Recovered the Craftroom Tabletops

My craft tables have taken a beating over the years. My craftroom table set up is from Ikea and I have been wanting to get new table tops but it's over 3 hours to the nearest Ikea so replacing them isn't something I can just do easily. I eventually would like to get new ones and have them professionally laminated with Formica so they will last a long time. In the mean time I wondered if I could cover them with something cheap and easy. 

I searched on Amazon and found Oxdigi White Contact Paper (#amazonaffliate) that said it was good for cabinets, countertops, kitchen shelves, etc and decided to give it a try. If it worked then YAY me and if it didn't then I was only out about 20 bucks and I could use it for lining shelves in the kitchen cabinets or drawers. 

I started out with rolling out some of the vinyl and going over the end edge and the slowly pressed and removed the backing a little at a time pulling it out from underneath. I will admit I was really afraid I was going to mess it up since there wasn't much room for error on the sides. I used my Cricut TrueControl Knife (#amazonaffliate) to trim on the edges. This is probably the best Xacto type knife I've ever used and changing the blade is simple. I also like the little ridge it has to keep it from rolling around. On a side note I had an abscess in my top gums one time and used it to lance the abscess, sterilizing it first of course, but I don't recommend it for this use even though it got the job done. 

Above is a picture of the 3 table tops all covered. It sure looks a lot better than the inked and scratched up mess they were. 

Here is a close up and if you notice there is a little bit of a glitter shine to the vinyl which I don't mind at all. Another thing I did was use my heat gun on the edges to make sure they were down good. 

I covered these back in February I think and they are still looking good. I think it helps because I use my Tim Holtz Glass Media Mat (#amazonaffliate) when I'm crafting and it keeps the ink and glue from getting on the table but the times I have gotten ink on the table top it cleans up easily with the Stamp Cleaning Solution I make. 

HTV On Polyester Shirts - PITA!

I did several of these shirts a few years ago and let me tell you that I really needed to watch a video on how to layer HTV on dri-fit shirts. I did find out later that I needed to only press a few seconds to keep the HTV from shrinking on the polyester. Also I need to overlap the layers a bit when doing knockout to help with any gapping. I haven’t tried any since I did these but I might get a polyester shirt just to see if I can do it correctly.

Have any of you been able to perfect HTV on polyester? 

Y’all I’m Scrapbooking!

I have big news! I will be scrapbooking again because I’m going to be a grandmother! My daughter had her gender reveal party this weekend and we found out IT’S A GIRL! She had me make a few t-shirts for the occasion and as you can see by the picture below she was team boy. I don't think she is disappointed though but more scared that she might have to pay for her raising! *okie thinks her daughter should be afraid, very afraid and then laughs evilly*.

Now if you know me you know I have a ton of supplies to probably complete 500 scrapbooks *okie knows that’s probably not an exaggeration* and now I have a pretty awesome reason to start using some of those supplies I've acquired over the last 15 years or so. 

It's gonna take me awhile to get back in the hang of designing layouts and making them since I haven't done this part of the paper crafting in, well longer than I care to admit! I got this layout designed and I've even cut the SVG elements and will work on putting some of it together this evening. When I get the layout done and make sure it goes together well I will share the SVG. YES, you heard me! I am going to start sharing SVG's again, simply because I like to share. 

So stay tuned because I’ll be posting more on here as time goes on but in the mean time here is the full design I'm going for. *okie hopes she can remember how to do this whole blog thing*

I’m still around

 I’ve kept this website going because I have so many projects I want to refer too at times and with the ease of social media I wonder if people still use the blog format. I have a lot of projects I could add but not sure anyone even check websites anymore. I would love to share files again but after I had some people selling files I made, or reselling ones I had sold it left me with a bad taste in my mouth. Luckily I have enough people out there that know my work and alert me when this happened and I was able to confront a few of them. 

I do like having this website so I can easily refer to projects so I might start posting projects here again. 

