you can apply in thicker coats than the Gelish (which you should be using thin coats with) and it still cures in the same amount of time, though I do 3 minutes to be sure. Because it is thick, it hides the transition between your natural nail and the higher fake nail. (it is also awesome at hiding the grittiness of glitter). My steps to do this:

1) Select tips you would like to use (I use half-well clear) and clip/file your natural nail tips.
2) Push back cuticles then I buff the natural nail bed just the slightest bit with a very soft foam buffing block to remove any excess dead skin growth on the nail bed that could cause lifting.
3) I wipe nails clean with alcohol, then apply a dehydrator from Sally's to my natural nail.
4) After using a buffing block to "blend" the edge of the false nail that will be laying on my nailbed (for a smoother looking transition from real to false nail) I place and spread a tiny dot of nail glue on the natural nail end, then in the well, then place the tip at a 45 degree angle at the tip of the nail, then lay it down and apply just a bit of pressure to the top and then sides, holding for 20 seconds. Repeat for each nail, then use false nail clippers to remove length then file/shape nail.
5) I use a medium grit old (used a lot, it makes it less harsh) file and do more blending of the false into the natural nail, just until I cannot see the line separating them as much. Do this at an angle where you are not buffing the natural nail, just the false nail down.
6. Wipe with alcohol. Apply a thin coat of Gelish Foundation over entire nail, cure for 30 seconds.
7. Apply a coat of the Gelish Structure base. I get a pea sized ball for the thumb, smaller for the rest obviously, and place it on the middle of my nail where the false tip begins, then pat and spread gently. Hold the nail upside down for 5-10 seconds as it is "self leveling" and will level out on its own. Check the nail, see if you need to even it out. Flash cure it for 5 seconds under your light to keep it from spreading.
8. Finish each nail, cure for 3 minutes in UV, 1.5 or 2 in LED.
9. Apply a very light coat of Top it Off and cure for 2 minutes UV, 1 minute LED.
10. Rub with alcohol to remove induction layer. You can now paint with normal polish and topcoat, or you can add a gel color after the structure.

Can I do a "fill" when my tips grow out, or do I need to remove them entirely and start over?
You can do either, but I have successfully filled mine. I figured I may as well try and if it didn't work I was removing them anyway! When your nails grow out from your cuticle, there will be a noticeable gap between your cuticle and the start of your gel. I take a buffing block or file and file that area of gel so that the transition from my natural nail in the gap to the start of the gel looks smoother. If you keep the file at a 45 degree angle it is filing the gel and not the nail. Be mindful to not touch the natural nail more than just a tiny bit. I then buff the shine off the rest of the nail with a fine grit buffing block just to knock off the shine. This creates a rougher texture the gel will more easily grip to. I wipe with alcohol, apply dehydrator/pH Bond ONLY to the exposed natural nail, apply base coat over the entire nail, cure, apply structure gel mostly in the gap, smoothing it down to cover the entire nail so that it is a smooth transition (check from the side and all angles to make sure it looks right) two minute cure, then apply topcoat, cure, and wipe sticky layer off. Fast and simple!

Can I put the Gelish topcoat over my normal nail polish? 
Yes and no. This is called "sandwiching" or a Gelish sandwich and has been done successfully, and also unsuccessfully. The general consensus is to do a gel overlay (coat of base, cure, coat of topcoat, cure,then wipe off sticky layer with alcohol) then paint your polish on, allowing each coat to completely and thoroughly dry before applying the next. Let the final coat dry at least 30 minutes, hours if possible, and apply Gelish basecoat, cure, then topcoat and cure. Wipe with alcohol as normal. The downside is that this does not last as long as a normal Gelish manicure.

The most  I have gotten is one week of wear. Some people do this because they want a smooth topcoat over a very gritty glittery polish, but I would recommend a few coats of a UV cured topcoat like Seche Vite's for that. I just don't see the point, I would rather just do a Gelish base/cure, Top/cure, then apply polish and normal topcoat so I could change whenever I want to.

Can I do nail art with Gelish? 
You absolutely can. I've had success using different colors and marbling or dotting the colors. Use a thin paint brush or nail art brush and dip it in alcohol, then run it through different colors to swirl and marbleize. The great thing about Gelish, is you can do a coat of color, cure it and wipe off the sticky layer, then do nail art on top of that, erasing any mistakes with alcohol.

