Category: DIY

Craft Review: String Art Kit

It’s product review time again and this time we are taking a look at a String Art Kit I ordered off Amazon to keep Jack busy while he’s at home. As it was, it kind of backfired… because I ended up doing the kit too.

Let’s take a closer look…

As I mentioned, I ordered the kit off of Amazon… but as luck would have it, it’s totally sold out now. The one I ordered had three designs (an owl, a starburst, and a YAY sign) and it cost $16.63.

Here are some similar sets I found that are still available:

Jack decided to do his own thing and not follow any directions… so here is his original design:

As for me, I’m a rule follower… so I decided to make the owl.

Step 1: I put all the pins into the foam board backing, making sure to keep the colors consistent with the example.

Step 2: I started adding the string, first the branch and then the owl body:

Step 3: I finished adding all the different color string and I went back over some areas that weren’t filled as much as I wanted them to be. And here is the finished product:

I think it turned out awfully cute, but the kit was definitely a bit too hard for my 8-year-old boy. If you have an older child, or one a bit better about following the directions, this type of kit might be a better fit.

If you’re an adult and you’d like to try a ‘fancier’ version of string art, I found a couple cute kit options with a wooden background and nails:

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Craft Review: Kid’s Mosaic Stone Kit

I had a poll up on my Instagram and Facebook asking what kind of blog posts you all would like to see from me, and one of the topics that came up a few times is that you’d like some product reviews. Well, with Jack being at home so much it kinda makes sense to do a few craft/game reviews! The first one is for the Kid’s Mosaic Stone Kit.

I purchased a shrink-wrapped Mosaic Stone Kit when I was out thrifting at some point. I have no idea how much I paid for it, or exactly when I thrifted it. But it has been living in my ‘craft corner’ for quite a while. Over the weekend, I was digging through some potential projects and Jack and I decided to give it a try.

The kit was pretty simple and contained all the ingredients… you never know when you thrift something! All you have to do is mix the concrete, use the stained glass pieces to make your original design, and let it dry for a day or so.

I found two similar kits on Amazon with Prime shipping:

There were warnings on our kit about inhaling the dust when mixing, so I took it outside and mixed it with water into an old tupperware. I didn’t have Jack help with this, due to the dust. But once I brought it back inside he helped pour the wet concrete into the mold.

Then, Jack used the stained glass pieces to create his design – first on the countertop before transferring it into the concrete. He smushed each piece into the wet concrete and we put the wet mold out of the way for a full day.

After about 24 hours, I popped the stone out of the mold and let it sit upside-down until the entire stepping stone was completely dry.

We are SO HAPPY with the finished design. The cement somehow has a sparkly/shimmery finish and the design turned out beautifully. I added it to our front walkway and when I do leave the house, it’s makes me smile.

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Grab Your Boots, We’re Going to a Barn Sale!

I had planned to spend the weekend at Lindsey’s house (a couple weekends ago), and she texted me a couple days before about the barn sale. I’m never one to miss out on the chance to dig through someone else’s crap, so it was ON! I had planned to drive down to her house on Saturday morning and come home on Sunday… but everything else was unplanned.

Except the barn sale.

For those of you unfamiliar with the barn sale concept, it’s typically a barn in the middle of the country filled with random crap. There are some antiques, some random rusty tools and just an all around hodge-podge of what-the-heck-is-this and do-I-need-this-in-my-life and how-much-is-it?

Some barn sale junk:

As it was, we didn’t find any big winners at the barn sale, but one of us had the idea to google to see if there were any fun antique or consignment stores around. We popped by one and that is when we found out where we actually were…

Apparently Deale, Maryland is your place to get a deal (should I have warned you that there was a dad joke ahead…?). We had somehow stumbled into The Vintage Loop and one nice shopkeeper gave us this handy postcard which pointed out all the nearby shops!

If my memory serves me right, we ended stopping by: Vintage by the Bay, Somewhere in Time, A Vintage Deale, Second Wind Consignments, Somewhere in Time, Salvage Chic, Spice, This & That Treasures, Re-Find, Capt’n Harvey’s Antiques and The Red Dresser.

So. Many. Treasures. And a lot of crap too.

Oh, and we stopped at Happy Harbor Restaurant in Deale for a truly fantastic Orange Crush and crab cake sandwich!

Which brings us to… which treasures I brought home!

Each item in this photo ranged from $2.70 – $4.99. I loved the honeybee container and the pie bird for my china cabinet. The blue honeycomb vase will take the place of a similar white one I recently broke. The green bud vase was too cute to pass up. And I just realized as I was typing this that the white and green container came from another stop that I still need to blog about…oops.

This little oil painting is by a local artist, Glenn Stewart. There were a bunch to pick from, but I love this little 8 x 8 canvas. It was only $15, so I had to buy it and it now lives in my den.

This original painting also came home with me. The artist is also relatively local, Kimberly Scott Stein is based out of Vienna, VA. I have no idea how much her pieces typically cost. On her website it asks you to contact her for pricing, which is typically code for out of my price range. This one was at a consignment shop for just $31.50 and I loved it so much I had to buy it. It’s currently on my dresser in my bedroom, but I’m not sure if that will be it’s final place.

All in all, the day was super fun. And we certainly found some treasures in Deale!

Have you been to a barn sale before?

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