Toke Up, Doc! - SVG available for purchase

Here is the Bugs Bunny design I completed last night. This was another one that I had requests for purchase so I'm offering it for purchase.

If you would like to purchase this file you may do so and once purchased it is yours to do with what you wish, as long as you are not re-selling or sharing the file.

***BUYING AND DOWNLOAD INSTRUCTIONS***
Once you hit the "BUY NOW" it will take you to Paypal where you can pay for the item. Once purchase is complete Paypal will redirect you to "Return to Merchant" where you will given the link to download the files from Google Drive.
$2.50

Grinch Who Hash - SVG Available for purchase

So guys I've been busy and haven't posted in awhile but this is probably going to change. I  know, I  know, I say that all the time! My friend Sybrina and I have started making items for local dispensaries and yes, medical marijuana is legal in Oklahoma now...who that that would ever happen! Ya'll know me and creating designs! I posted a few designs in a Facebook group and have had requests for people to buy some of my designs and so here I am!

If you would like to purchase this file you may do so and once purchased it is yours to do with what you wish, as long as you are not re-selling or sharing the file.

***BUYING AND DOWNLOAD INSTRUCTIONS***
Once you hit the "BUY NOW" it will take you to Paypal where you can pay for the item. Once purchase is complete Paypal will redirect you to "Return to Merchant" where you will given the link to download the files from Google Drive.
$2.50

Sunflower Glitter Tumbler - for me!

I often don't make things for myself and I've made quite a few epoxy tumblers and finally decorated my own.

Of course everyone knows I love ladybugs, obvious from my name, but I also love sunflowers and have seen some gorgeous sunflower tumblers out there.

Supplies used:

Ozark 30 ounce stainless steel tumbler 

Famwood Epoxy

Glitter Chimp Pearl ultra fine glitter

Glitter Chimp Steel City ultra fine glitter

Glitter Chimp Honeycomb chunky glitter

Hayes Water Slide Paper
Images from the internet 

I learned a trick for the water slide to apply it more easily, I mirror image for printing and the spray with acrylic sealer, usually 2-3 coats, and I can lay the water slide down and slide the paper from the top instead of sliding out from underneath the image. It makes it so much easier!

I used paint.net to overlay some of the sunflowers and ladybugs and I was able to print all the images on a 4x6 piece of water slide. This is only the second time I've tried chunky glitter and I need more practice for sure before I get the method down but I did learn to sprinkle lightly so it lays flat better. 

I'm still waiting for this to cure right now so I can start using!

Caregy HTV from Amazon - Family Reunion

I don't know how many different brands of HTV I have at this point in time but it is over 10 for sure. The difficult thing with different brands is they all seem to have their own temperature, pressing and peel settings and this can cause me some confusion when I get ready to make a shirt with a more than one color.

Recently I had to make quite a few shirts and need a lot of white HTV and went looking on Amazon because shipping prices tend to negate the cost of any sale prices on HTV. I sure didn't want to pay the prices from Hobby Lobby as I need over 7 yards! I did finally find one that had excellent reviews and thought I would give it a try. The CARGEY HTV is thinner than some of the other brands I have and I found it to weed and press WONDERFULLY!

The price at time of posting is $29.99 for 12"x25', yes that is FEET! Which if you are a Prime member and get free shipping it works out to $1.20 a foot! CAREGY does have limited colors right now but the prices are great! 

The shirts I was working on at the time were for our family reunion that took place over Labor Day weekend. Everyone loved their shirts. We started planning the reunion over a year ago to allow everyone time to get vacation and travel plans arranged. Each color shirt represents a different sibling family. This picture is of the first generation cousins that attended the reunion. We were missing, I think 7 first generation cousins that did not attend the reunion for various reasons. A few attending the reunion didn't want the design on their shirt, stating they wouldn't be able to wear the shirt again which was totally ridiculous to me but to each their own. 

