This - N - That Furniture & Crafts

Storage Solution

2020-09-02T09:59:00.000-07:00

Scraps to Storage

Hey everyone! It's Jessica with This -N- That Furniture and Crafts and I just had to show you guys how we came up with a storage closet out of scrap wood we had ling around. This closet is a bit on the thrifty side because we also utilized an old worn out bookshelf that had been discarded as part of this project. I'm all about saving some money and making use of items you think no longer have a purpose.

For this project I used the following:

11 1 in. x 6 in. x 8 ft. Pressure Treated Pine Dog-Ear Fence planks (these are usually around $3.00 each at your local Home Depot but we use these a lot and happened to have some leftover from a previous project.)
1 sheet of 1/8 in. x 4 ft. x 8 ft. Hardwood Plywood Underlayment Specialty Panel
6 shelves from an old standing bookcase, the sides were gone but the shelving themselves were still in great condition
2 in. brad nails
Cabinet screws
Wood Glue
Contact Paper

We began by creating the doors which required 3 pine pickets per door. We left the dogged ear shape on the pickets for a unique look and applied glue and brad nailed them together.

Next we cut our plywood panel to the size we wanted. We then used a total of 5 more pickets and assembled the two sides the same way we did the doors.

Next we formed a box with our salvaged shelves and attached it to the plywood panel. Before we placed the doors on I used some contact paper to give some color the old shelves without having to strip them down and stain them. I think it turned out quite nice.

Then we attached the doors and decided to wood burn the outside for a rustic look. The Texas is free handed and we were just having some fun seeing what we could do. This closet was for personal use and the details weren't that important.

There is it! All done and in it's new home. It was rather simple and is quite functional. We did repurpose some old dresser handles in place of knobs on the closet.

Do you have scrap lying around you don't know what to do with? I would love to see what you come up with. Don't forget to hit the subscribe button. We are evolving everyday

Paper Flowers

2020-07-26T17:46:00.001-07:00

How You Can Make Paper Flowers at Home without a Cricut

Hey ya'll! It's Jessica from This - N - That Furniture & Crafts and I'm going to show you how you can make a bold statement or subtle one if you prefer with simple paper flowers with just a few simple supplies!

Paper flowers can give you a jaw dropping look in any room. The best part of it all is how incredibly easy they are to make. You can make them as big or as little as you want and in any color imaginable! They are perfect for classrooms and nurseries and even make great decor for baby showers or even in bedrooms.

I recently helped my daughter who teaches at a local daycare make some of these flowers to go on her classroom wall, and I have to tell you that it was not only easy but absolutely fun! Best of all you don't need a huge budget, just a few simple materials and you can bring a pop of color into any decor. Cute isn't it?

Okay! Lets talk paper! Your going to need around 20 sheets of paper for each large flower. We simply used construction paper for our flowers because it is something that will be changed out based on that month's particular lesson or theme. You will notice that after adding each layer of the petals the flower itself will become sturdier with each addition but feel free to use some good card stock if your wanting to minimize the number of petals or want it to stand up over a longer period of time.

Here's a quick tip if your wanting to save on paper. Cut as many petals as possible out of one sheet of paper to cut back on waste and have some sheets for another project.

Supplies Needed for Your Paper Flowers

Petal and center template found here form the Craftpatchblog We did a variety of flowers and all the templates we used can be found at the above link
Construction paper or card stock in any color roughly 20 sheets per flower
Hot Glue Gun (you can use regular glue just know that it will take much longer to set due to drying time
Glue sticks
Scissors
Any embellishments you may want to add to your flower - have fun and make it your own

Lets get started!

Begin by taking your printed template and tracing out the petals onto your desired choice of paper. Try to get as many petals on a single page as possible to minimize waste.

Next cut out your petals and circles. I try to cut them all out before moving on so I don't have to stop assembling and go back to cutting. It tends to make the project move along faster.

