More Frugal Finds!!

Over at Practical Scrappers, we have our monthly feature of our frugal finds edition going on!  This is my favorite feature!!!  Something about repurposing regular old everyday items brings out the best in my creativity.  Even though it was my choice for the item this month, I decided to let the team decide between the two so I did a poll.  After a very close race, jar lids won out.

Here are my two projects I came up with.  This first one is my new all time favorite layout.  It's not too often that I create one of me and the DH together (usually the kiddos get all the glory).  Saturday will be our 11th wedding anniversary and I made this as a gift for him.  I actually altered up a white wood shadow box that I did some dry brushing of red acrylic paint and sanded down with some light-weight sandpaper.

This is just the layout...I got a little crazy with using things I haven't touched in a long time like the sewing machine (probably a year since I sewed on a layout), stickles, mists, gesso, and even pulled out the white journaling pen!  I used my "mostest", "favoritest" ( yes, I know they aren't real words) paper manufacturer, Crate Paper.  All pattern papers in the layout are from the Peppermint Collection as well as the buttons, trims, and other embellishments.  I used American Crafts (Marquise) Thicker letters on for the title.  Mist is from Tattered Angels (Santa Baby Glimmer Mist). 

 

 close up of the jar lids

 

 the dimension shot:  I cut slits in the canning jart lid so it would slide down over top of the pickle jar lid.

 

This is not the greatest photo, but the best I can do late at night...sorry you get the shadow cast on the top. Here, you can see the frame I doctored up a bit.  I dry brushed some red acrylic paint on the edges of a white wood shadow box.  Took an old rag then quickly wiped it off.  Followed that up with some sanding with light-weight sandpaper.

 

 

The second project, I decided why not just use the entire jar!  I saw these similar item online when I was searching for items to make for craft fairs.  

 

What you will need:

1 can of Krylon Frosted Glass Spray (can but anywhere they sell spray paint or craft stores)

1 glass jar

1 LED battery operated tea light

wire

scraps of fleece/felt (hat)

ribbon

bell

snowman face parts (I cut on my Cricut)

hot glue gun

Glossy Accents

Crackle Accents

 

You can seen that this is a very simple projects and takes no time at all to put together.  It took my cricut longer to cut out all the faces than it did for me to put a dozen of these together.  First spray your jars.  The frosted glass only takes about 10 minutes to dry to touch. After that was dry I cut my wire and to rim of the jar to create the handle. I used Glossy Accents to adhere the face to the jar itself then also went over the eyes and mouth with the Glossy Accents.  For the nose, I also attached with Glossy Accents, but this time went over top of my diecut with the Crackle Accents to create those lines in the carrot nose ( you can see a close up of this below).  For the hat, I cut a 6 1/2" circle of fleece and hot glued to the lid.  I tied off the hat with some red ribbon. Added a little ribbon, twine, and bell to the handle then popped in a battery LED tea light ( making it safe to keep the hat on and use indoor and outdoor).

 

Here he is lit up

 

Close up of the Crackle nose which I just LOVE!!

 

Thanks for stopping in today and hope you enjoyed my projects!

 

 

 

Too Early For Christmas?

Not in my book is it too early for Christmas!  With the school quickly approaching which means back to work for me, crafting time will be very limited!  I'm getting a jump start on my holiday craft fair projects this year--no waiting til the last minute this year.  Here are two of the five wreaths I've made over the weekend.  I really enjoy making them and they don't take a lot of time at all.  I've got it down to 52 minutes start to finish.

*pattern paper and chipboard embellishments used here are from Crate Paper-

"Snow Day Collection"

You'll see a lot of different methods out there to make these curled paper wreaths.  They all work, this was just my preference.

Supplies:

1 - 10" styrofoam wreath ( has to be the hard smooth foam, not the kind the sheds when you touch it)

6 -12" x 12" sheets of pattern paper (doesn't have to be double sided)

1 -box of dress/straight pins (the ones with the flat metal head that look like a nail)

paper trimmer

 bone folder

tulle/ribbon

I started by cutting my paper to 1/2" strips (getting 24 strips per sheet of pattern paper).  Once all were cut I used my bone folder and curled my paper just as you would with scissor with curling ribbon.  Start in the center of  1/2" x 12" strip and curl to one end, then do the other. It will look like two loops meeting each other at the center.  After they are all curled you can design as you like, you can see in my first one I used 6 different pattern papers and kept each pattern together.  One the second one I used three different pattern papers (2 of each sheet) and scattered them throughout. One thing to note:  double sided papers are a little harder to curl (depending on the brand/manufacturer) and you may have to curl each strip twice.  However, they make wreaths that are much fuller while the single sided papers make a tighter curled wreath.  You can see how the top wreath I made using my favorite manufacturer (Crate Paper--Snow Day Collection) is more full and the empty space in the center of wreath is smaller than the second wreath.  Both look great, and I actually like the white on the back of single sided paper showing in spots because it breaks up the patterns in spaces.

Thanks for stopping in!

~Kerri