DIY Chalk Paint Bottle

Wine is my creative juice!

And after drinking wine there is always an empty bottle that just waits to be reuse in some or other way.

Chalk Paint a wine bottle

I made these bottles for decoration purpose, but you can refill it with anything you like for example olive oil.  It can also be a lovely gift if you paint and decorate a full bottle of wine.

Supplies that I used:

❤ Empty wine bottles

❤ White Chalk Paint

❤ Blackboard Paint

❤ Sponge and a paintbrush

❤ Masking Tape

❤ Ribbon

❤ Raffia

❤ Chalk

Supplies

Remove Sticker

An easy way to remove the stickers on wine bottles is to spray the sticker with furniture polish. Leave it on for a while and then tear it of the bottle.  I then just wash with dishwashing liquid and rinse the bottles with some hot water. Now the bottles are ready for transformation.

I paint the bottles with white chalk paint. I apply the paint with a sponge, that way there isn’t any streak marks of a brush.  I do like the texture that the sponge makes on the glass.  Three coats of paint was enough to cover the bottle. Leave the paint to dry between the layers.

Use a sponge to paint

I then gave it a wax sealant for protection.

With some masking tape, I edge of a rectangle and paint it with blackboard paint. I paint two layers for a good cover.  Let it dry and remove the masking tape. If there were any bleeding of paint under the masking tape I just patch it up with a small brush.

Blackboard Paint

For decorations I used some lovely ribbons and raffia. I stick the ribbon on to the bottle with some clear glue.  The raffia was put around the top part of the bottle and attached a chalk for writing or drawing.

Decorate the bottle

Hope you enjoyed the tutorial and you are welcome to share your ideas with me.

Relax, sit back and enjoy a glass of wine…..

Freebie: Sticky Notepad SVG

Are you always looking for a piece of paper to scribble something down? Then you will know how handy it is to have sticky notes around. I have sticky notes next to my laptop, in my diary, in the classroom and some random places. One thing you should know about me is that I love, love, love beautiful stationery!

FREE SVG: Sticky Notepad

I’m not by nature an organised person and admin is sometimes a nightmare for me. To have beautiful stationary just help me to use it in a productive way. It is fun to write notes and scribble on sticky notes if it looks pretty already.

I made this design for a sticky notepad using my Cameo Silhouette.

Materials:

❤ Scrapbook paper

Purchase scrapbooking supplies from the Scrapbook.com Superstore! ❤ Card Stock

❤ Glue

❤ Rhinestone

❤ Silhouette Cameo

DOWNLOAD the cut file – it’s free!

This is another sticky note pad I made. The design is by artist Lori Whitlock . This cute cover 50 sticky note holder.studio file is available on Silhouette Design Store.

Hope you enjoy the free file and scribbling down notes!

If you have any problems with any of the files that I included in the ZIP file, please let me know.

Cat Scrapbook Page Layout

Today I’m sharing a scrapbook page layout with you. As for most of my pages it has a very special meaning for me. That is one of the reasons why I love doing scrapbooking is that you can capture a special moment in life.

Now this scrapbook page is about Adora, my rescue cat. I loved her with all of my heart. My baby princess came to me for my 40^th birthday.  Since I can’t have kids, she was like a child to me. She was full of life and had the most beautiful personality.  Unfortunately she was hit by a car and cross the rainbow bridge. I cried so much and was heartbroken. Even now that I’m writing this tears are running down my cheeks…

Double Page Cat Scrapbook Layout

But let’s get to the scrapbook page layout.

Beautiful Adora

I did most of the layout Silhouette Studio.

Materials I used:

• Mint 12” x 12” scrapbook paper stock
• Black paper
• Washi tape
• Embellishments – Love the gold!
• Rhinestones

Borders I cut with my Silhouette Cameo and the designs are from Silhouette Store.

• 6" scallop set.studio by artist Sweet Afton
• black cats border.studio by artist Nic Squirrell

Cat and paw decal were also cut with my Silhouette Cameo and the designs are from Silhouette store.

• kitty cats.studio by artist Sophie Gallo
• paw love.studio by artist Sophie Gallo

Purr-fect

Adora, you were purrrr-fect!

I would love to hear from you and your fur babies.

Celebrating Heritage Day

Today, 24 September 2017 we are celebrating Heritage day in South Africa. Also well know as "Braai Dag" (Barbeque Day). South Africans celebrate their culture and diversity of their traditions and believe.  We are truly the rainbow nation. It was first time celebrated on 24 September 1995 and is a public holiday. Now, this year it is on a Sunday, that means tomorrow is a public holiday. Yippy! For a long weekend!

Celebrating Heritage Day

 We celebrate the day at school and the learners had the opportunity to dress in their traditional clothes. They all looked so colourful and beautiful. 

