Summer is technically still a month away, but you wouldn’t know it from where I live. It has been HOT. I see on Facebook that some friends are still dealing with snow, or at least they were just a couple of weeks ago, and meanwhile I’m breaking out the lemonade and sitting under fans. So I guess I’ve had a bit of a jump start on thinking about what I want to do for the summer, which means that for once I’m out early enough for you to have time to do it to.

I don’t really have any decor for summertime. You all know I’m crazy for Christmas, and Thanksgiving and Halloween get special attention, but the rest of the year doesn’t bring much change. Now that Atti’s in school, I’ve been paying a little closer attention to the changing seasons and wanting to celebrate all the ones I’ve been ignoring. This little foam sandcastle is my first nod to bringing a little of this season indoors.

I bought craft sand, but you could always use sand from whatever beach you like best, or even from your backyard sandbox. Then you’ll just need some white glue and a bunch of this green floral foam. Not the white styrofoam, you definitely want the green stuff.

The green foam, as opposed to the other kinds, cuts beautifully. I just used a regular kitchen knife and chopped a brick into pieces to make myself some building blocks.

Then you take your building blocks, assemble them into a castle shape and glue them together. This design took five bricks. Two stacked for the middle, two upended for each tower, and then one cut into pieces to make all the turrets.

To make it look even more like a sandcastle, I needed to make some doors and windows. That’s super easy with this green foam. All you have to do is use your finger to indent the foam and what you’ve pressed crumbles away.

Make sure you brush off all the foam dust from your arches before you start gluing. Then cover the whole building with glue, sprinkle the sand on the top,  shake off the excess and let it dry thoroughly.

I used two coats of sand, which worked out nearly perfectly to be one of the bottles I bought. If you want to dress this up a little more you could mix a little glitter in with the sand you’re using, or seal it with a coat of spray glitter.

Since this is basically the easiest version of building blocks ever, this is a great project for kids. I bet some real lego enthusiasts could come up with a version that would blow mine out of the water.

I’m not exactly getting much creative time these days, unless you count coming up with ways to avoid doing laundry as creative time, but I thought that enough of you are fellow bloggers/crafters/creative people that you might benefit from great lighting for your projects.

Professional softboxes can be incredibly expensive. So if you don’t want to shell out the bucks for the real thing, here’s how you can make nice soft light with some T-shirts and wire hangers.

Spring has sprung with an audible boi oi oing noise around here. The nut trees are blooming with all their drowse inducing pollen, the sun is shining, and my favorite frozen yogurt place has Girl Scout cookie flavored yogurt. It’s heavenly.

So to celebrate the change of seasons I whipped up a new wreath for the front door. For this project I returned to one of the most popular projects I’ve ever produced, my organza flowers. For this one I wanted bolder spring colors so instead of using organza I looked for some different varieties of fabric that had a high polyester content. I think most of what I ended up with was intended for lining, but a lot of faux taffetas will work too. You can basically do this with any fabric that isn’t natural.

The wreath form is a simple styrofoam wreath, which I wrapped with crepe paper. If you are in a wet area you should use ribbon or fabric because the crepe paper will melt, but my front porch is covered, crepe paper is cheap, and the color was perfection. So I went with it. I just used a white glue to stick down one end, and then I got to wrapping.

Next cut a ton of leaves and flower shapes out of your fabric. Each flower looks best when it’s got between three to five layers on it. It might seem counterintuitive, but you don’t want perfectly cut shapes here. The blobbier your cuts the better. These will wrinkle up as they singe and look awesome. You can see from the picture that mine look like weird little gingerbread men, so don’t worry about making them look neat.

In a well ventilated area, hold the fabric over a flame. You don’t want the flame to touch because aside from the fire hazard it will also make it singe dark and black and ugly. Just hold it close enough for the fabric to shrink away from it.

See? From blobby gingerbread men to pretty 3D flowers. Stack a few of your flowers on top of each other, rotating so the petals all floof out.

When I made these flowers last time I handsewed each layer together and used beads to make intricate little stamens. I’d still choose that way if I didn’t have to make them in bulk. Making enough for a wreath means I needed something a whole lot quicker. So I used a decorative stitch on my sewing machine. I’ve never seen a sewing machine that didn’t make some kind of a polka dot stitch, so you just need to set your machine to that, and then lift the needle up and move it to a new spot for each dot you make.

Once you trim off all the loose threads, it looks pretty adorable.

Then it’s just time to whip out the hot glue gun and go nuts. I started with a layer of leaves, but since I’d covered the wreath form with that crepe paper, I didn’t have to worry about coverage, just aesthetics.

Once the leaves are on then I just went back over them and glued on my flowers.

For a hanger I used a pretty spring ribbon and looped it through the center before tying a big fancy bow.

I specifically chose colors that were bold enough to use all summer long, but because I stayed in the pinky palette I don’t think it’s too soon to put this baby to use. And it’s bright enough that it will still bring me cheer on those rainy Spring days while I wait for summer to come.

I’m such a snob that once a project appears on several blogs, I normally turn my nose up at it. I never want to be a slave to trends, which can sometimes mean ignoring the perfect solution to a problem just because it’s reached Pinterest saturation. Yes, chalkboard paint is EVERYWHERE. But that’s because it’s awesome.

The door to the furnace in my garage is placed so that it’s the backdrop in all my videos, and it was UGLY. A chalkboard door would not only be pretty, but would provide me another surface to hatch all my grand plans. But with only one small door to paint, I did not want to pay the exorbitant costs that chalkboard paint can run. And, if I do this again, I’d like the freedom to branch out from the typical black or green. So I made my own.

My gallon of paint was a charcoal gray semi-gloss from the oops section that cost me a whopping $5. If I wasn’t going cheap I’d choose a flat finish, but the gloss didn’t slow me down any. Then you’ll need some non-sanded grout, which you can find in the tiling section. The ratio you need is about 1/2 cup of paint to 1 Tablespoon grout. I added a little more to cut the gloss.

Mix very very thoroughly. A paint mixer attachment on a drill bit would be ideal, or a handheld mixer with beaters that you dedicated to crafting purposes. You wouldn’t want to make a cake with those after they’ve mixed paint.  You can see mid-mix in the picture how many of those little lumps still exist even after a good stirring. You want to make sure those are all out. If you paint with the lumps they’ll just rub off once the paint is dry and leave you with spotty coverage.

Paint your door and let it dry at least overnight.

Once the paint has cured you have to condition the chalkboard before you can use it, or else every letter you write will leave behind a permanent shadow. All you have to do is rub chalk all over the chalkboard. I used one of Atti’s jumbo sidewalk chalks and rubbed the side all over it. Then once you erase your board you’ll be able to organize your life with it.

This weird little door was so ugly before, but now it looks like a framed chalkboard. I can make my lists and my videos with a pretty backdrop, and this whole project cost me $7, with enough grout and paint leftover to paint a whole chalkboard room. Given my Obsessive Compulsive tendencies, I think I could use a whole room ready for list making.