Gloria Joy INK

In case anyone is wondering what I’ve been up to, check out my new Facebook page, Gloria Joy INK. I’ve got a portfolio assembled and you can contact me there for any party planning needs!

Yo Gabba Gabba Birthday Invites

YO! No more excuses for not blogging, I’m probably not going to get any less tired or busy anytime soon, and I’ve missed this little bloggy outlet. I NEED this outlet! Right now I’m scrounging together fifteen minutes of my lunch break from work to bring you the cutest thing I’ve accomplished in the last twenty four hours (sorry hearing aid newspaper ads, I wouldn’t call you “cute”. In case you aren’t family or a coworker reading this, I’m a graphic designer for a hearing aid manufacturer. I think I’m perfect for my job, because, who better to market to the hearing impaired community than a twenty-four year old girl!)

Moving on, I recently put some birthday invitations together for a little girl who loves Yo Gabba Gabba, you know, every parent’s favorite show. I really wanted to make it something sweet and girly without feeling SO “themey”.

Do you notice the rhinestones?! Those are my favorite part. Along with the liner, and the little front cover that goes with the Yo Gabba Gabba theme. Okay, you got me, I love it all.

I’ve had quite a few invitations this year, so I think I’ll be sharing those (sorry if you hate them) and then *hopefully* getting back on the home decorating band wagon. I didn’t just fall off, I’m pretty sure I fell in front of it, and then it ran over me and rode into the horizon without me. Stupid bandwagon.

I’ve got plenty of house changes, and you’ll get to see them. Eventually. Maybe. Patience. One. Word. Sentences. Okay. That. Is. All. WAIT…..

If you haven’t seen my other invitations check out the Lingerie Shower Invites, Diamond Bridal Shower Invites , Girly Baby Shower, Nautical Baby Boy Shower, Book Themed Baby Shower or check out my website, gloriajoy.com, to get the scoop on what it is I do! I’m open for business if you have any invitation needs. Just email me at gloss(dot)create(at)gmail.com

kthanksbye.

Not Your Average Breakfast Sandwich

I can’t believe I took a two month long hiatus. It wasn’t planned, life has just one overwhelming event after another. In case anyone remembers about my washing machine that flooded my kitchen, I got brand new floors put back in. They are exactly the same as before which is a miracle otherwise the bedrooms would have had old wood and the living area a mismatched new wood. I’m almost back to normal, I just need to get a plumber out here to install my dryer. I’ve been without a dryer for two and a half months. Thankfully Oklahoma skipped winter this year and it’s been so nice outside I can actually line dry my clothes since my dad installed the washer. Thanks daaaaddy!

I’ve also had tons of interest in my invitations which has brought in extra cashmoney BUT also kept me SUPER busy. You wouldn’t believe how many people come to my blog looking for invitations. It’s been awesome and I’m so happy I started doing that. It only took three years but better late than never.

Since I’ve had so many things keeping me busy, I really needed to get over the hump of not blogging and take advantage of this quiet saturday morning and BLOG!!! So I have a recipe to share. I know it’s not my usual forte, but it will do for now. Ladies and Gentleman (do guys read this blog other than my husband?) may I present:

The Peanut Butter, Jelly & Bacon Sandwich

I woke up this morning CRAVING a sandwich I didn’t know existed. With one eye cracked open googling this on my way to bright for the morning iPhone I found out that this is in fact a real thing. Elvis ate it, and if it’s good enough for the king, it’s good enough for me. If you happen to be reading this blog because you also googled it… Be not ashamed. It’s totally normal, now go make this and enjoy.

It all started with two slices of toasted bread, like any self-respecting sandwich should. (P.S. I LOVE sandwiches and it’s hard to think of eating one NOT toasted. Like I even toast a PLAIN peanut butter and jelly. It’s just the way it was meant to be.)

Next up is the peanut butter and jelly. In my world, grape does not exist. So don’t you dare bring it into my house. Acceptable flavors are strawberry, raspberry, apricot, apple, blackberry and so on and so forth. Anything but grape. Oh and would someone explain the whole jam and jelly thing? I use the terms interchangeable even though they aren’t the same thing. I just don’t get it.

