Angel Button Ornaments

Two years ago I made Christmas tree, Santa, and snowman button ornaments.  Well, recently I saw an angel on Pinterest, and I knew I had to add one to my collection.  I love her:

I purchased an array of white, pearl, and clear (with glitter!) buttons, as well as some beads for the heads and ribbon for the wings.  The first task was to sort the buttons for my towers:

I couldn't find gold buttons in the right size for the halos, so I painted pearlized buttons with gold glitter nail polish (which worked better than the gold glitter craft paint I tried):

The "wings" were the tough part.  I made a bow out of wired ribbon by tying elastic string around the center like so:

(Can you tell I had been trying on nail polish at the store before I did this?)

Then, to attach it to the ornament, I tied another, loose knot on the other side of the ornament string.  (You want the knot to be loose so that the bow falls behind the head bead.  I stuck the tips of my scissors under the knot when I tied it; you could also use a pencil.)

The extra elastic from the bow works as "arms" for the angel, the head and halo slide down, and they're done!

I made one for my mom and she put in an "order" for three more for her friends.  These were slightly more complicated than the others because of the wings, but worth it.

Bottle Cap Beer Mug

Hey there!  So I'd been thinking about what I could do with my favorite bottle caps, and this idea came to me out of nowhere.  Most of what's on this blog are Pinterest copy-cat projects, but this was a Bren original idea.  I think it turned out pretty great!  (Though it is somewhat fragile.)

First I laid out the caps the way I wanted them.  I decided to use skinny popsicle sticks to make a frame I could glue them to, so I positioned the sticks on top of the caps and used a glue gun to hold them together.  (wood glue would be better, but harder to undo if you make a mistake, which I did a couple times).  The frame ended up being double-thick, so I could glue the crossing pieces to the bottom of the top layer, then fill in the gaps so it all was the same thickness.  (Hope that makes sense; pictures may explain it better:)

Then I began to glue the caps to the wood.  I made sure to place them in each other's grooves to get them as tight as possible.  The main part was easy, but the handle gave me some trouble and I squished some of the caps to make them slightly narrower until everything fit. 

I hung it up in the kitchen!  Like I said, it's a little fragile, but sturdy enough to hang on the wall just fine.  I reinforced the corner caps with some extra glue when it was all done.  Here it is!

Confetti Canvas Art

So I needed some art to go above my bed and I’d been trying to find the right piece or project for a while now.  I decided I would do a version of this Confetti Art that’s been going around Pinterest for a while.  I wanted to paint my canvases, and I thought about doing a gray background with colored dots, but it was proving hard to find matching shiny paper and glitter paper in the shades I wanted, so instead I decided to paint the canvases and use silver dots.  I think it turned out pretty cool:

So you know how I was proud of myself for spending under $20 on my Clothespin Wreath?  Well, not so lucky this time.  My first trip to Hobby Lobby set me back about $40 and then I had to run back for more paint later.  Canvases, paint, and the hole punch were to blame for most of the cost.  I purchased 16 x 20 canvases because they come in those discount 2-packs for even less than the cost of one regular canvas, even though I thought the size may be too big.  Once I got them up though, I think the size worked out just fine.  

I used a 2-inch hole punch for the circles. (Hobby Lobby has almost any size circle punch you can think of.)  They were all out of regular silver glitter paper, but they had a chunkier glitter paper that I thought looked even cooler.  However, when I got home and tried punching it, there were problems.  Honestly, I’m surprised the punch didn’t break because it got stuck on pretty much every turn with the chunky glitter paper.  The problem wasn’t the thickness, it was that glitter was jamming it up.  I had to clean it out after every punch.  So, for that reason I would not recommend the chunky glitter paper, although it looks stylish.  Before I had even painted anything I had laid out the circles to decide how may I would need per canvas.  I decide on 12 metallic and 10 glitter per canvas.  

The worst part was getting the paint color right.  I first purchased 2 acrylic paints in teal and orchid that I thought were perfect as they looked in the tube.  Well, the orchid was okay, but the teal dried way darker and greener than anticipated.  I went back for a lighter, bluer shade, but then that was too light.  In the end I had just enough paint left to mix up a shade I hoped would work, and it was good enough.  But man, it was a pain.  

When everything was painted and I was (finally) satisfied with the colors I started placing the circles.  I spent forever trying to get them to look even but random.  When I was done, I glued them to the canvas with Mod Podge one at a time.  I know a lot of people have been using spray adhesive, and that’s probably better.  The Mod Podge worked okay, but the edges of some of the circles are curling up, and I might have to re-glue some of them some day.