We all agreed how lucky we are to have a close extended family and contribute this to the closeness of our parents as over they years they always kept us updated on what the other families were doing.
We are now planning a cousin's gathering for Thanksgiving weekend in 2020 that will take place in Branson. I might have to come up with a design for that event as well, except for those who feel they can't wear the shirt again *okie shakes her head and laughs*.

WHEW I'm back!

Not sure if y'all know about blogs and websites much but one thing you have to do is make sure your payment method is up to date because there are "domain squatters" out there ready to snatch them up and then want to sell the domain back to you or someone else. I evidently didn't do that and some company snatched up my .com domain and wanted a few hundred bucks for me to get it back. And, let's be honest here, we all know I'm too dang cheap to do that!

Luckily I was able to go to Google and get the .net domain with my moniker but it took me awhile to figure out if I could import all my content from my blogger site to a new domain.  I was about to call my Goddaughter Amber and have her come help me but I was finally able to figure out how to get it to work. I was heartbroken about losing everything that I had done since January of 2008 and a bit of an elation came over me when I was able to switch everything to the new domain!

I have some projects I will be posting in the next few days and if you have me on Facebook you've probably already seen them but of course I give more detail in my posts here. 

I hope I still have some followers and they are still able to get notifications when a new post is made. You would think after so many years I would know more about this stuff but NOPE! I'm still an idiot when it comes to this website stuff! 

I will also be sharing something that I have come up with, for sale, that I think most of my crafty friends can find very useful. Right now it's still in the works but I'm going to have it all figured out in the next week or two!

Thank you to my loyal followers that let me know that Okieladybug is back up and running!

Am I Back?

Evidently I didn't update my credit card information for my domain and I lost the .com but I am now trying to see if it is working with the .net extension.

KEEPING MY FINGERS CROSSED!!!

Wooden Cassette Rack Altered for Craft Storage

Years ago I found one of those Napa Valley Wooden Cassette racks and have been using it for my stamp pads and I still love having my pads stored in this manner. A few months ago BFF Carmen was visiting and we went to a thrift store and there were two of the racks for $3 each and I grabbed one and Carmen told me I should get the other one as well for that price so I did. I knew I didn't have enough stamp pads to fill up either rack but ya never know what might happen!

I had to do a little rearranging on my wall to get the racks to fit but that wasn't a big issue. I did have some Stampin Up ink pads in a Stampin Up carousal storage and thought I would get all my ink pads together and it looks so nice now! I then had to decide what to do with the other rack and I wondered about storing my ink refill bottles in it so it would free up one of my drawers. I was really pleased with how the altered wooden cassette rack turned out!

And here is the result!

The thin backing of the rack was put on with staples and it was fairly easy to get the backing off using a small standard screw driver and prying up gently to loosen the back so I could get it off. You can see in the picture where the little staples hold the back on to the frame.

In order for the ink re-fillers not to just fall through I needed to have two slats as a "shelf" and to accomplish this I used my miter box and miter saw to make the notches on the opposite side of the vertical slats to line  up with notches on the back. I found it easier to cut several at a time and it helped with the wood not splintering quite as much and using a little painters tape held the slats together well. I used one vertical slat as a guide so I would know how deep to cut my notches and then put a line of painters tape across the slat to use as a guide.

Here you can see the notches that are made in the vertical slats and then the notches I made. Before I started cutting I did lay bottles down and count the notches so I would know where to cut. 

This shows the slight gaps between the slats a little better. Now I have to tell you after I took this picture and put the thing back together I realized it would look better if I had the solid edge of the vertical slats toward the front instead of having all the little notches toward the front so I had to take the back off and turn them all around and I'm glad I did because it for sure has a much nicer finished look.

I just used some small nails to attach the back to the frame as I have no idea where my staple gun is and not even sure if a regular staple gun would have worked. 

Here is the finished product before I hung it up and put it on the wall. As you can see there are different size slots because I wanted my Glimmer Mists to be stored in the rack as well. 