Now it’s bacon time. I went with a  moderate four and a half pieces. You can put on whatever your heart desires. Another side note, I like it when my peanut butter is warm and kind of melty so sometimes I have to put it in the microwave for a couple extra seconds if I toasted the bread too soon and it’s already cooled down which I almost always do.

In case you’re not sure what’s on the bacon… it’s maple syrup, cause duh, why not? If you’re already putting BACON on a PEANUT BUTTER AND JELLY sandwich, why not add a little maple syrup. There is no shame here.  Oh my goodness at this point it smelled delicious. I could never be a food blogger cause all I wanted to do was eat it.

THE VERDICT? Not bad! It definitely hit that savory sweet craving I had. In fact, it’s been three hours since I ate the first one and I’m already starving again so I may need to go polish off the rest of the bacon.

Anyone else have interesting food combinations you eat? I’d love to hear, seriously I would. This ones not that weird but I eat scoop my baked beans with Lay’s potato chips. Mmm, I think I’m the only one in my family that does. So start spilling!

Stuff I Bought

Back in December at my company Christmas party I won a Target gift card. It was one of those days I just needed something good to happen, not that it was a bad day, just was shooting for something good. I think I got the last drawing for the Target card and I remember say “I would KILL for that Target card.” Fortunately I didn’t have to and I was forty Target bucks richer. Go me.

When you HAVE money to spend it suddenly becomes hard to find something to spend that money on. Even Target! I think mostly because there are TOO many things I know I would like and hard to settle. Then for Christmas, I got another $20 target card, oh they know me so well!

I thought about buying my camera from Target, but it happened to be about $100 more in the store than online and in the end, bought the body only on Amazon, best deal.

I finally did find something online and it just recently arrived.

Pshaw, it ain’t no thang. Call me an American Gladiator. I’ll spare you the photoshop rendering.

I opened that box up so fast. It’s a hexagon Missoni pouf! I didn’t really buy into the hype when it first came out. The fact that it’s Missoni had nothing to do with me buying it. The fact that it was discounted down to $34.98 had EVERYTHING to do with it. They still have them online. AND I still have  $19 of a gift card left

This piece is definitely on the larger side. I was look at the reviews cause it doesn’t have that many stars (those came AFTER I bought it.) and someone gave it two stars cause they are lazy and didn’t read the product dimensions… Kathryn from Alexandria, VA, I’m looking at you…

The fabric almost looks more like a denim than an aqua, but I’m still thoroughly happy with it. I just don’t really know what to do with it at this point. My house is totally crazy. Half of my floors are ripped up so they could dry it underneath and no real date in sight as to when we’ll get it back to normal. Oh joy.

Anyone have any good Target recommendations? This card is burning a hole in my pocket….

My Christmas Goodies

I have to be completely honest, it was really good to be Gloria this Christmas minus the crazy sickness and washer flooding. I guess you could say any bad things that happened were totally cancelled out by the good things, and by good, I mean TOTALLY FREAKING AWESOME.

I got the usual new clothes, shoes and accessories. My husband picked out this purse for me. I love it! Plus I can’t stop talking about how good it looks in my house. Especially in my bedroom because of a certain project I’ve started that have yet to share. I seriously get abnormally excited about things that “match” my house. Like when we got Elway, the chocolate lab, it looked like he was MEANT to live in our house. I think his fur is the exact same color as my kitchen walls. When we got Durant (moment of silence since we never found him…) was a a total surprise and I wasn’t a happy camper. I was a little mad and one of the first things I said to him was that he didn’t match the house. How superficial of me! I loved that little dog though once I got over how much he looked like a snake as a puppy with that short shiny hair and giraffe neck. Oh I miss him. Look how far I’ve digressed. I love the purse.

