Gingerbread Week: Sweet Shoppe Galvanized Metal Houses

 

This week's BFF Open House continues here through tomorrow. 

Gingerbread is so very on trend this holiday season. It's everywhere and on everything. Natch, as a Maker, I had to play! I ended up having so much fun that I decided to do a Gingerbread Week of projects!

I mentioned when I shared my Christmas Card Box that I was incorporating a Sweet Shoppe theme as part of my Christmas Decor, so this is part of that. It won't all come together until after Thanksgiving.  

Supplies:

• Little Houses (I found these Galvanized Metal ones over the Summer when Dollar Tree had them on clearance for $.25!)
• Acrylic Paints 
• Dotting Tools
• Decorative Gems (Creatology, Michaels)
• Mini Gingerbread Figures (Ashland, Michaels)
• Adhesive
• Glitter
• Oversized Bottle Caps

As I mentioned, I picked up these little galvanized metal houses over the Summer when Dollar Tree was clearing out a lot of their galvanized metal pieces. Had no clue what I was going to do with them (story of my life), but for a quarter each? No brainer. You could even make similar from cardboard or use a wood house cutout. Grabbed my Waverly No Prep Paints in Truffle and White and painted the base white and the house Truffle. 

I picked up these cute Gingerbread minis at Michaels (on sale of course!!) and thought they'd be perfect for the idea I didn't know I had. 

I had these oversized bottlecaps in my stash from a previous pickup somewhere and they were the perfect size for the opening in the metal houses. I used JudiKins dimensional glue and some glitter on hand to line the edges of each, and also to glue in the gingerbread pieces. I used E6000 and hot glue to attach the bottlecaps to the metal pieces. 

Then I got out my ball styluses to dot the houses with white paint. You can also do this with paint brushes. 

Attached the Gingerbread Cookie pieces to the top of the house with E6000 glue. Any strong adhesive will work. 

If you've followed me for a minute, you know the requisite "It Don't Mean a Thing, If It Ain't Got That Bling" applies so I grabbed my Creatology Gems from Michaels and added them! I swear, the jar is going to last me for the rest of my life. 

Almost done!

To finish, I used Tulip Dimensional Paint to add some snow atop the bottlecaps. Now, all done!

Stay tuned this week for more Gingerbread ideas! 

Galvanized Metal No Soliciting Sign

Or what happens when a non-gardener finds a tomato cage. We are not big on solicitors. Not that we’re mean people but we’re just not people who like other people coming to our door uninvited, and if we need something we tend to go seek it out.  And yet it’s taken me this long to actually put up a “No Soliciting” sign.

I had some sheets of galvanized metal I picked up on one of my strolls through the HW store, and for reasons unknown, I always look at tomato cages as “what could I do with that” material. I don’t even love tomatoes, and Martha and I part ways at gardening. But naturally it made sense to use a tomato cage as a stand for my sign right?

I thought hmmm let’s put a finial on top. OK why not! And yes Mr. Lowes man, you do carry finials, and no Mr. Lowes man I’m not some silly woman lost in the HW store making words up! So glad I could help you learn your inventory.

I painted one of the finials taupe and dry brushed it w/ white.

Then came the uh-oh moment of exactly how are you securing this to the tomato cage genius? So I wired it.

I stuck the screw from the finial in the middle of the three prongs of the tomato cage and then went round and round with some wire. I went over that with some jute twine. This thing doesn’t have to withstand gale force winds so I think it’s OK.
I cut the letters and designs for my sign from white vinyl using my Cricut Expression and then made rolled burlap rosettes and a burlap bow:

Just to make sure my finial was even more secure I wrapped a couple of strips of torn muslin around it and remembered I had another skeleton key from a Michaels trip in my stash:

And I also had this little birdcage from Michaels “used to be a dollar” section that I thought would like cute hanging from my stand so I wrapped a bit of jute around it and tied it on:

Now when solicitors are turned away, at least it will be pretty!

Linking Up At: 

Centsational Girl

Be Still My Heart

I thought that was a more poetic title than “Galvanized Metal Heart” which is what this post is about.

Somewhere in my travels, I picked up these galvanized metal hearts but I know they had to be a steal deal because I bought 3 of them.
This started out like this:

To which I added some of these rub ons:

I remembered a gorgeous frame I downloaded from The Graphics Fairy and pictured it as the focal for this. I imported it into my graphics program and added the text “j’taime” and the number 20. We’re celebrating our 20th anniversary this year so I figured this could be up now for Valentine’s but since  it’s neutral,  it can stay up all year for our anniversary.

I printed the image out on Avery transparent label paper which actually looks like vellum. It was perfect with the rub ons…the white in them is almost the same opacity as the vellum paper. And I had to bling it up with some clear adhesive rhinestones.

Right now it’s hanging on our bedroom door. Haven’t decided if that’s its permanent home or not.

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