Binary "Happy Birthday" Mug!

My future sister-in-law came into town a couple of weekends ago (YIPPY!) and we both happen to be super crafty so she had a great idea to go to Fired Up! a paint your own pottery store! We were so excited. I really think Lauren's turned out better but that's because I'm a little obsessed with Harry Potter!

So, my fiance, Jared, was getting ready to have a birthday and I decided I wanted to make him something nerdy. Lauren suggested to do something with computers and I instantly thought: BINARY CODE! The official language of computers and geeks ;) I googled, "how do you say happy birthday in binary code?" and this is what I got... binary code. I sure hope it's right!

I painted the outside of the mug green and used the letter writing paints to paint on the ones and zeros,to give it that Matrix look. The inside was painted a coffee color (how fitting). Here's how it turned out... Pretty cool huh!? I even painted a cute heart on the inside.

He absolutely loved it. It's a great idea for a gift and there are many binary translators on google, in case you'd like a different message. I can't tell you how accurate the translators are but he didn't seem to notice a mistake!












 Here is a picture of the birthday cake I made him! The polka dots are just M&Ms. How cute is this! Happy 29th birthday Jared <3

Wine Bottle Myth: BUSTED!

So there I was pinning to my hearts content when I saw the mother of all pins! "How to quickly and easily remove wine labels!" YES!!! I am currently planning a wedding and I'm trying to do the center pieces by myself, with some help from my mother. The plan is to incorporate the 100+ wine bottles I've been hording for the past year. (I didn't drink ALL of those bottles! calm down...) Anyway, I was all about this glorious pin. I couldn't wait to try it out!

 The pin said to put your wine bottles in the oven after you use it. Well I wasn't planning on cooking so I went ahead and turned on the oven. The pin said you should let the bottles sit in there for 10 minutes. It did not state what temperature the oven should be set to. At first I set the oven at 200 degrees.... that did nothing after 10 minutes. So I set the temperature at 300 degrees and here are my results! (Don't get too excited)

Out of 7 wine bottles. only 2 of them came out label free. The two bottles that had easy to remove labels were cheap paper labels.

These 4 wine bottles you see lined up together all had plastic coated paper labels. They were the hardest to remove!!!

The semi-removed bottle only had a plastic label. It was still pretty annoying to work with... I had to scrub to get the excess glue off.

Moral of the story?? If planning on crafting with wine bottles, cheaper wine is better! Maybe not for taste but sometimes you gotta take one for the team! It'll be worth it in the end!
Not to worry follow D.I.Y.ers, I have a solution at the bottom. If you have paper only labels go ahead and try the oven technique BUT for other labels do the following solution!

THE SOLUTION:
What did I ended up doing to solve my wine bottle battle? I filled my kitchen sink up with warm water, added a cap full of Downy Fabric Softener and scrubbed. It took about 30 minutes to soak. And 30 to 60 seconds of scrubbing power per bottle. They turned out great.

Later this year if you're lucky I will reveal what I am going to do with these bottles ;) Aren't you excited!?