Mixing It Up with Marabu!

Today here on Forty11 Designs, I am mixing it up with Marabu and the Designer Crafts Connection! I'll show you how you can make totally cute painted spring vases using Marabu Porcelain and Glass Paint.

Marabu makes amazing color products for fabrics, mixed media, and more, but our blog hop is focusing on their porcelain and glass paints. These paints are highly pigmented, come in bottles and markers, and (the best part) are dishwasher-safe!

For this project, I picked up these colored vases at the dollar store (y'all know that is my favorite place for crafting materials). They had a lot of great colors, but I went with yellow, pink, and purple for a springtime feel.

I made sure to wash them thoroughly so that the paint would have a clean surface to adhere to. I then used an adhesive stencil on two of the vases (a chevron pattern on one and a flower pattern on the other), and applied the paint with a sponge paintbrush with a pouncing motion.

For the other vase, I went with a more free-hand approach. I made polka dots in white, blue, and green just using a round sponge pouncer. Now, I'm gonna admit something here... I totally forgot to take a photo of that process, but you can basically figure it out from the final photo!

How awesome and easy is that? Just think of all the plain glassware from the dollar store that you can turn into cool custom pieces!

There are so many other ways to use Marabu Porcelain and Glass Paints and Markers -- just follow these links to the other DCC blogs in this hop!

Anita Scroggins

Trish Cortez

Erin Reed

Nadine Carlier

Susan Brown

Susie Bentz

Maria Chuy Soto

Steph Ackerman

Candy Rosenberg

Marabu Creative

But that's not all! Marabu is giving away an assortment of their products (retail value $75)! 

Just click here and comment on the Marabu post on the Designer Crafts Connection Facebook page to enter. (This giveaway is open to U.S. residents only.) Good luck and stay crafty!

"Eggstravagant" Easter Door Decor

Your front door will be hopping with this cute Easter egg!

DIY Spa Party!

Are you looking for a fun party idea for your tween girl? How about a pampering party?! You can provide "salon services" for her and her friends and Deflecto can help!

I used Deflecto's new Event Kit to put together this fun and frugal party set-up. This kit is fantastic for any kind of party because it contains everything you need for displaying signs, banners, and more!

This kit contains the 3-Tier Dessert Stand, angled sign holders, 3"x4" mini slanted sign holders, sign and banner hangers,  Versa-Grip double clip sign holders, Versa-Grip wide clip sign holders, and flexible sign danglers.

For my little spa soiree, I used the 3-Tier Dessert Stand not for food, but for displaying nail polish! It makes for cute decor and it allows the guests to easily choose their color. All I did to make it match my celebration was add some pink and black ribbon to the edge of each plate. The best part is after the party, you can take the stand apart -- it stores completely flat! On top, I used the Versa-Grip wide clip sign holder to hold the large "Pamper Party" sign. This wide clip fits on the Dessert Stand perfectly!

For the signs advertising the "spa services" the guests can pick from, I used the angled sign holders. Using a hot glue gun, I added a little pink gem to each one to match the decor.

The best thing about this type of party is that it is very budget-friendly. All of the beauty supplies can be picked up at the dollar store! For less than $30, you can pamper several girls with bath poufs, nail files, nail polish, lotion, and more, and then all of those things can be taken home as party favors!

If you’re interested in purchasing the items used in this project and more, then tune in on November 14th to Create and Craft for their first ever feature of Deflecto’s new Event Kit. The perfect kit for your next party, get yours before they’re gone! Click HERE to find out where to watch!

Personalized Blinged Out Cell Phone Case

It's back to school time! Have the kids been bugging you for a new cell phone for the new school year? Did you laugh at them? (Hey, I don't have kids -- I'm not judging!) Well, at least you can make that old phone look new with a fancy blinged-out and personalized cell phone case!

If y'all know anything about me, it is that I am cheap. Like super cheap. Like "Do I need to throw this ziploc bag out or can I reuse it?" cheap. So I do a lot of my shopping at the Dollar Tree. Everything in there is just a dollar. Y'all, ONE DOLLAR! The last time I hit up the Dollar Tree, I grabbed one of these cell phone cases for a Samsung Galaxy5. They had some for several different phones, but none of this new Galaxy7 mess, so if you have a new phone, you may be out of luck. Anyway, I took that bad boy home and got to crafting.

I decided this little case needed some bling. Isn't there some song called "Hotline Bling"? I am old and out of touch so forgive me, youngsters who might be reading this.

Any-hoo, for the bling, I used self-adhesive rhinestone sheets from The Buckle Boutique. These sheets are awesome. You can cut them with scissors, cut them in a die cut machine, use a paper cutter or craft knife -- seriously, they are life-changing.