Now for the mother of all presents… My in-laws, YES I said IN-LAWS got me a new 15″ Macbook Pro. How lucky am I! I love my husband’s family! Well, they’re actually my family too and I love em!!!! I was SOOOO shocked. In my family we have a tendency to reuse boxes from other items to make wrapping easier. One year, my mom put a broken hammer in a old box for Five Fingers shoes for Caleb to unwrap, it was meant to be a gag gift, but the problem was that he REALLY wanted those shoes and got so excited at first only to be massively disappointed. He’s a little leery to open any presents at my parents now, with good reason.  So when I was opening my present and saw the Apple box, I kept asking, did you just use the box for wrapping??? But they didn’t! It was for real! I’ve already bought quite a few goodies for it to.

I had been saving up this past year to buy a macbook. All the money I’ve earned on the side was designated solely for me. I have a really hard time spending large amounts of money on things for me so I’ve been making invitations, selling furniture, paintings and random odd jobs to feel less guilty about it. Since I got what I had been saving up for, I now had money for all the other things I’ve been wanting but thought would be way far down the road. Sooooo, I went a little crazy on the shopping spree.

First up, I bought a Wacom Bamboo Create Pen Tablet. I haven’t had much of a chance to use it. I end up doodling for five minutes then get bored. I am a huge doodler though. As a graphic designer sometimes I get frustrated that I can’t illustrate the same as I can on pen and paper. This should help bridge the gap and I can’t wait to use it on a set of invitations in the future!

I also snatched up Abobe CS 5.5 Design Standard Programs. It includes Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign. I could not live without all three of these. My lifeline.

I’m pretty excited about this one. It’s a Miter Saw that, ironically, I bought a couple days before the flooded washing machine and was going to finish up the trim in our house that never got finished. I won’t need it for that since it’s all getting replaced. I do have a bathroom that desperately needs it so I’ll keep you updated on that and hopefully I knock it out soon.

SKWEEEEEEEE!!!!! I’M STILL EXCITED ABOUT THIS ONE! I got a Canon EOS Rebel T2i. I opted for the body only. In high school I had a Canon Rebel K2, it’s  a film SLR and I had a 28-80mm lens so instead of adding a kit lens, I could just use the mediocre lens I already had and look at decking out the camera with goodies in the future.

I also opted for a Canon EF 50 mm Lens. I had read a quite a few reviews about it being a good lens to have in one’s arsenal and since I didn’t have enough money left  to spend $600 on  a lens I picked this one. When the package came I ripped into it, threw on the lens and… it wasn’t love at first. The love didn’t kick in for about a minute, but I do absolutely LOVE this now! I’ve been going a little/a lot cray cray with snapping pics of Elway. He’s been particularly hard to photograph because he is so dark and so twitchy until NOW!

It was really dark in my room when I took this last picture and Caleb was laying on the bed freaking out saying, “you don’t need a flash for that!!” NO! You don’t! Understand why I wanted this camera so bad? He totally gets it :) and I feel like SUCH a spoiled brat now, but I worked really hard for it. Oh and don’ t forget that my kitchen just flooded. So don’t be getting too jealous.

Simple Dresser Makeover

I can’t believe I started this blog a year ago. It was such a great decision! I love having so much proof of my hard work because it’s so easy to write things off and forget. If you’d like to see what I’ve been up to the past year, you can find a photo link to each project on my project gallery page.  I’ve got a new project to help kick off the year.  Its a five drawer dresser I found on Craigslist for $25. It was clearly well built and just needed a little makeup and maybe some microdermabrasion and possibly new jewelry.

Now I actually had no specific use for this, but for $25 dolla dolla bills ya’ll AND those dovetailed joints, it’s hard to say no. It’s definitely a piece that can blend well in any decor and I’m digging the simple clean lines.

I knew I didn’t want another fully painted piece and the wood was in really good shape once it got a good sanding, but it took me a couple weeks to decide what to do with it. My problem isn’t being afraid to take a chance, its NARROWING down all of the options. Another gradient? Paint a pattern? Wall paper the front? Stripe it? This may sound so kooky but I find it I just let it settle for a few days if I’m unsure, then the piece usually speaks to me. Not literally, just like it becomes more clear to me what it wants. In this case, it wanted I white body and rich stained drawers.

