Glittery Lights

Who doesn't like glitter?  Nothing says holiday decor like glitter covered items.  Glitter reindeer, glitter Santa, glitter ornaments, glitter stars......glitter EVERYTHING!

 

Well sometime last year I acquired a little bag of those old fashioned Christmas light bulbs.  Now I don't own a string of Christmas light bulbs (although I do plan on getting my hands on some soon) but I do have a Christmas tree in need of some extra ornaments. 

 

To make my new bulb ornaments all I needed was a Christmas light bulb, an ornament hook, a bit of glitter glue (or just some glue and glitter), and some pliers to twist the hook onto the bulb. 

 

 

 

After wrapping one of the ends of the ornament hook around the bulb base I had this nifty little ornament. 

 

 

 

So where does the glitter come into play?  On the bulbs of course!  Some of the light bulbs were a bit scratched and really the only way to save them was to cover them up with glitter. 

 Check it out!

Shiny!

Glitter makes everything better!

Halloween mantle

I wanted to dress up my mantle for Halloween, but didn't want to fork over a bunch of cash on decorations.  With this in mind, I decided to make some decorations out of paper. 

 

I made a little Halloween garland using some different colored paper:

 

Using some cardstock paper I cut out a bunch of triangle shapes and then cut out some shapes for the faces as well.  I think it turned out well.  The only 'problem' I had was not having any black cardstock.  Thankfully I had a black majic marker and it turned some white paper into the perfect black! :)

 

Here's a close up on the witch.  I cut out the 'hat' from some of my 'black' paper and the eyes out of white paper, the nose out of the lime green paper and glued it all together. 

Becoming a pumpkin

For Halloween this year I've decided to become The Great Pumpkin.  After searching the internet for a bit I saw this Crafty Pumpkin Costume | FaveCrafts.com and was inspired to create my own version.
After a 'quick' trip to Michael's, I gathered up all my materials and got to work.

Materials: 
XL Orange T-shirt
Elastic
Green pipe cleaners
Headband
Brown foam sheet
Sheet of black felt
Sheet of green felt
Orange thread
Black thread
Needle
Scissors

First off, I cut a little slit in the hem of the T-shirt where I would then thread the elastic through. 

 

Tip:  Use a safety pin to help you thread the elastic 

Then I cut off those sleeves! 

Using some of the sleeve material I just cut off, I created these little strips which I could then use to bunch up the shoulders.

All bunched up!

I then used some paper to create a template for my pumpkin face.  After cutting out the shapes I layed them out on the black felt and got to cutting.

 

 

Then I layed out the shapes and got to sewing.  Using the black thread I sewed on the felt shapes. Once that was done I put on the pumpkin shir and was able to determin how much 'poof' I wanted at the bottom.  Then I just sewed the elastic together and BAM!  I'm a pumpkin!

BUT....
The picture had a little hat on it.  And if you know me, you know I LOVE mini hats.  So I had to try and make one.  I mean, every pumpkin needs a stem, right?

I made a template out of some paper and then traced out the shapes onto the brown foam sheet.

Using some hot glue I glued the 'stem' piece which I would then put through the big round 'donut' piece.

Note:  You will need to create some fringe on the stem piece

 

Getting ready to glue the stem to the hat brim (aka donut)

 Glue each fringe piece to the brim.

Turn the mini hat over and admire your work so far...

 

 

Glue on the top to the hat.

Cut a strip of foam and glue it across the bottom of the hat.
and thread the headband through...

I curled some of the green pipe cleaners and glued them to the hat (right over the overlapping edge on the stem).  I made some leaves and covered the bottom seam with some green felt as well.

My very first homemade mini hat!

 I'll show you a completed picture come halloween!

 

Rocky Road time

In anticipation of my niece's baptism, I have decided to make Rocky Road to hand out along with the favors.  While I'm not a huge chocolate fan, I do love marshmallows so do enjoy this treat.  It's also super easy to make.

 

First assemble all your ingredients.

Don't worry you won't use all that butter, but you will use all those chocolate chips!

Then line a square pan with aluminum foil.

Shiny

 

Add about 2 layers of marshmallows (more if you like)

delicious marshmallows...mmmmm

 Then in a double boiler (I just use a pot filled with some water and a metal mixing bowl) melt the butter, chocolate chips, and peanut butter

Tip:  mix with a wooden spoon, otherwise plastic may melt

After everything has melted, add the mixture to the mashmallows in the pan

All nice and melted

Once everything is combined you will have this: 

All mixed up!

 Just stick the pan in the fridge overnight and the next day pull out the foil and your Rocky Road will be all nice and squared (makes cutting easy). 

The foil prevents the Rocky Road from sticking to the pan

Recipe:
2 tbs of butter
1/2 cup of Chunky Peanut Butter
1 1/2 cups of semi-sweet chocolate chips
mini marshmallows

Line a square pan with aluminum foil.  Place two layers worth of marshmallows onto the foil lined pan.  In a double boiler combine the butter, peanut butter, and chocolate chips until melted.  Add the melted mixture to the marshmallows in the pan (mix it up until all marshmallows are covered).  Place the pan in the refrigerator (~ 3-4 hours).  Cut and enjoy.

