Primitive Soap Keep

Just wanted to share this, i thought it turned out really cute!

My mother makes homemade old fashioned cold process lye soap, and i love it! Not only do i love to use it, but since i LOVE all things primitve, i really like the way it goes with the decor also. I wanted a cute way to display some of her bars and then i came across the post on simply prims blog about the soap holder, and well, that was exactly what i needed! My mom found a small wooden bowl at a junk store for me and I fashioned my own, following Kris' pattern, just shaping the sides up a bit. It turned out really cute it think.

The soap shown is one of my favorites, its called mocha bean. If you are familliar with lye soap, its commonly called the "kitchen soap", because of the cocoa and coffee in it, its awesome for removing smells from your hands, like onion and garlic!

I have yet to find me a cute little cup to go on it, but i did have these really old copper measuring spoons that i thought would look alright till i found me a cute little cup. They may be just a little too shiny lol.

Hope you enjoyed! And God Bless!

Painting Primitive Paper Mache Boxes Tutorial

I have seen several different people show how they paint paper mache boxes, and although my rendition is very, very similar, it is what i find easiest, so maybe if there is someone out there like me, this will be easy for you too.

The boxes im painting today are a small set of 3, i got the idea for the olde pantry label off a box i saw on the pickled pepper patch.  I make my own everything usually, lol, so i opened up word and found a clipart of a sheep and made my own little "woolens" label.  I'll share that with you at the end, i dont care to share!

What u need!
Paper Mache Boxes (you can find these at almost any craft store, im using a small oval set)
Craft Paint (i like folk art brand, and i use black, barn red, yellow orche, and cobalt blue today)
brushes to paint with
old piece of wax (i use the old wax i remove from my tart warmer, you could use a cheep candle)
minwax dark walnut (this is optional but it seals and makes them look prim perfect)

ok first i painted them all one base color, i like to use black as my base for primitive projects, so i painted them all black.

 Let the paint dry completely (craft paint only takes about 5-10 min if its not too thick), and rub your wax all over the boxes and lids, i rub it on pretty thick. After you are finished with this, gently wipe off the loose wax from the box so you can apply your second coat of paint.


I wanted each of the 3 boxes a different color, i used barn red, yellow ochre, and a prim green (i couldnt find a green i liked, so i mixed colbalt blue and ochre yellow together pretty equall parts of each for a nice green).
Apply the paint to the boxes quickly, could be haphazardly, doesnt need to be perfect.

  and quickly, before the paint dries completely, roughly wipe it back off with an old cloth, or paper towel.  The more you rub off, the more prim it will look.

  This is about what mine looked like after rubbing some of the paint off, i like doing this, because i dont have to sand anything this way, if you want even more paint off, you could sand your pieces  as soon as this paint dries good.

I just followed this process for each color and the end result was this.

They looked cute like this, but a little too brite, this is where the minwax comes it, i just use an old cloth and wipe a little on, then wipe most back off, leaving just a hint of color, and the product is sealed.

I wanted to add some labels, so i printed some out, then stained them with instant coffee, dried them in the oven, and cut them out to size.

I glued each label on and i was done, the label i made myself that im going to share is the woolens lable in the center.

 Just right click on the image and save it to your computer!

Hope this helps somebody!!

Cali turns 4

So my daughter turned 4 on Tuesday (march 23rd). It doesnt seem like she should have, she's getting so big. When I asked her what kind of party she wanted, her answer was simple. . . "Spongebob"; dont we all love that guy. lol.

For her tee shirt to the side --> I found a spongebob image on google opened it in paint and found a cute font (billo) and wrote "birthday girl" beside it. I colored it to match the theme and printed it on that iron-on tee shirt paper i got from walmart. All you do is print your image out (mirrored) and iron it on! so easy! And she loved it.

Weather was supposed to be bad so i had to come up with an activity or 2 for a bunch of children under 5. . . and i thought. . . yep a cardboard playhouse will be cheap and effective. It turned out really well so i thought i may share it, incase someone elses child just has to have a pinapple under the sea!

What u will need

*really big cardboard box

*grey paint

*3 yellow plastic tablecloths

*grey duck tape

*wire or big stapler

Constructing a "Pinapple Under the Sea"

1- find a really big cardboard box, or 2. (appliance stores have these alot)

2- bend the box to make it more round/octogonal shaped.

3- cut out the rounded door shape, and a few round windows. (i painted the door grey as i went)

4. Now begin to assemble the top. Sorry i didnt have a picture of this, but i just stood all the top sides up at an angle so there was a smaller octogonal shape at the top and i wired it together because the duck tape wouldnt hold.

5. Next I cut a piece of cardboard the shape of the octogonal opening left at the top and taped this down, so the top of the box was closed in. This made the overall shape.

6. Yellow paint would cost way too much to cover this, so i chose yellow tablecloths for less than $2 apiece and taped them on the inside to cover the entire area. These also hid all the uneven areas, so it worked out alot better.

7. i cut out around the windows and duck taped them down, it looked like this:

* The pipe at the side was an old wrapping paper roll i just covered with duck tape. I cut a slit in the side of the house and pushed it in.

*I taped the top piece down with clear tape so it would look nice.

8. for the pinapple leaves on top i cut these shapes (in much larger form ofcourse) out of cardboard and painted them green. (i watered down my paint a bit so it would take less). I assembled them together just putting the larger in the middle, sliding the rectangle onto it in the cutouts, and then placing the taller single leaves into the front and back cutouts on the rectangle.

9. tape the pinapple leaves down to the top of the pinapple

10. lastly, just for looks i made a "nautical wheel" out of an old plastic lid and some small dowel rods that i cut and covered with tape, i put this on the door, then used an orange sharpie to draw the pinapple pattern around the house.

***** another awesome spongebob birthday party decoration i came up with is jellyfish balloons***

all you need is light pink balloons and light pink streamer and clear tape!and its cheap and easy!

*just blow up the balloons

*tape a ring of streamer to the bottom to cover up the tied part

*tape a few long streamers hanging down out of that bottom part

*maybe even draw some darker pink or red shapes on the top of the balloon to resemble the jelleyfish

*use tape and some streamer or string to hang them from the celing!

i know im horrible at explaining things, so, thanks for baring through that, maybe i'll get better at it later!

God Bless!

Ang