If your doing a large flower it will include the following:

Small - 8 Petals
Medium - 8 Petals
Large - 5-7 Petals
X-Large - 8 Petals

For a medium size flower you can skip the X-Large Petals

Getting the "flower" affect

Take a wooden dowel or pencil and curl the ends of the petal to give it that realistic look.

At the bottom of each petal on the medium and large petals cut a slit in the center about 2 inches deep. This allows for bending of the petals while assembling without tearing them.

Add a drop of hot glue to one side of the cut slit and overlap them and hold until the glue dries or cools.

The medium and large petals will have a curved appearance and the previous curling you did should be facing backwards.

Gluing your petals together can be done two ways. You can use a t-shape fashion or you can glue two of the small petals together then start adding to form a circle. Once you start moving on the bigger petals I just place my petal where I would like it and glue in place as I go. This step make sit easier for me to fill out the shape of the flower as I go.

When all your petals have been glued on, you will take the circle and glue it on the bottom of the flower to finish off the flower. Some people have used a wired cake plate on the back to make it easier to hang but in our case we stapled our flowers to a bulletin board and it worked for what it was intended for.

You also hang your flowers with command hooks if this is something that will come down and you don't want to wreck your walls.

I hope you have fun creating your flowers! Get as creative and fancy as you want! Don't forget to follow This - N - That Furniture & Crafts to see all our woodworking and refurbishing projects!

Leave a comment and let me know what you think!

Wreath Making

2020-07-26T17:45:00.000-07:00

Super Simple Burlap Wreath

Hey guys! It's Jessica from This - N - That Furniture & Crafts again. I don't know about you but it really doesn't have to be a specific season of the year or a special holiday to make a wreath. Any day of the year is perfectly okay for a little splash of color. I do have a tendency to lean toward burlap because I feel its a universal color and material. you can go floral, rustic and even elegant with burlap. Really there isn't a wrong way to make a wreath! Am I right?

You basically only need ribbon or tule, any type of floral arrangement if you choose to have flowers in your wreath. I sat down the other day and just decided I wanted a little splash of color in my dining room! It took me about 30 minutes from start to finish to put this little beauty together. Well, when I finally decided what I wanted.

The natural look of burlap fits my overall rustic theme I'm going for in my home. I'm really into that country vibe and burlap has so many variations how could you go wrong?

This burlap wreath was so incredibly easy that I was a little sad to be done with it! This technique is probably what I would recommend to beginners who haven't made wreaths before. If your not looking for elaborateness with your wreath then a simple wrapping method works great. It also helps when you have a limited supply of ribbon and is a super quick way of adding a sleek look to any wreath.

For my wreath I only had a handful of materials that I already had on hand. But traditionally you will need the following:

Burlap Ribbon 2-3 rolls
14" Wire Wreath Frame
Floral Wire
Scissors
Hot Glue Gun
Glue Sticks
Embellishments

When I came to attaching my burlap I just tied one end to the wire wreath frame because I knew it would be hidden when I went to wrap the rest of the wreath. You can certainly attach your burlap with floral wire if you desire. From there I just continued to wrap the burlap around the frame in a single wrap making sure to overlap the last wrap so there wouldn't be any gaps. I did put a drop of hot glue on the end of the ribbon and glued it inside of the previous wrap on the back side of the wreath where it couldn't be seen.

Next I picked out some floral pieces I had in my floral stash that were already cut down from a previous project. I just placed them together and used a bit of floral wire to keep them together until I hot glued them into place on the wreath.

When I was happy with my floral placement I took two different colors of ribbon and made several loops and just glued them within the floral pieces to make it look like a bow. Not bad If I don't say so myself! You can make your loops as big or as small as you would like. Its really about what suits you.

Lastly, I took a colored ribbon and made another loop only this time I looped the top part of the wired wreath inside the loop and secured it to make a hanger. It not only served it's purpose but it blended in really well and looked like it was part of the bow.

Here's the finished wreath! I absolutely love it! What do you think?