This picture shows all three of my racks on the wall and I'm really pleased with how it turned out!

If you ever run across any of the Napa Valley Cassette Racks and wonder what you can do with them you now have another idea of how to incorporate it for storage in your craftroom. 

Coral Dream Catcher Tumbler

My daughter wanted me to make a tumbler for her and one of her favorite colors is coral, that's a really hot color these days. The only problem was that I didn't have any coral glitter and hadn't seen the color at Hobby Lobby or Walmart so my resourceful self set out to make my own coral glitter!

I mixed up some Buttercup Yellow glitter from Hobby Lobby and then some Cherry Blossom from Walmart and added a little white glitter in the mix. I just kept adding the colors and mixing until I got a color I liked. The picture really makes it seem more like orange but in person it's a coral color. 

Once my daughter told me she wanted a dream catcher on the tumbler I had to find something that I thought would match up nicely and I found the quote of "let your dreams be bigger than your fears" and it worked out great! I used Cricut Printable Vinyl and the print then cut feature with the Cricut Maker. It was my first time ever using printable vinyl and I really liked how it turned out. For the words I used regular vinyl and there were a few little bumps in the lettering but my daughter won't mind and if she does then she can put the dang thing where the...well, we will just say she will like it!

I'll be doing another one of these soon and used Water Slide Paper for the next one and found that was a lot easier to work with than using regular vinyl. I'll post it when I finish it up...hopefully within the next six months or so! HA HA HA

My First Epoxy Tumbler - Neon Ombre

I am still trying to get down the whole epoxy tumbler thing and I have made a few and actually even sold 2 tumblers and have people asking me about buying some others that they want me to make. 

These tumblers are a pain sometimes because there is such a long wait between steps, like HOURS and sometimes even days depending on how thick the epoxy is and how long you want it to cure before giving it or using it. 

My first tumbler was a bit of an experiment since I was wanting to try the ombre effect and overall I liked how it turned out. It took me forever to decide what to put on the tumbler and the "enjoy today" seemed to work well with the colors. I used blue holographic vinyl and silver metallic vinyl on the little dots. 

I did learn that the camofluage of the ornginal cup is hard to cover up even with a few coats of Krylon 2X paint and primer but it didn't show through so bad that I needed to strip the cut and start over.

I'll make some more posts when I get time of some other tumblers I have done and I will get posts made of those when I get time. I have a few on the racks right now that have the first coat of glitter and need to finish up.

Epoxy Tumblers...Blame BFF Carmen

There are so many people doing the Epoxy Tumblers and it's a road I haven't wanted to go down because they just seem so time consuming to me. Don't get me wrong I have seem some gorgeous tumblers out there but I'm not one to want to spend hours making such a thing. Now with that said this post is about how I made drying racks and manual turners for priming and spray adhesive in the whole process. I blame my BFF Carmen for going down this road, and she has dragged me kicking and screaming! I used things I had in my garage to make two drying racks and two manual turners, I'll explain my reason for manual turners further down the post. I know they are by no means perfect but they work for what I will be using them for and not too shabby for the limited tools that I have in my garage. I did share my progress on Facebook and got tickled when my friend Rachel commented on Facebook "WOW!! You are the epitome of 'go big or go home' - I adore that about you!!".

For the drying racks I screwed two pieces of 1x4's together and then used a spade bit and my drill to put holes in the boards that my steel pipe would fit in. I wanted to make sure the depth was enough that the pole had enough room to be seated well. I also thought the extra weight of two boards would be enough to keep the tumblers from tipping over while they are drying.

I cut 12" pieces of the 1 1/4" pipe and then pushed pieces of Pool Noodle over the pipe so my tumblers can sit nice and snug while they are drying or while I am working with them and they aren't suppose to be touched.

Here are the two drying racks finished. The Pool Noodles can be moved up and down the pipe to accommodate for larger cups or smaller cups. I made sure to space the holes far enough apart that the larger 30 oz. tumblers can sit on the drying rack without touching.

