Last minute, last project.....

 Last trip to Hobby Lobby I picked up some Christmas embellishments for 70% off the regular price... I picked up a strand of holiday beads and decided to make a couple of the beaded pokey tools:

I had the scribe pins in my stash so I did not have to buy anything else for these decorated pokey tools. Here is a photo of the packaging for the scribe pins at Hobby Lobby:

The price on the packaging says $2.99 but I always buy these when they are on sale for 50% off so it is about 75 cents for each scribe pin. I used the holiday bead strand and made two of the pokey tools. I also used spacer beads from the stash. I had also picked up a strand of their peppermint candy beads that day - those beads are silicone.. As for all the pokey tools I used E6000 for the adhesive. To package this to give away for Christmas I put the rubber tip protector on the pokey tool it comes with and I cut a piece of heavier card stock and put the beaded tool on that.and held it in place using a small strip of card stock that I stapled onto the white card stock piece. This way the tool was safe and would not poke anyone. I also used the silicone peppermint bead for the dangle I made for the pokey tool. For each dangle I added metal charms and holiday red and green beads from the stash:

I have made these tools in the past:

One of the two holiday pokey tools is for me so now when I am working on Christmas projects in July I can use the holiday pokey tool while working along on holiday projects.... Another good project to use tiny beads from the stash for the dangles on the tools. Fun holiday project to put together...

Lip Balm Holder

Bought the I-Crafter Lip Balm holder die set on sale and put it to use this Christmas - here is a photo of some of the holders I made for this Christmas:

I used scrap card stock prints for the holders and across the bottom of the front of the box I put washi tapes or pieces of the printed card stocks to decorate them. I also used clear packaging and I add a clear window to the box:

I bought the chap sticks in mulitple packs so they are economical. Here is a photo of one of the boxes:

This die set comes with the Merry Christmas dies and other word dies, a reindeer, and shapes. I wanted to keep this simple with just a greeting and I used embellishments and punches from my stash to decorate the fronts of these boxes. You can make two of these boxes out of one sheet of 8 1/2 x 11 card stock. Another good use for printed card stock scraps as well. 

Seeing red . . .

 As usual all holiday projects are planned and in progress or ready to go.. and then just when you are done.... another project catches your eye..... Had seen a video on YouTube from Muriel on her channel:

Mscooperscoop.  She showed the finished project and briefly explained what she had done to make her project and she also tells you where she had seen a picture of this project on Instagram. Cute idea and happy she even said where she picked up the ornaments to decorate...

This project features plastic Light Bulb ornaments from Mikes.... but good luck finding them... Long story but the THIRD store I went to - after calling first for stock availability - is a 45 minute drive from here. I had checked the web site for a store near to my house and the website said this store had these in stock - I arrived at that store when they opened the doors in the morning and none of these ornaments could be found... grrrrrrr..... off to a closer store to the house after checking with their website and we get there and again NOTHING.... back to the car and I decided to call this last store rather than looking on their website and the gal said yes they did have them and I asked if she could hold two packages of them for me and that it would take me awhile to get there - happy me she set them aside at the register for me. Drove there and picked them up and headed home.... 

Here is one of the ornaments that is finished that I made following Muriel's directions:

Years ago I had painted the inside of clear glass ornaments so I knew the basics but with these ornaments being plastic I decided to watch a few YT videos from crafters that had painted and decorated the plastic ornaments with paint. For the most part Folk Art craft paint from Plaid was suggested as the best paint... off to Hobby Lobby to buy that paint in the colours I wanted to use for my ornaments.... easy peasy.... or so I thought.... 

Picked up paper cups to use as bases for my ornaments so they could dry after I painted them. Before I painted the ornaments I used a hole punch and punched holes in the cups to allow for air to circulate with the ornaments drying. I used an exacto knife to cut a hole on the bottom of the cup so the ornament could be held in place while drying... Here is a photo of my painted ornaments:

When I picked out the shades of paint I wanted to use I knew for the red paint I wanted a more blue red shade and not the orange red colour. Brought the paint home, cut my cups, and began the project. Removed all the metal tops to the ornaments and one by one I painted the ornaments, rotating them so the paint would cover the inside and once the ornament was covered I set them on the cups to dry. I did this in the laundry room with the laundry sink for clean up and I used the top of the dryer to set up the dry station for the ornaments..... Decided to leave them for 24 hours but I did check them a couple of times to see how things were going..... SO not happy when I saw the red paint was pulling away from the inside of the ornament... 

