Crafts.

As I said before, I've been doing a lot of crafting and planning for our Halloween party next month.  Yes, it's September and it's over a month away, but I have a LOT planned and everything takes a long time to plan, craft, alter, gather, buy, etc.

I'll try to link back to the original sites where I got the projects, tutorials, or inspiration from, because one of my biggest pet peeves is clicking on a pin on Pinterest, only to find it's a bad link or definitely not where the picture was originally placed on the internets.

aaaaaand... here we go:

First off we have the party invitations.  Erin helped me make the plaster of paris fingers when she came to see me in August.  I am so glad she helped me because the directions from Martha Stewart were completely lacking.

The "mold rubber" I purchased apparently wasn't mold rubber at all.  Being a complete newbie with crafts in general, I need very detailed instructions, preferably with brand names included.  Erin ended up picking up a kit that you use to make clay figures of your baby's hands and feet, and it worked great!  After our fingers were made, I used my Tim Holtz Craft Knife to perfect the air bubbles and other various imperfections.  Then I used a greyish Distress Ink (I think it was Pumice Stone?) and gave the fingers a little deathly color.

The rest was easy, typing up the words, aging with Distress Inks, and burning the edges was a ton of fun.  Erin found the boxes at Hobby Lobby in the baking section, and the moss can be found at any craft or superstore.

 

The biggest project last year and for sure again this year is the apothecary. Last year it was a huge hit and everyone raved at how awesome everything was.  It was very stressful for me, mostly because I didn't give myself enough time to do everything, but I knew I had to do it again this year.  I've been collecting all sorts of different glass containers throughout the year and this past week I've been altering them to give them more spunk, using this tutorial.  I haven't finished all of them, but I'm making progress and having a ton of fun doing it.  I'm also trying to put together what ingredients will go in what container, and what label will go on what container.  It's rather a complicated process the way I'm doing it, and I'm doing it this way because I'm super OCD about it being perfect.

I just picked up these awesome bottles at my favorite thrift store, St. Vincent de Paul.

Several weeks ago I put some bottles outside and added a little dirt to the bottom to see if they would turn out aged at all.  So far, no cigar.  The tin can is a little bit rusty, but I found a much better technique:

These two tin cans were aged with a pint of hydrogen peroxide, 1/4 cup vinegar, and two tablespoons of salt.  I mixed the stuff in a plastic container that I got from the dollar store several years ago and never found a use for, and I let the safety pins and cans sit in the mixture overnight.  See the tutorial here.

 

I also wanted to see what the mixture would do to glass that had been spray painted.  This is obviously an out of focus picture, but you can see it didn't get the same effect.  Obviously, it's glass, and doesn't quite rust.  The mixture foamed up overnight and it dried on the candlestick to give this gross effect.  I'd call it a success!

Both of these bottles were spray painted black originally, just painted with acrylic paint on top.

This is a book cover I'm trying to make.  Every single book in my house is not the right size, even the two books that I got from the dollar store that I *SWORE* were the right size.  *sigh*

The picture frame on the left that I scored at Hobby Lobby for $8 will be on the wall with several other pictures that look something like this.  The book on the right is something I've been working on for a very long time.

You can read the tutorial here.  It looks a million times easier than it is.

This is where I am at this evening.  I just finished gluing the tissue paper.  I will be adding the coat of white gesso tomorrow.

I have a few plans for altered books....

I came across an awesome and easy tutorial for a witch cauldron from one of these plastic cauldrons you see everywhere.

I sanded and primed the cauldron on the left which I picked up at St. Vincent de Paul for $1.50, and today I had a ton of fun making this goopy mess.  I found a half-full bucket of interior/exterior latex paint in the storage room in our basement that the previous owners left.  The other day I stopped at the Michigan Lake beach on my way home from work and filled a plastic grocery bag with sand.  I have no idea if this is legal, it sounds illegal to me.  Anyway, I mixed the paint with a ton of sand and it was so easy.  I forgot to put flour in the mixture, so when I thought I was done, I looked at the tutorial again and saw that I missed it.  I went back downstairs, added the flour, and re-applied.  We'll see how it turns out.  The lady from the tutorial said it took a week to cure and she blamed it on not priming.  But the material became so thick that I don't think priming will make much of a difference.  We'll see.

