Year: 2017

This is what can happen when you are always distracted by something shiny and sparkly, and have trouble focusing at times. It’s also when happens when “someone” tries to organize your craft supplies and puts the wrong cap on the cans of spray paint (because you are still using the spray paint, and leaving the cap off saves time, right that’s it), its about saving time.

I have been collecting and painting pine-cones for several weeks, and this was the day to finally put them together in a wreath.

I covered a wire wreath form with burlap ribbon, so the pine-cones could be glued on, knowing the wire form would give the wreath the stability needed. After all of the pine-cones were hot glued in place. I took the wreath outside to give it a coat of clear spray paint to add a shine and help preserve the project. I also had a burlap bow ready to place in the center. And that’s when it happened…..

The “CLEAR” spray paint can with a CLEAR lid, was actually BLACK paint. Luckily I started on on side, so only a few pine-cones got a spurt of black. Yes I know I could pull the miss-pained cones off and replace them, or repaint them, but decided it was okay in the end, and it does make me laugh when I see it hanging on the door.

This is not a mistake, it’s a learning opportunity! I will ALWAYS check paint before spraying a project in the future.

 

After seeing friends paint pine cones to look like Zinnia’s I was inspired and intrigued. A box full of old wooden picture frames seemed to be calling for a craft project as well.

We picked up pine cones, large and small and baked them in the oven at 250 for about an hour (to kill and bugs or critters, and to help the pine cones open up).

The pine cones were then cut (since we only used the bottoms)

We thought we could use the tops as well, but when they were pained, they became very distorted. So only the bottoms were used.

We used acrylic paint (rather than spray paint) dipping the pine cones into the paint and letting them drain and dry.

We used red, yellow, pink and orange colored paint.

Then we took an old wooden 8″x10″ frame and wrapped it with burlap ribbon.

 

A strip of ribbon was added so that the “flowers” could be glued across the corner of the frame.

A fabric bow was attached and a saw tooth hanger (on the back) We also added a few silk leaves (from another project back in the fall) and there it is! Nature at it’s best!

 

 

 

 

 

Using a few crates, carpet samples, rope and some nails, these items were all re-purposed into a crazy Cat Crate in a few hours. 

 

We were going to recycle the blue tube as the scratching pole, but it wasn’t tall enough. We substituted the tube with tomato stakes. First we stained the crates with a pet friendly stain, and covered the flat board with a carpet sample (using a staple gun).

Then it was time to assemble. Nailing one crate to the carpeted piece, and the top crate in place.

We cut tomato stakes to fit as the scratching posts and covered them with rope, using a hot glue gun to hold the rope in place.

The scratching posts were nailed in place, and another carpet scrap was placed in the bottom….hopefully the cats will like it!

 

 

 

 

Sorry, but I just had to do it, as it is actually snowing in North Carolina as this post is being written. So with that in mind, I thought the door needed a snowman wreath. I started with 2 metal wreat forms, a 6″ and a 12″, and two spools of tulle. 

I wrapped the wreaths with baby blue ribbon, but white would have worked just as well. Then cut 60-18″ pieces of tulle for the large wreath, and about 40- 16″ pieces of tulle for the smaller wreath.

Using a half lark knot, I then started attaching the tulle to the two wreaths.

After finishing the larger wreath, then I started on the smaller wreath.

After both wreaths were finished, then I used a piece of white coverd wire to atttach the two wreaths together.

And with that I had a Snowman! I first tried adding a ribbon bow tie and a “hair” bow, but wasn’t that thrilled with the outcome. So then I found one of my daughters hat and scarf sets from MANY years ago, and pinned them on instead.

A little wire to attach it to the door, and there it is, a Snowman!