Baptism Candle

In preparation for my niece's Baptism, I decided to decorate my own Baptism candle.  Actually, it was seeing the $20+ price tag on store candles which made me decide that I could not only decorate my own candle but do it for way less.

Step 1:   Purchase a simple white taper for like $1.50

Step 2:  Find some lace trimming, ribbon, metal beads, and random millinery flowers and make a pretty bow.

Step 3:  Hot glue some ribbon around the base of the taper

Step 4:  Hot glue the ribbon accent you made in Step 2 to the taper

And that is pretty much it.  Here are few close ups:

Close up of the millinery flowers

This shot is just to give you and idea how TALL this thing is :)

Spray Paint Fail

I have a love, hate relationship going on with spray paint right now.  I love the glossyness of spray paint, love the colors it comes in, love the quick drying time but HATE applying it.  I suck at spray painting.  Seriously.  And yet, I still keep at it.  I even went out and bought 6 new spray can colors this past week.

When applied correctly spray paint provides wonderful results. 

But if rushed or overapplied you get this:

Instert sad face here.

Here's another shot just to emphasize how wrong spray painting can go:



And here.



What happened?  Well, I sprayed this blue lamp with a coat (possibly too thick a coat) of Semi-gloss White.  I chose the Semi-gloss because that was all I had on hand, even though what I really wanted was a nice high gloss white.  But I was eager to get this lamp painted an back in the guest room so I could show off the lovely ruffled lamp shade I had just made last week.  But in my eagerness I was careless and applied too thick a coat.  

Then, to make matters worse, I went and applied a coat of high gloss to get that nice shiny look I originally wanted.  As soon as the high gloss hit the lamp I had bubbling.  I instantly freaked out and tried to scrape off the bubbled areas.  But sadly there was no way I could fix this.  So I had to scrape off all the paint and start from scratch.

This time, however, I painted the lamp by hand....with paint. 

Lamp color:  Martha Stewart Ballet Slipper pink

You likey?  I do. 



Crazy Busy

I have been crafting away like crazy this week, trying to make decorations for my niece's baptism later this month.  Check out my desk...somewhere under that mess is my laptop.



Hidden laptop = no blogging!



I pulled out all the paper adhesives for these decorations- glue stick, stapler, hot glue gun, paper clips... 

I always like to make my own decorations whenever possible.  Last year for my big 3-0, I spent the better part of October making decorations out of paper.  Check it:



I just love the paper flags.

 

Terracotta pot turned 'gum ball' machine- AWESOME. 
P.S. the kids LOVED this





Oh, and just for fun- here's the aftermath of that great party

Broken Pinatas, tissue pom poms...oh the horror!



Craft room inspiration

So I am still working on setting up my 'craft' room.  But for now here is a little teaser- my inspiration board wall. 

Bye Bye Birdie...

Looks like the doves have left.  It's probably for the best, but still as Ann Margaret would say, 'Why'd you have to go away?'

A bird in the hand....

Let me tell you a little story... 

Way back when Gabe and I lived in 'the apartment' I had this birdcage shaped votive candle holder with these little birds and leaves stuck on the top.  It looked like this:

Wedding gift from by brother.  Thanks Juan!

Well, one day I looked out onto our porch and thought it looked like maybe there was one 'extra' bird on the case.  Look closely and you can see what I'm talking about.



Blends right in, right?

Turns out a hummingbird decided to make her nest onto the cage and hide out amongst all the other fake birds.  Check it- 


Crafty!



Initially I was all- OMG! This is so cool! A hummingbird! WOW! (Seriously, I was VERY excited).  But the excitement wore off rather quickly once I realized that this little bird and her two babies would be living in my porch for the next two weeks.  Two weeks were I would be unable to water my plant, two weeks were they would be pooping ALL OVER MY PORCH! Eeeks!

I mean sure I got some pretty cool pictures, got to see the eggs hatch, and the feedings....

But the clean up afterwards was no bueno. 

I assumed she wouldn't re-use her nest, but of course I was wrong.  The next year Doodie (Oh yah, I named her Doodie) came back and had two more babies.  She probably would have kept coming back if hadn't moved to our new home.

Which brings me to these little guys.  Everyone, I'd like to introduce you to The Doveys.



Lovey and Philip Dovey

 This pair just showed up the other day and I thought, 'Oh how cool these doves are just poking around my patio.'  I even watched them through the sliding glass door for like 10 minutes while they 'made out'.  I assumed they were just here temporarily.  I was wrong.  They have been here for 3 days now and asside from Philip flying around, Lovey just sits and occasionally walks on the ground.  Thankfuly they don't flip out when I go outside to water my plants, but still... Am I destined to always have birds have babies in my patio?  I mean I don't even go out of my way to feed or water them.  C'est la vie, right?