Showing posts with label crafty projects. Show all posts
Showing posts with label crafty projects. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 2, 2016

The Story of the Pink Painted Glittery Pine Cones

Pinterest sent me a notice that they were removing one of my pins for copyright infringement or something of that sort.  Fortunately, they also sent a photo of the pin.  It was pink painted glittery pine cones in a glass bowl sort of like these.
just imagine them in a glass bowl

I can't believe anyone has the rights to pink painted glittery pine cones.  The photo was nice, but just in a crafty photo--look what I did kinda way, not in a professional photographer can sell this way.


The point here is the the pink painted glittery pine cones were about to disappear from my life.  I could not let this happen.  I liked those freakin' pine cones!  I wanted to keep them on my Crafty-Things-I-Want-To-Do-Someday board because my memory isn't worth the powder to blow it to hell.  I would definitely forget them if they were not pinned. 


This project was supposed to be done when I could find the perfect pine cones that would be painted outside on an eighty degree summer day with no wind.  Instead, I picked up some leftover pine cones while out walking on Sunday.  Then today, I was out in 30 degree weather with high winds spray painting in order to have something to pin on my board.


So that is the story of the pink painted glittery pine cones that had to be made and blogged about so that they could be pinned.

The End

Wednesday, September 30, 2015

Ocean Zen Gardens!

If you steal some sand from the beach and pour that sand in a pretty containers with a few shells, you will have an awesome (and cheap inexpensive) souvenir.  So much better than t-shirts and salt water taffy.  Okay, maybe not better than the taffy. 
Shells were purchased.  One goes to Ocean City, Maryland for the great beaches, but not for finding great shells.
The shells with the long points are perfect for "grooming" the sand.  This bowl is for Keegan and Pep.
This one is for Kiefer and Jordan

I baked the sand at 250 degrees and sifted it to get nice smooth finished product.  Baking dried it to the point that it didn't hold a design well at first, but just being out solved that problem in a couple of days.

Shells with shell design--must be Jordan's handiwork.

Since Kyle is in Minnesota for a year of post-graduate work and Melissa's still in Mongolia with the Peace Corp, this one will stay with me until they settle down.  Did I mention that they got engaged this summer?  Now if we could just get them on the same continent...    Soon! 

Wednesday, April 10, 2013

The Continuing Saga of the Fake Veggies

After making the cabbages from coffee filters, I saw these twine-covered carrots on Rachel's  Holy Craft blog.  My cabbages needed some carrots.

I shaved off the sharp edges of the Styrofoam pieces which was messy but not too hard.  Just pressing in the foam a bit helped a lot with smoothing it all out.  I used straight pins with tiny heads to hold the jute in place.  Placing the pins close to Styrofoam so that they are covered by the next round of jute worked out well.

The jute got "dyed" with watered down orange paint.  I'd say that process was semi-successful.  Actual dye might have been brighter, but, I like this dull, mottled look. While I was dying the jute, I also spooned some of the watery paint on the Styrofoam forms, too.  Didn't want any white spots showing through!
This whole mess was left to dry overnight by a heater vent.

After stealing a couple of stems from one of my plastic plants for tops we have some lovely carrots to go with the cabbages. 


Linking to:
Chic on a Shoestring Decorating


Wednesday, April 3, 2013

Fauxing up the Cabbage

First Tina Lou made faux cabbage leaves.  Then Danni took a step further making entire cabbage heads.  As Danni says, go ahead and take a look.  I'll wait.  You have to see how great theirs turned out.

Mine came out looking like lettuce rather than cabbage, but that's okay!


This was a fun project!   

I actually started putting these together while the filters were still wet because I have no patience.  It was a bit messy, but not too bad--like working with papier mache.  Once I got a filter pinned on what would be the top of the cabbage, I turned it upside down on a drinking glass and started layering the rest of the filters on,  pinning them at what would be the bottom and lower sides.  I put one last filter over all the pins and just pressed that one in place--no pinning.  I didn't do anything with the tops of the "leaves" at this point.

I let this all dry which only took a couple of hours.  Once it was dry, I took off the that last, loose filter and ran an Elmer's Glue Dot Runner all around the edges and pressed it back in place.  Then I flipped the cabbage up and used the glue dots to press in and hold all the "leaves" closer to the form rather than pinning, and kind of bent them out to look like the real thing.  The glue dots worked great--no pins are showing!  (Danni managed to do hers without the pins showing.  I'm sure she might be able to give you some advice on how to do it.  I had the glue dots and gave that a try.) 

