(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...... .....

 

Well worth the delay - - -

The Enchanted Cottage in Lewisville, NC held their Customer Yard Sale yesterday and I was happy to make the trip to shop this yearly sale . . . Stampers set up spots in their parking lot for this one day sale and they sell new or gently used craft items from their craft rooms at great prices and this year they did not disappoint! The original sale date was Saturday, Oct 1st but with the rains from Hurricane Ian the sale was moved to yesterday. 

Prior to the sale I stopped at the bank and picked up singles, fives, and tens for my purchases so that the sellers would not have to break larger bills if I bought anything.... needless to say I almost ran out of singles since the prices were better than the DollarTree!

Here are photos of the sellers set up in the parking lot and this year there were a lot more sellers than in the past and they almost filled up both sides of the parking lot:

Was not really looking for anything at this sale.... sometimes I arrive at these sales with a list of stamp sets or dies or a machine I am looking for, etc.. No list but the sale did not disappoint!

The first booth I shopped the seller was selling all her dies for $1.00 each, or if packaged in multiples, then it was still $1.00 for the package. These two items I paid a dollar each:

These holiday tree dies were all in a plastic Stampin Up case and I paid $1.00 for the whole case:

Creative Expressions, Cottage Cuts, Sizzix/T Holtz, IOStamps, and a single SU tree die --all pieces are in their packaging and a great deal for a dollar for sure....

Sizzix/T Holtz and IOStamps birch tree dies - package of these two was a dollar....

New and never used ECD Decorated Door die set was also $1.00.  The seller had her products sorted by holidays and very organized so easy to find favorites at her booth! 

DSD was shopping with me and she found this great deal for me -- a brand new in box, never used, Mini Misti for $6.00 --- this item retails for approx $50:

Shopped other booths and bought these two die sets:

Happy to find the mailbox as it is a good size and will get used this holiday season for sure... 

LOTS of Stampin Up stamp sets at every booth for sale, both wood mounted and cling/clear mounted. Lost of SU ink pads, a few SU Big Shot machines, lots of SU card stocks, punches, markers, and Paper Pumpkin kits. I did not buy any of them but there was certainly a lot of SU products to choose from. There was one vendor that was selling a lot of the Xyron machines - from the very small to the largest one they sell. A few Cuttlebug machines with plates were for sale, craft carts, storage items, paper racks, marker holders, scrapbooks and supplies for that, paper trimmers, Close To My Heart stamps sets and ink pads, LOTS of Stamps of Life products, SimonSaysStamp stamp and die sets, and pretty much anything else you would want for paper crafting. 

Last booth I shopped the vendor was selling still sealed SU stamp pads so I bought the three colours I use the most since my stamp pads are showing wear --

This vendor also had a box of re-inkers but I already have all of those that I needed so I just bought the stamp pads for $2 each. I also bought a holiday background stamp from Catherine Pooler for $2.50:

I also bought a stamp/stencil set from Stampers Anon/T Holtz for Halloween for $8.00 for the set. This was the most expensive item I bought:

Certainly another great sale and have to say this year the prices were too inviting not to shop!! But certainly happy with all I found considering I was not looking for anything special. After we left the sale we shopped at a local flea market and then headed back to Greensboro to shop at Hobby Lobby. Once that was done off to Mario's for a yummy lunch and we headed home for the day. A fun outing for sure... Used stamping sales are always a favorite......

Stylin' Witch Hat

 Hat seen the Witch Hat wire form at the Dollar Tree so I picked one up and made this Witch Hat wreath for a door:

The orange fabric with the black stars was the only thing I did not buy at the Dollar Tree as I had a small piece of this fabric left in my stash. For the mesh curls on the bottom of the hat I used black, orange, and purple mesh from the DT. I put a black and orange mesh in one curl and a black and purple mesh in the other curl. I used three rolls of the black, 1 roll of the orange, and 1 roll of the purple mesh. In the end I had enough of the black mesh to make a few extra curls with two pieces of the black mesh. I used these black curls to fill in where I wanted more volume and also for the ribbon at the top of the hat. All printed holiday ribbons are also from the DT. Once I had all the mesh curls on the bottom of the hat wire form I then hot glued two DT pumpkins, their purple/black flowers, and three large black pom poms I had in my stash. (Also I attached all mesh rolls and ribbons to the wire wreath form using black pipe cleaners). 

For the spider webs on the hat I used scissors and cut the glittered spider webs out of the spider web tulle from the DT. I put the webs on the hat using Glossy Accents. For the black spider I used 110# weight black card stock and black glittered card stock and glued those together. Added a green crystal from my stash for the spider so he would show up on the orange fabric hat.

 Easy project to put together for the up coming holiday.