DIY Christmas Ornaments

DIY Christmas Ornaments 

I decided to try out making my own ornaments.  I picked up some cheap acrylic paint and some glass ornaments from Michael's.  And then I just squeezed out the paint into the bulb and counted to 8 (somewhere around 7-9 seconds was enough paint).

This is when I was squeezing way too much paint into and wasting it!  Like I said, about 8 seconds is enough paint and maybe even 7 would be plenty.  I think I was squeezing about 12 seconds into each bottle! What a waste!

Then I swirled and shook and swirled and shook until the inside was all covered.  I left them to dry overnight and during the next day.  I think 24 hours is sufficient to dry, but be sure to test it out and see.  I found a much more efficient way to dry the ornaments afterwards, of course.  Just stick a toothpick or a little stick in a block of foam and hang the ornaments on the toothpicks to drip dry!

I started draining the bulbs back into the paint bottles.  The paint is water soluable so in order to clean off any paint that had dried on the exterior, I just had to wipe it down with a wet paper towel or use my nail to scratch it off.

I picked coordinating ribbon for the ornaments and now they're ready for the tree!  If only I had a tree...

Birthday Box!

It's the Chick Daddy's birthday today!  Happy birthday, Babe!

 


Instead of a typical card, I made the Chick Daddy a birthday box with sentiments inside (the little box).  What's actually inside is a hollowed-out egg with a note inside that reads:

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                                  You crack me up! Have an EGGceptional birthday!


The Chick Daddy will have to crack open the egg to get the message.

The box I'm excited about.  I cut it out using a 3D Box by Lori Whitlock pattern from the Cameo site that I downloaded for $.99.  I cut the box out on a 12x12 brown cardstock piece.  Then I made the box a lining with the same Happy Birthday paper from Paper Source that I used to wrap the Chick Daddy's gifts.

I glued the wrapping paper liner to the cardstock and then assembled the box.

Here is the finished box!

My New Silhouette Cameo!

It's my birthday today and as a very special gift from my parents and sweet boyfriend, they gave me the Cameo Silhouette!

Now I get to play!

Here's what I made myself today:

Fun with Spray Paint

Michael's has a sale on Design Master spray paint, so I picked up a few cans ($4.99 each).  I recently bought some grapevine pumpkins and wreaths for $2.50 each in the $1 section at Target and figured I could cheer them up with some cute colors.  I also picked up a wire bread basket for $2.50 (or something not much more than that).

Here are the before pictures:

And the afters:

And these are the colors I used:

Now I just have to figure out what I want to do to dress them up and where to put them!

Thank You Card

I made this card for the Chick Daddy's parents to thank them for my stay at their house.

I stamped the "thank you" stamp and then heat embossed it with gold, glittery embossing powder.  And the wreath is made of a 1 3/8" x 12" paper, scored and accordion folded every 1/4 inch.  I glued the ends of the wreath together and carefully maneuvered it into the wreath shape.  I used Zots to stick it to the card and folded a tiny, red raffia ribbon.  Thinking of adding some stamped flourishes at the corners, but still undecided about that.  Hope they like it! 

Double Back Flip Into the Dumpster

This would be my first experience with dumpster diving.  I picked up 2 chairs from someone's trash pile with hopes that I could give them some lovin' and also satisfy my need to make things.  I've never refinished furniture before, but considering these were free, I didn't think it'd be a huge loss if I screwed them up.

The chairs look like they had a rough time in their last home.  The cushions were stained and dusty and the wood had been colored on and scraped up.

So I borrowed my dad's sander and went to town.  Not hard to do but even with a sander it was still time consuming.  Just to give you an idea of how long it was taking, my boyfriend had time to mow his 1 acre lot on a riding lawn mower while I worked on 1 chair.  And even then he finished up before me and helped me with sanding.  By that point my fingers were numb and felt like they were vibrating like little springs, so I was ever so grateful to him.  I'd say that in about 3 hours I was able to strip the chair, paint it, clean up and take some breaks to play with the chickens too.

This is T-Rex Chicken telling me to get back to work.  So I did.  On to painting!

The first chair I painted grey because I love grey.  The second chair is going to be marigold.  I picked out some fabric to compliment the grey and marigold paint, but if I had to do it again, I'd pick out the fabric first and then get the complimentary paint colors.  It's difficult to match the limited fabric choices to the paint, and much easier to match paint.

Also, I HATED the upholstery fabric.  Yuck!  It all looks old-ladyish.  So I found some cute fabric that wasn't upholstery fabric and I'm going to attach 2 layers of fusible interfacing (iron on) to make it stronger.  I don't anticipate the chairs getting much use (they're mostly for decorative use) so I'm not too worried about the fabric getting worn out.

My latest hangup is that I don't have a staple gun.  The Chick Daddy and I are going to order one online tonight and I anticipate it's quick arrival (love Amazon Prime!) so that I can finish up this project by this weekend.

Incidentally, the Chick Daddy asked me tonight why I like making things.  And I answered that it's because I have something to show for my work.  Something that I created or altered or edited that I can look at and see the work I put into it.  I'm excited about these chairs.  And I'm equally excited to show them off

And here they are all finished!  I really like the way they turned out, but especially the yellow one.  I was a little worried about my paint color choice after I painted it, but I think it's the cuter of the two.

a post a week

Ideally I'd like to post a craft a week but the way things are going in my life, I think realistically it will be 1 craft every 2 weeks.  I have tons of crafts in mind though!  Keep checking back!   I might surprise you with a flurry of crafts!