After Pics and Xmas Crafts

Work has been crazy...sorry for the delay in 'after' pics of the painting project.  I love my new champagne cork door knobs, too!

This looks SOOOO much better!

Mom's favorite (Martini & Rossi Asti Spumante) corks

Ahhh, so nice to get a project done.

Also been working on some very fun holiday crafts for decorating and gift-giving.  Here is my burlap and satin tree skirt...finally finished!

Pinterest Craft #1, Finished skirt...finally!

Finished skirt in its rightful place...yay for presents!

Pinterest Craft #2, cheap glass ornaments from Hobby Lobby with paint on the inside (paint on the outside of a couple, too).  Very fun to make!

Pinterest Craft #3, birdseed ornaments.  These are hanging in my trees all over the yard, sans cookies cutters, of course.

Pinterest Craft #4, my adorable little cork trees (before trunks).

After trunks (from the yard).  I only decorated the one...I like it, but I like the natural ones, too!

And I had one craft FAIL:

Toilet paper roll snowflakes

No biggie...I am making homemade Christmas Crackers this year and my trial cracker was fantastic!  At least I've got a fun use for the rest of the paper rolls I've saved!  :)  

Happy Holidays!

Burlap Bubble Wreath

Like I said, I found this on Pinterest and loved it!  You could use it year-round and add greenery, flowers, decor as the seasons change.  I kind of like it nice and natural.  It was so much fun to do.

Supplies:
14" straw wreath (they suggested 10" foam, but it was way more expensive!  And straw is renewable and recyclable.)
Burlap (about 2 yards cut into 4" squares)
Lots of 'big head' pins (I used the straight pins with the different colored balls on top from my sewing stuff.)

Basically you fold the square into a triangle by pulling two opposite corners together.  Then take your right corner and pull it around to the front and take your left corner and pull it around to the back.  Stick your pin straight through where all four corners are flat against each other and pin.  Repeat.   A lot.  And that's it!  :)

The tutorial I used is probably much easier to understand.  She took a lot of good pics and I was just having too much fun to stop and use the camera.  :)

From the beginning...

Straw wreath ($3.99 @ Hobby Lobby)

Lots of burlap 'bubbles' (Burlap $3.99/yd @ Hobby Lobby)

Almost finished...

I'm done!  I finished last night, but didn't take any good finished pics until this morning.  I don't like this orange-y light.

Hanging on the front door.

Behind screen door.

Yay!  Finished product!

Back side...since the back will show when our shades are open, I may cover this with a little more burlap.  Or maybe not.  See all my pins?  

Pinterest Weekend---NOT fail! :)

Since I had several days off this past week (7 to be exact!), Mom came up to hang out and play.  We had quite the Pinterest weekend.  If you don't know what Pinterest.com is, check it out.  It's fun.  You can get sucked in, but you'll find all kinds of cool projects, recipes, ideas, etc.  We had several projects on the agenda to try and we tried them all...and they were AWESOME!!!  I'm pretty worn out from the weekend, so I'll post our pics and links to the appropriate Pinterest page.  Let me know what you think!

Crayon Art  

Prep

 1/2 way done

 My finished masterpiece...so much fun!

 Piece I made for Mom

 Mom's first one (with genuine Chattanooga wood!)

 Mom's masterpiece

 Garage sale trays painted with chalkboard paint

 Hemp Angels (for Xmas treats)

 Funky mushroom lamp I found a garage sale (painted the base) and another crayon piece I did (my first one).

 Yard Art (leaves from our yard), but we used spray paint, not acrylic.

Piece Mom made for us!

 The only 'fail'...turned out okay (Lon likes it), but the glue gun is shot and most of the crayon didn't even come out of the tip, but dripped from the back!  I call it Christmas Chaos.

 The weather turned cooler this weekend and we had the doors and windows open. The screened porch was our art studio and Lon burned our very 1st campfire in our fire pit....the shot's a bit blurry, but I LOVE IT!