Can I use acrylic paint to do nail art?
As long as you don't go overboard and paint the majority of the nail with it, yes. Acrylic paint is often used to do nail art for acrylics and with regular polish because it isn't as difficult to work with as polish is for detailed designs. Just do your basecoat, cure, Gelish color, cure, wipe with alcohol to remove sticky layer, then paint your design with acrylic. Allow to dry, then apply Gelish base, cure, then topcoat, cure, remove sticky layer and you're done!

Can I imbed glitter or rhinestones in Gelish? 
Yep! I know, awesome, right?!
I have gotten a full two weeks of wear out of this, too! You can use any glitter as well, but I love Martha Stewart (from Michael's) because she has a big pack for $24.99 you can use a 40% off coupon with, and have tons of colors. It looks so gorgeous! Here's how: (involved tutorial later)

How do I do a french manicure with Gelish?
1) Apply your base coat, cure, whatever base color you want (or no base color), cure then wipe off sticky layer with alcohol. If you aren't using a color, apply a layer of Top it Off then cure and wipe off sticky layer.
2)With Gelish white, apply it to the tip as best you can, but don't stress!
3)Then use a clean brush (a wider one, like 1/4" wide) dipped in alcohol to clean up the line and make it perfect. Cure for 2 minutes.
4) Topcoat again, cure, and wipe off sticky layer. et Voila!

Is Gelish better than Shellac, Axxium, Red Carpet from Ulta, etc? 
Not necessarily, but I prefer it and here is why. It is cheaper than most of the other brands.  I can find it at Sally's (mini bottles). They have more color options than the other brands and are constantly putting out collections. I have successfully used their Foundation base and Top it Off topcoat with different brand gel polish in between and it has worked flawlessly, so I'm not tied down to one company. It has the glassiest finish I've seen in a soak off gel. Most importantly, Shellac never lasted nearly as long on me. That will be different for everyone, but Shellac just didn't last on me. Red Carpet is the same thing as Gelish, different packaging.

I got a soak off gel polish done in a salon and it only lasted a few days! What went wrong?
I got soak off gels done multiple times at different salons, with different brands before I took the plunge to do my own. I paid close attention to cure times and products used and figured out what worked best on my nails and what didn't. Here's what I found.

- I think the extreme soaking in water, applying of oil infused scrubs and lotions in a long, therapeutic manicure before gel polish application put so much oil and moisture into my nail bed that the gel just didn't get a good dehydrated base to adhere to. A better wiping of alcohol and application of bonder might have remedied this.
- When I had french tips done for my wedding, I think the use of white nail polish for the tips (in between a gel base and topcoat) weakened the gel because it was the only time I ever had the gel peel from the tips. Allowing it to dry longer might have helped.
- I really think my thin, bendy nails just don't work well with OPI Axxium. It never stayed longer than two days.
- No application of dehydrator/bonder, just alcohol wiped once.
- Debris/dust/dead skin left on the nail plate. You really need to push back those cuticles, use a soft buffing block to make sure there's no dead skin on the nail plate.
- Pooling of gel. This means that ANY part of the gel, base, gel polish, or topcoat, touched my skin at some point. To make this foolproof, apply each layer and before you cure, take a brush dipped in alcohol and go around the cuticle. Any part of the gel system touching your skin is going to cause lifting. That's a fact, bro.

I got soak off gel polish applied in a salon and it ruined my nails just like acrylics! 
Firstly, that isn't a question. Just kidding.
There are a lot of chemicals in the acrylic nail application, as I'm sure you have smelled before. There's a lot less craziness with the soak off gels. Most importantly though, there is a lot less filing and drilling (do not EVER let someone use a drill on your natural nail! It is just lazy!) The main reason I decided to do gels at home was to lower cost, but second to that was the fact that I felt in the salon they were being too rough with my nails and treating the gel system like acrylics. There are not really good high end salons here. I have never been to one in this city that didn't use a drill on natural nails.

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DIY Dripping Chandelier Candles (Great for Halloween!)

This past Halloween (2012) we did a grand 'ole Halloween bash out at my in-laws' house in the country as a fall social for one of our Mardi Gras krewes. They let my wicked little imagination roam and we transformed half of the lower wrap-around decking into a deliciously creepy haunted house using black landscaping plastic. We had a huge bonfire, hay rides into the pitch black night, and a big steaming pot of ham and bean soup. We tried to spookify the place however we could, and this was one of my favorite projects. Like a dingus, I don't have a totally finished photo of these. Again, dingus.