CraftBond™ Permanent Dot Runner

Tuesday, January 1, 2013

Have You Made Yarn Dryer Balls?

 Update: Making these with more expensive yarn that supposedly had longer fibers did not eliminate the pilling at all.  I tried removing the pills as they formed on the balls, but they came back quickly.  I tried not taking the pills off which worked for a time.  At about the nine-month mark, however, the pills started coming off and sticking to my clothes.   What a pain having to pick these off a load of laundry!  Had I not been doing the "de-pilling" early on, that would probably have happened sooner. I don't think these are work the expense, time, and effort in the long run. 

You know the ones that you make from rolling a ball of wool yarn and felting it in the washer and dryer? I did and I like them because they:
  •  Really do eliminate static cling--unless you really over-dry the clothing
  •  Keep the wrinkling down
  •  Save money.  (There is the initial cost of the yarn, but these have got to last a really long time.  What can happen to them?  With dryer sheets you have the ongoing expense and contribute to the "we are making too much garbage" problem.)
  • Make less noise than the rubber balls.  The rubber dryer balls you find in the detergent section made too much noise for me.  Five minutes and they hit the garbage can. These yarn balls make some noise, but it's well within my range of acceptable.
The one downside for me can be seen in this photo.  They pilled. 
I was expecting to have this gorgeous bowl of felted yarn balls on my dryer--decorative AND useful.  These stay in the dryer instead.  It could be the yarn I used which was the only fully wool one available at Joann's.  After this happened, I read up on wool yarn and found that some wool yarns are made from shorter fibers.  Shorter fiber wool yarn may pill. Supposedly this stops after a while.  I've been picking the pilled material off these balls for a month, but they continue to form new ones.  All things considered, this is a small downside.

Some people said the balls decreased their drying time.  I have not found this to be true for me at all. I found no change at all for anything from lightweight items to towels.

After seeing another blog post with this bowl of pristine felted yarn balls, though, I have dryer ball envy.  I'm going to try this again.  I LOVED that bowl of beautiful felted yarn balls in muted matching hues!  I've been looking online for wool with longer fibers that doesn't cost a fortune.  Turns out wool yarn is not cheap!  I'm also going to try rolling the yarn more loosely.  I didn't roll my yarn tight, but it was definitely not loose at all.  Now I'm wondering if the looser rolling might increase felting and cause the balls to be even less noisy.     I'll let you know.

Thursday, June 28, 2012

The New Birdbath

I made another birdbath!   Love it!  My new squirrel-proof bird feeders are working so well I needed another birdbath for all my feathered guests.
 

I could not find a matching plate and vase in "my price range" (aka cheap).  Sooo, I got a blue decorative plate for $5.99 and a clear vase for $7.99.  I used food coloring to get the water to the same shade as the plate.  (Don't use too much food coloring.  A little goes a long way.)  Blue with just a couple of drops of green got the water to match the plate almost perfectly.  I put this together the same as I did this one last year.
 
You can read about that here. I used the E6000 glue and clear silicone caulk same as last year, although a more permanent glass epoxy might be another way to do it.

The red one doesn't have water in the base, and moisture got in before I sealed it with the silicone caulk last year.  That wasn't a good look.  With the blue one being filled with water,  I sealed this one with silicone to keep the water clean and clear.  I left an inch of space in case the water needs some room to expand or something.  Science is not my strong suit.  I might be wrong with that need for expansion.  It may not be necessary to leave the space. Maybe some reader can let us know in the comments. 

I shall let you know how the birds like it.

Update:  Two things I'd like to mention here.  First, Duckyzgal asked about the water getting contaminated in the comment section.  If you have concerns/questions, I've added some info in my reply to her comment below.

Second, I  probably should have reemphasized some things about using the E6000 in this post.  You really have to use it according to the directions and sparingly.  If you put on too much it will run down the glass.  While you can cut off run lines on the outside, you can't on the inside.  That said, E6000 dries to a rubbery finish that can be cut off.  It's not a big deal to take off the old glue and try again.