Tissue Paper Glam Craft Tutorial

So I am going to try out doing a tutorial. I have been wanting to do this for a while now. When I had my first apartment in upstate NY, we saved our empty alcohol bottles. Most of them I threw away, but I did keep some meaningful ones. Such as my senior year champagne bottle for my last play that I opened and a more recent non apartment one when I went to a winery with some friends. I have two bottles that are from professors that I did not do this technique too yet, but I will probably be revisiting this with a friend, because I think it's kind of a fun idea.

So this is the end result on a shoebox:

Interested? Well get on a shirt you don't care about and create a workspace. I cut two boxes open and used my craft table. 

1. the items you would like to glam up.

2. a sufficient workspace area

3. a magazine that has cool pictures that you don't necessarily care about cutting up

You can also probably print out pictures if you would like to. I would suggest photo paper.

Regular paper would probably work as well, though.

4. scissors (kind of goes along with the paper) :) 

5. tissue paper

6. Elmer's glue

7. Water

 8. A cup

9. paint brushes

Have you ever done paper mache? Basically add the glue to a cup or bucket (whatever you would like to use) and add water. I made mine really water down so that in the end there would be a glossy sort of feel. Just to let you know I am going to get some sort of polyurethane or something of the sort at Michael's because I want a glassy finish to my pieces. However, if you just want to use Elmer's glue and water it does the trick too, just know you will be putting lots of layers of it on your pieces! :)

10. Craft paint

11. a paint palette. (or just use any surface even the cardboard!)

My craft area went through several transformations of craziness throughout this process so don't worry if yours looks more chaotic than mine in these pictures. :)

Got all of your materials and glue? You're ready to get creative!

So basically  the hardest part of this is making the glue. I'm going to let you know that if you don't get the right consistency right away do not be upset! When a friend of mine and I tried to make masks one time our paper mache was horrible. The best part about it is you're not trying to make a mask or anything that needs serious paper mache skills so this is a great project to just play with the consistency. 

After you have that you can start creating. I started by putting tissue paper on the wine bottles and then added pictures over it. Sometimes I put tissue paper on top, sometimes I didn't like it so I tore the paper. You can really do whatever feels right. 

On the shoe boxes I added the images first and then added the tissue paper in spots I felt appropriate. I felt like my pieces were missing something so I mixed up some craft paint and added that as well. 

The key is after you have your first coat on wait for it to dry and then add more coats of just glue. That's what's going to really finished it up nice. Unfortunately, my glue was thrown away actually into a drain because someone thought it was paint so I wasn't able to put as many coats of glue on as I would like. However, I think they turned out pretty well. 

The shoe boxes are going to be awesome for storing sewing supplies and the wine bottles are going to be awesome for vases. I might have to go out and buy some fake flowers just to get the right effect. :)

The end result: 

Happy crafting :).

Pictures of Adventure Time Costumes and Shoes

So I got pictures of how my costumes turned out on! :) This is really motivating me to buy a smaller mannikin.

I've never met my friend's fiance but you can tell in these pictures that they're amazing for each other. I'm excited they're getting married. :)

And on a completely random note... I have restored faith in Payless for being a good place to buy shoes. Especially shoes that you wear every day chasing around small children. They're doing another buy one pair get the other half off so I got these (below) and tennis shoes.

 

Satisfactorily cute for in a pinch... not NYC cute, but still cute. :) And no joke: my bill was $44 for tennis shoes, cute flats, gloves, and tights... who can beat that price?

It's been a long trip...to say the least.

I should have suspected that the East Coast might get some snow around Halloween. I mean, I only grew up in Upstate NY... But I guess I just needed to be reminded that random snowstorms stink. It literally snowed on the way to Boston as soon as we hit Mass and on the way back we got caught in that snowstorm on Saturday. We had a huge debate. Should we leave? Should we stay for an extra night and not go to NYC and drive home the next day? Oh we'll just take 95 right by the water. Awesome.

Honestly if we had stayed though, we prob would still be in Boston. Oh well.

So anyway my excessive luggage was in my last update so I'll skip over that.

DAY 1:

So we decided to drive somewhat back roads to avoid tolls on the way to Boston. We thought it would be cool to go to Sleepy Hollow, NY just to say we had been there. We went to an AMAZING restaurant Horsefeathers. It was delicious. I loved by Turkey Pot Pie Soup. So good. And Sleepy Hollow is a pretty cute little town. I wish we could spend more time there.

On the way into Mass it started snowing. The grand total of our 9 hour car ride turned into a 13 hour car ride. It was very sad.

However, we arrived safe and alive and surprised our friend with a visit. He literally slammed the door in our face because he was in shock. It was great.

Day 2:

So after an epic car ride, where we stopped in Sleepy Hollow, we went to Salem the next morning. Salem is such a cute little town that completely tourist, but still fun to go to.

After a morning in Salem, we went back to our friends house and met up with him in-between his shifts at work. We went walking in a park and drank a beer. Apparently it's pretty rough drinking beer on tap in Boston because they don't clean the filters. Who knows if that's really true though. :) Our stomachs have been pretty messed up since then sadly. So maybe it is.

We got lost driving back to our friend's house and got to drive in the streets of Boston. Pretty epic.

The one thing I'm really glad we did was go to the top of the Prudential Building.

Then, of course, it's time for us to start putting on our Halloween costumes.

Zombie newly bitten hipsters here we go off into the night. Definitely not the most attractive Halloween costumes ever, but it sure is fun. I even teased my hair though that lasted about five seconds.

Day 3

So then of course on Day 3 we were supposed to wake up bright eyed and ready to go to a museum in Boston. Yeah...that happened. There was also this crazy snowstorm coming our way. So of course we slept in and then ate some yummy lunch food... and then got to drive in this lovely weather.

We ended up having to stop in Milford, CT. I spent two summers in New Milford, CT and there isn't much going on there, but there is definitely more in New Milford than Milford I will say that much. Of course, we were in the middle of a snowstorm but ya kno.

This is how sad we were. Until we had a make-up party.

Day 4:

After the epic snowstorm, we still went to NYC the next day. We drove to queens and had some amazing crepes. They were epic. Then, we briefly went into Manhattan to see a friend from college. I dragged him to tourist-y things, which he hated of course. :)

And the rest of the drive home was no nearly as epic as the rest of the trip.

All in all, pretty successful vacation. However, I already want to go back to Boston because I keep learning about all of the things I missed out on doing!