DIY Jewelry Tray

Hello lovely readers!  Have a super easy tutorial to share with you today!  Check out this darling jewelry tray, perfect for your vanity or bathroom!

Here's what you need for this project: a white porcelain tray (this one is an appetizer plate from Crate and Barrel), a black paint pen and your favorite quote.  That's it!

Make sure your paint pen is nice and inked up.  Do some practice letters on a piece of paper to make sure the flow is smooth.  Then copy your quote onto your tray.  I didn't want it to look too perfect, so I didn't do any measuring, I just wrote it out.

Let it dry and then bring out the jewels!  I totally love how it came out and how easy it was to make!

Lots of options and possibilities with this project, so get creative!

Happy Opening Day!

If you are a baseball fan, and I most certainly am, today is an exciting day: Opening Day!  I am super stoked to be going to the Dodgers/Giants game today--my very first Opening Day game!  So in celebration of the beginning of baseball, I am offering a special deal on my custom baseball tote bags... 

Visit my Etsy store and purchase one of my personalized tote bags, enter the coupon code "OpeningDay" and receive free shipping!  Remember that I can make any team logo in the team colors, with coordinating felt flower.  These bags are awesome for game days, or just around town.  This special offer is good until 4/15, so take advantage soon!  Feel free to contact me with any questions about special orders.  Check out The Bees Times Three on Etsy today!

Business Card Holder

Okay, lovely readers, today we have a tale about when crafts don't go quite as well as you may have planned.  Sometimes I see an image or I get an idea and I jump right in, and the end result...not so cute.  Today's craft didn't go totally wrong, but it certainly didn't turn out as well as I originally intended.  I found the idea for this project on Pinterest (featured it here on my craft inspiration post), and it led me to this tutorial.  Originally, this project called for spray paint and vinyl letters cut out using a Silhouette machine.  Well, I hate spray paint and sadly do not yet own a Silhouette so I had to make do.

My version calls for the following supplies: sticker letters (though I ended up using vinyl ones), a metal tin (mine is from the gift card section of Michael's), a sponge brush, two colors of paint, one base coat (I used an acrylic made for outdoor use).

Cover your whole tin with the base coat and let it dry.  This is where this project started to go downhill for me.  Me and waiting?  Not so much.

Once your base coast has dried, paint the bottom portion of the tin and the very top with one of your colors.  This will be your accent color.

Place your vinyl letters on your tin.  Note that mine are not all that straight.  That was not really planned.

Make sure your accent paint is totally dry.  Cover the letters with another coat of the base paint.

Wait until that is totally dry, then cover the entire lid of the tin with your second color.  I did this part at night (because of all the waiting!) so the pic is not great.  The color is blue in real life!

When the top layer is totally dry, very carefully peel off your letters.

Not so pretty, huh?  I used a tiny paintbrush and went back in with some blue and pink and touched up the areas that were looking really rough.  They got better, but still not perfect.

Once you have finished painting and everything is dry, it is probably a good idea to seal the whole thing.  I was out of sealer, so like any good craft blogger, I improvised and used clear nail polish.  That part actually worked pretty well, and it gave the whole thing a sheen, which I happen to like.

In the end, not quite as lovely as I imagined, but not too terrible.  I will probably use this to tote along my business cards until I find (or make) something better.  Any of you have good stories of crafts gone wrong?  I would love to hear them!

Wedding Wednesday:Coral Inspiration Board

Hello readers!  Given that I used to dabble in the world of weddings, I still frequently get asked about wedding planning tips and tricks.  I still help out the occasional friend with her big day, and I still love all things wedding.  So every once in a while I will share some of my favorite wedding trends and ideas with you (probably on Wednesdays, you know, because I love alliteration)!  For my first Wedding Wednesday, I wanted to share with you one of the most versatile, gorgeous and trending wedding colors: coral!  Coral is a great choice for a wedding color because it pairs beautifully with lots of other colors.  Plus, your bridesmaids will love you because everyone looks good in coral!  Here's some inspiration for you!

So pretty and such a great color for a summer wedding!

Photo credits, clockwise from top left: invitations, cake, bouquet, bridal party 1, bridal party 2, bridal party 3

Styling Shelves

One thing I am not very good at is styling shelves.  As I am making updates throughout our house, I want to add some interest to the shelves we around, especially on our entertainment center and in the kitchen.  I (obv) turned to Pinterest for some inspiration.  I still have some work to do on our shelves, but these images have given me tons of good ideas.  (Click pic for original source, all pics via Pinterest.)

Any tips on how to best style shelves from you lovely readers?  I'll make sure to post some pics of my new shelves when they are done being styled!

Fabric Covered Button Bobby Pins

Hey y'all and happy Monday!  I have a super easy tutorial for ya to start this week off right!  These babies are perfect for spring, and you have tons of options for colors and patterns here.  Here's what you need: a glue gun, two bobby pins, and two fabric covered buttons with the loops on the back.  That's it!

The first thing you want to do is slide the button onto the short end of your bobby pin and hold the bobby pin like this.  Figure out how you want the button to lay on the pin and then return to this position.