The (not so) finished product. I actually made quite a few of these suckers. 

Items Needed: 

- PVC pipe at varying lengths (odd numbers and staggered heights looks best)

- high temp glue gun and plenty of sticks

- a can of Great Stuff

- battery operated tea lights 

- white or ivory spray paint

- Mod Podge or elmers glue

- cheap paintbrushes

- brown and black acrylic paint

1. Pump various lengths of PVC pipe (with a large enough diameter to fit a battery operated tealight) full of some Great Stuff. Just a squirt will do the job, it expands to eleventybillion times its size. Once dry, use a serrated knife to saw off the excess. 

2. Using a high-temp hot glue gun, apply drips of glue from the top of the pvc pipe "candle" dripping downward. More layers look grody and spooky, but if you're going for a Christmas display or non-spooky holiday centerpiece, you might want to just do a few drips.

3. I spray painted the entirety of the candles an ivory for an authentic candle look and to hide any writing on the candles. If these are longterm you might want to apply a light coat of Rustoleum Primer before spraypainting for added durability. If you don't have spray paint handy you can do what I did with this little prototype and just simply brush on ivory metallic paint. It takes a bit longer but use what you got! Also, you can't spray paint the Great Stuff foam because it melts it, so just go ahead and coat it with some ivory paint.

4. I mixed a bit of Mod Podge (classic Elmer's would do the job) with some brown paint to make it look more like a glaze. You could also use actual glaze if you had that hangin' around. Using a cheap stiff brush (stiff gets into crevices better) I painted over the "drips" so that I could get in between them making a nice rustic, old looking "shadow". For not so spooky candles, water your brown down much more with Mod Podge. 

5. Once you have continued on with this, I went in with yet another layer of the dark glaze. The photo on the left shows where I could have stopped, after I rubbed some of the glaze off the top, leaving only what was in the crevices. You could dry brush some ivory glaze made in the same manner lightly over the top if you are making slightly old looking non-spookified candles. I went in hard with the grody stuff, because, well, Halloween, dude! 

6. I made a black glaze with a tiny bit of black paint in a whole lotta Mod Podge, and used my brush to put it only here and there beneath the drips at the top. I very lightly dry brushed it from left to right (left photo) so that it only settled into one side of the drips, creating a shadow. 

7. NOT PICTURED: I don't have a photo because my husband did this for me, what a doll, but you essentially carve out a little space for your battery operated tealight to sit inside all snug. When it comes time to light up the display, you pop them out, turn them on, and sit them back into place. 

Extra TIP! If you are brave, and the surface you are decorating isn't delicate, you can up the spook factor of your scene by arranging the candles, then turning on your high temp glue gun and lightly pressing the trigger while flicking your wrist back and forth. If you do this about a foot to two feet above your candle scene, strings of hot glue will be so thin that they will cool off in the air and cascade on your arrangement. They look much more like spiderwebs than the stuff they sell in a bag. 

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Favorite Things: Zig 2 Way Glue Pen & Martha Stewart Glitter

The Zig 2 Way Glue Pen is undoubtedly one of my favorite infrequently used craft tools. I don't use it much, but when I do it is definitely a life saver. It is essentially a ball tipped pen, but when you squeeze its middle it dispenses a stream of blue (dries clear) glue. If you want to do simple Christmas cards or gift tags, as I've done below, this thing is invaluable. 

Martha Stewart glitter is another of my favorite things. The Antique Silver especially makes me giddy because it is this beautiful blend of silver and antiqued pale gold that glimmers and makes everything look gilded and spectacular. I glittered a ton of home accent pieces for Christmas with this stuff! I use Martha Stewart glitter for my glitter gel nails as well and it works beautifully and comes in a fantastic variety of colors.

To create the tags, all I did was write the name, cover with glitter, and tap off the excess. If you don't trust yourself or like your handwriting, you can print your tags first before tracing with glue and glittering.

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Easy Fabric Iron-On's and Applique with the Silhouette or Cameo

Call me the queen of obvious labeling, but I was dying to have a little camera pouch for my point-and-shoot with this cute little camera design from the Silhouette library. Now if you don't have a Silhouette or comparable cutting machine, you can certainly do handmade applique's like this with the interfacing, some scissors, and some patience. 

