Christmas Items

 'Tis the season... for HOLIDAY DECORATING!  I love love love to decorate for Christmas.  I have to make myself wait until the day after Thanksgiving to put up my Christmas decor and it gets harder every year.  I do get started building holiday decor before Thanksgiving though.  I have only made a few pieces so far this year but am hoping to get more done very soon.

I put together these cute wooden Christmas trees out of my stockpile of barn wood.

Next I decided to do some glittery items and came up with these green and red bucks. 

After that my 5 year old asked me how Santa got into houses of kiddos that don't have chimneys and inspired this piece. 

I thought that if they don't have chimneys then they don't have fireplaces or mantels either so they need a place to hang their stockings. 

Check back in for more holiday items.  Thanks for stopping by!

Metal Painting Class

I recently had the opportunity to attend a Metal Effects Painting Class given by my friend and co-vendor at the store, Cindy.  It was amazing!  She lets us paint with copper, bronze and iron and use different rusting agents on them to cause different patinas and aging effects.  There were 3 students including myself and we all painted the same 4 things and they all turned out completely different.  I love that!  

When we arrived Cindy had our items painted with primer and all of our brushes and materials set out for us. 

We started by painting our JOY letters.  Everyone painted each letter with a different metal.  I painted my J bronze, the Star copper and my Y with iron.

Next we added the rusting agents.  We could use blue, green or rust on each piece.  I did mostly blue with a bit of green on my J, a mix of blue and green on my star and just rust on the Y (it had't started to turn yet in this picture).

We painted the rest of our items in the same fashion.  Metal then rusting agents.  We let them all dry and then added some iron to each and put the rust on the iron spots.  

This class only took about 3 hours and I walked away with 4 great one of a kind home decor items.  I love the way each piece turned out and can hardly wait for Thanksgiving to pass so that I can put them out with my Christmas decor!

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

Fall Decor

I love this time of year.  I love the fallen leaves, cooler weather, holidays spent with friends and families and pumpkin spice... everything.   I also love love love decorating for Halloween, Fall, Thanksgiving and then Christmas! October through January is a continual setting up and taking down of seasonal decor at my house.  I have just taken down my Halloween decor and now I am setting up my fall/Thanksgiving decor.  I wanted something wide to place in the center of my entry-way table that was festive.  This is what I came up with and I am kind-of in love with it!  I love making pumpkins that aren't traditional round pumpkins and these fit the criteria.  

I started off by simply cutting the wood to size and painting.  I painted the pumpkins orange and the base and stems brown.  Easy peasy.   Then,  I used my favorite product, Jacobean wax, to give them an antiqued look. 

No antiquing wax used. 

Far right with antiquing wax.

Next, I stenciled on the word Fall with black paint.  After that I attached the pumpkins to the base with wood glue and nails.  Then I drilled into the top of each pumpkin and glued in their stems. 

Finally, I glued on a few leaves to complete the pumpkin look.  LOVE! 

This piece really completes the look that I was going for in my entryway and makes the table look so much fuller.  Happy Dance!  I have one available for purchase in our store and it would look great in your home! 

I also have these great fall decor pieces available:

Crafts & More 558 Main Street in GJ.  Open Monday - Saturday 9a-6p.  There are 16+ vendors in the store all the time.  Come support local vendors- we appreciate every purchase! 

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day! 

Custom Kitchen Signs

I have a friend who is a Pampered Chef Consultant and she asked me to do these cute custom kitchen signs to go with her big fork and big spoon.  She is so fun and so are these signs- a great fit! 

I started off by cutting my wood to size and staining each piece.  I used 1" x 6" common wood and a dark oaky stain that I had left over from a previous project.

Next I used my handy dandy cricut machine (both of them actually) to cut the vinyl templates that I used for the lettering and images on each sign.  I couldn't find an image of old fashioned beaters so I free handed that part.  I am not in love with how they turned out but I am my own worst critic.  

 Overall I think they are very cute signs and were fun to make.  Honestly I was singing the entire time  that I was painting!  

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!