For my nerd/dork costume, I went to my favorite thrift store, St. Vincent de Paul, grabbed a pair of huge men's pants, an ugly shirt, a clip on tie that I'm sure is for kids, a bright, plastic visor, and suspenders.  I spent less than $10 on everything.  I picked up a pair of huge black rimmed glasses at the dollar store a few days after Adam took these pictures of me.

The next few photos are piles in my crafting room that are either being prepped for altering, or are sitting and waiting for the day when they can be put on display.  In this picture I have a few candlesticks that i picked up at garage sales, the tombstone I got last year after Halloween, and the Sklamingos Erin gave me for my birthday one year.

The bird cage was left over from my wedding and I never thought I would use it again.  I plan to alter the cage somehow so it doesn't look so pretty and new.  The inspiration for this was from here.

I've been wanting to make a display outside with straw bales and this year I finally am!

This box is full of items that won't come out until it's time to decorate for the party.  Lots of creepy cloth, skulls and miscellaneous props.  I also scored the Ouija game at Goodwill!  I don't think they sell that game anymore.

This entire box of candles/tea lights are going outside on the porch, driveway and sidewalk.

I splurged on this piece at Hobby Lobby, but I did get 40% off.  I wanted it for this piece.

These dolls from Goodwill and St. Vincent de Paul will never look the same again.  Inspiration/plans here, here, here (I can't link to original post because the blog is for invited readers only), here, and here.

I'm thinking of aging and creepifying these curtains I found at St. Vincent de Paul.  We'll see...

I ordered some other glasses, but Adam's mom gave us four of these tumblers last year.  And I found these candy cigarettes while up in Door County with Erin.  How absurd! 

These ghosts are creepy and awesome.  Directions from Martha Stewart.  Erin made one and I made the other in August :)

These jars that I purchased several years ago for canning will actually be turned into lanterns from this tutorial here.  The guy is annoying, but I love the look and it looks pretty simple!

This picture isn't the greatest, but I'm going to cover the couches with white sheets like an abandoned mansion.

I got this sign last year on clearance after Halloween.  I don't like the wording, so I taped off the edge and spray painted away the message with a matte black.  I haven't decided yet what I am going to put there...

That's all for now.  It's late and I need my beauty rest so I can have loads of energy for more crafting tomorrow!

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Truth.

How long has it been?  A year?  It certainly feels like it, although now I see it's only been a few months.

It's been hard.  Inspired by my favorite writer of all time, The Bloggess, I am going to make this post as down to earth and real as possible.  Admitting my faults and weaknesses.  It is after 2:00 in the morning and I still have no intention of sleeping anytime soon.

I have bipolar disorder.  So, not only do I have anxiety disorder, and well-apparent depression, I also have manic episodes, an addictive personality, and a very impulsive behavior.

I'm not like a lot of biopolar people that you either know or think of when you think of bipolar disorder.  I don't get really "hyper" or talkative.  I was hyper when I was 12 years old... now it's more of "omg  I have 2087 things to do and I'm going to do it all TODAY!! Hooray! I am awesome I can can do anything! I am also going to open my own interior design business even though I have zero qualifications!" and then I stay up until the wee hours of the morning getting distracted with every little thing that I see and never getting anything accomplished.  Or "I need to move.  I don't like <enter state here>.  I want to move to <enter different state here>.  I shall move there tomorrow."  Luckily this last train of thought hasn't happened for 3 years, otherwise I wouldn't still be married to Adam and be in Wisconsin.

A few weeks ago I admitted myself to a hospital for my constant suicidal thoughts.  I thought, and I still think, that this was because of a medication I was taking for my chronic pain, (more on that later) which I no longer take.  My husband was a wreck.  I feel really bad about putting him through so much turmoil and anguish over my emotional/mental state.  I feel like I should be able to control or handle it, although I know in my heart that I cannot.

