diy bottle top necklace tutorial

i finally got around to making my bottle top necklaces!
so here is pretty much how it goes...

1. get some metal bottle tops

2. drill a hole.
this is probably the most difficult part
try not to drill your hand or drill too big of a hole

3. get small jewelry hoops.
you're going to put one through the hole in the cap & tighten it
and then put another one through that
(this is because the first one won't move once the resin is in place)

4. pick out what you want in your bottle tops

-cut out a small circle that fits in one of the tops
and you can go through magazines and any other
type of paper or fabric and use it to cut circles of
patterns you want to lay in as the background
-you can leave it as only that background in the bottle top
of look for other small trinkets to add in.

5. put in the resin & other chosen materials

-i chose to use Loctite 2-part Epoxy Resin (i found it at Lowe's)
it worked pretty well, i might try to find one with a longer
hardening time next time, because this was TOO fast.
(this stuff cost about $12.. but i didn't even use half of it
while making the 20 necklaces i made)

-so put one shallow layer of resin into each of the tops
-let it begin to harden while you fill the other tops
-go back and put the background & other items into the tops
-fill the rest of the top up with the resin
{to put the resin in i mixed it in a paper cup that i had cut in half,
only put in small amounts each time or it will harden! the i used
a popsicle stick to scoop out the resin and put it in the bottle top}
-let it sit for indicated time on chosen resin

Voila! Finished!

i added one more larger link to the two that i had first attached so that the
necklace would lay flat once it was on a necklace chain.

a cookie farm

i found these little vintage "cooky" cutters at a garage sale the other day
i think they are adorable!!

necklace in my window

i have needed a jewelry holder for quite sometime now
(before now my jewelry was hanging ALL over my dresser.)
so i reworked one of the old windows to make myself one!
and it fit perfectly on my wall, and i love it.

i ATTEMPTED partially stripping and sanding the frame to give it a rougher look.

i used some cute old hardware my dad had in the garage.
(probably from furniture that he had once garbage picked!)

finally a spot for my rings!

and my beautiful dresser is finally clean!

garbage picker

last week was garbage pick-up weekend
[this is one of the best times of the year :).]
so everyone in town put their garbage out by the curb
and i set out to find treasures.

and i found myself a pile of treasures to re-work.
i finished one project yesterday... and i will post some pictures of it today!!


also i would like to thank my parents for raising me
to be a garbage picker. it is coming in so handy.

blue skies smiling at me.

stretchercize

lindz & i went for a loongg walk down to the park
and did a lot of stretching and jumping...
we were out of breath afterwards haha.
(i knew i shouldn't have stopped my running routine!)

diy photo book tutorial

for mother's day i decided i was going to make manda a little photo album of the boys in an old book. when i started to put the pictures into the book all of the pages started falling out. so i made my own book using the pages from the book.

here is how to do it:

pick out a book (i think older books give it more character)
i used the 1943 readers digest guide to successful living copy of "keys to happiness"

make sure that you look through the pages for a variety of different chapter
titles at the top of the page that will pertain to your picture choices.
(keep in mind some books just have the title at the top of every page,
so make sure that isn't the book you pick out!)

you can use a razor blade to cut out the pages or carefully pull them out to give it a rougher look.

i used a regular glue stick to put my pictures on
(they will be laminated later, so don't fuss too much about the glue)

try to find pictures that go with the chapter titles.

when you laminate you will be putting the pages back to back.
i laid my laminate paper out and laid the pages side by side (face side down)
onto the laminating paper, then folded them together.
make sure that the extra laminate is to the left side of the picture you want on top
cut off extra laminate on top and bottom (leave just enough to seal the pages together)
and leave about 1/2 inch or less on the left side
(there should be no extra on the right, because that is the part that you folded over)

i used Duck brand Peel & Stick laminate
(i bought it at officemax, it come in a roll)

i used a heavy duty hand sewing needle and light cord to bind the book.
make sure that you tightly rubber band the pages together (without bending)
so that none of the pages slide out and get missed while you sew.

final project should look something like this

i had the boys sign the book before laminating it.

you can pretty much add anything you want to these
you can make it more extravagant like a scrapbook style
or more simplistic like this one.
you can also play around with the binding
there are a lot of other options for binding if you don't like this one.

yellow fever

i am all about these old school yellow shorts i found at salvos a couple week ago.
i seriously adore them.

shorts & shirt - salvation army

body language

after our attempts to take pictures of some clothes
i need to list on e-bay... we got bored.

and this is what resulted:

we also tried to sneak in some cute pictures of kailey
because she graduates this year!!
so, aunt annette wants some more pictures of her for the grad party.
it got pretty windy out, so we didn't get a ton of pictures.
here's a little peek of my beautiful cousin though.

(and linco-j)

she is so beautiful. definitely a mcgrath :)

cuteness.

i sold these on ebay recently.
but to be quite honest, i adore them still.

baths, bubbles, & brothers

pirate boy.