Another oldie but goodie

First, some good news- I  feel better sometimes!  I may, in the near future, do actual crafty things again.


The post title is referring to my St. Patrick's day from last year.  Maybe I posted about it then, but I don't remember.  And I'm so lazy I'm not going to check.

Anyway, I seriously love it.  It's so tacky.  I figure St. Patrick's day is a good holiday for gaudy kitschy awesomeness. 



Coming up: organizing the basement.  Oh man, it's such a mess.

What's my deal?

This is my deal:  I've been working on a big project and haven't done much superfluous crafting.  And just barely I was going to take a picture of what I have done, but the camera battery is dead.  So, here's something I did last year that I still just love.

The original idea was here, I believe.


Anyway, I'll post about my big project sometime soon, once I've made a little more progress.  For now, thanks for still reading (you know, if anyone actually still is).

Oh, I almost forgot!  Some awesome crafting news for me- I won a Silhouette from I Am Momma Hear Me Roar!!  I love that blog and I'm loving the Silhouette, as well.  I'm still figuring some things out, but I have some ideas for it.  By "some," I mean a billion.

The back door wreath

After seeing the ornament wreaths everywhere last year, I decided to make one.  I used some old ornaments that I wasn't using on the tree anymore and went for it, but I didn't have enough to make one as big as I wanted.  So I bagged it (literally, all the stuff that went into the making of it was all together in a garbage bag when I unpacked Christmas this year).  I brought it out and thought about getting more ornaments to finish it.  Bah.  Then I was at the dollar store and I saw the tinsel and I thought of the cover of the Martha Stewart magazine this month and WHAM:

Tinsel glitter ornament wreath!


The wire that I strung the ornaments on was not up to holding this business up, so I wired a big embroidery hoop to the back to reinforce it and it's holding up great.  And I totally love it. 


It was really easy, too.  Since I had all my ornaments strung up on the wire already, all I did was close the loop and then wrap garland over the wire and between the ornaments.  Three garlands is all I  used, but I might go back and add one or two more to chunk it up a bit.  We'll see.  I'm definitely going to go get more garland- I might go a bit tinsel crazy.


Anyway, that's the conclusion of my wreath craziness- I made this one and the ones in the previous 2 posts all in one night. 

From last year...

 I saw this last year:

Totally love it.  I loved how simple it was and how it fulfilled my need of making cards into something (I hate just throwing them away, but I also hate just having them around with no official place).  It's like last year, when I made a garland of my baby's birthday cards to decorate for her party.  Anyway, here's the card wreath, my version.

It would probably look more wreathy if people would send me tiny Christmas cards, like they do for Martha Stewart.  I still like it. 

Cheapo wreath to awesome

It's been awhile.  Thanks for not unfollowing me.  I haven't done anything since the embroidery hoop ornaments because of a few things- writing tests for my students and my husband herniating a few disks (or was it discs?) in his neck.  He was in the hospital for 3 days but he's home now and doing well.  I'm just glad it wasn't any worse (because it could have been paralyzed-worse).  We're almost back to normal, actually.  The biggest difference to me is that he can't drive (big neck brace).  The biggest difference to him is probably the burning nerve pain in his arms (which is a bummer, but at least now we can joke about it).
So, just today I got back on the craft wagon.  I probably won't be getting some of my bigger projects done this year (felt nativity hand puppets and stockings) but it's cool.  I'm on track for finishing Christmas shopping before the 24th, so I'm happy with that.
And now, what this post is all about:

This is my front door wreath.  Yeah, it's a little cheapie one I got somewhere and then glued pinecones to it to improve its look.  My crafting in the past year has come far, if I do say so myself.
I also dug my old centerpiece from my Christmas stuff yesterday.  It was kind of a bough swag that had 3 taper candle holders in it- on the formal side and just not what I'm going for anymore.  However, it was made of some quality fake greenery.  I took it apart (you can see pieces of it on the left hand side of the picture), basically disassembling it into picks, then stuck it all on my sad wreath with hot glue (reinforced by twisting wires together).
And now:

It looks so much more expensive, right?  I love it.  I toyed with adding a bow or maybe a sign nestled in there, but I decided to go with au naturale for now. 

Fall Wreath

What.  I know it's August.  Maybe it's too soon.  But I was bored and wanted to do a quick craft (instead of this one that's been sitting on my table forever that I've kind of lost steam on because I don't like it as much as I did when I started).  So I made my fall wreath.  I figure it can be up for September and maybe some of October, and then I will make a Halloween wreath, and then...
Seriously, I have a wreath schedule.
So, here's what we have for September:

There will probably be some changes before it actually goes up, but one thing won't change- it was totally free.  Heck yes.
I started with a straw wreath and weeds.

The straw wreath counts as free, because I've had it for awhile.  You can tell, because all the plastic is shredded because of the kittens we had in the basement up until about a week ago.  The weeds I got from my backyard (I actually picked them last year and never got around to this, so they've been sitting in the garage for awhile).  I could make about a billion wreaths with our weed supply.

I divided out a small section and tied it on with twine.

I used twine instead of gluing things down, so I could adjust as I went.
I kept wrapping the twine around and around, adding more sections of weeds and overlapping them with the section before.

Then I ran out of weeds.  I did have some dried chives and yarrow (I think it was yarrow- I'm not sure because the leaves were stripped off) that I added on as the last bunch. 

That's the alleged yarrow.