Learners in their traditional clothes

Maybe you don't know it, but South Africa have 11 official languages. And most people here are fluent in two languages. For example I'm Afrikaans but can also speak English as my second language. I'm teaching Afrikaans as First Additional Language at a Primary School. But for most of my students it is their third language. Most schools in South Africa are English or Afrikaans and not the learner’s home language.

Today I’m sharing words that some learners told me in their mother tongue.

	ENGLISH	LANGUAGE
yiyakubonga	Thank you	isiZulu
Goeie nag	Good night	Afrikaans
izala	Come here	isiZulu
isitunsi	shadow	isiZulu
dumelang	hello	Spedi
unjane	How are you?	isiZulu
umuhle	You are beautiful	isiZulu
hatic	I know	Swathi
Mobimo	God	isiZulu
Modimo	God	seSotho
gogo	Granny	isiZulu
margo	but	isiZulu
umama	mother	isiZulu
isea	come	Xhosa
Inkosa zana	princess	isiZulu
molwene	hello	Xhosa

Look at the beautiful beads!

 It is really wonderful it is to live in a country so diverse and beautiful. 

How to clean an oil painting

Have you ever thought of how to clean an oil painting without damaging it?

How to clean an oil painting

I just moved to a new house and we are busy decorating the wall with some paintings. One of the oil paintings was covered in dirt and full of dust. First I thing I tried was to dust it with a cloth. With no luck, it didn't made a difference.  Have a look at the photo below and you will see just how dirty it was.

Dirty oil painting

Then I remembered what a art collector told me many moons ago.

And I thought let me give it a try!

First you cut a potato...no, we aren't going to cook, but clean a painting!
Using a potato from mother nature - with no damaging chemicals. 

Take the sliced potato and gently rub the oil painting with the flesh side of the potato in circular movements.

Step 1: Rub with potato

The sliced potato will pick up all the dirt and dust.  I was surprised on how dirty the potato is. 

Step 2: Wipe with baby wipes

I then used baby wipes to wipe the part that I just rubbed with the potato. I will suggest baby wipes without alcohol or  fragrance.

Start in a corner and work on just a small part, repeating the process until you cleaned the whole painting.

Difference between the clean and dirty parts of the painting

Yeah! It worked for me. Hope you can see the difference of the before and after pictures.

Cleaned painting

If you want to go ahead give it a try, but if it is a very valuable and expensive  painting I would first ask a art collector for advice.

If you have any other awesome ideas for how to clean a painting, I would love to hear from you. 

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Freebie: Matchbox Cover SVG

Today I'm sharing a free download for a matchbox cover!

I made and design these covers for  matchboxes using my Silhouette Cameo.

Free SVG | PNG | DVX file 

Let me do it step by step:

 ❤ DOWNLOAD the cut file - it's free!
 ❤ I used plain cardstock for cutting, but any beautiful paper will work.
 ❤ Cover your matchbox with the paper.
 ❤ Have some fun and decorate it with some embellishments, washi tape and buttons.
 ❤ I made it into a fridge magnet by sticking a magnet strip on the back of the matchbox.

Matchbox: Fridge Magnet

Hope you enjoy the free file!
If you have any problems with any of the files that I included in the ZIP file, please let me know.

DIY Tissue Paper flowers

Today I'm showing you how to make these lovely and bright tissue or crepe paper flowers. 

DIY Tissue Paper Flower

We have our school Talentshow that is coming up this week. Having lots of fun making all the decorations and these paper flowers is just part of all the decor.
Luckily I had help from  awesome staff members and even some of the learners jumped in and got creative.
If this is easy enough for primary school children to do, you will have a breeze making the flowers.

The materials I used:
❤ Bright sheets of tissue paper and/or crepe paper.
❤ Scissors
❤ Bright coloured pipe cleaners

I cut 8 sheets of 20cm x 20cm tissue paper. This depends on the size you want. 

Stack the 8 sheets on top of each other.

Step 1: Cut 8 sheets

Start folding a fan. I made folds about 1cm wide. Complete the whole stack until you have one long piece.

Step 2: Fold a fan

Step 3: 

I cut the ends in a curve for petals, but you can also cut a triangle shape at the ends.

Step 4: Cut ends

The next step was to tie a pipe cleaner in the middle. String will work as well. 

Step 5: Bind the middle

Fan out the paper.

Step 6: Fan out

Carefully separate the sheets on both sides.

Step 7:Separate tissue paper

There you go!!

You just made your own  beautiful  tissue paper flowers!

Get the full picture, not just a thumbnail

for your purchased designs/cut files 

I'm one of those people who will always look for a way to make things a little bit easier. Especially when you work with your Cameo Silhouette. 

Maybe you bought a beautiful, but more complicated design from Silhouette Store or purchased a design from somewhere else. 

The problem for me was that in my Library of  there is just a small thumbnail picture of the design and I want it bigger for reference!

The following card I made for one of my colleagues at work, she was expecting a little miracle. We all thought it will be a boy. Suprise! a lovely little baby girl, named Natasha. That's why the card was made with blue shades of paper and not pink.