I put a JOY stick-on embroidered "varsity block" letter on top of the rhinestone sheet and cut around it to give the letter a bling-y outline. These letters from JOY are so cool because they give the look of fancy machine embroidery, but you can attach them to anything. I pulled the adhesive backing off the rhinestone sheet and placed it on the case. Then I cut single lines of rhinestones from the sheet and placed them on the chevron designs of the case. That's it! So easy and it looks amazing!

If you want to see more cool stuff using JOY, stop by the "Creating with Joy" blog where the design team shows you what you can do with these handy little letters. You can also find JOY letters at Michaels and Hobby Lobby so you can make your own personalized crafts.

Thanks for stopping by. Keep on crafting!

Disclosure: I am a design team member for JOY embroidered letters. I was provided with free product in exchange for my original ideas and designs.

Creating with Joy - Dollar Store Summer Makeover

You may know from my last post that I love summer. However, there is something I love even more than summer: saving money!

I am a crazy frugal girl; heck, I was even a panel speaker at the International Coupon Conference a few years ago! So it is almost needless to say that I do a lot of shopping at the Dollar Tree. I can always find a good bargain there. Just this month, I found a fun tropical print tote bag and a pair of all black sunglasses, each just $1. Cute enough as they were but kind of plain. So I gave these two items a million dollar makeover with Joy embroidered letters!

I used the white varsity letters on the bag to add my initials. Full disclosure here: I didn't iron these letters on since the bag is made of a synthetic material that doesn't hold up to an iron. Instead, I attached the letters using 3-in1 Adhesive from Beacon Adhesives and it worked perfectly. However, if you use a bag that is made from canvas or another fabric that won't melt when subjected to heat, iron those letters on -- it's super easy! Just iron from the back side of the fabric!

Next, I used Joy's small monogram letters to add my initials to each side of the glasses again using Beacon's 3-in-1. And since a girl can never have enough bling, I added a clear rhinestone to the letter and used black adhesive rhinestone sheets from The Buckle Boutique to decorate the earpieces (I laid the earpieces down on a sheet of scratch paper and traced around them, then used that as a template for cutting my rhinestone sheets).

Now, instead of just an everyday bag and pair of glasses, I can hit the pool looking like a million bucks!

Want more ideas on how to use Joy letters? Come on over to the Creating with Joy blog. My fellow designers have some amazing ideas!

Materials used:
Joy embroidered letters
tote bag and glasses from the Dollar Tree
adhesive rhinestone sheets from The Buckle Boutique
adhesive from Beacon Adhesives
single rhinestone from Want2Scrap

Disclosure: I received these embroidered letters from Joy as a part of their design team. However, I received no compensation or consideration from Dollar Tree or any other companies included in this post. All opinions are my own.

Wearing o' the green!

It's March which means it's time for St. Patrick's Day! It's also National Craft Month so it's also time to make something. So let's go green!

I decided that for this month's Deflecto design team project, my frames needed to wear the green! And I got to decorate my frames with the decorating items that I love most: washi tape, buttons, and (my new favorite) glass stones.

My first frame was already decked out in green; it's one of Deflecto's cool acrylic frames with a color border. Then I just added green-striped washi tape and lots of buttons in all shades of green. 

My second frame was a just clear acrylic frame that got jazzed up by some green glass stones. The best part about these stones? They came from the Dollar Tree! Yep, a big bag of these beauties were only $1. They may have been inexpensive, but they look like a million bucks! They were so easy to attach too; I put a thin line of Beacon Quick Grip adhesive around all four edges and stuck the glass on (the quick grab of this adhesive means this frame was ready to go in about 15 minutes).

But of course, a frame is just a frame without a picture, right? I am especially proud of these photos as they were taken in Ireland. The "Leprechaun Crossing" sign was taken at Killarney National Park in Co. Kerry, Ireland. The photo of my husband and me was taken near Dingle in western Ireland. We are posing with a ogham (pronounced "ohm") stone. An ogham stone is an upright stone inscribed with the lines and notches of the early Irish ogham alphabet. This stone has a hole in it; people would use these stones with holes as a way to make deals. If you touched fingers through the hole in the stone, the was binding until death.

Materials used:

Adhesive: Beacon Adhesive Quick Grip, ThermoWeb Zots

Frames: Deflecto

Washi Tape: Darice

Glass stones: Dollar Tree

Buttons: miscellaneous

Disclosure: This is a sponsored post. As a member of the Deflecto Design Team I have been provided product in exchange for my creative ideas, views and opinions.