DIY: Glittered Chain-Link Holiday Garland

HGTV has a simple, but wonderful idea for those last minute holiday decorations!  We love this easy to make and inexpensive garland idea! 

 

Materials Needed:

• 12x12 sheet of gold scrapbook paper (enough for 3 feet of chain)
• mint-green acrylic paint
• small bowl for paint
• 1" Paint Brush
• pencil or pen

• Ruler
• 1"-wide blue painter's tape
• X-Acto knife
• hot glue gun and glue sticks

Paint Back of Paper Then Mark Chain Links

Completely cover non-glitter side of gold scrapbook paper with mint acrylic paint. Once paint has fully dried, make inch marks on both edges of paper. Connect marks to create 1-inch stripes.

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Score Then Bend Paper

Using an X-Acto knife, carefully score (but don't cut) along marks. Make sure not to cut all the way through; cut the paper just enough to make it easy to tear later. Flip paper over and slightly crease at score marks to make them more visible.

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Tape Off Then Paint Strips

On paper's glittered side, place painter's tape along the center of each scored line (Image 1). Paint exposed paper with mint-green paint. Once paint has dried, carefully remove tape to reveal tone-on-tone pattern (Image 2).

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DIY: Felt Holiday Tree(s)

Danielle Thompson is keeping us inspired and in the Christmas spirit.  We love these felt trees and can't wait to give them a try!  Check out her blog for more DIY!

   

First I wanted to give credit to my initial inspiration for these (b/c it is one of my pet-peeves when people don't give proper credit... grr.. i've seen this happen so many times to other people, and even me... and it just makes me so sad. I try very hard to always give proper credit! although unfortunately with all of the things i bookmark, i do lose track sometimes where i got the idea in the first place. But very very rarely.) 
My inspiration for this actually came from a project (no surprise!) from Emily Martin/The Black Apple last year. I had the idea of making these felt trees in my head this year, and knew the concept was hidden in my subconscience from SOMEWHERE, and then i remembered her trees from last year. :-) But after looking at them for the first time this year, i realized they're pretty different! But same concept...
I wish I could provide some patterns for the felt pieces, but #1, as I've mentioned, I don't trust my pattern making skills, especially when it comes to fabric! and #2, I'm not sure that all styrofoam trees are standard sizes at all craft stores, so the patterns might end up being off depending on where you buy your tree forms.
But essentially the shape will look something like this and get smaller as you layer up the tree:
 
You just freehand cut the scallop along the bottom of the shape. It doesn't have to be perfect, and I sort of like the freehand look: :-)

To start:
1. Cut out your pieces of felt. I used generally 3-5 pieces/colors of felt per tree depending on how layered you want it to look. For each color tree, I used 3-5 shades of one color to show a gradiation of the darkest shade to the lightest shade going towards the top. On some I did a dark-light-dark-light look as well. Whatever worked with the shades of felt that I had. I used wool felt, but you could also use craft felt at craft stores... it's cheaper, but not as pretty, and you won't have the same amount of color shades as you'll find in wool felt.. i got mine online.
The first layer will be your bottom layer. It won't have the scalloped edge b/c it will wrap around the bottom of your tree form. You'll need to snip the area that wraps around like this so that it will fold over with little bulk. Then just hot-glue to the bottom:
 
Then you can glue a circle of felt to cover your bottom completely.
(I used 3 different sizes of tree forms: small, medium and large. So if you do try to make a pattern, you'll need to make a different pattern for each size/shape tree as they will of course differ.) I basically just winged it with each layer of felt... wrapped the fabric around and just cut away til i got generally the shape that i mentioned above. Then i wrapped it around hot-glued, where the ends met, to the tree form, overlapping:
 
 
Since I knew my that my trees would only be seen from the front, i didn't stress too much about how they looked on the back. As you can see, the backs of mine look a bit haphazard. They still look tidy at least. If you wanted, and you know they'll be seen from all sides, you could add a strip of ribbon along the seam on the back like I did here, vertically:
  
 
If you want to be REALLY tidy, you could wait on adding the vertical strip of ribbon, and first wrap your trims and ribbons around the tree horizontally and when you're done with that, you could add your vertical strip of ribbon to hide all of the felt seams/ribbon-ends on the back. Or just leave the felt seams as-is. It really doesn't look bad, as long as you overlap the ends so that no foam shows through. If you're a sewer, you could even sew the ends together on each felt layer and slip over the form!
The great thing about using these styrofoam forms is that you can also pin things to it (as you can see I used lots of pearly colored pins). And that is actually even easier than having to use hot-glue constantly. I'm not a big fan of glueing (i don't totally trust it!), so i try to use it only if i have to. But you'll definitely want to add some hot-glue to reinforce everything.
2. Ok you're done adhering your felt layers, it's time to embellish. You can start adding your trims and ribbons to wrap around the tree horizontally. (or you can leave them as-is with no embellishment! sort of a more modern look) I wanted to embellish, but not overly, still keeping a somewhat clean design (well, clean for ME at least).