This basically works by ironing on some double-sided interfacing (I used Heat Bond) to cotton fabric (nothing heavier or too frail) cutting it out, then using the cut design as you would an iron-on, stitching around the edges afterward if you choose to. Silhouette sells their own interfacing... but I mean, let your wallet be the deciding factor there. It is kinda pricey!

Decide what you want to make, and roughly how large you want your design. Something I realized when choosing my fabric for the above projects is that pattern-on-pattern didn't show up as well, so I backed each design with a solid color fabric. To do that, once in Silhouette you can use the Offset tool to make an outline that is fatter than your design, or you can simply iron on your cutout design to a piece of solid fabric and cut around it with scissors. More on the Offset tool below.

Cut your piece of fabric to the side you need, allowing a bit of excess so you don't have to be precise about laying it down on the cutting mat, then iron on the paper-backed Heat Bond interfacing. It is a cinch to do and you can tell when it has adhered. 

Place the fabric onto your (dirty and neglected) cutting mat. Burnish the fabric down onto the mat so that it adheres well. If it is a new or recently re-stickied (real word there) mat, rubbing it down with your hand will be fine. Otherwise, give it a nice firm burnishing. Note the faint grid marks on the cutting mat, an exact replica of the cutting mat and grid will appear on the Silhouette Studio software.

The "background" in the Silhouette Studio software is actually your cutting mat. Where you place your design on this virtual cutting mat is exactly where it will be cut out from on your actual mat. Really, it is oddly precise... kinda impressive. 

Here you can see I've done a flower design, and my camera design is at the bottom. I like to use extra paper, vinyl, fabric, whatever I'm cutting and go ahead and cut out designs to use for future projects. After you have placed your design, make sure it isn't too intricate to be cut from fabric (though you can get kinda intricate!) and that you have enough fabric covering the area of the mat where your design will be cut. 

Tip: If a design is a bit too intricate, like a font that looks a little too thin, click on the design to select it, then select the Offset tool. Play around with the width and "corner" or "rounded". Essentially this is like bolding your design as you would text, to beef it up a little and make it less thin. After you have made your new bolder design/font, simply click the older too-thin design and then delete it. 

Load your fabric/cutting mat into the machine by placing it under the roller bar and pressing the "Enter" button on the machine. It will grab the mat and you are all set to cut!

Click on "Silhouette Cut Settings" in the Silhouette Studio software and select "Fabric (with interfacing)". Above you'll see that mine has "Custom Media" selected. This is because I bumped the thickness up from 32 to 33 after I selected Fabric With Interfacing, and anytime you change something in the Fabric or any other setting, it considers it a Custom setting. To be honest, 32 is fine but my blade was a little dull and whenever that's the case, I pump down speed and bump up thickness. It will tell select which color cap to use for you, above it indicates pink, the .3mm blade cap.  If you have a newer blade it will tell you what thickness setting to turn it to. 

Click "Cut!"

 The machine will begin to cut the design and when it stops, press the same "Enter" button on the machine you pressed to load the cutting mat, and it will eject it. 

Now it is time to "weed" the design, meaning getting rid of the excess material (negative space) to reveal only the design itself. I find a dental pick is ideal for removing any small portions of the design (it works especially well when weeding vinyl).

 Once you are left with just your design, peel it off the paper backing, place the pieces carefully where you would like them on your project, then iron them into place just as you ironed the interfacing onto the fabric in the beginning.

 If you have multiple intricate pieces, instead of having to transfer each one by hand and praying they stay still while you work, get some Rhinestone Transfer Film from Ebay or save a piece of the clear plastic that tshirt vinyl comes on. It is the same stuff. Lay it over your design, rub until the fabric has adhered to the plastic, then simply place the entire plastic piece where you would like on the fabric piece you intend to iron your design on. Place a piece of cloth (extra fabric, something thin like cotton or a tshirt) on top and then iron down. Don't peel off the plastic until cool. 

If you wanted to back your design with a different fabric as I did for each of mine, select your design and then use "offset" which will create a border around the image allowing you to tinker with how wide a border you would like. Once you do this, delete (or move off of the virtual cutting mat on screen) the original design leaving only the offset design. If there are "holes" in the bolder offset you created (like the heart on my camera) that you don't want for your border/backing piece, simply right-click on the design and select "Release Compound Path" then select the pieces you want to delete and delete them! Cut this out of your contrasting fabric and iron your design onto it after ironing it onto your project. 

