Valentine's Day Easy Cloche

 

I use this cloche I found after Christmas one year at Pottery Barn for seasonal decor. OK non-seasonal decor too but...

Getting my Valentine's decorating going this week and made this very easy vignette from things I had on hand. 

Supplies

• Heart Shaped Picks (I found these last year at Walmart and forgot to use them)
• Small Clay Pot
• Glass Votive Holder (Dollar Tree)
• Scrap Vinyl
• Heart Shaped Confetti

Since I like to use this for different things, I grabbed a glass candle holder I had in my craft closet to use as the centerpiece of the cloche. I knew I wanted to use the confetti and this kept it neat. 

I also had a small clay pot in my stash which fit perfectly (upside down) inside the glass candle holder. I painted it white with one coat of acrylic paint. 

Sometimes I'm smart enough to keep things from previous projects like this silver heart that remained after cutting a vinyl project last year. You could easily just cut a heart or use a sticker. Put this on my painted clay pot. 

Then, I added my picks with the stems cut to fit under the cloche dome. 

To finish, I sprinkled heart-shaped confetti around the clay pot and put the dome on!  

Easy to switch out for its next use!

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Home Decor: Beaded Wood Wreath and Tag

 

I love how you never know what you're going to find a Dollar Tree. When I turned the corner of an aisle and found not only a Wood Bead Wreath form but in black? Squeal! And then when I saw a tag to match? Double squeal!

Supplies

• Wood Bead Wreath Form (Dollar Tree)
• Wood Bead Strung Tag (Dollar Tree)
• Faux Leather (On Hand)
• Silk Flowers (On Hand)
• Hot Glue and Glue Gun
• Twine

I remembered I had some faux leather in my stash from JoAnn. Decided this project needed a center bow and that this was perfect for it. I chose a bow image from those I have saved, sized in Cricut Design Space, and cut. 

When you cut faux leather, you need to use a strong grip cutting mat (I use Cricut's purple one) and you also want to lay your leather right side down. 

All of the faux leather I've seen has this woven backing so you want to cut through the back side to minimize fraying.

Here are the bow pieces cut out. I opted out of using the tail. Back in the stash for something else!

To assemble the bow, use hot or other strong glue (eg E6000) and fold in each side. Since this is a layered bow, repeat for the other layer. 

Layer one bow atop the other, then using the rectangle strip from the bow pattern, wrap around and glue to secure. 

The flowers I had on hand from a post-holiday 80% off sale so they were like, $2? I stripped the leaves, cut the stems to where I wanted them, bound them together with floral tape and hot glued to the wreath, then glued the bow on. I left the tag pretty much as-is, just adding the word "Love" cut from white vinyl. 

I decided to angle it just because that's what my brain decided to do. Once I had it positioned the way I wanted, I burnished with my scraping tool and ...

In hindsight, I probably should have attached the tag before gluing the bow on but, I didn't! So I grabbed some twine and used the existing twine loop on the tag to secure it to the wreath. 

Simple. Inexpensive. Love! 

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Fall Decor: Silver and Copper Geometric Pumpkins

 

I love it when a plan you didn't have comes together. I mentioned in my post about the Textured Copper Candles, that I'd show what I did with the vinyl that was left on the backing sheet so here we go! 

Supplies:

• Foam Pumpkins (Dollar Tree)
• Multi-Surface Craft Paint, Bright Silver (Michaels)
• Geometric Textured Vinyl (Previous Project)
• Kraft Butcher Paper
• Strong Wire
• Mod Podge

I'd picked up a couple of these foam pumpkins at Dollar Tree when their Halloween supplies came out and didn't end up using them but they still work great for Thanksgiving/Fall Decor. I painted themwith a couple o coats of multi-surface paint (Craftsmart from Michaels). I also removed the "stem" that came with them since I had another idea in my head. 

To make the stems, I tore some kraft butcher paper (guestimated the size) and some strong wire. I twisted the paper, leaving enough at on end to fan out a bit so I could attach to the pumpkin. I utwisted the wire, the using hot glue, tacked the wire in the middle, then re-twisted. 

