Cute Tute! Boredom Buster: Super Cute & Easy DIY Embellished Clothespins, Part 1

Sunday was a laaaaazy day, that was FINALLY not accompanied by rain!  HURRAY!  Unfortunately, the earth's climate decided to overcompensate in another, equally as lazymaking atmospheric way:  a random cold snap.  I don't mean from 75 degrees to 68 degrees (which would be bad enough), I mean it was 45 yesterday morning when I attempted to walk to the RV to measure some windows.  I had to wait until noon to get them measured, when it was closer to 50 degrees.  W...T...F?!

So I decided to tackle some of the projects for the RV that will be final details.  I had wanted to do this stuff after the inside structure was completed, but it unfortunately looks like THAT will be our last-minute project.  Scary, but I have faith.

OK, ok, without further chattiness, I present to you...

Boredom Busters are generally really easy projects that you probably have all of the supplies for already, can do in a few minutes or hours depending on how crafty and embellished you want to get, and can involve kids in if you wanted to as well.  I'll be posting as many of these as possible!

This Cute Tute is "Part One" because I will be expanding on this project and sharing that soon, too!  Stay tuned to see what we end up doing with these fun clothespins.

You will need:

Clothespins {I got mine from Wal-Mart, I'm sure they're available anywhere}

Paper {I'm using a vintage Geography book from the '70s to match the groovy vibe in the RV}

Mod Podge {I never even try anything else, that expensive crap really is the best craft adhesive ever}

Junk or Cheap Paintbrush {Mine never recover from being used with Mod Podge}

Scissors {And/or a paper cutter/guillotine if you've got one}

Embellishments {Get creative!}

I'm a big fan of maps, and I want lots of them in the RV, so I pulled this book from my scrapbooking stash.

  I picked this up a few months back for a project and it has gazillions of pages left.  The washed-out look of the pages is just what I was looking for.  I chose the Introduction page, because I really liked the color striations on the page and thought they would make some cool "natural" looking clips.  I like some zhuzh in my...well, my everything, actually - but I wanted to keep these fresh and simple for the travel photos I plan to smush in between their wooden teeth in the near future.

 Using a paper cutter, cut strips of desired paper slightly thinner than the clothespins.  for mine, somewhere between 1/2" and 3/4" was the right size.

I used lots of different images, and words, too.  Choose whatever you think would be a reflection of the photograph or memento it might hold - even if you haven't taken it yet!  

Apply Mod Podge to your clothespin surface and add the paper.  I made most of mine with the strip over the metal portion, but you can cut a division between them if you think that looks better.  

If you're using thinner paper like mine, you definitely want to make sure you're not applying too much Mod Podge to the surface.  More is not better - it can cause your paper to wrinkle later.

    Add  your desired strip of paper to the top of the clothespin. To smooth any wrinkles and improve adhesion, VERY LIGHTLY roll the handle of your brush along the length of the clothespin over the paper so that all parts of the paper stick to the Mod Podge.  When you're happy with the flatness, apply a thin layer of Mod Podge over the surface to seal the paper.

Keep going until all of your clothespins are completed.  If you want to add embellishments, like stamps, stamp the paper first and be sure to allow to dry before applying to the clothespin.  It's hard to see how these came out, but they are pretty cute!

   This is how mine turned out! You can click the images for a larger view to see more detail. I was super happy with how adorable they were in person. Definitely one of those crafts whose charm is underexpressed in a photo!

So...have you made these before?  Did you use this tutorial?  Feel free to Pin this article, comment, introduce yourself, and/or link me to your blog if you've got one, I'd love to see how yours came out!

Fun Ideas & Organizing

Well it's been raining, glooooooomy, and difficult to work on the RV in the soggy weather, so I've been working on other things in the meantime.  Beware, some random posts are surely incoming!

As I said, it's been raining and the lack of sun is destroying my soul a little bit.  The art spirit in me is really not being fed, and Pinterest's vast supply of craft porn just isn't cutting it anymore.  So I went to Hobby Lobby the other day.  As usual, I died instantly.