And then, tah-dah, they were ready to hang!  I didn’t spray any type of over-coat or seal on the finished product; however, the glitter does flake off, so if I start waking up with glitter on my face, I might have to do that later.  I like how they match my flowers on the corresponding wall:

Kitty-approved.  Another summer project complete!

Beer Label Coasters

So this isn't exactly crafty, but I've had these photo coasters from Crate & Barrel lying around for years and never bothered to put photos in them... Well recently I had the cooky idea to stick my favorite beer labels in them, and I think they look really cool!  The Seadog Blueberry label is my favorite due to cuteness, but the Spotted Cow (a Wisconsin exclusive) isn't far behind.

Pink & Gray Clothespin Wreath

So I'd been trolling Pinterest for a while looking to find something I really wanted to make.  Then this Clothespin Wreath caught my eye.  It's adorable.  To me, it also looked like the kind of thing you could have up all year round, wreath-shaped or not.  I decided I wanted to make one for my bathroom (had some empty wall space in there), so that helped me decide on the size and color theme before I embarked on what became two adventures to good ol' Hobby Lobby.

Here's my finished wreath:

The original post that inspired me was about a smaller wreath that used only 38 clothespins.  Mine was going to be bigger.  I ended up using 70 clothespins (35 larger ones and 35 smaller ones).  The wreath form was 12" across on the outside and 10" across on the inside.  This made for a finished wreath that is about 14" across.  I made the wreath form itself out of cardboard.  You'll have a compass when you do it because you're smart, unlike me, who was tracing my trash can and other random circled-shaped things.  I covered the cardboard in felt as the original post suggested.

This is also a really cheap project; the materials were under $25 and I had to buy Mod Podge and X-Acto blade refills.  (The refills were my second trip to H.L.)  Without that it could easily be created for under $20.  If you already have Mod Podge, a knife, and cardboard, all you have to purchase is felt, scrapbook paper, and clothespins.  I found the larger size pins at Target and the smaller size at Bed, Bath, and Beyond (neither store had both sizes).

My bathroom is mostly silver and gray, so I chose to stick to black, silver, and add the accent color of pink.  What's great is that I could switch out just the pink pins at any time and replace them with any other color for a new look.  When I got to the store there were tons of papers with musical notes, so I also gave it a music theme.  There are also a couple different zebra prints.  I also really liked using some sheer papers that let the wood-color of the clothespins come through.

Here's a pic mid-craft:

When I got the wreath form done, I put all the clothespins on to see how many I would need, then I decided which papers to use (I ended up eliminating some I had bought), so I could roughly estimate how many of each pattern to make.  I would paint a clothespin with Mod Podge, attach it to the corner of a piece of paper, then cut out the other two sides with the X-Acto knife.  This was probably the hardest part, especially for the larger pins where the metal touched the paper and I couldn't slide the knife all the way across in one motion.  I messed some up along the way, no big deal.  With most of the papers, I also coated the top of the papers with Mod Podge, but on some of the sparkly ones it did not look as good, so I didn't for those.  Trial-and-error.

Once I had all the clothespins decorated, putting them on the wreath was quick and easy.  The whole project took me a day (but a FULL day).  I was at Hobby Lobby at 10 am and hanging this thing up at 10 pm.  I watched two whole movies while glueing and cutting.

Here is the wreath up in the bathroom, and I am really happy with the results:

An Update & Thanksgiving Turkey Wreath

It's been a really long time since I've updated.  Life got crazy and I didn't have much time for crafty things anymore, let alone the blog.  However, I have managed to put together a few things lately, and I wanted to throw a couple posts up to share the results.  Also, I have been thrilled with all the reposts of my Purple and Turquoise Ornament Wreath, so thanks!  (It's still my favorite craft project ever.)

The first thing I want to share is from last November, a while ago, but it's so cool.  I'm sure many Pinterest regulars have seen this post with a great Thanksgiving Turkey Wreath tutorial.  I wanted to share mine and tell you about the couple things I did differently.

For the most part, I followed the tutorial above exactly.  However, instead of using brown string to cover the wreath (that seemed time consuming), I used ribbon.  Also, instead of using a styrofoam cone for the beak, I rolled up some craft foam into a cone shape.  This saved some money because the styrofoam cones only came in bulk packs and were $6, and I didn't have to buy yellow paint.  (The foam was less than a dollar.)

My cat enjoyed watching me:

And my dog tried on the almost-finished product:

Here it is on the wall:

There are tons of these on Pinterest now if you search "Turkey Wreath," which is understandable, they are so neat!