I left a little tail of the wire at the bottom to push into the pumpkin to stabilize then fanned out the bottom and hot glued in place. If you don't have enough to fit, just tear some more small pieces of paper. 

Don't worry if the paper is sticking up. You can bend and twist your "stem" as you like, and trim if needed. 

To finish the stems, grab some Mod Podge and a brush and then go over the paper, soaking it pretty well. Once it dries, your stem will be secured to the pumpkin. 

Now it's time for the "leftover" vinyl from my candles! I cut the backing paper in rows, then applied transfer tape, then cut strips of each set of triangles and half circles and then applied them to the spines or whatever they're called, of the pumpkin.

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Halloween: Black White and Purple Spooky Halloween Tree

 

I've been wanting to do a Halloween Tree for a while. Last year I thought I'd be happy with a lighted branch tree and I was but in our new house, it ended up permanently in our bedroom as ambient lighting so I needed a new one right? For once in my brain, I also remembered to look for it early enough and lucked out getting one from Wayfair for 50% off over the Summer. I just went to check for this post and they still have them but they're a little more expensive now. The decorations are all Dollar Tree and I shared the Jeweled Tarot Card Halloween tree skirt last week. 

Supplies:

• Thompsontown Slender Black Tinsel Fir Artificial Christmas Tree (Wayfair)
• Dazzle Bright Purple LED Lights (Amazon)
• Black and White Bat Ribbon (Dollar Tree)
• Misc Decorations In Coordinating Colors (Dollar Tree)
• Jeweled Tarot Halloween Tree Skirt  

I cleaned my Dollar Tree out of all of the Purple and Blak picks shown and this bat themed ribbon was perfect! 

I also picked up a bunch of these skull treat baskets and glitter spiders that went with my colors. 

I wanted a skinny tree and this was perfect. Of course it came in a super skinny box and needed to be fluffed out. 

It was also not pre-lit so I found some purple lights on Amazon and didn't even realize until I plugged them in that they have 8 different options. Steady, twinkle, flashing etc. I haven't strung lights on a treee in a few years since I've gotten used to pre-lit trees so that was fun. Once I got the lights on, it was time to decorate. I started with the ribbon after the lights and used pieces of wire to attach to the branches in some places. After that, I added the picks, skull baskets and spiders and to finish, used a creepy doll head I had leftover from a project last year which I wrapped in the black netting one set of the skull baskets came in!

Ooops! Forgot to take pictures of the eyeball and glitter ornaments also from Dollar Tree!

The spiders are just resting on and tucked into the branches. 

To finish, I wrapped the stand with my Jeweled Tarot Card Tree Skirt I shared last week. 

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Papercrafting: When Supplies Collide. Black White Metallic Handmade Paper Cards

 

As I've said before, I love it when a plan you didn't have comes together. I can't be the only one who picks up things as I see them, not specifically having a plan in place about what I'm going to do with them, right? RIGHT? I did that with a package of handmade paper scraps at Blick Art Materials a while back and then on my last trip to Dollar Tree, I found two sets of epoxy stickers that coordinated perfectly. The timing was perfect since I needed to make a couple of cards. 

Supplies: 

• Handmade Paper Scraps (Blick Art ...can't remember the price but around $5 I think)
• Epoxy Stickers (Dollar Tree) 
• White 110lb cardstock (Recollections, Michaels)
• Black and White Scrapbook Paper (Michaels)
• Black Cardstock Scraps
• Foam Tape
• Adhesive Tape Runner 

I couldn't have coordinated these if I'd tried! 

I cut the white cardstock to 7x10 for 5x7 cards. Then I selected the handmade papers I wanted to use along with a sheet of black and white scrapbook paper from my stash, cut in panels as shown and adhered to the card. 

I selected a trio of stickers from the gold and silver sheets and mounted on squares of black cardstock scraps. Then mounted these using foam tape down the center of the cards as shown. 

For the silver stickers, I chose a handmade paper with glittered silver polka-dots. 

For the gold stickers, I chose a piece of black, gold, and white handmade paper. 

This is a great cardmaking project if you don't have a cutting machine and/or if you're a beginning cardmaker!