Fun Friday Fascinations #35

#1.  I'm a giant fan of cheese, I mean who isn't?  My family loves appetizers so for our Christmas dinner we skip the whole sit down dinner bit, and just gorge on savory finger food and sweets.  This Snowman Cheese Ball from Betty Crocker would be a hugh hit.

#2.  I don't hand make all my Christmas cards, but with this simple Button Wreath idea from My Favourite Things I totally could.  Only things is I already bought some Unicef cards, and I don't have too many green buttons.  Or maybe none at all ...

#3.  Create Craft Love has a cute DIY for Paint Chip Gift Tags.   This could also work on a card too.   

#4.  Wow, I love this Orikami Clock from Fab.  It would look amazing in our living room!  

#5.  I desperately need some new tops, and I think this cute little number from ModCloth would fit in hanging up in my closet.  

Hope ya'll enjoy your weekend, and Happy Fun Friday Fascinations, chris!

Magazine Christmas Tree Make-over

Last year I saw Martha Stewart make this awesome magazine tree, and she had covered her tree in gold glitter.  I'm not much of a gold glitter person, so I just let it be bare.  I thought it looked pretty cool as is, but this year I wanted to give it a bit of a make-over.  

I used flat primer spray paint, and this green spray paint, plus green glitter.  I wanted to use a clear top coat, that I thought I had, but I don't.  

I placed the tree on a large drop cloth, and started with the white layer, then I sprayed on the green.  I quickly sprinkled on the green glitter while the paint was still wet.  I used rubber gloves to lean the paper tree from side to side to sprinkle the glitter on.  

This is how it looks sitting on my window sill.  I think it's even cuter now.  

I want to make this with smaller books, so that I have some trees of different heights.  I have to find an extra thick small catalogue or magazine.  Hope ya'll enjoyed, and happy DIYing, chris!

Christmas Present Front Door

If you've been following my blog for any amount of time you know my crafting revolves around what I already have on hand.  So for today's DIY I wanted to dress up my front door for the holidays.  Now I'm not much of a wreath person.  Sure there are TONS of simple DIY ideas for wreaths, but that means EVERYONE has a wreath on their front door right now.  Part of me wants to join in on the fun, but then I remind myself that I don't own any wreath crafting materials.  So I put on my crafting cap, and started spinning up some ideas out of the materials I do have on hand.  I always have present wrapping materials around, and thus was born the idea of wrapping my front door like a Christmas present.  

I began at the top of the door lining up the edge of the wrapping paper with the hinge side of the door.  I taped the paper across the top, and then down the hinge side.  Next I moved to the handle side, and cut out the door knob hole, and the dead bolt hole.  Then I trimmed the excess off the remaining side, and across the bottom, and taped down the edges.  

Then I moved on to the ribbon.  I started with the center ribbon, and taped at the top and bottom.  Next I ran the ribbons on either side of the center 'merry christmas' ribbon.  I ran out of all three, so I used a different ribbon to run horizontally.  I finished it off with a bow.  I'm not going to give instructions on how I made the bow, because it's the first one I've ever made, and there are lots of how to You Tube videos out there.   

I love the way this turned out.  I just wish the bow was a bit bigger, but it's cute.  When I get better at bow making this will be fabulous in the years to come.  Happy DIYing, chris!

DIY Advent Calendar

For the past couple days I've been working on making my own version of A Beautiful Mess' Advent Calendar.  I don't have any wooden pallets just laying around the house.  I mean I love all these pallet DIYs, but seriously where do all these people get them?  I actually saw some nice ones earlier today, but when I was able to go back to get them, they were already gone!  In less then three hours they disappeared!  Wooden Pallets are in high demand!  

Anyway, since I didn't have any wooden pallets I used some scrap pieces of wood flooring from a section we had to replace in our bedroom.    My tree is about four feet tall, and it has seven 'branches'.  I bought a bunch of presents from the dollar store, and wrapped them with craft paper, and cheap plastic tablecloths.  I used yarn to hang them from the little nails.  I did this all in one go, and man was it exhausting!  Who knew wrapping 25 little presents, and hanging them from a little wooden tree would be so much work!?!  

To make it more festive I stuck these 3D stickers on the wall.  Aaron got them from Pier1 last year, after the holidays they were deeply discounted.  One of the (few) benefits from my husband working at P1, we have first dibs on all the freshly marked down merchandise.    

It's starting to look a lot like Christmas. We also got our outdoor lights up.  We still need to get a tree though.  

Happy DIYing, chris!  

Hand Painted Dough Ornaments

So remember the dough ornaments I made on tuesday?  Well today I started painting them.  I used some acrylic paint, and some block printing ink.  Only because this is the paint I have in the house.  The acrylic paint worked perfectly though.  It dried quickly, and went on easily, but the printmaking ink was a bit thick, and took awhile to dry.  I might consider buying more acrylic paint to finish this project.  

The dino on the left I painted with just the acrylic paint, and the more blue dinosaur I mixed the two colors together.  

Then to make the duo look like a pair I covered them with black polka dots.  I used black fabric paint, and a paperclip to apply the paint.  

He's cute!  I haven't decided yet if we want to spend the money on a Christmas tree yet, but this guy is making me think it might help get us in the holiday spirit.  

A perfect pair.  Just like my hubby and I.  :) That back one is a little sad though.  He can't stand up too well.  Good thing I plan on hanging them up.  I might varnish them too.  Give them a little sheen, and help their paint job last a little longer.  I'm sure there will be more painted dough ornaments leading up to Christmas.  Who knows they might even get to spend some time on a live Christmas tree.  

Hope ya'll are having a great weekend, and happy DIYing, chris!

Doughy Christmas Ornaments DIY

Trying to get in the Christmas spirit by reliving one of my childhood holiday DIY activities.  Making handmade ornaments with dough.  

Ingredients:

- 2 cups of flour

- 1/2 cup of salt

- 3/4 cup of water

Directions:

Mix all the ingredients together by hand, and knead together until a nice doughy mass forms.  Then slap it on a floured surface, and roll it out flat, about a quarter inch thick.  Also preheat the oven to 300ºF. 

Then get out your cookie cutters and go to town.  I don't have any Christmas themed cookie cutters, but maybe the stars will pass.  I'm kinda excited about the dino ornaments though.  

Before I popped them in the oven I poked holes in them, so that I'm able to hang them on the tree.  Then bake them for about 30 minutes or so, flipping once half way through.  

I'm going to let them cool and set overnight, and then paint them tomorrow, if I have a chance.  The paint will definitely give them some much needed character.  

Did you ever make ornaments with homemade dough, when you were a kid?  Or do you make them with your children nowadays?  If you've never given this a try, I would definitely suggest this DIY.  Fun for all ages!  Hope your week is going well, and happy DIYing, chris!