I've been going to a therapist since I got out of the hospital.  I have seen her twice and I go back every week on Wednesday.  While talking to her, I realized I have two brains: one emotional, one logical.  When I have an episode, whether it be manic, depressive, or anxiety, my logical brain is silenced, or at least muted.  She has been really helpful so far in giving me steps to get my logical brain dominate when that happens.  Yesterday I had a panic attack out of no where at work.  Had I not had the steps to get me back in the right state of mind, I would have probably gone home and been a zombie for the rest of the day and night.  Instead, it took 15-30 minutes to get myself back on track and working again.

That gives me hope.

Also, I started smoking cigarettes again.  Don't try to tell me that it is unhealthy, because I know it is.  I know it is stupid, costly, irresponsible, dumb since I want to get pregnant, and just retarded in the first place.   Considering the circumstances, I think there are a thousand other alternatives that would be worse for me.  It helps with my emotional/mental state at the given time and it helps me cope.  I hope with more therapy and adequate drugs it will not be necessary and I can have the strength to quit.

I just started my first dose of bipolar medication yesterday.  I don't know how long it takes to kick in.  I've had two manic episodes today already.  One at about 11:00 am, which lasted until approximately 3:30 pm, where I worked on a multitude of projects and organizing for our Halloween party in a little over a month.  Of course, I did not finish a single project, but I did make progress and come up with many ideas.  Another one started at about 11:30 tonight where I started working on my Halloween projects again, started a load of laundry, and started MORE Halloween projects.  I tend to like starting projects more than working/finishing existing ones.

What is silly to me is that I had an inkling that I might be bipolar years before I was actually diagnosed, but I didn't know why I thought that.  I have never been great at understanding my emotions.  Now that I have been diagnosed, been educated by my therapist and through research, I understand so many things from my past and it helps me deal with current circumstances.

I have a hard time dealing with my chronic pain.  I have a doctors appointment on Monday with a new Pain Management doctor in my town and I hope he will help me.  I saw a different doctor twice, the doctor that put me on the  medicine that I believe made me have constant/increasing suicidal thoughts, and I have been very disappointed.  It takes a minimum of two days to get a call back from a nurse, and this last week it took four business days (which included a weekend) to get an answer.  I called on Thursday, got an answer back on Tuesday.

I digress, I think I actually have fibromyalgia because I have every symptom.  That on top of my mental disorder, it is really hard to deal with in all aspects of my life.  I am in constant pain no matter what I do or where I am.  In bed I hurt, on couches or chairs I hurt, no matter the time of day I hurt.  I am so frustrated I could scream for hours if my throat could handle the additional pain.

I have no mental health insurance coverage!  Health insurance in Wisconsin sucks!!  I have been trying to get different health insurance but it does not look promising.  I have been seriously contemplating bankruptcy but Adam doesn't want to.  The medical bills are ridiculous.  Poor Adam.  He had no idea what he was getting into when he married me.  Neither did I.  I wish I did so I could've prevented him this stress.

If you have made it this far, I give you mad props and I thank you for letting me rant.  It has been an extremely hard time for me.

For Halloween I have so many ideas, and I would like to share a few of them with you.  All images are from Pinterest, not from me.

I am altering some books. I hope they are awesome.  I have done a few steps on some of them but of course I have not finished one of them yet. 

The living room will have branches which I picked up from Michigan Lake shore

and I will be covering the furniture with white sheets.

And of course my apothecary, which *I hope* will be totally more awesome than last year's.

I I have old scrap wood that I'll be making signs for...

They won't be as bright an cheery like this, but this was my inspiration photo.

And I made some ghosts with Erin:

I am hoping my brain gets back on track so I can get everything I want to get done for this Halloween party! I am so excited!!!!!!!

SO MANY EXCLAMATION MARKS!!

See my Halloween Pinterest board here with SO many awesome (mostly not kid-friendly) ideas!



btw, I hate the word "spooky".  When someone uses that word, to me it means "kid-like" or "lame".  Anyone with me on this?!