DIY: Bird Canvas Wall Art

Blue Cricket Design has a great blog on creating your own canvas well art that looks professional and vintage.  We love the way this looks - very coffee house feeling.

Supplies Needed:
Two Canvases
Permanent Marker
Printed Birds to trace
Scissors
Paint, Wallpaper or Vintage pages to create a canvases back ground
Glue or Mod Podge

It’s easy to find images of birds online by doing an image search. Print your images on card stock or mount them on card stock to create a firm template. Cut them out and your ready to go!
To create some fun texture and interest cover your canvas in Scrapbook paper, Paint or Vintage book pages! To adhere any sort of paper mix two parts water to one part school glue or Mod Podge. Paint your paper with your glue mixture and lay smoothly on your canvas. Once the entire canvas is covered let it dry over night before moving onto the next step.
When it’s dried completely lay your two canvases next to each other.
Use a pencil to free hand your tree branches. Be sure to continue your branch from one canvas to the next.
Outline your penciled sketch with your permanent marker.


Color in your branches completely.
Place your bird images on the branches and trace them with a pencil. Remember you can make a bird face the other way by flipping them over!
Color in your birds.
Now we’ll add our details! Draw on leaves and smaller branches and color them in. Lastly you’ll want to color it all in one last time to insure a deep dark silhouette and to cover up any uneven marker strokes.
Hang them side by side and enjoy!

DIY: Glitter Word Art

Vanilla and Velvet's blog has a wonderful DIY for Glittery Word Art.  It's so simple and makes such a statement we think you could make this and then decorate a whole room off of this project!

Materials

• Canvas, I used Artists Loft 24×48 inches
• Glitter paint, I used 3 bottles of Martha Stuart glitter paint in antique silver
• Background paint, I used 1 bottle of Martha Stuart pearl paint  in mother of pearl
• 2 Paint Brushes
• Paper
• Pencil
• Ruler
• Scissors

Directions

First paint the canvas any color of your choice.  Next, create stencils for your word, my letteres were 10 inches in height and the  font I used was Arial Black in size 500, after printing the letters I doubled their size– I guess that makes it size 1,000. Trace stencil with a dull pencil on the painted canvas.  Fill outline in with glitter paint- this may take several layers depending on how much glitter you are looking for.

Paint Background, I used 1 bottle of Martha Stuart pearl paint  in mother of pearl and a small brush for a horizontal stripe effect.

Print out letters and create a large word stencil.  I used Arial Black in size 500, after printing the letters I doubled their size– I guess that makes it size 1,000, they ended up being 10 inches in height.

Lay stencils on the dry canvas, use a ruler to make sure you have everything centered.  There was 7 inches above and below and about 3 inches on the sides.

Using a dull pencil lightly trace the stencils.

Fill in outlined letters with glitter paint, this will take several layers.

Several layers later….

DIY: Pinecone Candle Holder

Crissy's Crafts blog has a great fall DIY that would jazz up any home, or make a wonderful Thanksgiving table center piece?  We think so!  Check out their blog for more.

 Material:

pine cones, spray paint, the bottom of a soda can, glue gun and scissors

 Spray paint the pine cones

After it dries, cut the top of the pine cone and spray paint again. 

Cut the button of a soda can and trim around it.

 Glue the aluminum circle to the pine cone.

You are done!

Tuesday Tutorial: Paper Lantern Ornaments

Want a cute, simple decoration that you can make in minutes? These paper lanterns from The Creative Place are perfect!  Make a bunch and string them together as a garland, or put a bunch in a bowl, or in a hurricane glass in a bathroom or guestroom.

What you'll need:
- Paper - enough to cut 15 strips - ½"x4" (7.5"x4")
- 2 small brads
- Ruler, 1/16" hole punch or pushpin to poke holes, exacto blade or
rotary cutter and a cutting mat

1. Measure out and cut your paper into 15 strips - each strip ½"x4"
2. Punch holes 1/8" from edge on short edge on both ends of paper strips. I used a 1/16" hole punch, but a push pin can be used to poke holes - it might take a little longer to get the brad through.
3. Put a brad in each end of your punched paper strip stack.

(Back)

4. Starting with the strip on the bottom, twist it out to begin to unfold the paper lantern. It might look kind of wonky, but it will get better :)
5. Twist out each strip individually in order from bottom to top of paper strip stack.
6. Arrange to your liking and Voila! A paper lantern ornament!
These would make a great garland - I strung a few together and they looked fabulous!