Good Morning!
I was browsing through Pinterest last night when I saw a photo of some vintage Christmas trees that were made from paper. I thought they looked adorable and easy so I decided to create some of my own. The ones on Pinterest are standing in small wood slices, but I didn't have any of those so I substituted green bottle caps from Tropicana Orange Juice. Yes, I have a stash of them. They are leftovers from my preschool teaching days. My students used them for a variety of projects.
I had plenty of paper, skewers and stars so I got to work. I created a pattern for a triangle and traced it onto the back of each paper. I cut out the triangles and scored the paper. The tree made from musical notes paper was scored at one inch intervals. The other two were scored at half inch intervals.
Then I folded the score lines back and forth like you do when you create a paper fan. I used a heavy duty paper punch to punch a hole through each fold. Since it is a heavy duty punch I was able to do it with one firm punch. I threaded a skewer through the holes on each tree.
I used a craft drill to drill a small hole in each bottle cap and pushed the skewers into the holes. I used a hot glue gun to adhere the stars to the tops of the trees.
I love the way they turned out and I don't mind the bottle caps at all. My new motto to myself is "Save some cash. Use your stash".
Have a great day!
Hi Everyone!
I have a few more Halloween cards to share with you today.
I used a Sizzix cat die and a Martha Stewart witch paper punch to help me create this first card.
The cat and the moon were stamped with a Memory Box stamp. The branch was stamped with a stamp from PaperTrey Ink's "Take a Bough" clear stamp set.
I stamped candy corn over and over again on the layering paper for this card. I colored the images in with markers.
Today's last card is my favorite. I used a Lawn Fawn stamp to create the tree trunk background. The blue background was created with distress inks. The trees were stamped with a Memory Box stamp. The ghosts and moon were die cut.
Have a great day!
Hi Everyone!
Today as I was about to send out some Halloween cards I remembered to take pictures of them.
I used double sided Halloween patterned paper on this first card. The spider embellishment was created with a Martha Stewart paper punch.
I stamped a Lawn Fawn bat image over and over on this card. First I colored each bat with a colored pencil and then I used gamsol to blend my coloring.
I used a piece of spider web patterned paper for the layering paper on this next card. The sentiment was created with a Lawn Fawn stamp.
That's it for today! Stop by tomorrow to see more Halloween cards.
Hi Everyone!
Like many of you I read magazines, receive online newsletters, follow blogs, and search the Internet for crafting inspiration. While I was searching for Thanksgiving ideas I saw many images of pumpkins that were created from wine corks. I decided to create one of my own. I grabbed my stash of recycled corks and counted out 25 of them.
Some sites suggest using a paintbrush and acrylic paint to paint the ends of the corks. Several sites suggest dipping the ends of the corks into a puddle of acrylic paint and letting the excess drip off.
I found some orange acrylic paint in my stash. I poured a puddle of it onto a paper plate and dipped one end of 24 corks into orange paint and the end of one cork into green paint. It took more than an hour for the paint to completely dry. Then I painted the other ends of each cork.
When the corks were completely dry I used a hot glue gun to glue them together. I know that the pumpkin was supposed to look rustic, but I didn't like the natural look of the sides of the pumpkin. I decided to paint them. I also used a paintbrush to add a little paint to the spaces between each cork.
I still wasn't happy. The orange paint wasn't dark enough for me. I glanced up at the clock and it was 8:30 at night. I thought about asking Robbie to drive me to JoAnn's to buy some darker paint, but then I had an idea.
I poured some orange paint into a bowl. Then I added some red paint and stirred the 2 colors together. The orange got darker. I painted the entire pumpkin again and was happy with it.
I used an oak leaf die to cut some green felt leaves and hot glue gunned them to the top of the pumpkin. Here's my creation.
Have a great day!
Hi Everyone!
Sorry that I continue to post so irregularly. I am not sure where the time goes. It seems as if I am always busy crafting, cooking, and cleaning. I manage to find a little time each day to craft, but rarely stop to photograph what I made.
Today's craft has a story and a great message to you fellow crafters. If you search the Internet you will find many suggestions on ways to use mason jar rings to create a pumpkin. I was inspired by the suggestions at this link, but as you will see I didn't follow their suggestions completely.
I wanted to create a pumpkin. I looked through my mason jar bands and found some that were white and some that were silver. I thought to myself that I could use what I have or go out and buy more bands so that they would all be the same color. I chose to use what I had.
Many of the posts suggest that you spray paint the bands, but I didn't have any orange spray paint. I looked at my craft supplies and thought ribbon or washi tape might work. I decided to try ribbon. I looked through my stash and even though I have tons of ribbon I only found one unopened orange roll and 2 orange rolls that had very little ribbon on them.
So I kept searching and pulled out some golds and browns and figured they could work because after all I was creating a fall pumpkin.
Well, you can see how my pumpkin turned out and I absolutely love it. I used 1/4" wide Scor-tape to adhere the ribbon to each mason jar band. My bands are strung together with twine and the pumpkin's stem is made from cinnamon sticks.
So my message is...shop in your stash. You may end up having exactly what you need!
Have a great day!