Mouse Card

This sweet mouse card  by Daniela Moscone Design ID #112864 I purchased from Silhouette Design Store. There was a few small pieces that hat to be stuck together and everything must go to the right place.

I open up the design in Silhouette Design Store to view the picture and did a screenprint.
I open up Paint and copy and paste the picture of the card.

Copy and paste into Paint

From there I did some more planning. What colour is going where and what paper to use.
I just used the freehand drawing en text tool.

Planning of card

I can save the picture to look back at when I start setting out the different papers to cut. And this is really helpful putting all the delicate pieces at the correct place. Maybe this will take you a minute or two, but in the end it is really helpful.

If you do have a easier and more user friendly way to do this, I hope to hear from you. 

DIY paperclips

Like so many other people, especially those I follow on Instagram are big time into planning.

My Filofax aren't as awesome as most, but I'm trying. Maybe in the future I will share a page or two.

I always see the most beautiful paperclips. Most of mine I bought,  but I decided to try and make my own.

DIY Paperclips for my planner

Now the materials are very simple:
❤ Bright big paperclips
❤ Embellishments
❤ Glue gun

I'm lucky enough to have a Cameo Silhouette to make my own embellishments. I decide on some animals to make. Got the cutest designs from Silhouette Design Store.  You can use any embellishments that you have or make it  yourself.

Cute Animal Embellishments

After cutting and assembling the embellishments I got out my glue gun. This I used to stick the embellishments onto the paperclips.

I went a little overboard,  because this was so much fun to make. I decide to make some nice packaging and give it to some friends.

Cat and dog embellishments

Hope you like it as much as I do!
You are welcome to share your DIY paperclips and ideas with me.

DIY UPCYCLING TINS

I'm so happy and excited about my new classroom. I'm a Afrikaans Second Language teacher at a primary school in Middelburg, South Africa.

The year started out with me teaching in a tent under a tree. This alone was an experience. From mud, rain,wind blowing me and the learners away, very hot and sweaty conditions and even a scorpion one day in the tent. This is Africa for you!

Six months down the road and we have a new school building, I have a classroom made of brick and that is  brand new.  

The fun and creative part of teaching can start now!

This means I can start decorating my classroom. Yeah! Happy times!

Some of the few things I made is stationary organisers for everything that the learners leave behind in class.

Upcycling Stationary Organiser

I made use of all the stuff that I had around in my house. I reuse some empty tins and a Pringle container. The rest of the materials were washi tape, brown paper, twine, beautiful ribbon and vinyl.

I made labels from black vinyl and a cutoff piece of vinyl that you use for lining your cabinets. 

Cutting is very easy if you do have a cutting machine. I used my Silhouette Cameo for this purpose. But you can make labels from paper, stickers or anything that comes to mind.

Materials used to upcycle tins

I covered the Pringle container with brown paper.  The tuna tin I just made use of washi tape and twine to cover it. The other organisers for the pens and pencils I use washi tape and ribbon.

Like always I have to make use of my glue gun. Most things I stick together using it. What is a crafter without a glue gun!

Starting out I thought I'm going use more embellishments and decorations. Simplicity got the upper hand. I didn't go overboard. Sometimes you just need to know when to stop.

This reuse and decorating of tins went so much quicker that I thought. I'm happy with the end results and think this will make my classroom just that little  bit more personal.

DIY Stationary Organisers

Look out for future posts for ideas and decoration of my classroom. 

How to keep your sanity while weeding vinyl decals.

I think all of us had our hands in our hair some or other time when weeding vinyl. Surely I had! 

There is a little trick you can do in  Silhouette Studio V4 to make life or weeding for that matter just so much easier.

It is as simple as adding weeding lines and weeding boxes. This will take you a few minutes to do, but I promise you that it makes it in the end so easy and hassle free.

How to keep your sanity while weeding vinyl

Let's start! You ready?

Open up your Silhouette Studio V4

Keep the Shift key in and draw a horizontal line. By keeping in the Shift key it will keep the line straight.

Keep in the Shift key

Draw a straight line

Open the Replica Window and choose the second button (the one looking like a flower with a +)
Choose the amount of copies you need.
You will see there is a button with two arrows to custom the position.
I choose X=0 and Y=1 inch.
Select the line - click on "Replica"

Replica

Open your design in front of the lines. You can right click on your design > Bring to Front.

Bring to front

I draw a box around my design. This is my weeding box.
Adjust the lines that it fits into the weeding box. Space your lines by thinking of what will be the easiest to weed. Use your arrow key when you do the adjusting.

Adjust weeding lines and weeding box

Select all the lines you want to cut.
Right click > Make Compound Path
Make sure you select/highlight your designs and the lines.

Open Modify Window > Subtract All

Substract

By doing this you divide the vinyl in smaller parts to weed. No more worries of big pieces of vinyl that gets in the way and stick to each other when you weed.

Hope this was helpful.