Apparently, they recently received a new shipment of crap that is specifically designed to be placed directly into my home and RV.

Sadly for them, I won't be paying any of their super-high retail markup.  But I WILL be making my own versions of these funsies with the secondhand supplies I cull from the local garage sale scene.

They also fed my birch tree obsession.  This gives me the idea to see how much it might be to get a nice-sized vinyl printed up like this at FedEx and use it for the wall along the RV kitchen.  Hmmmmm....

The cute stuff there was neverending...

I've already purchased a tiny ottoman ($2) at a garage sale that can be easily recovered into something like the ones in the above photo, at the top right.  My cats have already adopted it for now.  And little bench in the front gives me a kind of seating idea for the RV that I might be able to pull off if I'm talented enough.  We'll see, I'm still sketching it out.  

Speaking of sketching, I went ahead and sketched out the floor.  I ordered some samples of rubber floor and Terazzo from matsinc.com, a flooring company that has some very cool options, including a custom-mixable rubber flooring option that uses recycled tires!  Love it.

When I got home, I was SUPER EXCITED to discover that a whole new round of RV stickers had arrived!    We ordered these from a super cool sticker collector that had toured with the Grateful Dead in the '80s - some of these he makes himself.

This is a limited edition super rare Grateful Dead glow in the dark Alien Dancing Bear sticker - it was this first one I found that lead me to the awesome seller's store.

An amazing Joey Mars sticker called "Acid Trip."  Enough said!

Some of the others we got.  We ended up purchasing about 25 stickers in all - this is just a sneak peek until the project is finished!

And finally, the project I was the most proud of:  LOOK AT MY DESK!!!  This usually serves as a landing spot/storage space for all things that fall there when we walk through the door.  I added the shelf below the painting and organized the crap, now I FINALLY have enough space for sewing!  Hurray!

I guess I have to work on this one next....(sigh, sadly, this is AFTER I had straightened it up a little, too...)

RV Walls - Brainstorming Session!

Since the RV progress has been stunted by a temporary funding interruption until Thursday (in between the lines:  we're coasting until payday), I decided to brainstorm about the wall covering options before jumping into my original thought - which was Formica.

That may sound like an odd choice for a wall covering, but I've heard of it being used on RV walls before.  It's lightweight, pliable, and (relatively) easy to install.  If you're thinking that also sounds hideous, think again.  There are a gazillion new designs, and some of them are pretty trippy if I do say so myself:

Endless Smoke reminds me of the LED bars at a Pretty Lights show, or just general sound levels on electronic equipment.  For a funky RV headed to music festivals, it seems perfect.  Love it.

Blueberry Halftone and Tangelo Halftone are two of the most fun patterns I've ever seen. It's like music for the eyes!  I think it might be too much for the walls, but I'm keeping it in mind for the tiny countertop in the kitchen....

Mint Dotscreen might not look that exciting, but the overall effect of it on the walls would be pretty trippy!  It's a definite contender in the Formica category.  There's also a Tangelo like this, but I think that might give me a headache.

Because the theme of the RV is to be as fun and trippy as possible, it's unlikely I would end up going with something simple like this.  But it's worth noting that it's an available option!

As Formica goes, this lemony Citrus Halftone is definitely a frontrunner.  It's soothing, yet energizing.  Fun when it would need to be, and relaxing when it was time for that.     

As it turned out, when I did the brainstorming for my last post about the flooring, I found out a little bit about vinyl floor coverings and started looking into them for walls.  eazywallz.com has lots of options in all kinds of amazeballs images.  Some of my faves?

The Andromeda Galaxy.  I can't tell you how much I would love, love, LOVE to have this on my walls on the daily.

Still really searching for a truly amazing forest photo.  This one is just OK.  I'd like one that was a little more...enchanted?

Definitely my favorite!  I love the birch trees!

All of these IMPOSSIBLY trippy patterns make me wish I was still acquainted well enough with Photoshop to actually try them out.  I'd really like to think I might even be able to incorporate multiple different ones into the tiny space I have.  Then again, I'm going for trippy, not nauseating.

We'll see!  Suggestions welcome!  What did you put into your RV project?