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All Jarred Up

2020-07-26T17:25:00.003-07:00

Repurposing Glass Jars

Hey fellow crafters! It's Jessica from This - N - That Furniture and Crafts!

Don't throw away your glass jars! Instead repurpose them and give them new life! I've been watching tutorials and many other blog sites that have done this and let me tell you how stinking cute this idea is.

I confess that I am a Pinterest junkie and have probably saved this ideas a thousand times!

Anyway, I decided I wanted some of these cute jars to put in my bathroom for cotton balls and q-tips because lets face it, those bags and boxes are just ugly and I'm forever fighting with my drawers because it always seems like they are forever getting stuck. Such a pain!

You can update any room for practically nothing with this cute craft, I mean you probably have a couple of jars in your cabinet right now! These also make great gifts! The possibilities are endless!

I've included pictures of some of the items I used in my glass jar craft. Feel free to use anything your heart desires. This just happened to be what I had on hand.

Materials needed:

Glass jar/jars with lids
Some sort of base (I used a candlestick holder I found at the Dollar Tree)
tissue paper/napkins (depending on what you want or have on hand)
Ribbons
Elmer's glue (I did not have mod podge at the time)
A varnish or protectant
Gorilla glue
Paint brushes
Screw driver or drill
Knobs (I used some glass beads and jewelry wire for one of the lids because that is what I had) I also had an old lid from a broken glass jar and took the knob from it.

To begin you will need to clean and remove the labels from the jars to have a clean and clear work surface. An easy way in removing labels from your glass jars can be found on this post.

If it looks like I'm jumping ahead and skipping steps, I assure you I'm not. I did not include a picture of the jar without the base mainly because I forgot but you get the idea. When you come to that step just make sure you use a strong holding glue like Gorilla glue and apply a thin ring around the base of the jar or to the top of the candlestick holder and center your base to the jar and let dry for at least 24 hours.

Next, I watered down some Elmer's glue and used a paint brush to apply the glue to my jar. I had precut some of my tissue paper into sections so I could just grab them and place them on the wet glue. While still wet I took my saturated paint brush to go over the tissue paper and smooth out any wrinkles there might had been. I then allowed that to dry before painting a coat of the varnish to seal it all in.

This picture is the base being attached to the jars. I let them dry upside down so the weight of the candlestick would be pressing into the glue. (Excuse the game in back on my computer, got to do something in between drying times, am I right?)

To make the knob for the lid I took a screw driver and a hammer and punched a hole in the center of the lid and ran a glass bead on a piece of jewelry wire and knotted it off underneath the lid. I went the extra step and attached a dab of hot glue under the lid to hold the wire in place. Again this is what I had on hand but I recommend getting actual knobs to use for this project for better stability.

Make sure you make your hole and prep work for your knob before you paint or decorate your lid.

Finally, I took some glue and painted it on the back of a piece of ribbon and attached it to the rim of the jar. This step will no longer allow the lid to screw on and off but rather set on top the jar and just lift up. Again, had I used a regular knob for this project, I would have let it stay a screw on. But it's for personal use and it turn out nice. The great thing about crafting is that you can always change it later!

Once they are nice a dry I simply used my Word program on my computer and printed out how I wanted my words to look and then cut them out and placed a piece of clear packing tape over them and then let them sit in some water for about 2 minutes. Next, I gently rubbed the paper off of the tape only leaving the words behind. Surprisingly, once dry the tape is still sticky and you can just simply attached them onto your jars without difficulty.

And there you have it! All done! I think they turned out quite nice. I hope I inspired you to get creative with your glass jars. The possibilities are endless.

Another example of a glass jar done with a 3-ply napkin.

Don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss out on my crafty shenanigans! Until next time, stay crafty my friends!

How to Remove Labels from Glass the Easy Way

2020-07-26T15:18:00.002-07:00

Glass Jar Cleanup Done Super Easy!