Review.

I have so much I am going to write about. But first I wanted to post a review about a recipe I found on Pinterest and finally got around to making with Erin this weekend.

Find the recipe here.

Mini Butterfinger Cheesecakes

They looked amazing to me. It smelled amazing when we were making it. I swore it was going to be delectable.

It wasn't. It was awful. Either Erin screwed up hardcore (because I never make mistakes) or this recipe sucks. I'm leaning toward the latter. 

It did not taste anything like cheesecake. It tasted like whipped cream jello with chunks of Butterfinger in it. Which might actually sound good, but it really wasn't. At all. The crust was good, but that's because it was 90% melted Buterfingers.

Next recipe to try:

Peanut Butter Cups S'mores Bars!

Table.

My table is finished! It was a super long process and I'm not done cleaning up or organizing but I love it!

First I screwed an 8 foot long 2x2 piece of wood into the wall.

Then I sanded and primed the plywood that was to be my top.

Adam helped me screw the plywood into the plank already screwed on the wall, then I went to mod podging. 

I just realized I didn't take an up close picture of the mod podged top but I love it! It definitely was the longest part of the whole project. I had to prime the wood with regular primer, then acrylic primer, then I had to prime the paper with acrylic primer, then I had to mod podge the pieces onto the wood, then I had to mod podge everything on top five times, then I had to seal the top with specialty sealer three times.

THEN I had to iron on the wood veneer edging. So there you see in the picture above the iron on my new desk and the box that the iron came in. You can tell how often I iron ;)

On the other side of the room I am setting up a station for cutting, embossing and all that jazz. I was lucky enough to sell my treadmill that I haven't used in almost two years to free up some space.

BEFORE

AFTER

The money from the treadmill will also help pay for the trip we're taking at the end of this month. My mother's side of the family is having a big family reunion in Fort Robinson, Nebraska and we're driving. It's a 16 hour drive that I'm really not looking forward to, but I am looking forward to seeing my family and cousins again. And reliving the memories of Fort Robinson from my childhood. 

We had a contest for a T-shirt design and I'm pretty sure my design won (although the results haven't been posted yet). Mostly because I'm awesome. And also because the other options weren't nearly as cool as mine.

The front of the shirt is a simple buffalo. Western Nebraska loves its buffaloes. Fort Robinson has a lot of buffalo food - burgers, jerky, sandwiches...

The back has the names of everybody in the family, alive and dead, except Grandma and Grandpa.

I am looking forward to having life slow down just a little bit. It's been busy recently. Not with anything in particular, just a lot of entertaining, people visiting, places to go, errands to run, etc etc. 

3D

For Valentines Day I made a super fun card for Adam. And I am finally getting around to posting a picture. That doesn't sound like me at all. I found the template on Pinterest, of course.

 

This is the front of the card. Simple emboss and die cut. I wanted to keep it simple because the awesomeness was inside the card:

A 8-bit 3D heart!  Geekery at its best.

I didn't edit the photos, but with my new lighting it's probably better than what it would've looked like even after editing!

In other news, I am building myself a desk! I’ve named the spare bedroom the Craftination Station (because Scrapbook Room just sounds dull) and I am personalizing it to be totally Tessa-esque.

I’ve been in a rut and haven’t quite been myself. I always say that.

I found that I felt the need to go in my studio and make something, but I always had a feeling of frustration in my chest and avoided the room. I think there are many reasons for this, one of the major ones being that my Craftination Station just wasn’t functional. Yes, it held all of my toys efficiently, but creating anything was aggravating at best. Because of lack of counter space, I was always sitting on the floor.

The main problem with creating a functional space was money. I don’t have it. If I had the money it wouldn't be an issue at all. Custom cabinets, counter tops and modular storage from Michaels would be the first to be installed.

After searching for weeks for a viable solution, I decided to build (or ghetto make-shift) what I needed.

Inspiration Photo:

I am hoping I will be making new cards and layouts very soon with my new room!

Giveaway.

The Idea Room is giving away a Silhouette!

Click here for the post to enter!