I hope that wasn't too confusing, I probably should have taken more photos! You can do lots of things with this, from little pouches like the ones I made, to shirts, monogrammed items, throw pillows, anything you can imagine. You can hand embroider or carefully machine sew around the edges of your design to give it a truly appliqued look if you wish.

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How to Permanently Paint Glass: DIY Turquoise Cake Stand

I wanted a gorgeous milky turquoise cake stand for my counter, but I couldn't find one that came with the glass dome portion, or was large enough to fit a standard sized dome. 

In walks Martha Stewart's new line of multi-purpose paints! Hey girl! I love you Martha!

You can get the paint at Michael's (and randomly, Home Shopping Network) but they are expanding as I have seen the line at Joann's now, and even kits of 10 bottles at Hobby Lobby. It  comes in high gloss, glitter, pearl, metallic, and satin. 

I was a little dumbfounded by this paint, because it claims to work on every surface from fabric to glass, ceramic, metal, wood, etc. I know the basic rule of thumb for glass paint curing, but I was unsure about the other paints. Even the Plaid website didn't offer too much assistance.  So I did a little research and here's the breakdown of info I gathered! 

Note: The following applies to Plaid Permenamel Paints as well! I have had terrific success with those! 

Glass Curing

Air Drying Method:  

Essentially, do not use or wash your painted glass/ceramic item for 21 days. This is perfectly fine for painting mirrors, frames, ornaments, or items that don't need to be incredibly durable. 

Oven Curing Method: 

Recommended method. Paint your item and allow it to dry overnight. Place it in a COLD oven on a tinfoil lined or unwanted cookie sheet. Set oven to 350 degrees and set timer for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, turn the oven off and allow the item to cool down in the oven. You can crack it open (beware with children and pets) to speed the process slightly. Because you start and end with a cold oven, the glass/ceramic is gradually heating and gradually cooling back down, so it will not crack or explode. 

Washing: 

Top shelf dishwasher safe, or hand wash. Never let it soak in water or scour it. 

Is this food safe?: 

Uh, kinda? It isn't recommended that you put the paint anywhere your lips or food will touch, but simply touching it will not harm you. Say you paint the edge of a platter and a cookie placed on it touches the cured paint? You'll be absolutely fine. Paint the entire inside of a glass and then put a liquid in it and drink it? The beverage might corrode the paint and cause you to ingest it, and here I could see problems arising. So just use common sense. 

The glitter paint can be cured?:

Yep! The glitter is suspended in a tinted translucent base which cures just like the rest of the paints, trapping the glitter in there permanently. Works like a charm!

Makin' "The Dome"

To make my cake dome, I bought a $10 cake dome from Walmart and painted the underside of the glass portion with Martha Stewart's Sea Glass in Glossy.  It took three good coats to get it nice and solid. I find that for painting large areas opaquely, using a very soft brush (the dark brown ones in those cheap paint brush kits) spreads the paint around instead of scraping it like a denser brush might, so you use less coats. 

I baked the entire thing upside down on a cookie sheet, following the steps for glass curing listed above. I did find that the adhesive used to piece the base and top together had loosened from the baking, so I mixed together two-part epoxy (found at craft stores near the adhesives or in hardware stores) in equal parts, mixing for 30 seconds, then adhered the base back on with that. It dried overnight and was ready to go by the next morning!

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Glittery Name Tags

All you need is cardstock, a Zig 2 Way Glue: Squeeze & Roll, and glitter.

This is the glue pen. You just squeeze and press down and you are able to

"write" with the glue! Martha Stewart sells her own version as well, but I 

believe that this brand is slightly cheaper. Either way, use a coupon!

Simply cut rectangles from the cardstock and lop off two of the corners to create a tag shape. 

Punch a hole (I had a heart punch) and write the name in glue, then glitter. Simple! 

If you want to get fancy, you can print out the names onto the cardstock (or the printable business card sheets for an easy template and no cutting) and go over them with the glue, then glitter. 

I have made greeting cards this way by drawing holly and berries, Christmas trees, etc. 