While holding your bobby pin as above, shoot some hot glue on the side where your pin will lie and press it down, holding for a few seconds so it sets.  I am a crazy gluer, so I also filled the rest of the button with glue, just to be safe!

And yeah, that's all you've got to do!  I made two sets in about five minutes and they are just too cute!

I will be making a ton more of these suckers, especially now that I know how simple the process is.  I'm now on the hunt for some super cute fabrics to use!

Easter Inspiration

So I'm not going to lie, I'm not a huge Easter person.  Being that I am not super religious, and I don't have kids, there is not a whole lot of Easter celebration happening in my house.  I didn't do a whole lot of Easter decorating, and I definitely don't plan to (now that we are a week away!), but I can appreciate some of the super cute Easter ideas that are out there.  Here are some of the cutest Easter things I have found on the interwebs.  (Click pic for original source.)

I love this simple but cute Easter egg display (especially because there is a lot of pink!).

Again with the pink...imagine if you added glitter!

This display isn't super flashy, but I like the simplicity and the subtle prettiness.

This one Easter craft I might actually try out someday, a "book bunny"!

This one stood out to me because it is bright and colorful, the kind of thing I might actually make one day when I have kids who like Easter :o)

I could see doing a display of my two "book bunny" ideas.  Super cute and easy.

Happy Thursday and an early Happy Easter to those of you who celebrate!  Hope you liked all this cute bunny pretty pinkness!

Welcome to My Etsy Store!

Hey y'all!  I thought I would give you a little tour through my new Etsy shop today.  In all honesty, this was not something I ever expected or planned, and I will be surprised if it ends up going anywhere, but I'm having fun crafting (right now mostly for my friends!) and who knows what could happen in the future, right?  I only have a few items at the moment, but I have some other ideas and things I'm excited to get started on.  To visit my Etsy shop, click here!

This was my original listing in the shop.  I made a bunch of these bags for friends and family for Christmas, and then posted my tutorial here on the blog.  I received tons of comments on the bags and the post, so figured, why not list it?  The bag is totally customizable, you pick your letter and the color of your flower.

Since Mr. B and I ordered our Dodgers tickets last week, I thought it would be fun to make a baseball themed bag.  I absolutely love how it came out and I can't wait to bring it to games with me!  The baseball bags come with any team logo and a coordinating flower with a baseball button in the center.

 

And even though it's a little early for football season, it's never too early to get prepared, right?  So how about this super cute college football bag (Go Bruins!)?  This one can be done for any college or pro team, and this flower has a super cute football in the center.  (Sorry for the in progress pic here!)

If you would like your own personalized, totally hand-painted, custom tote, visit The Bees Times Three on Etsy!  Hopefully I'll see you stopping by the store soon!

Craft Inspiration Courtesy of Pinterest

Hello lovelies!  While I still have tons of projects to get done around the house, Pinterest has been providing me with lots (too many?) craft ideas that I'm dying to try.  Since we have Spring Break coming up, I'm hoping I'll actually get to try some of these out soon!  (Click pic for original source, all pics via Pinterest.)

I love this simple yet darling utensil holder, hand-painted with a fave recipe.

This personalized tin is great for holding business cards, or whatever other little tidbits you've got lying around.

I absolutely love this DIY e-reader holder made from an old book.  So cool!

If you know me at all, you know I love me some sparkles.  I think I might have to incorporate these into my 30th birthday decor somehow.

And I'm totally loving these neon pots.  I think I might bust out some larger versions for our backyard.

Any crafts on your mind as of late?  What are you dying to make?

DIY Felt Flowers

Hello lovely readers and welcome to another week!  Today I'm going to show you how to make these adorable felt flowers that you first saw on my tote bag tutorial.

 

The first thing you want to do is gather your supplies: colored felt, hot glue, fabric scissors, a button for the center, a clip for the back, and two circle templates.  To make my circle templates, I used my 3" circle punch and my 2" circle punch and used card stock so they would be easy to manipulate.  You could use any size really, as long as one of the circles is larger than the other.

I also grabbed an old magazine to catch any glue spills.  Once you have your supplies, you want to cut out six of your larger circles and one smaller circle.

 Take one of the larger circles and fold it in half.

Take the right side and fold it over so it touches the middle of the half circle.

 Fold the left side behind so it touches the middle of the half circle.

Looking down from the top, it should look like an S.

Put a dab of glue on the tip of the triangle and attach it to the center of the smaller circle.  You might also want to put a tiny bit of glue in between your folds so the petals stay together.

Repeat the folding for each of the large circles, gluing each one to the center.  Make sure the triangles are as close together as possible.

Take your button, or whatever you want to put in the center of your flower, cover the back in hot glue and attach it to the center of the flower.

Once you have the button glued on, you can gently pull up the flower "petals" so they are nice and fluffy.  Then attach your clip to the back of the flower.

Once you get in the rhythm of these babies, you can crank them out pretty quickly.  And, you can use them for so many things, hair pins, bag decor, the sky is the limit!  Here's the finished product one more time:

Get to crafting and have fun!