Figured the problem with the red paint was it was so thick so went in the craft room and pulled out a bottle of red paint I had in my stash - it is also by Plaid - but it is a thinner paint but still the shade of red I wanted to use. . . Got out another plastic ornament and used this different red paint on that.... Swirled it and did it very slowly this time and let it lay down for a half hour and then turned over the ornament for another half hour -- then I checked it and all looked good so I put it on the cup to dry.... checked it later in the day and once again.... the paint was pulling away from the sides of the ornament.... again.... grrrr... 

Off to Hobby Lobby again and decided I would check the paint aisle and see what I could find... I looked at 4 brands in shades of red I liked and I read the labels on each bottle and who the manufacturer was. Did not want to try the Plaid brand again since I tried it twice with no success.... the last bottle I picked up - was on sale for 63 cents and it is by Rustoleum -- BINGO!

Brought this home and before I tried it on the third ornament... I took a photo of the first two ornaments to show the result using the other paints:

I figured Rustoleum would be the best of all the brands I saw and since they are known for their spray paints that I was sure this would work..... Shook the bottle and put it into the third clear ornament hoping for the best.... slowly swirled the paint in the ornament and once it was all covered I waited a half hour and then put it on the cup to dry.... Happy me try 3 worked! Here are photos of the ornaments I made - For the metal tops of the ornaments I used tear and tape and put washi tape on the metal tops to decorate them. Then I used various ribbons/trims from the stash for my ribbons and for my dangles I used chains, beads, and charms all from my stash.  Thanks to Muriel for sharing her cute ornaments!

Once I decorated the ornaments with the tops, ribbons, and dangles I set them in the drying cups on the craft table to keep them from rolling around or falling off the table while I worked on other ornaments:

Fun project and happy I was able to find the light bulb shaped ornaments. Mikes also sells the disc shape and the round ornament shapes but definitely like the light bulbs... So happy Rustoleum makes a craft acrylic paint that works on these ornaments -- esp in the red as the first colours I wanted to make was the red and green.... Fun project for the holidays!

Christmas Cards, Tags 2022

This post shows the cards and a couple of the tags I made for Christmas 2022. Wanted to use only items from my stash so made a variety of cards:

Wreath stencil and hot foil greeting used for this card front. This next card I used strips of 6x6 card stocks I had in a stash for a few years and I used rose gold foil from Mikes for the greeting:

This card I used a left over hot foiled piece and I decided to frame that out using gold foil card stock and a rectangle frame. Added a hot foiled greeting to the front:

A rectangle stencil and a snowflake die was used for this card:

For these cards -- My-Creative-Time.com has a candy cane die but it is just one die in the set so the candy cane die cuts in one direction only - to get the other direction you would have to turn the card stock over and put the die under it to die cut. But she came out with a smaller candy cane die set and I had bought that earlier this season and it has two candy cane dies - each facing in a different direction. Here is one of the cards I made:

Red striped card stock piece on the left is from the stash. Used the M Stewart sprig punch for the greenery and also a leaf punch for the larger leaves. The red foil bow was die cut using a bow die from Cottage Cutz. Made two more of these cards using other items as well:

The above card I used one of the candy canes. For the background I used the Taylored Expressions Holly cover plate die and cut that out of white card stock. I had bought this cover plate die at a used stamping sale in October and the cover plate cost me one dollar.  I also used gold holographic foil for the greeting. 

This next card:

I used the two candy canes and for the red pieces on the candy canes I used red foil card stock. Again used the Taylored Expressions Holly cover plate die for the background. Added small red crystals from the stash as some of the berries on the background. Used gold glittered card stock for the bow die from Cottage Cutz. Happy with the size of the two candy canes and esp like the stitching on the die cut pieces. 

These photos are a couple of the tags I made using a Gingerbread Man die I bought off of Amazon:

Used recycle card board for the tag bases and used a tag die set from the stash to cut those out. Used all holiday printed scraps for the fronts of the tags. The gingerbread man is die cut from the recycled card board. The snowflake and the holly and candy cane embellishments are from Hobby Lobby from the end of the season for last year.  Bells and twine are from my stash. 

This and that.... and here and there.....