Hey hey, fellow crafters! Jessica from This - N - That Furniture and Crafts and I'm sharing with you a super easy method of removing all those sticky labels from your glass jars. It's super simple and only takes a few minutes.

I often walk into my craft room and look at my shelf with an abundance of "stuff" sitting there waiting to be utilized for the next craft project only to appear as junk to someone else! Now it has become a normal thing in my house for one of my kids or husband to ask me " Do you need this jar or can I throw it away?" I think I've got them trained. You can turn almost anything into a work of art or a craft!

In this specific post, I'm going to let you in on how I effortlessly remove those stubborn sticky labels from my jars or other glass pieces I may find at yard and thrift sales.

Removing labels shouldn't be that big of deal right? I mean it's only a sticker. I've been playing with stickers since I was a small child. Boy, I was wrong! You go to start peeling up that label and all is right in the world and its going smoothly and your happy as a lark complete with a smile then "rip" the label has stopped dead in it's tracks no longer peeling back! Ugh! I hate that when it happens! Now that your frustrated, you have to start finding that one spot that's ready to peel and start the process all over again. Unfortunately, that's the dreaded problem with many labels. Their just too stuck on with all that glue. I however, found a way that has worked for me every time.

Now, before I tell you my fantastic way of removing labels. I do want to make clear that my way IS NOT the only way that works. Soaking in hot soapy water for about 20 minutes and peeling and scraping up the residue with a razor blade works too, it's just very time consuming and sometimes requires more than one soak. I've seen other's run them thorough the dishwasher to remove those labels. Sometimes it requires two runs but it does eventually come off!

My secret..... GOO GONE

This little bottle of magic has cut down my work when removing labels from my jars and it's so simple to do and only takes a few minutes! Now you can try to remove most of the label beforehand to make the process a little faster but it's not going to change the outcome. That label doesn't stand a chance with that magic potion lol!

To remove your label you will need:

One bottle of GOO GONE
Some paper towels
A towel
Some rubbing alcohol
scrapper of some sort i.e razor blade/credit card

Start by laying your towel out on the area where you are working because the GOO GONE is a bit on the messy side. Almost kind of a oil if you will. Almost like orange oil that you use on your furniture. If you don't want to clean up your work area afterwards I suggest taking this step.

Next you will need a couple of paper towels. Enough to fully wrap around the glass jar to cover the entire label area.

Saturate the paper towels with the GOO GONE and wrap around your jar making sure that the entire label is covered. Wait 10-20 minutes.

Unwrap the jar and take a razor blade or credit card, anything that's stiff really and scrape the label off. Scrape is not best term to use because it literally doesn't require that much effort once the GOO GONE has done it's job.

Once you have the label removed take your rubbing alcohol and wipe down and clean the jar so that your paint or mod podge will adhere.

IT WORKS! There you have it! Try it on your next glass project! I would love to hear if it worked for you! Don't forget to subscribe and stay update with all my crafting shenanigans!!! Stay crafty my friends!!

All in a Day's Crafting

2020-04-01T14:46:00.000-07:00

Hello again, It's Jessica from This - N - That Furniture & Crafts I love that you landed here on our page and I hope you will stick around and subscribe. This post may contain affiliate links.

I don't know about you but this whole social distancing thing has finally motivated me to work through some crafting projects I've been putting off in hopes of getting ready for my first craft fair. These need some more work but at least they are started which is the first step right?

I love to up-cycle and find uses for things people otherwise would discard. For example, the cross below is made from broken jewelry. I think it turned out quite nice.

Simple or embellished? I could go either way here! I'm fairly new to wreath making but I'm finding it quiet relaxing! I don't think I have ever come across a crafting project that I didn't like!

Remember those diamond paintings I mentioned in my last post? Yeah those! I utilize my left over beads in my other crafts too! Double bang for my buck!!!

I have always felt that handmade items have a little more meaning to them versus running to the store to pick up some factory made item. Not that there is anything wrong with that, I'm just the type of person who likes leaving my mark or giving it that personal touch on every item I create, build, redo or up-cycle.