At this point, I sprayed it all down with this business, to hold any loose bits together.  I did shake them out really well before I tied them all to the wreath- I don't want weed seeds shedding all over my front hall every time I open the door.

Since weeds all around was my original plan, I had to improvise when I ran out.  I added the burlap rosettes and also rumpled a strip of burlap for around the inside to hide all the ugly that was there.
For now, it's hanging in the garage, in the place where the extension cord would hang if it was put away (I don't even know where it is).

So, is there such a thing as "pushing the season" if you're not talking about Christmas?

Fourth of July wreath!

I wanted it to look like a firework, and even though it's not exactly what I pictured, I still like it a lot.  I used metallic spray paint I already had, (I considered buying some really bright silver and brass spray paint, but I didn't want to go to the store last night, so I used my brushed nickel and hammered gold I had laying around) a wire wreath frame, gold and silver glitter, and some of that glitter foam paper.  I got the stars from Roberts' with a 50% off coupon. 

I drilled a hole in the side of each of them, I used the smallest bit my husband had.  Then I used Gorilla Glue to secure a length of wire in each drilled hole.  After that I painted and glittered and cut out foam stars.  I used the wire from the wooden stars to secure them to the frame until it was pretty well covered, then glued the glitter foam stars directly to the frame to cover up and wires and fill in empty spots. That was it!  I used some ribbon I had to secure it to the door, and voila!

There it is.  I kind of wish I'd done it bigger- I had leftover stars, but the frame was already pretty full.  But of course, if I'd used a larger frame, I wouldn't have leftover stars, which I now have plans for.  Hmmmm. 

6 buck summer wreath. Heck yes.

Doesn't my front door look friendly?
Check out the view as you approach:

Look at that columbine bush.  Look at it.  Doesn't all that yellow make you feel even more cheerful?  The snow flattened it out, but I was able to perk it up some (I keep trying, too.  I feel like I'm a physical therapist for plants).  There are marigolds in the black planter, too.  Then, in a month or so, the hollyhocks behind it will bloom, as well as the daisy plant next to it.  Ahhhhh.
So, six bucks for the wreath.  Months ago I was at the Dollar Tree and they had bunches of gerbera daisies that I thought didn't look too bad.  I think I got 3 bunches.  A few days after that, I started making this wreath and realized I would not have enough.  So back to the Dollar Tree, where I got the last 3 bunches.  Whew.
To make it, all I did was take a straw wreath I had lying around (it seems like craft stores always run out of them, so I bought three last time I saw them), used needle nose pliers to trim the flower stems to 3 or 4 inches, and then just stuck them in the wreath form.  I didn't even use glue.
I did another thing pretty recently-

So, this is already after I painted it the first time.  I love the big ceramic planters.  Oh, I love them so much.  But they cost about a million dollars (or they might as well).  So this is a cheap plastic urn from Lowe's that was originally light gray.  My big idea was to try and paint it so I would look like a glazed ceramic.  I used two shades of blue and then a brownish metallic color, which is what the picture is above.  I didn't do too bad of a job, but I ended up not liking it as much as I thought I would.  Then, I remembered a few days ago that I had some leftover blue ocean breeze (you know, the color I would marry).

Boo to making it look real.  I love the robin's egg blue and red combo, so I love this next to the house.
Also, you can see why I wanted a big planter in this spot.  Mike tore out the wood staircase early this year (or maybe late last year) and the spots that were covered by it before are now exposed and ugly.  Since we're not repainting until the fall, hopefully the plants in that blue planter will grow and cover that yucky spot.  I'll cover the other yucky spot under the door with a board.   

I am all about spray painting planters.  That yellow one used to be almost the same boring gray as the urn.  Speaking of which, I found a much better place for one of the shades of blue that participated in its faux ceramic look:

Too excited

I finally put something on this wall, and even though it's not quite finished, I am super excited about it.  I held onto some of the old windows when they were replaced about a year ago, and I always intended one for this wall.  I had lots of ideas for it- applique quilt a little bird and tree scene and use it as a frame, put a mirror behind it, hang it plain, etc.  But I figured it out the other day, so I finally got a move on and repainted and scraped all the paint off the glass. 

This is a little wreath I put on for the time being.  I cut out a cardboard wreath shape and then wrapped it with a couple different twines I had and then added these little tulle flowers.
It's going to get better, though- I'm going to get vinyl lettering on the bottom pane that says-
"Better keep yourself clean and bright.  You are the window through which you must see the world." -GBS
I'm excited about it.  I'm also excited about all the different stuff I could hang from the latch at the top.  Dried flowers, an initial like I have on the back door, or a picture frame.
One question: should I do the vinyl letters in dark brown or white?  I think black letters would be too... extreme, for lack of a better word.  Also, should I distress the frame?  I'm thinking so- there's lot of little things still wrong with it that are still visible, despite the fresh coat of paint, so I might as well make them look intentional.

Awesome kistchy St. Patrick's wreath

There it is, in all its gaudy, cheesy glory.  I love it.  Plus it was a blast to make. I pretty much just went to Joann's and got a bunch of glittery green stuff.  The St. Patrick's day decor was 50% off, so I used a bunch of that.  The original plan was to go to the dollar store, but 50% off at Joann's was cheap enough for me.  If I do another kitschy wreath in the future (maybe Halloween?), I'll definitely utilize the Oriental Trading Co. catalog.  I'm sad that I didn't think of that in time for this wreath, because they had some awesome leprechaun figurines I would have loved to include.  Next year.