May is a busy month in my household.  Let me do a quick run down for you… May 1 is my Dad’s birthday, May 3 is my husbands Gram’s birthdays and May 4 is my Memere’s.  May 5 is my niece Melanie’s, May 9 is my Mom’s, then Mothers day.  May 16 is my daughters birthday and May 23 is my SIL’s.  Of course there is also Memorial Day which is the kick off to our camping season.  There is also usually a school concert mixed in there somewhere, and of course regular day-to-day life.  See?  Busy.

When Plaid contacted me about sending me some products from the Martha Stewart Craft Line to create a project around Mother’s Day I almost balked.  But then I thought, hey, this will mean I will HAVE TO concentrate on at least TWO of the things I have going on in May, in APRIL.  WOOT WOOT!  So today I share with you the projects I created for my Mom for Mother’s Day and for her Birthday using the awesome supplies I received!

First, check out this swag bag of goodies:

 I was blown away by the sheer amount of awesomeness that bag contained.
TONS of Paints – metallic and satin sets
Utility Brushes
Fine Tip Tops
Stippling Brush
Several stencils including a sweet alphabet one (one set was adhesive!)
Foam Pouncers – these are my new favorite tool
Brush & Stencil Cleaner
Stencil Brushes
Stencil Adhesive
 Sea Sponges
Small Tray with Roller
Liquid Gilding

 I had so many options running through my head.  Seriously, I went on a crafting frenzy!

First you should know that my mom received a Camilla bracelet for Christmas and I already knew I was buying her a charm.  I decided I would wrap up the little jewelry box it came in with some bakers twine and a button.  And I thought, huh, these buttons are kind of ugly, maybe I can fancy them up a bit.  So I grabbed the liquid gilding and set to work.
{I haven’t purchased the charm yet, so here is the button with my bakers twine… just picture the box tied up nice and cute!}

I never used gilding before but it is cool and  really easy to work with.  Just brush it on.
The possibilities for this stuff are endless!

Next I wanted to try out the adorable alphabet stencil and foam pouncers so I cut some card stock and made some little note cards with my mom’s first initial:

The only thing I’m worried about is how long this stencil set will last.  They are a cardboard material so washing causes warping.  I can definitely reuse the ones I tried out, but I’m just not sure they’ll hold up over a period of time.  I do love the font though and they were easy enough to work with.

I then decided that the kids needed to give Mom a gift too.

But first, here’s a little back story – skim down below the italics if you are only interested in the crafts!

My Memere has always had a stash of small treats in her home to pass out to her 32 grandkids and now her 10 great-grandkids.  Seriously, you can’t go to her house without her trying to stuff your belly to overflowing, whether it be a full-on lunch, dinner or just snacks.  It’s her thing, she’s French, ok?  But the one staple you can always find in her tin containers are Canadian Mints.  White or pink, but mostly both.  Boy did I love those mints, but only pink please! My mom is a lot like her Mom so when her kids started having children she adopted the Canadian Mint tradition (and the over-stuffing tradition, if I’m being honest).  My kids go to her house with their little hands open waiting for their mints.  It is really quite comical, especially if, heaven-forbid, she is out.  

I figured my mom needed a cute little dish to hold those oh-so-special mints so I made a Terra Cotta Mint Machine!
No bubblegum allowed.  

I am now a devoted fan of the MS Metallic and Pearl paints.  They seriously are da bomb!  I love the sleek sheen and how the light reflects off from them.  And the silver – I mean, it is a TRUE silver.
THIS IS LOVE, people.

And I have a little admission to make…
I gave my mom her Mint Machine last weekend.  She stopped by for a quick visit and my kids were jumping up and down with excitement because the machine was in my craft room and, you know, they’re kids and secrets are HARD.  Soooooo…. I told them to go grab it.  They came scampering up the stairs, my youngest told my mom to close her eyes and when they came into the room yelled “TA-DA!”  My mom LOVED it, like literally, loved it.  She was so excited.  It really made my day to see how cool she thought it was and she loved that it was filled with mints.

OK, I have just one more project to share (told you I was in a frenzy)!

Check out my candlestick and ceramic plate cupcake {or cake} stand:

I’ve been wanting to make one of these for a while, so I made a Goodwill trip and picked up these:
I spray painted the candle stick, used a few of the MS Stencils (the stencil adhesive is key!) and the foam pouncers and came up with a pretty little stand to use for my Mom’s birthday cake…
Can I just take a moment to say that the foam pouncers were really great to work with?

MS makes stenciling a piece of cake (pun intended!).
After I painted it with the non-toxic MS Paint I put it in the cold oven, and then turned it to 350 degrees.  I left it in for a half hour and turned the oven off.  I took the plate out when the oven was cold.  The paint said to let it cure on glass for 21 days, and I will still let it, but I thought the oven might help the process along, but I don’t really know.  We’ll see – it definitely dried nicely…

 I used E6000 Glue to adhere the candlestick to the bottom of the plate.
You can find all the products I used HERE at Plaid.
You can also find Plaid in these places: Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest.
So tell me, what would you have made if you received this bag of supplies?
Happy Creating! ~Kim

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I wrote this post as part of a campaign with Plaid Crafts. I received free product in order to write this review. The opinions in this post are mine and mine alone.