This is a combined posting of a project I made for Thanksgiving and also sale items I have received since the middle of September. . .  First for Thanksgiving I made movie boxes up for the gals at work and my PIC (stamping Partner In Crime). I had seen a video by Carla Gets Crafty on YouTube. She has made a couple of versions of this movie box for videos. I went to both Hobby Lobby and the Dollar Tree near me and this year they are not selling the metal cookie tins - round, rectangle, or square..... Decided to use a rectangle box that is sold at the Dollar Tree for my treat holder. These boxes are sold in a set of 2 for the $1.25 price:

Inside my box is two bags of microwave popcorn, (2 different flavors), two packs of hot cocoa, (1 with and 1 without marshmallows), two snack packs of the Milano cookies, chocolate candies, peppermint candies, pair of fuzzy socks from Dollar Tree, 1 travel pack of Kleenex, and the chocolate and peppermint stir spoons for the hot cocoa. I printed out my label for the box "Christmas Movies Kit" to put on my tag. I punched that saying out using a circle punch. Die cut the recycled cardboard tag for the tag base. Used white glue and added various washi tapes to the front of the tag diagonally. Used an old tree punch for the tree and a small star punch for the stars. Also here is the only photo of the note pads I also made for everyone -- all the notepads have different card stocks or different decorations on the front of them:

That idea is from Sherry @the Posh Paper Lady on YouTube. I had made others earlier this year for Fall:

So a fun project box and notepad to put together. Now for sales -- have not posted in a long time so these are items I have bought since September... but first here is my Impression Obsession order:

The above two photos -- earlier this year IOStamps (Impression Obsession) held a huge sale for clearing out their vast amount of stamps from their inventory that they are no longer going to carry. I placed a couple of orders from that sale and was happy I was able to get what I did.... this week, with Black Friday sales coming up, I was happy to see IOStamps held a sale prior to Black Friday for their website. But in their sale email they said they had come across more of their old inventory stamps and they would be really marked down so they could clear them out of their warehouse.... This email was sent out late at night and as soon as I saw it I ordered right away.... I was happy to get the stamps in the top photo but thrilled that I was able to pick up each of the snowmen shown. When I ordered the snowmen it said how many were left of each -- 3 of one and 2 of the other so happy me that I was able to get them! This photo is of sale items I also picked up from this sale:

Even happier that they shipped my order later that day and I had it in 2 days!! Yay!!

Had never heard of this company but saw a YouTube video... and so it goes:

Bought some stencils from them:

Trees on the left and holly on the right and then:

Ghost and stripes on left and wreath and berries on the right. Fun stencils for future projects...

S

Sale items from Trinity Stamps -- a Halloween stencil, an Autumn and a Summertime stamp set and a small die set of various leaves/greenery.  Lots to add to the craft room for future projects..Hoping everyone had a nice holiday and that you were able to shop the many online Black Friday sales for us papercrafters!

(Faux) Tobacco Stick Snowmen

Had seen Lisa from Our Shabby Cottage on YouTube making her Tobacco Stick Snowmen and I decided that would be a cute holiday project to make.... but.... I have no tobacco sticks, no corks for his hat so what to do??

Asked DH if he had any older scrap woods in his scrap wood bin in the garage and he checked and he had plenty so he asked what I wanted it for --- I told him for the Snowmen ornaments I was making. He had a piece of wood that was 3/4" wide so he cut me pieces that are 4 1/2" x 3/4". I ordered wooden circles off of Amazon for the Snowman hat and those are 1 1/2" circles. For the top of my hat DH cut a 3/4" wood dowel into 1 inch pieces and I borrowed his wood glue for those. Also DH picked up small eye hooks for me during his last trip to the big box hardware store... 

Here is a photo of the Snowmen:

Like in her video I lightly brushed white acrylic paint on the four sides of the sticks - I did not sand the sticks to make them smooth but left them the way they are so they are more rustic. I used wood glue and put the dowel piece in the center of the wood circles for his hat/brim. Once those were dry I used black acrylic paint and painted his hat. With those dried I used wood glue and put the hats on the top of the sticks and set these aside to dry. Once set and dried I used ribbons from the stash to put on his hat and I used a snowflake punch for the snowflakes on his hat and the holly pieces are embellishments from Hobby Lobby. DH drilled a small hole for the eye hooks and I put those on the hats so I can hang the snowmen on a holiday tree, or gift bag, or on a gift or whatever. 

For my snowman face I used the small Snowman Face stamp from Morningstar Stamps and I stamped his face on the stick using black ink. Once that was dried I used an orange marker for his nose. Using scrap fabrics from my stash I used scissors and cut thin strips of fabric for the snowman scarf. I tied the scarf pieces on the snowmen. Used a little hot glue to keep those in place. Trimmed the ends with the scissors. For the black buttons I used a black Sharpie marker. Used red and white twine from Hobby Lobby for the twine to hang they snowman with. More photos:

The small Snowman Face stamp gets lots of use for the holidays in this craft room:

Happy I came across Lisa's cute Tobacco Stick Snowman project so I have a cute tie on for the holidays ahead -- they would look good on a wreath or a tiered tray or as a table place marker. Cute idea and easy to put together. Thanks to her for sharing her cute Snowman project! And thanks to DH for his scrap wood, cutting it to size, and drilling the hat for my eye hook!

