Wait For It...

Due to some technical difficulties (which means trying to upload pictures from my camera to the laptop), the giveaway winner won't be announced until Monday. I will be back in the office then and will be able to include pictures.

Thanks to everyone who entered!

Christmas Wreath

This year I have been seeing a LOT of wreaths...but square ones. I link of like that...a LOT. So, I thought I would finally venture out and make myself a square wreath. I had nothing extra on hand, so had to purchase everything. I began by adventure by picking up a plain wood frame from Hobby Lobby and an extra swag of greenery at KMart. I had that sitting around my place for a few days, but never got to it since I thought it would be better to use a staple gun instead of my glue gun.

Then on Sunday, I took a trip to another town and visited Michaels. Outside the store in their 'sale' bins, I saw a round wreath for $2. It was fairly small, looked decent, and the wire on the back was nice and bendable.

With the wreath in hand, I proceeded throughout the store, and came across some fun ornaments made for wreaths, that had a wire where the hook normally goes. After I picked out which ornaments I wanted, I proceeded to the Christmas ribbon. I finally decided on a cream/gold ribbon that had some fun swirls in it. Originally, I had a different plan of what I was going to do with this wreath, but that didn't work out, so I used the ribbon in a different way. In the end, it was under $10 for all the supplies to make the wreath.

To begin, the nice and round wreath (with the tag still on it).
I bent the wreath in half both directions in order to get the 4 corners bent for the square.

It's close to being square.

How it looks from the front. It doesn't look entirely square, but it sure doesn't look round. I guess that is what you get when you pick up a 'children's wreath', instead of an adult wreath. But oh well.

After making a mess with the little bit of glitter that is on the ornaments, I worked on my wreath hanger. You can't tell, but this hanger is silver. I grabbed it for dirt cheap at Target after Christmas last year. Since the ornaments have gold in them, I didn't want this silver hook to throw everything off. So I covered it with ribbon. (Not the ribbon shown....that was one of the ribbons I was planning on using, but changed my mind.)

The final product! I like it! I'm very happy with how it turned out. And yes, I know doesn't look centered on my door. At the time, it wasn't. But after removing a nail, I can tell you it now sits centered on the door.

So now go and give this project a whirl. It was really easy. I didn't even use any glue on the ornaments. I just used the wire that was attached to them to wrap around the wreath, and they are staying put.

Happy Crafting!

Craft Time....Giveaway Time!

More coasters!! Some of these are for gifts, some are for a handmade gift exchange, some are to add more to mom's stash, some are for me.

In the spirit of the season, I thought I would give away a set of coasters. The winner gets a customized set. To enter, leave a comment of what handmade gifts you will be making this year (or buying if you don't do much crafting) and that is all! Well, if your name is not linked to a blog, please list your email address as well so I can get in touch with you if you win. I will randomly draw for a winner on Saturday, Dec 7. So sign up!

Be sure to look through some of the other coasters in my posts to see if there is anything special you would like. And if you would like to place an order for a set, I am selling them for $10 plus S&H. 2 sets for $15 plus S&H. More than that, we can talk. :) Just send me an email to farmgirl.chaos (at) gmail (dot) com with your order.

I haven't yet ventured in to selling on Etsy...but have thought about it. Any suggestions?

Crafts Galore!

While spending a sick day at home on Tuesday, I thought I would try to be a little productive and work on some craft projects to sell to a friends mom, to stock her new store. The fun thing about the store, I was told that she hopes to sell things that people make or make better.

Here we go. I decided to make some labels for my items. Not exactly ideal...but it worked for now. Anybody have any suggestions of where to get some great and fun tags?

Now on to the first project. I picked up these coasters at Salvation Army. Actually, all of things I made better came from Salvation Army.

I sanded them a bit just to rough them up so the spray adhesive would stick. Then I added the paper, a little inking done to the edges, and there you go.

SO MUCH BETTER! Hmm. Too bad I don't keep these for myself. I'm sure someone will enjoy them.

Up next...more coasters! However, these are tile coasters. I used a variety of stamps, and the black and brown Staz-On stamp pad.

(I have a set of the above for myself. My favorite! 4 different belt buckles.)

I believe the next project was probably one of the most dramatic. I like it a lot! First off, we have gross and boring.

Then we come to this. Clean and rustic looking.

This dome display looked pretty bad as well. I had to take some Goo-Gone to the glass part to clean off who knows what. For the base, I sanded it quite well, both top and bottom.

With a couple layers of brown paint and clean glass, you get this.

Last of the big projects...a little crate for a set of coasters. I sanded the wood just so the paint would stick. And it goes from this...

...to this, in just a few minutes.

And because I didn't think I had enough to do, I decided to finally jazz up some hand sanitizer bottles. I will be taking the 2 right bottles to one of the schools I serve. The counseling secretaries enjoy stamping and making cards, so I thought they would enjoy these as well. The one on the left is for me. I thought I should keep something finally. :)

Finally, I decided to bring some life to a notebook I will be using to keep track of the things I make for Farmgirl Chaos.

