Lies, Damn Lies and Butter?

We all know the saying Lies, damn lies and statistics, and I have to tell you, I'm a stats junkie. So I'll get into that but first up here's my next "offering", a formula can redo. Hardly exciting or difficult and the result, it's a butter project.

Back to stats, in my former life as a working gal, I lived and breathed stats. Loved them, analyzed them and used them to increase my productivity and that of my employees.

Of course as a new blogger, I was thrilled to discover a new set of stats to devour. I was pleasantly surprised to discover a number of hits from an unrecognized URL. So immediately I marvel at my own genius and that the world suddenly had decided that massive ironing boards were in fact, the latest thing and everyone wanted to gaze enviously at the ABIB. Right away I'm thinking  patents, copyrights, royalties, should I offer a measure and quote service at an inflated price and when should I start researching factories to produce them in bulk.

Sadly for me, this was not the case, it seems some disgusting spammer goes around looking for new sites in the hope that our vanity will lead us to click on their crappy site, so that we can be bombarded with even more spam from their sister sites filled with malware & viruses. As you can imagine, I wasn't a very happy camper. So warning if you're not sure on a referring site, google them!

How does this relate to butter?

Well today's project is what I like to refer to as a butter offering, or spelled correctly but-ahh.
If you don't know what it means, it's when you see something from far away and you go, oh that looks great then you get up close and you screw your face up and think, "but-er" no, no it's not.

Today I decided to recycle or upcycle some formula cans. Which brings me to ask, what the heck is the difference between recycling and upcycling? Was it just a trendy way to make turning your rubbish into something else, sound a little more exciting?

Anyway, I have a million and one formula cans and thought I'd make a few canisters.

Supplies, all on hand:

Formula can
Paint - I used the left overs from the stencil wall
Vinyl
Svg files, and if anyone's interested, if I can't get free files, I get them from Lettering Delights, because it's already in my software program, I'm using Make the Cut and they're only a couple of bucks.


First I gave the cans 3 coats of paint

Cut my files, then trying to weed the stupid vinyl ( when things go wrong, always blame the tools) I lost all the letter holes (you know, like the semi circle from the e)

 I decided to touch them up with a sharpie and from far away they look alright, but-ahh, up close, they're kind of gross. You see craft bloggers, I hop around your sites looking at how you turn your garbage into pretty, functional items, leading me to think "I can do that", turns out, I can't.

Wanna see what I mean?

DIY Delight or Disaster?

Disaster, but since they're on top of the shelf, my little But-Er cans will do!

Thanks for reading

Mel xo

Mother Guilt? Game on!

Look what I made for my older boys!

Today I shipped my first born baby off to a foreign country. It actually hit me harder than I thought it would, I was feeling sick once he walked through the departure gate.

He on the other hand used my fears to guilt me into making him something.

If you happen to spend any significant time with younger teenage boys, you'll know that they really only have two things on their mind, Xbox and food. The latest must have game for my boys is Skyrim.

 A few weeks ago I made the babies and Elizabeth blankets and Samuel says to me, "So if you're not girly, little or cute, no one wants to make stuff for you." It was in the morning before school and my reply was along the lines of "Just get ready, we need to leave".

Then I got to thinking, the he's right, since the boys started high school, I rarely make them anything at all, and I have an attack of the mother guilts. 

Gauntlet thrown and I picked it up - like a boss! 

So today I was at the supermarket and as I was leaving they had these two water bottle at the register marked down. Thus the Skyrim water bottle was born!

Supplies:

Water Bottle

Vinyl

Cutting machine

I googled the Skyrim logo, and got the PDF here, if your interested in Skyrim you have to check out what they used the image to make it's AMAZING. Not telling what it is, you have to see it to believe it!

First I re sized and cut it on my machine, then transferred, how easy is that!

So when the boys got home from school, I asked them to close their eyes and hold out their hands, like I used to do with them when they were little, they obviously gave me the eye roll for being such a dork, and  I placed them in their hands.

When they opened their eyes, Samuel says "Oh wow that's mad", which I translated to, he liked it and I got an "awesome" from Jack. This is huge, apart from their ove of food and games, when they got to high school they forgot how to speak.
These days all they seem to do is mumble and it drives me CRAZY!

I truly hope they like them, because this is as close as they're getting to me paying for the actual Xbox game.

DIY Delight or Disaster?

A delight, simple, easy and cheap.

Are your kids (or husbands) gamers? Do you have a roster or rules associated with time limits or days they can play?

 Personally I find them annoying, but then I'm a Mum that's my job.

Thanks for reading, now I better get back to the laundry, you know I love to procrastinate.

Mel xo

Mellywood's Mantra

I woke up to a gorgeous sunny winters day and inspite of the sun I was feeling a little depressed with my disastrous first attempt at trying to build the Laundry Station. All I could think was, what am I doing, but I couldn't give up because, I'm a huge believer in teaching my kids by example and really if it was them wanting to give up after THREE attempts at doing something I would be on their backs like a snail shell.

Jule's keeps telling me it turned out fine and who cares about the fact I had to saw, but truthfully I've been missing being employed. It's the time of year when everyone is getting their performance reviews and bonuses and here I am at home feeling like a failure, who can't use a ruler. So I slob around in my misery, and go off to clean up the million pieces of sawed off wood, thinking "back on the horse", then I mutter, "don't you mean sawhorse?" (speaking to yourself - totally normal!)

Then the new Mellywood Mantra was born, and so when the babies went for their nap, I got to work.

Supplies - I forgot to take a picture, my bad!

• Frame
• Paint - I used left overs from the basket wall
• Paint brush
• Mod podge
• Glitter Cardstock
• Vinyl/cutting machine
• Spray Adhesive
• Scrap wood
• A Positive Attitude

I sanded the frame and gave it 2 coats of paint.

I cut the glitter card to size sprayed with adhesive and slapped it on

Painted the wood scrap, I was about to sand it flat but then decided it considering why I was doing this I would keep it as is.

Cut my letters, and applied them

Cut the horse and Mod Podged it on, I was going to use a sawhorse but they looked kind of boring, then hot glued it to the frame

Tada, a sparkling awesome reminder personal reminder that I only fail when I don't finish.

I'm going to pop her in the laundry, because let's face it, with a family of 7 most of my day is spent in there.

When you start anything new (like DIY, ahem) things will most likely go wrong somewhere but it's getting back on the the horse that will see you through.
Public service announcement complete, now back to your regular scheduled viewing.

Also go here to see my favorite personal reminder craft, it's an even better lesson - and stalk her blog you won't be sorry!


DIY delight or disaster? This one is a pure delight, what do you think?

Thanks for reading,

Mel xo