I decided to make a manual turner for when I would be applying primer paint, adhesive and also any glitter or such that doesn't necessarily need to be on a spinner for long periods of time. As you see there are two of these contraptions. I figured why not build two since. Once again I used my drill and spade bit to make the holes and I made the holes to fit a 1" dowel rod. Now here is the cool thing...my steel pipe can slide easily off and on the dowel rod so I can then put the tumbler on a drying rack and I can use the manual turner for the next tumbler. I thought that was pretty darn smart of me!

To protect from over spray of any primer paint or adhesive spray I made a spray box out of some cardboard I had in the garage. and I was excited to realize all my little gadgets would fit in the cardboard spray box. Until I realized something else...see next picture...

One of the buildings was being cleaned out at work and this cabinet was going to go to the trash so I decided to salvage it. I was going to see about finding room for it in the craftroom but hadn't even tried yet and it was sitting in the garage and a light bulb went off in my head and I thought "dang okie! Use that for a work station for your tumbler chit!" I did have to adjust the spray box a few inches which was no big deal. The manual turners and drying racks can fit on the shelf and then I have space at the bottom to store any tumblers, paints, etc. 

And then there is this...The We R Memory Keepers Spin It and thanks to BFF Carmen I have one at my house now! I have used it and since I have nothing to compare it to I can honestly say that I like it! I do like that it has two different speed settings. I will post later when I get some tumblers completed.

Hidden Hinge Album - Graphic 45 Voyage Beneath the Sea

This is a project I did last May for my friend Yvonne for her graduation gift. She graduated with her Bachelor's degree and her and her family went on a cruise as her graduation gift and I wanted to give her something that she could use to remember the trip.

I used the Graphic 45 Voyage Beneath The Sea papers that my friend Carmen had picked up for me at Tuesday Morning, don't ask me when because I have no idea! This is the first and only hidden hinge album I've made and I found the directions on YouTube from some lady that had a wonderful English accent! It was a lot easier than I thought it would be to make.

Here is a look at the album opened up so you can see all the wonderful colors and images. I made quite a few pockets and decorated tags for the pockets and since I wanted plenty of room for pictures most of the tags had photo spaces on both the front and back of the tags. 

I tried to leave some room in place so Yvonne could write things about the pictures if she wanted. I generally try to leave journaling spaces on mini albums as I think it is nice to have written descriptions about the pictures.

There were tags in the "between" spaces of some of the pages as well. All the white spaces were included so they could be used as templates to cut the pictures to size to fit on the mat or tag in the album. This picture shows how the tags in between the pages can be pulled out. I used a variety of twine and ribbon on the tags.

This is the same pages as the picture above but I wanted to show how the tags pulled out of the pocket. It's always difficult making areas for pictures with Graphic 45 paper because I always hate covering up the beautiful paper. 

You can click on the pictures to make them bigger if you want to see more detail. There is a lot of embellishment I would have liked to have done for the album but I always tried to be mindful of not making mini albums too thick with embellishments because to me albums are suppose to be about the memories of the pictures more than just decoration.

I do like how the hidden hinge albums give the opportunity to add so many little hidden ways to add tags and photo mats so there can be more pictures. I'm not even sure if Yvonne ever even put any pictures in this album and I never thought to ask her. I did tell her I would add the pictures for her if she wanted to get them printed.

A variety of picture sizes is always best in my opinion because sometimes you might want a close up  of a person or object and the smaller photo areas allow for those kind of images. The smaller mat areas can also be used for journaling. 

As you can see the album was pretty thick by the time I finished. This picture also shows the variety of twine and ribbon I used on the large tags. Most of the cording is Maya Road cording and I love that it can be frayed out to give a bit more interest.

This is the album opened. I generally don't decorate the back of an album much because I don't like wasting great images and embellishments on something that won't be seen as much.