I hope you enjoyed what you saw. If you have any questions about any of the projects, please let me know. I'd be happy to help.

Happy Crafting!

Boo Re-do

A couple weeks ago, I visited the local Salvation Army. I wanted to see what I could find that I could re-do/re-craft and make in to something good. I picked up a few things, and finally worked on one little item late last night. So pardon the pictures...I guess this is what you get at 11pm.

Here is the picture frame I picked up. (At this point in time, I already removed the glass and the back stand piece.
Getting ready to paint the frame. I did nothing to prepare this frame but wipe it off. Next time, instead of going right for the black paint, I will do a base coat to cover up the blue and the little flowers. The reason being...after it dried, I sanded the edges a littel bit, and the blue started showing through. I was fine with it, since one of the papers I used had a little blue in it. After I painted the entire frame (not just where the blue was...since they left some spots bare), I cut out a black piece of cardstock to fit the entire frame. I then cut 3 little pieces of patterned paper and glued them to the black cardstock so they showed through the frame correctly. I then put a b-o-o sticker on each of the different pieces of paper. (I originally thought of having them be glittered...but wasn't in the mood for it last night.) After the stickers were on and everything was together, I decided that the stickers needed a little 'pop'. So I took a gold marker pen that I have and outlined the letters. Not as fun as if I would have used glitter, but I'm fine with that. It suits my style a little more.

And the finished product.

Here's a close up, where you can see the outline of the letters a little better.

Because of having the 'boo' part on one sheet of cardstock, I can easily change this out for every season. Something simple and easy to do with any scraps of paper and stickers. So have fun with it!

Happy Crafting!

Glitter Pumpkins

This season, I am noticing a ton of pumpkins that are blinged out in glitter. I thought I would join that bandwagon, and make a little 'fall' tray for Denean, who's fighting hard against her cancer.
I started by cutting the scrapbook paper to fit the tray. Not an easy task with all the crazy/uneven angles. Then I took the unfinished wood tray from Hobby Lobby, and painted it brown. I did 2 coats on this tray, since the wood really soaked up the color. Once it was dry, I used the spray adhesive to glue the paper to the tray. I've never used this stuff before, and I'm not sure what I think about it. It did a great job with no bubbles or anything. But I did have to paint over the edges again, since I could see some of the residue on the sides. Once that was all done and dry, I sanded the edges a bit to weather it. Final step with the tray was putting a layer of Mod Podge over the scrapbook paper to help seal it in there.

Next up...glittering the pumpkins.

I used Mod Podge again as the glue for the glitter. For the single orange pumpkin, I mixed orange and white glitter. I then spread Mod Podge all around the pumpkin, even the bottom, but made sure to keep it off the stem. As soon as I had all the MP on, I started putting the glitter on. For some reason, the orange/white glitter stuck together in the container, so didn't sprinkle the best. But, at least you can't tell on the pumpkin now.

I then did the same thing to the pink pumpkins. That glitter was much easier to sprinkle.
After the glue was dried and the glitter in place, I sprayed a clear coat over the pumpkins, in hopes that not much more glitter will fall off. Then once that was dry, I painted the stems brown on the 3 pumpkins. I liked the brown better than the cream that it was.

And now the end product.

It's nothing too fancy, but I think it will look cute sitting on a side table or on a dresser.

I purchased the tray, hay bales, and scrapbook paper at Hobby Lobby. Only the paper was not on sale. The others were between 30-50% off.

I know it is a bit early....but I also gathered so Christmas decorations, since they were 50%. It was too good to pass up.

Oh, forgot to mention, for the glittered pumpkins to dry, I placed two straws on wax paper. It worked great, and the pumpkins did not stick to the straws.

Happy crafting!

Frilly Flower Bucket

On the drive home after the benefit a couple of weeks ago, I was wondering what I would do with the flowers, ribbons, as well as scrapbook paper. There was a lot of it, and I don't usually do a whole lot of projects with pink in them.

Back track to about an hour earlier that evening. I was taking all the flowers out of the ball jars and putting them in the 5 gallon bucket to transport them home easier. In the end, the bucket looked awesome! Since the flowers got cut down to go in the jars, they bunched together very nicely, and looked great.

Now return to the drive home. I got to thinking about the flowers again, and knew that mom has ice cream buckets that she keeps, because they are just too handy at times. I got to thinking that I have LOTS of ribbon. I got to thinking that I have scrapbook paper. I got to thinking that there are lots of flowers. And there you go....my frilly flower bucket.

So as soon as I got home, I got to work on the bucket. The hardest part....taking the brads out of ALL the ribbons, then tying the ribbon to the bucket handle. Once I got that paper on and all the ribbons tied on, I put the flowers in, and then completely forgot to take a picture of it! Can you believe that?

Thanks to a church friend, she got a picture of it when she visited Denean one day. (Please don't mind the look of the flowers. They looked much better when she got them...not wilted or droopy.)

If you are wanting to spread some cheer to a person, but in a unique way, try this out. It's so much more fun that just a plain vase. This frilly flower bucket could someday be used for another purpose.

Happy crafting!