I bet I have a hundred projects I want to tackle or ideas I have locked up in my head. Not everyone will like what I do but it's one way I express myself. My art so to speak! Hopefully I'm not the only one out there with this type of dilemma.

Now that there is plenty of time with all this social distancing I can finally get around to all those crafts I have been putting off for so long. So I have organized my craft stash and started creating just as fast as my hands will let me lol! My imagination is running wild with all sorts of crafting ideas that I may never get to them all. Meanwhile, in between creating I'm also in the shop building my next piece that I can't wait to stencil and modpodge. I will post progress pictures in my next post. I'm curious to know what kinds of crafts are you working on now that we all have the time. What is keeping you going during this social distancing? Let me know in the comments below. I hope you all have a very crafty day and stay well. Until next time my friends, stay crafty!

New Blogger Here! Let me introduce myself!

2020-03-21T19:49:00.003-07:00

Aloha fellow bloggers!

I've decided to take a ride and jump on this blogging band wagon that people are crazy about and see just how many people think like me! I want to see what the hype is all about and touch base with my fellow woodworkers (beginner level I might add), refurbish/restorers, and crafters I could reach out to and share some experiences whether it be comical, frustrating, or everything in between.

Since this is my first blog, let me start by introducing myself and sharing a little bit about me. My name is Jessica Ashmore. I'm a wife to an awesome police chief so stress has always been a utilized word in my vocabulary, mother of four wonderful children whom are nearly all grown but seem to come home daily after vowing they would never come back (discipline is such a delicate thing, you know), and a joint business owner with my dad.

My father and I have always enjoyed working in the shop together for as long as I can remember. I have always been a craft fanatic but it wasn't until 2016 when my passion for woodworking and refurbishing came to life. During that time I was diagnosed with a pituitary tumor that needed surgical removal due to a condition called apoplexy which is serious and deadly if not caught in time. Up to this point I dabbled in woodworking and selling crafts and holding down a full time job as Deputy Clerk at our county courthouse. So needless to say this type of news didn't settle well. I soon became without a job and wouldn't be able to return to work for sometime.

Right before surgery I got the genius idea to build a huge bed that I wanted to spend my recovery time in after surgery. Honestly, we needed a new bed. Ours had seen better days and had absolutely no storage but I just didn't want a bed...nope, I wanted towers with storage and outlets to charge our phones and lighting to read by. So my dad and I set out to have this project completed before my scheduled surgery and the rest is history. I was bitten by the bug and decided to pursue my passion. Hence, This -N - That Furniture and Crafts was born.

Isn't she beautiful! A lot of work and time went into this project but even if nothing else came out of the whole thing other than memories I created working with my father, then I've truly been blessed. I will treasure those memories for the rest of my life!

My hobbies, other than than the obvious woodworking and crafting, include restoring furniture or taking discarded furniture and breathing new life into it. Yes, I'm one of those DIYers who isn't afraid to dumpster dive for a diamond in the rough. I also love diamond painting! I know you know what I'm talking about. Adorable pictures behind a pasty, sticky background where you place 100's if not 1000's of plastic fauceted, resin beads in a color by number or cross stitch fashion. After several hours, days, or months worth of tedious resin placement, you have an absolutely gorgeous picture that shimmers with every direction of light. Yeah, I love that nonsense! Crazy isn't it!

Lastly, I love to cook and bake! You could say I'm a little Betty Crocker in my own right! You can usually count on me to have the homemade candy treats at Christmas time and the elaborate cakes at every occasion.

My favorite thing to do is meld multiple projects into one! Like my beautiful discarded table I dumpster dived for all decked out with it's diamond painting top!

These are just a few of the diamond paintings I have completed. Have I peeked your interest yet?

You can purchase your own kits here! Paint with Diamonds Warning! They are highly addictive!

Well that's enough about me! I could go on and on all day talking about me but I got to save something to talk about next time! After all, we just met! Until next time...stay crafty!