Category Archives: Arts and Crafts

Monthly DIY Challenge: Glass Ornament Gift Tags

Posted in Arts and Crafts, Holiday Decor by

Hey you guys!!  We’re back with another installment of our (insert announcer voice) Monthly DIY Challenge. For any newbys, this is a challenge where my bloggy friends and I must each create something using the same predesignated item.  You can check out the DIY crate bench that I created for our first monthly challenge and the wood slice tray from last month.  This month, the item of choice was (da-da-da-DAH!!)…

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Clear Glass Ornaments

Mission: Just make something with them.

Now, I’ll admit, this time of year is crazy.  Thus, time is definitely of the essence. So, I wanted something useful, quick, and pretty.  And what I came up with were a few variations on gift tags, which then can be used as ornaments later. “Multi-purpose” is music to my little ears.  Plus, a project that can be done in 5 minutes (plus dry time) is a total bonus.   I played around with a few different mediums for variety and here are the three that I ended up with.

First, I utilized paint. I simply squirted some blue and white craft paint into the ornament, and swirled it around, which left me with this…

Reminiscent of the ocean, no? Then, I simply used a metallic paint pen which I purchased at Michaels…

…to write my gift recipient’s initial on it.  I was sure to let the paint dry overnight before putting the ornament’s top back on.  (Sorry guys, I got so involved with my little project, that I kind of blanked out on taking progress shots.  This’ll make more sense in a minute… ). :/

Next, I played with feathers.  I began by stuffing one of the ornaments with white feathers…

This would be for Joey so I simply drew a gold “J” on the ornament with my metallic paint pen.   There was nothing special about my lettering technique… I just simply free-handed the letters since I wanted the ornaments to seem kind of homemade and special.

Next, I decided to add a touch of rustic texture, so I used these cute wooden snowflakes (also purchased from Michaels)…

…and tied one onto each ornament with gold cording and red suede cording, respectively….

Here’s midway through the process, prior to me attaching the red suede cording onto the blue ornament (Aaaaand finally, you get to see my lettering… Haha!  Sorry.).

Lastly, I stuffed my final ornament with green feathers… 

This guy would be transformed into a Ninja Turtle for Lucas.  I mean, it only makes sense.  The boy is completely OBSESSED.  We’re now only allowed to call him “Michelangelo”.  He dresses like a ninja turtle daily.  It’s just normal now.  Get up.  Don ninja turtle garb.  Carry on with daily activities.   So, I thought he’d appreciate a little ninja turtle action for his name tag.   Well… it’s not a “name tag”, per say, but since there’s absolutely no doubt who it’s for, we’ll call it a “metaphorical name tag”.

I started by taping off the ornament with painters tape…

And used red multi-surface craft paint to create the mask….

The smears on the bottom of my stripe were no biggie since I knew that once the paint dried, I could simply use a razor to clean up the edge. Once the red was dry, I straightened out that schmear and added white ovals for the eyes.  This is with coat #1…

I went back with white again, then black craft paint for the pupils once that dried, which left this….

And that was it!  This was a super simple, quick, and easy project that totally floats my boat…

And here are my feather “name tags” in action…

As for the blue ornament, I wanted to demonstrate a cute teachers gift idea using an inexpensive grocery store candle. I simply threaded my ornament through some feather boa cord and tied it below the candle’s lip….

Super cute, right??  In the future, I may either get a larger candle or a smaller ornament for better scale, but you know I like to use what I got.   Waste not, want not.  😉

Here is my little trio befriending each other beneath the tree…

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Lucas already got all excited when he saw the ninja turtle ornament.  Success in my book.

So, that’s my Monthly DIY Challenge project.  Now check out what my other homies came up with….

TDC Before and After
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DIY Large Scale Italy Art

Posted in Arts and Crafts by

You guys. This is totally happening right now…

 

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After a week or so of freezing our petoochies off to the tune of freezing weather, our paper-thin windows are getting replaced!!! I read somewhere (where was that??!) the description of 1970s windows as follows “If you lean your head close enough to the window pane you can feel your hair blowing in the breeze”. Very true. True statement right there folks. So, we are more than thrilled to be crossing this task off of our to-do list. Anyways, while that’s getting done, I thought I’d tell you about our new DIY artwork.

Remember when I painted our master bedroom?  I mentioned that I wanted to change up the feeling of the room with different modern/quirky art??   Well, I found one that suits us to a T.   Ya see, I was just minding my own business, checking out Pinterest, when I came across this pin….

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Now, I’m not much of a wordy decor person (Wait. Rephrase… I’m wordy.  I just don’t often gravitate towards word ART.  Boom!  Nailed it.), but this quote resonated with me.   I’m 75% Italian.  My grandparents on my dad’s side immigrated from Italy when my Aunt was a baby, so I grew up listening to them speak Italian and hearing stories about the small village where they hailed from.   When I graduated from high school, my Aunt Sera took me to Italy and it was everything (plus more) that I hoped it would be.   It was stunningly beautiful, as were the people.  Not.Kidding.  Seriously, we were amazed that there were no ugly Italians to be found.  The less attractive folks all seemed to be tourists.  Heehee!  Anyhoo, the beauty of the country was rivaled only by the incredible food.   Good gravy.  I would move there for the food alone.  I still dream about the potato and vegetable soup I had in Venice.  Twice.  And don’t even get me started on the gelato.  I ate it at LEAST daily throughout our trip.  So, when I came across this pin, I just knew that it was right.  And the simple, modern style was fantastic!

I followed the pin to the source which lead to this blog post on Brittany Makes.   Brittany actually created the art in Photoshop and had it printed at Kinkos in her preferred size (29.5″x 39.25″ per the largest Ikea Ribba frame).  And much to my delight, she offered it up to her readers as a FREE printable!!   Since her post was published, Kinkos in our area had transformed to the Fed Ex print/copy shop and for a higher quality print, they quoted me around $90.   Not in the budget.   AND they didn’t offer the exact size I needed anyways (I’d followed her lead and purchased the same Ikea Ribba frame).   After doing a bit of research, I found that I could have the good folks at Staples produce an engineering print for around $8 in 36 x 48″ size, which I could then cut down to fit my frame.   (If you do this, be sure that the box that states “Fit print to Frame” is unchecked, otherwise the art will be too large to cut down).

Once I got my frame home, I simply laid the frame’s plexi-glass over my print, traced around it and cut it down with scissors.

Now, here’s the deal with engineering prints… The paper is super thin, so you must back it with solid white paper so that you cant see through it.   Unfortunately, the paper that came with the frame had printing on it…

So, I just scotch taped computer paper to both the cardboard frame backing and the opening in the matting….

I secured the frame and hung my new art on the wall only to realize that the flimsiness of the paper caused it to wrinkle beneath the plexi with the pull of gravity….

So, I removed it.  I thought about adhering the print to the frame’s backing with spray adhesive, but I was afraid that the adhesive would stain the thin, white paper.  In the end, I ended up taping the print to the matting with more Scotch tape to prevent any further drooping. This helped a lot, but just keep in mind… this is why such a large print is $8.   I’m okay with imperfection due to that.   But if it really bothers you, you may wanna spring for a higher quality print.    In any case, my new Italy art is hung and she’s a beaut (albeit somewhat hard to photograph due to it’s reflectiveness)…

 

It adds a pop of modern sleekness to the bedroom which compliments the lines of my mid-century ottoman and painted wicker chair.   This is exactly in line with the direction I want our bedroom to go.  Personal but modern.  And also, ignore the conflicting brown tones.  I’ll get there.  Eventually… 🙂

TDC Before and After