More Mod Podge Please...

I have been a podging fool for the last few days! There was a step stool, a couple birdhouses, coasters, name signs, some coasters...it's a wonder my kids are not covered with pretty paper yet! I am doing all these projects to add to the inventory for the business that I hope will be generating some revenue for me and my crafty BFF because we are broke.  We have many items to sell, but the problem is where do we sell them? In all reality we thought we would be up and running by now by doing different flea markets and craft shows each weekend but between rainy saturdays and four kids who all play sports it has been a little harder than we expected.  I think our next step is an online marketplace and Here is a taste of what Cloud 9 Design will be offering.  Enjoy and please feel free to offer feedback!

This is a stepstool I painted, papered and embellished.  I can make these to go with any theme or color scheme.

These coasters were papered and sealed and can be made to match any room of your house.

Patriotic Bird House that I papered and podged.

Personalized Name Sign...my personal specialty!!

OMG...that was a long nap!

My goodness, where has the time gone? So I guess this is my first post in about, ummm, I dont know...just ONE WHOLE YEAR! I blame my absence on my kids, they have more on their calendar in one week then I have during a whole month, and I am the lucky one who gets to drive them to all of their activities! Don't get it twisted though, I have still made time for crafting throughout the past year and I cant wait to start sharing some of my projects right here on my blog.  The most exciting thing that has been going on though is that my dream of starting a business making cafty home decor is slowly being realized.  It all seemed so overwhelming until my BFF and partner in crime decided that together we could make something awesome happen for ourselves.  We are both talented, we have an eye for design and we are very determined.  So we got to work and not long after we decided to g for it Cloud Nine Design was born!! We are still in the planning stages but our goal is to open a shop where we will carry our homemade home decor le wreaths, picture frames, flower pots, signs and customized plaques as well as refinished tables, dressers, desks,,,you get the idea...and we will not be stopping there, we have so many ideas and plans.  I invite you to follow along on this journey as I plan to update  my blog every step of the way. 

I love my doggy!!!

Brian and me were hysterical on our way home from our camping trip a couple weeks ago, but once Mugsy realized we were laughing at him he stayed away from the window!!!

Patriotic Star Tree

Woo~hoo its Summertime! Time to celebrate the good ol' U.S.A...and no celebration is complete unless there are decorations!  Here is something you can make that is cute, cheap, quick and easy:

I have had the idea for it since I bought the tree at the dollar store before Easter and hung the little eggs on it.  The pot went from terra-cotta to yellow for Easter, and I painted it white.  For the stars I used red, white and blue, adhesive backed glitter foam sheets and a couple of pieces of scrapbook paper that were flag themed and I cut four stars out of each color foam and four stars from the paper that could be matched up with the foam so that each star would have red, white and blue in some combination:

My stars are not perfect as you can see and I intended to trim them up and make them all uniform but I I liked the way they looked when I finished the rough cuts so I left them like that.  I stilll do most of my cutting with scissors or a craft kinfe because my husband still will not buy me a cricut or sizzix or and other cool die cutter that would just make my life so much easier!!! He just doesn't understand me...when he is watching me make things I say Babe, just close your eyes and imagine if all I had to do was push a few buttons and my shape would come out of a machine!!!  He just laughs at me but I know he will cave soon!! Anyway back to the stars...once I had them all together I put sticker embellishments on a few stars and pulled red thread through the top of each star with a needle and thread and tied each star to a branch.  I also put a patriotic border around the top of the pot and a couple more stickers and  Ta-da, finished!!

June Already!

Gosh, these months just seem to be flying by!  My blog is still not where I would like it to be and it doesn't seem to be getting any hits but I am going to try and work on it this week.  I have been working on some projects but I just can't seem to get this whole marketing myself and my creations down.  If anybody out there has any tips or advice from when  they were just starting out selling their crafts, help a girl out please...i am putting money and time into doing this and I don't want to fail!  In the meantime, check out my awesome Patriotic Star Tree!!!!

Who I Am

So now that I have this blog, I soon hope to have some visitors to it and I am sure if someone is curious enough to check out my blog, than I am sure they will want to know a little bit about me.  Hmmmm, I sure do hope I am interesting enough to gain a following!!


I may have mentioned this already but I tend to repeat myself a bunch...My name is Mona, short for Ramona. Born and Raised in...cue music>>illladel~Val Pennsy, thats my residency!!<< Sorry if you are not familiar with the lyrical stylings of The Roots that would be Philadelphia, PA.  You may find me breaking out in song mid sentence to really get my point across, i guess because i am typing it though I will always say cue music>> !  Ok, so now that we have established the fact that I am a big DORK, please don't swear me off!! I am the coolest dork you will ever meet!  I have been married to my hubby for close to six years now, we celebrate our anniversary in a couple weeks on May 20 but we have been together for just about forever now and as much as he annoys me I love him.  He is my best friend and we have been through it all.  We have two beautiful girls, Julia Morgan age 9 and Olivia Grace age 5.  They are the lights of my life and they amaze me more and more each day.  Nothing can compete with a Mothers love for her kids!  My life pretty much revolves around my girls and their activities.  I spend much of my day in the car driving them to and from wherever they need to go.  I used to have a job, I have two degrees, but I stopped working about six years ago to raise my kids and when I wanted to go back to work, I got a big reality check because there are no jobs out there and nobody wanted to hire me.  This was not a good thing because we are not rich, and money is tight.  All of that is kind of how I ended up here with my own blog...

I recently discovered my passion for creating and crafting and I feel like I am on to something.  I started with wreaths and random d.i.y. holiday home decor ideas because I could no longer afford to buy all the things I wanted like wreaths.  Once I started reallly looking at theses items I realized I could probably make my own stuff but make it a lot nicer so i got to work.  People like my stuff.  My big thing was Easter egg Wreaths that I made...I sold 4 of them and if I had prepared myself better I probably could have sold more.  My new idea that i have been trying to put out there are personalized name signs.  I hope that I can use this blog as a way to interact with people who share my interests, exchange ideas and tips with those people and also make it a place where I can showcase my crafts and designs for sale! 

Another Wonderful Mothers Day Is Coming To An End!

So today is Mothers Day and this year I decided to take on the biggest craft project I have ever done in my short history as a Craftaholic!  I admit, at times I was not sure I was going to be able to pull it off but I did and very successfully, at that!!!  You must be on the edge of your seat wondering what it could possibly be...

Wreaths, Glorious Wreaths is what I am talking about, beautiful floral wreaths made by me for each of the wonderful Moms in my family that I celebrate Mothers Day with each year.  That would be nine amazing ladies by the way...and no I was not blessed with nine moms(haha), there is my sister, aunts, grandmom!! It has become tradition that we exchange gifts and they are usually personal and creative with the exception of my gifts which were always the generic store bought whatever, and I never got the ooohs and ahhs that everyone else around the table did.  That ended today when I proudly handed out nine plain brown bags and waited for some reactions.  I was ecstatic when I saw how much everyone loved them, it actually took me a while to convince some of them that I did not buy the wreaths at the store and add my own tags that said "made with love by ramona" but instead really did make them with love all by myself.    Check them out: