Spring and Easter Decor: Jeweled Wood Carrots

 

I mentioned in my "Peep My Eggs" post that I also had some wood carrots I picked up at Dollar Tree last year that I'd be playing with. Here they are! 

Wood Carrot Cutouts

• Green and Orange Acrylic Paints
• Mod Podge
• Self-adhesive Gemstones
• Faux Greenery
• Jute Twine

I grabbed some green paints from my stash in English Ivy and Kelly Green and painted the tops. 

Here's the Enlish Ivy coat.

Then I dry brused over the English Ivy with the Kelly Green to give it a bit of variegation.

I traced around the carrot shapes and cut out the tops from a sheet of orange ombre scrapbooking paper from the Bright Ombres stack from Michaels in my paper stash. 

Squirted some matte Mod Podge on my carrots, then applied the scrapbook paper. 

As with my eggs, I used my Cricut Mini to get a good seal on my paper and then went around the edges with a sanding thingy. 

I forget where I found this leafy bush, but wherever I did, I thought the stems worked as carrot tops. I pilled a few of them off, and hot-glued them to the carrot tops. 

Then I grabbed some jute twine and wrapped it several times around the top of the carrot and the carrot top, hot gluing it down. I also made a bow from the twine and glued that down as shown.

I grabbed some orange paint (Waverly Multi-Surface) and lightly went around the exposed wood sides of the carrots. 

If you've been to my blog before, you know I'm a "it don't mean a thing if it don't have that bling" person, so I grabbed some irregular shaped self-adhesive rhinestones (Dollar Tree) and place them atop the carrots. 

Voila!

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Holiday Making: DIY Christmas Card Holder

 

Taking down Halloween today. After years of working for Nordstrom in another life, which used to be adamant about no Christmas decor before Thanksgiving, and a son, who when he was with me at Michaels one year as a young child, gave a whole soliloquy about Thanksgivng getting short-changed because stores went from Halloween to Christmas without passing go, I still can't do Christmas until after Thanksgiving. That makes it hard in the Maker-Creator world because I see everyone doing their decorating now!

Speaking of which, I've been curious. I see all these "influencer" videos with curated trees...by color or character themes...does ANYONE have trees that aren't like that anymore, or am I the only one? I have decades of annual collectible ornaments that I've invested a small fortune in, but I feel like I'm alone in not re-doing a tree every year. 

Back to this! When we downsized, we got rid of the Christmas Card holders we used to have, and we don't get as many cards as we used to. For the past couple of years, I kept meaning to make something smaller but dedicated to the ones we do receive. 

I'm planning a Sweet Shop theme for our kitchen island so I made this with that in mind! 

Supplies:

• Wood Cigar Box
• Multi-Surface Acrylic Paint
• Mod Podge
• Coordinating Scrapbook Papers

I removed the lid from the cigar box which will get used in something else. I thought I'd use both red and white paints but ended up only using the white. And from my holiday paper stash, I chose these fun papers. 

Measure the spaces you want to cover with paper and cut to size. 

I covered the edges only with paint since I knew the rest of the space would be covered by the papers. 

Did this for both the outside and the inside. 

Section by section, apply Mod Podge and your papers. 

You can use a scrapng tool and/or brayer to smooth out any bubbles. 

I've seen people do this in videos, and decided to try it myself! Grabbed my Cricut Mini Heat Press and went over the paper once adhered to both get it really smooth and also speeds up the drying process a bit. Once all of your papers are applied, use Mod Podge to seal. 

My math didn't math so my interior sides were a little too tall. No biggie. Once the paper was dry, I creased the edges as shown here and then just sanded them off. 

Now for the fun part! I picked up these ornaments at Walmart last year after Christmas. They were perfect for this! 

I used them around the box to add a little more glitz and fun. Used a combination of hot glue and tacky glue to ensure good adhesion and clamped them in place to make sure.

Not gonna lie...I'm itching to put my Sweet Shop together but, Thanksgiving first! 

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Holiday Making: There's No People Like Snow People

 

I had so much fun with these! Mr. Chocolate was prescribed something during his health issues this year that came in a glass bottle. When he finished the first one, he immediately asked, "Do you want this?" Like a good Maker, I said, "Of course!" so he saved more of them for me. These Snow People are what my brain came up with! 

Supplies:

• Empty Clear Bottles (Glass or Plastic)
• Styrofoam Balls (Dollar Tree)
• Tissue Paper
• Aluminum Foil
• Acrylic Paints
• Glitter
• Tacky and Hot Glue

The hardest part of these was getting the labels off. I'd like to know what adhesive they used because it will apparently hold everything. After soaking, alcohol, and Goo Gone...

For the heads, I used styrofoam balls from Dollar Tree, covered with tissue paper. 

I poured some Mod Podge into the bottles, then added two different glitters I had on hand. Rotate each bottle until fully covered and let dry. I find that the gloss formula takes a little longer to dry, and since I was gluing the heads on, I didn't want any moisture to build up, so I let these sit for 24 hours to get good and dry. 

After using the Mod Podge to cover the styrofoam balls with tissue paper, I mixed white acrylic paint and fine glitter and painted each "head". 

I got the idea to make the noses from aluminum foil. I cut the pieces and twisted into a carrot shape. I intentinally made these longer so I could hold them as I painted them, using Waverly No Prep paint. 

You can see here what I mean about having room to hold them while I painted. Then I trimmed the noses to size. 

I used hot glue to attach to the heads. 

I used a combination of clear Aleene's Tacky Glue and hot glue to attach the heads to the bottles. 

Waste not, want not, right? The caps from the bottles made perfect hats! I debated painting them. I was initially thinking I'd use this garland I bought after season at Walmart for scarves, but decided I'd use it to trim the lids instead. 

Another after-season find: Metallic Pom Poms! 

Pulled out some of the white ones and used these atop the lids. To finish, I used a little tacky glue to attach some black rhinestones for eyes. 

Meanwhile, it's supposed to be 89 degrees today. 😢

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Halloween: Glam Sugared Skulls

 

Happy New Week! Sharing a play on words inspired project with these Glam Sugared Skulls. Living in the Southwest, Sugar Skulls, Catrinas, and Dia de los Muertos iconography and creations are EVERYWHERE and I love them. So, my brain doing what it does, came up with this idea. 

Supplies:

• Plastic Skulls (Dollar Tree)
• White Multi Surface Acrylic Paint (Waverly)
• Mod Podge
• Glitter
• Gemstones (Dollar Tree)
• Silk Roses (Michaels)

I used these plastic skulls from Dollar Tree and my favorite multi-surface Waverly paint. 

Cover the skulls thoroughly with paint. Those sponge spouncers work better to me than brushes. 

I wanted these to look like the skulls were cast from sugar so I grabbed some white glitter from my stash and mixed a bunch into some Mod Podge. Then, using the spouncer thingy (very technical term!), applied to the painted skulls. 

I craft like I cook. "Some"..."a bit"...so I don't have exact proportions but just mix until you're happy!

You can see the glitter effect here. I grabbed some of these irregularly shaped gemstones (Dollar Tree) and decided to use them for the eyes. I just started gluing them randomly and filling in. Yes, they're self-adhesive, but for better adhesion, I reinforced them with some dimensional glue. 

Mr. Chocolate had thoughts on the rhinestones I put in the noses. Pffft. 

I unintentionally made these to match us! Me, with black curly hair represented by black roses, and him, "clean shaven". I used a black rose spray from Michaels, cut it apart, and then glued leaves and flowers as shown.

Mr. Chocolate!

Me!

Us!

I'm planning a future decor tour post when I'm all done using all these projects I've made so you'll see how I used them (if I can stop making more stuff!). 

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