Homemade Cufflinks - Easy DIY Gift for HIM

Remember when I said we were going low-key for Valentines? Well I had it in mind to make Hal something for Valentines. Except all those cutesy things like 52 reasons I love you cards and cute coupon books are cute and good ideas, but Hal would be like, oh this is great and then never look at it again. Ever.

He hates gifts he can't use. Then I found this post. Make your own cufflinks out of nuts and bolts and nailpolish? Sounds like the perfect gift for Hal.

So I went to Lowes and bought some nuts and bolts. I looked for ones with cute tops, and that weren't too long

Then, I used nail polish to cover them. I went through my colors and went with ones I thought Hal would like. I chose OPI Big Red Apple and this teal Revlon color.

I painted the tops of the bolts and all sides of the nuts.

You'll see I definitely got polish on my fingers painting the bolts, especially since I did 2 coats to make sure I got everything and it looked smooth.
But I'd say, overall they turned out really good.

He wears is french cut shirt all the time, as you can tell by the dirty sleeves in these pictures, but don't worry, that thing got washed this weekend. And bonus because it's not clothes and it's something Hal will totally use.

If I were to do this again, I don't think i'd go with the hex bolt unless I could find a skinnier one. It barely fits through the hole in the shirt.

Dry Erase Frame

I've been in a crafty mood lately. A mood to create, which was often satisfied by writing essays or other things while I was in school, but now I get to create much more pretty things. So remember when I blogged about that photo shoot that I did? Well, I wasn't sure if it was going to take place in my bedroom or not seeing as it's pictures taken of me when I first wake up. Well, my bedroom is a bit boring, especially since it flooded in there a few months ago so we had to move stuff around. We have a big blank wall in our bedroom that desperately needed filling and I had the perfect idea.

I remembered when Lauren blogged about a dry erase frame that she made. So I went on a search to find that post on when she did it. I searched her blog and couldn't find it anywhere, so I e-mailed her. Apparently the designer that made the frame that gave her the idea made her take it down. Boo! Luckily, I figured out that you can still find the post.  If you're interested in finding the original post here is what you do. Google this: dry erase frame AND the little things we do. The link will come up on the search. If you click on it, it says page not found, but if you click the little button in blue at the end of the link info that says Cached, and it will take you to the page. Apparently Google has a snapshot of the page when it was originally posted so you can still see it! Sorry Lauren if I've flooded your blog with that search.

If you don't want to do all of that you can go to this more recent post and the bottom picture has a picture of the frame.

So here's the idea. You take a frame, you paint what you want it to say, leave some blank lines, and once the frame is all put together, you can write on the glass with a dry erase marker, and then you can change it whenever you feel like it! What a fantastic idea! So here's how I went about doing it.

I went to Roberts and bought a frame using one of their awesome 40% off coupons. I also bought some stencils, some black paint, and white and brown butcher paper since I couldn't decide which color I wanted to do. Then using a tape measure, I made lines where I wanted to letters since I can't do a straight line to save my life. I traced the stencils about a half an inch apart from one another, then I painted them black and changed a few things I didn't like about the look of the stencils, I ended up with this:

I had some issues with the first one I did, so then I tried it out on the white and the brown butcher paper.

So you have to help me decide which one I should put on my wall. I'm leaning towards the brown, it just seems warmer. What do you think? I really think this is such a great idea, thank you so much Lauren for sharing it!

Creativity

Are you ready to be amazed? Well, if you're not then you better get ready fast because I am about to showcase the extent of my creative thinking ability. Scratch that, I'm actually pretty good at thinking of good creative ideas, but they don't usually translate well into real life. So then, I am about to showcase my creative thinking production ability...How about that?

Here is the front of the awesomely huge card that is really just a poster folded in half that I made for Gavin and Meghan. I am so freakin' creative I even came up with a poem for the front of the card all by myself and I shall post it here for your viewing pleasure:

We were sorry to

Hear about the accident

It made us sad

So we wanted to do something

To make you glad

The ICU wouldn't allow

our flowers

So I gathered al of my

Creative magical powers

Lots of people wanted to wish you well

And we thought that was just swell

But since you were stuck in bed

And couldn't see them all

We brought them to you to post on your wall

I had asked people to send me their well wishes, but I only had like 5 people respond, so I took all of the comments off of their facebook pages and cut them out and glued them to scrapbook paper and then glued them on the inside of the card. There were like 7 pages of comments before I cut them out. Hal and he-sam were helping me cut and paste, many thanks to them. I went to the potty and came back and Hal had lined up all of the strips to be glued in straight lines. I had to correct him and let him know that wasn't creative. I know, because I'm uber creative. Some might call me the queen of creativity. Those who would call me that would be wrong though, I prefer to be a princess. That's why I was a princess for Halloween. Just kidding, I wasn't a princess for Halloween. Well, I take that back, I was a princess for Halloween I believe in the 8th grade. Therefore I rescind that comment. Sorry about that tangent, I will now send you back to the story.

They were pretty impressed that I could fit all of the strips on the inside of the card because just lining them up would have left half on the back of the card. Well, he-sam actually left before I finished, but Hal was super impressed. And I may or may not have found one strip of paper that never made it to the scrapbook page when I was cleaning up, but I'll never tell. So sorry to that person who may or may not have been left out of the card. They had 7 pages worth, that's enough, right?

Also for your viewing pleasure...while Hal said he was being tortured at Roberts while I picked out paper he had the thought to finally get a frame for my diploma. Good thing Roberts was having a mega sale that day and we got everything for the normal price of the frame. Hal said I could shop at Roberts all I want since it was cheap. Score!

Here is me with my lovely framed diploma don't look too close or you'll see my full maiden name and might steal my identity. So don't do it! Plus, I had no makeup on and was sick in this picture, so also don't look close for that reason.

This frame was inspired by Christine's diploma frame that Hal saw. He liked the double panes of glass and actually went looking for a similar frame. I just had to give Christine the credit, as credit was due.

P.S. blogger isn't letting me put spaces in, lame..so sorry for the big chunks of writing. How am I supposed to space my poem? Apparently blogger doesn't understand my creative thinking.