I primed the body with Kilz primer spray paint, sent from heaven, and stained the drawer fronts using Minwax stain & polyurethane in one step in a color called Bombay Mahogany. Then I snuck a drawer back in stood back and decided that was the one!

I slapped a couple coats of white paint and some polycrylic to polish it off. Time to drill holes for the knobs. I created  paper template and measured out where I wanted the holes to go.

Here are the new knobs I picked out. It was love at first sight, but only took me a couple of months to find “the ONE” or ten in this case. i found them at Hobby Lobby, where else? They have TONS of knobs, but rarely do they enough all at one store. So I usually end up making another trip to a different store. Twenty dollars for the knobs is almost as much as I paid for the dresser! It’s still pretty cheap altogether.

I couldn’t be happier with the way it turned out. I’ve been kind of having a love affair with wood lately and this is the best of both worlds. I’ve been seeing a lot of pieces refinished similar to this and served as the perfect inspiration! I have so many other projects that haven’t quite seen the light of day but luckily I got quite a few Christmas goodies that make everything easier and I’ll be sharing soon!

Beginning 2012

It’s almost the new year! Hooray! This whole month has completely flown by. Right before Christmas, I got some nasty stomach bug and took nearly a week to get back on solid foods. A week! Just when I’m starting to feel normal, my washing machine floods my kitchen. Since I have engineered hardwoods, they have to be replaced. I was kinda shocked. There is water all the way into the living room! Crazy! There were no pictures, just panic.

I’ve already bought a new washer and dryer set. In Oklahoma there is a rebate up to $680 for gas dryers, so I’m pretty much getting a free dryer. It was about time to upgrade since I’m not even sure how old the washer was. It came with the house and worked for us for two years, but we couldn’t expect that to last forever. Sigh. And boy did it go out with a bang.

So this is how I’m starting 2012! In complete chaos!

I’ve still got a ton of Christmas littering the house. While I’m semi putting that away when the brief minutes of motivation strikes, I’m mostly getting furniture out of the way and hopefully into a somewhat livable arrangement rather than haphazardly thrown into other rooms and the garage. The floors are getting pulled up on Tuesday and who knows when something else will go in. I haven’t even gone to see whats available. I’m pretty sure, I’ll go with the exact same color/width/finish because all of the bedrooms have this wood (which aren’t going bye bye) and I think it would look so  weird with a completely different wood on each other. Any thoughts, or advice is appreciated!

I hope everyone else has a blast ringing in the new year and that it gets off to a great start! Go TwentyTwelve!

Book Themed Baby Shower Invitations

I just recently finished up a new round of invitations. If you were to ask me which one is my favorite it’ll always be the current one. It’s like I love each one more than the last and these are no exception!The mama to be really loves primary colors and is an avid book reader. There’s plenty of books incorporated throughout to drop a hint as to the theme.

They did something cool which is NOT new, just new to me, they requested a book be brought in place of a card. I googled a sweet little poem and it was placed at the top of the bundle to let the recipients know whats up.

There are quite a few elements to bring this piece all together, but I think it all fits so well. We have…

• A red envelope with a colorful polka dotted liner
• The main invitation printed on metallic paper and mounted on a dark gray linen color to ground everything
• A fun glitter bookmark just because
• A bookplate for the recipient to fill out and mount on the book of their choice to bring
• The “instruction card” to relay the message of cards, BAAAD, books, GOOOD.
• Circle return address label
• Topped off with a sweet yellow bow

Yummy, I love close up shots of paper. Who doesn’t? Weirdos, that’s who. If you’re looking for past invitations, scroll to the bottom of my project gallery and you’ll find the links there.

If you or someone you know is in need of invitations for ANY occasion, email me at gloss(dot)create(at)gmail(dot)com!