2

10 Step Easy Pleated Tote Bag Tutorial for Beginners

I fell in love with a bag kit from Walmart of all places, it had beautiful damask in hot pink and pink polka dot fabric with a pretty handle. When I took it home, the instructions were ridiculously confusing, so I just took a gander at the pattern for five seconds and winged it! What lies below is my tutorial for this bag, sketched out and explained to the best of my ability. I like bag tutorials without too many measurements, because I like to grasp a concept of how to make something, then be able to make it in any size I'd like to. You can use this pattern to make a bag for a doll, or a giant tote and how you do it will always remain the same, you just tweak the size a bit! It is a great bag for beginners but I'm not so sure about my tutorial making skills, so drop me a line if you have any issues!

The photo above shows the bag after many washings and uses over its lifespan of 2 years. I never ironed it as I should have so it has lost some of its beauty, but it is a better quality photo than what I have below...

This is the bag right after it was completed, which shows how nice the pleating once looked before a trillion washings. I wish I had taken a better photograph of it back then!

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Painted Cabinets with Masking Tape Stencil Tutorial

There is a large office with cubbies for building plans in our house that I knew was perfect for a craft room. The walls, like most of the house, are a wood paneling so the room felt very dark and small despite being quite substantial in size. In addition to painting the walls white, I knew the cabinets needed a little perking up as well. The problem was that I didn't want to sand and paint or stain every bit of the wood, so I decided to just paint the doors. So that they wouldn't look unfinished, I needed to incorporate the wood tone on the painted doors themselves by using kind of a reverse stencil. 

Craft room cabinets before (entrance is to the right, you can see the door knob)

The cabinets are twice as deep as kitchen cabinets since there is a cubby area in the room directly behind it. 

Step 1: Take the doors off the hinges, remove all hardware and gently wipe down with fine grit sand paper to knock the shine off. Clean dust off twice, once to remove dust and again to fully clean, using rubbing alcohol or a household cleaner/wipe. 

Step 2: Using a ruler or L, decide how far from the edges of your cabinets you want your rectangle and make pencil marks as a guideline. I did 2 inches in from the edge all the way around. 

Step 3: Next, lay down four pieces of masking tape (one for each side) according to your marks to make a large rectangle. If you have made several marks 2 inches in along each side, you should be able to lay the tape down straight, using those marks as your guide. I lay my pieces down from edge to edge, and just leave the 2 excess pieces that aren't part of my rectangle that you see on the right, because it will be cut off when I make the rounded corners. 

Step 4: In the photo from Step 3, you can see that a white opaque square is created where the two pieces of masking tape overlap. Using this as your guide, take a piece of masking tape and lay it down so that the top edge goes across the corners of the small square on a diagonal. The one in the photo is a little bit off, but I fixed it later.

Step 5: Lay another piece of tape down immediately after the first. Overlap it just the tiniest bit to create a good seal so that paint doesn't seep through. Just try to keep this piece as straight and parallel to the first piece you laid down as possible. 

Step 6: Using a cup as your guide, cut away the excess from the piece you just laid down to create a curve, placing the cup as close to the inner edge o the last piece of tape you placed down as possible. To ensure that this curve is even and straight, pay attention to where you lay the cup. If you move it too far to the left or right, you will see how the curve would be uneven, so just move it around until it looks as even as possible. 

Step 7: Do the same thing to remove the outer corner of the rectangle, creating another curve that is 1 inch from the edge first cut you made, so that the entire curved piece you see in the photo above is 1 inch wide, the same width as the tape you are using. Cut away any excess including the two wings from the initial rectangle you made. 

This is what the finished taping process looks like. You can now apply stain or paint. If you don't want to fully sand your piece, consider Minwax Polyshades, a tinted polyurethane that works just like applying a stain and then polyurethane, but will dry on even unsanded surfaces because it doesn't soak into the wood or require rubbing off like stain does. Use a brand new  foam brush if you choose this method. I find it leaves the fewest bubbles. 

Step 8: I chose to use Olympic glossy paint in a light slightly aqua blue color, and my favorite Teflon Shur-line brush. Apply one generous coat (slightly thick) then lightly run the brush over the surface from end to end in quick sweeps to even out the surface. While the paint is wet, I used a clean Exacto to slice into the tape and pull it up. Be careful when you do this, and have a paper towel, plastic bag, or newspaper to stick it to as you go to keep it from falling back onto your painted door.

Voila! 

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