Dollar Tree DIYing for Thanksgiving

First I had seen a video on YouTube from We Craft Around making a four ribbon wreath using zip ties. I checked for other videos and found the older one from Craig Bachman Imports from 2014. I am not sure if his was the original but I wanted to give both wreath makers credit. 

My Dollar Tree did not have any circle wire wreath frames so I used a frame I had in my stash. The directions is you use four ribbons and layer them on top of each other and make a loop with the stack of ribbons and then use Dollar Tree zip ties to attach the ribbon stack to the frame:

When the ribbons run out use more ribbons and keep adding them until your wreath form is full:

Once the wreath form was full I left some "tails" of the ribbons to hang down at the bottom of the wreath. With all loops on the wreath form I made sure all zip ties were tight and then I cut off the excess pieces of the zip ties. Now I could fan out the ribbons  -- did each loop of ribbons and tried to vary which order I fanned them out so all the ribbons are visible on the wreath and here is the finished wreath:

Very easy wreath to make and cheap too using the ribbons and zip ties from the Dollar Tree. 

These next wreaths -- bought the two pumpkin wreath forms last year at the Dollar Tree and the two signs I bought this year at HobLob on sale for 50% off Fall items. I had seen these pumpkin wreaths on Pinterest and I wanted to use the metal signs so with Pinterest inspiration I made my two pumpkin wreaths. First I painted my frames with brown chalk paint:

I painted the front and the back of the frames. Once dried I wired on the metal HobLob signs. Used all ribbons from my stash and the Bowdabra and made bows for each wreath. Here they are:

Simple wreaths to make and happy to use more of the ribbons from the stash!! Right now I am waiting for my Snowmen to dry and I will be posting those next.....

Treat Bags for BOO Day

 Here are some photos of the treat bags I made for BOO Day this year:

The black bags are from the Dollar Tree and the printed card stock fronts are papers from my stash. The stenciled piece for the front of the bag is a stencil from Photoplay:

For the stenciled piece I used a grid die from Tessler Stamps and I cut a piece of yellow card stock a bit larger than that die. I used blender brushes and put orange ink on the outside edges of the yellow card stock. Then I used black ink to put the Pumpkin Faces onto the yellow card stock piece. Once the stenciling was done I used 1/2 water to 1/2 Simple Green cleaner in a spray bottle to clean off the black ink from the stencil - this is before I cleaned the stencil and then after:

This is the stenciled piece:

I put the die over the stenciled card stock and die cut that out - I turned it over and numbered the pieces so it would be easy to put it together in the black card stock frame I die cut using the same Tessler grid die - here is a photo of the die cut piece and the numbers on the back before I removed it from the die:

To make it easier to piece the grid die pieces I cut a piece of black card stock the same size as the black grid die cut piece. I put the black grid piece onto the solid black card stock piece using liquid glue. I put liquid glue on the back of the yellow stenciled pieces and put them into the black grid piece. For the circle greeting I used two circle dies and cut out a black circle and then a larger coloured circle to go behind it. The "Oct 31st" die is from My-Creative-Time and I cut that out of glittered card stock. I layered the circles using liquid glue and then put the glittered greeting onto the circles also using foam tape. 

Cut my printed card stock to the size I wanted for the bag fronts and put them onto the bags using liquid glue. Used the ATG and put the grid pieces on the bag fronts. Used an old Sizzix steel ruled ghosts die and cut out the ghosts from glittered white card stocks. Added coloured gems from the stash to the bag front. For the candy corn I used the JadedBlossoms Halloween Dies 2 and scrap card stock and cut those out. Added orange Stickles to the fronts of those. Punched a small circle at the top and put these on the handle of the bag using a bulb pin. Added a bat to the candy corn using tear n tape. The bat was made using a M Stewart punch and glittered black card stock. Tied various ribbons to the handle of the bags. 

Used all scraps for the nugget holders for the inside of the bags:

Ghosts were made using an old Cuttlebug ghost die. Also inside are the Hershey bar holders I made:

Also filled my fry boxes I made:

The Witch Bows on the Hershey bar holders and also on the fry box holders is a die set from Scrapdivadesigns and this die set has both the small and large Witch Bows in the same set so it is an economical set to buy. All the bags have treat holders filled with chocolates so I am sure everyone will be happy once they open the holiday bags! LOVE BOO Day crafts but have already moved onto crafts for Thanksgiving -- first have to wait for the chalk paint to dry on the two pumpkin frames I picked up at Dollar Tree:

But working on Thanksgiving crafts now and will be posting those soon...... .....