Changing a Light Bulb

I promise I will not make any jokes about  “How many (insert witty line) does it change the lightbulb?” because this is not a joking matter and I can, in fact, do it all by myself. A very long time ago, February to be exact, I posted about a candle holder I converted to a light fixture. It was a good post and all, but lacked an explanation on how I accomplished it. The light bulb finally went out so I used that as a reason to get back up there and snap some pictures.First let’s take a look at the original light, well, just something similar to the original. Can you believe this costs $5.98 at Lowes? Crazy sauce. That’s like six McDoubles.

This is what I planned to replace it with. The opening was the exact same size as the light base. The silver stand was able to be unscrewed, flipped and screwed back in place. You can buy it online here but it’s 50% off in store maybe every other week.

This is after I removed the cover. When I first did this, it was to see if I even could. Once I decided it would work, I didn’t really finish anything because I was too busy gleaming about my success. Anyways, the base was left ivory, but wasn’t meshing with the crystal cover.

A little Rub n’ Buff took care of it! I had it out when I was doing the buffet. I was lazy again and didn’t tape anything off. I was shooting for “good enough”. From the floor, it looks flawless. I’m satisfied.

Once the lightbulb was changed and checked to see if it worked, it was time to put the cover back on. The screws are a part of the original light fixture so I took a paper clip, wrapped it around the crystal cover securely then wrapped it around the screw. There are three screws total I did it to each one. It takes longer to get the ladder out than to actually do this. I originally did this about a year ago, and have had zero problems with it except the light bulb burning out. It’s really easy to take it off and put back on so it’s not permanent.

There you go! Lights ON.

Lights OFF.
Anyone else attaching random objects to the ceiling and calling them light fixtures?

Antiquing an Antique

It’s possible, and I totally did it. I have a buffet that backs up to some chairs in my living room. I absolutely love the piece, but was having a lot of inner turmoil over whether to paint it or not. Believe it or not, sometimes wood it pretty. The buffet was lacking something and I couldn’t pinpoint exactly what. I’ve had this almost three years, and just kind of let it be because nothing was lighting my Christmas tree if you know what I mean.

Last week I came across a post of an updated buffet using Rub n’ Buff, and let me tell you, it looks amazing!  So I aspired to do something similar because, that’s what blogs are for??? Inspiration?!?!

 

Here’s my ingredients,

• Rub n’ Buff in Silver Leaf (It’s what I had on hand from this project.)
• Paintbrush
• Paper Towels
• Folk Art Antiquing Medium in Apple Butter Brown
• ONE finger

First off, I rubbed in the Rub n’ Buff into the wood trim. As soon as I would finish one part I would be like “Oh this part would look cool in silver too! Oh and this part! And THIS part!” I ended up silver leafing the trim, embellishments, hardware and legs.

Here’s a quick comparison. The silver wasn’t so bold in person, but it needed a little more dimension.

This is the original hardware and I lovvve it. It’s in really good condition, but also needed a little more emphasis. I put the tiniest smidge on my finger, because a little goes a LOOOONG way and lightly grazed it over the hardware just to hit the top of it and not go into the crease. So easy. Why did it take so long?

This is what it looks like when I put on the antiquing medium. Brush on, Wipe off. I don’t leave it on very long at all, maybe 30 seconds? I’ll bust out the stop watch next time.

This photo most accurately shows what it looks like. It’s still very silver, but has a nice aged look added to it now. I think it could have looked incredible in gold, but I didn’t have enough foresight to see that through. Most of my spontaneous projects evolve out of what I have on hand. I’m still happy with it though.

For a little sneak peek to the inner workings of my brain, I started the day preparing to clean the floors, that is so desperately needed based on this picture but quickly realized that updating this piece would be SO.MUCH.MORE.FUN!

This is the finished product for now product. The whole thing took about a half hour since all the parts I highlighted were raised, I didn’t need to tape it off for a crisp line.

I just need some magical potion that will help with the scratched and water spots on the wood. It could use a little rejuvenation without being completely refinished. Anyone have any recommendations?

P.S. the floors never did get cleaned either.