Winter – Page 2

DIY Alcohol Ink Aluminum Can Christmas Wreath

If you are anything like me, you love Ranger Ink products. I am particularly obsessed with alcohol inks, which paint vivid color on non-porous surfaces such as aluminum and glass. How excited was I to be invited to share a Christmas project on the Ranger Ink Blgo?! Very. Come see how I created this Recycled Pop Can Poinsettia Wreath for less than $3 with cans, dollar store supplies and alcohol inks! With tons of other projects to inspire you, you will want to make sure to look around while you are there!

If you like this project, I have lots more you don’t want to miss!

Fall Leaf Aluminum Can Wreath with Alcohol Inks

Aluminum Can Angel DIY

50+ Aluminum Can Crafts

25 DIY Awesome Advent Calendars to Make

by Johnnie Collier

Since the mid 1800’s, we have been counting down to Christmas with advent calendars, and the tradition continues. It is a favorite childhood Christmas memory for people around the globe. Get a jump start on your Christmas anticipation with this round-up of 25 amazing DIY advent calendars you can make!

DIY Upcycle Lighted Santa Bottles

by Johnnie Collier

This handmade Santa light-up bottle adds a warm and cozy feeling to any space for the Christmas season. This project requires a recycled bottle and drilling a hole in the lower backside of the bottle. Also required is a fun search for a Santa image. The choices are endless, ranging from recycled Christmas cards, magazines, printed images, and the imagination goes on. Most importantly don’t forget a strand of Christmas lights. Now let’s get started and enjoy the fun.

Materials for drilling a hole in glass

Drill
Drill Bit
Safety Glasses
• Facemask
Spray Bottle With Water

Directions

Drill a hole in the bottle. Through my research I found that using a 1/2 inch hole saw diamond grit drill bit works best for drilling a hole in a bottle. You can find this type of drill bit in most hardware stores and online.

Safety first: Wear safety glasses and a facemask to prevent eye injury and inhaling glass dust.
Starting on the backside and lower end of the bottle place the drill bit at an angle. This will allow you to start a groove in the bottle. Once you have the groove started you will begin to slowly bring the drill to an upright position. Apply pressure but not too much as this will cause the bottle to break. Periodically stop drilling and spray the drill bit and bottle where you are drilling the hole to keep the drill bit and bottle cooled off. This also keeps the glass dust level down while you are drilling.

Tip: I have also seen websites online where you can purchase predrilled bottles from suppliers.

Materials for Santa bottle

Empty Bottle (most types of bottles will work for this project)
Cork (optional)
Strand of Christmas Lights (20-30 bulb strand with a one-ended plug)
Santa Image (of your choice)
Raffia
Christmas Bells (two)
Glue
Water
Paintbrush

Removing labels from the bottle. Soak bottle in warm soapy water until the label is saturated with water. Use a putty scraper or a scraper with a razor blade on the end. Once the bottle is clean allow it to dry.

Tip: If the inside of the bottle has any residue from the drilling process you can tear off a small piece of a cleaning cloth and swish it around with the water in the bottle and that will help to rid of it.

Apply the Santa image. I prefer to make a mixture of Elmers glue and ¼ water. If the image is on thick paper this mixture will work well. If the image is on a thinner paper use a thicker consistency of glue (less water). Note: Other types of glue or Mod Podge products will work. Check your local craft stores to see what products they carry.

Measure the Santa image up to the bottle to insure the placement of the image will be where you want it. Using your paintbrush brush glue on the area where the image will be placed. Starting from the center of the image place your image on the bottle and gently glide your fingers from the center to outer edges of the image. Once you have the image glued down brush some more glue over the top of the image. Start this from the center working your way out as well. If any bubbles occur on the image you can smooth them out with your fingers from center to outer edges. Allow image to dry. Note: Once dry you can add glitter or a coat of crafting varnish on the Santa image.

Wrap raffia around neck of the bottle. Two or three strands of raffia will cover the neck of this size bottle. More strands may be required if your bottle is taller. Start by tying one end of the raffia around the neck of the bottle leaving a little excess on one end to tie off in the end of the wrapping process. Begin wrapping it fairly tight around the neck of the bottle. If your strand starts to run out tie the next strand to the one you started with and keep going until you have covered the neck of the bottle. Now tie off with the excess. Note: Twine, yarn, or ribbon can be used in place of the raffia.

Tying on the Christmas bells. Using another strand of raffia, tie the raffia around the top of the bottles neck, leaving a generous amount on both ends so that you can tie one bell on each end.

Place a cork in the top of the bottle. (Optional)
Inserting the strand of Christmas lights. Turn the bottle upside down to insert lights (this helps the light strand to flow more evenly throughout the bottle). Starting from the bulb end of the light strand insert each bulb individually into the bottle. Once you have your strand of lights in it is time to plug in and enjoy.

DIY Ornaments Christmas in July

by Johnnie Collier

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Hi everyone! It’s Colleen, from Just Paint It. You know, every year, it’s the same thing. I tell myself I’m going to do one Christmas project each month so when December comes, I’ll be ahead of the game by eleven projects or so. Every year I fail and right after Halloween the craziness starts and before I know it, the holidays are over and I find myself saying, once again, ‘next year will be different’.

If you’re like me, you’ll enjoy this project. Especially if you like giving handmade presents for the holidays. I love giving ornaments as gifts because it’s something most people will actually use. With this tutorial, you can make a few or more and start checking names off your list before school starts!

So let’s get started!

You’ll need some clear ornaments. These are plastic but glass will work too.

You’ll also need something to ‘tint’ the inside of the ornaments. I used Mod Podge Sheer Colors in aqua and green. It comes in a variety of colors.

You can also tint plain Mod Podge with food coloring and make your own colors.

You just pour the Sheer Color in, swirl it around a bit and turn the ornament upside on a plastic cup or something similar for the excess to drain into.

Now, I won’t lie to you, it takes a long time for this stuff to dry. I even thought I’d done something wrong but no, it just takes a while. I finally took a hair dryer, blew on both the inside and the outside of the ornament. Be careful though. Plastic can soften and glass can get hot!

A friend of mine suggested placing them into a bowl of rice overnight. Apparently the rice will absorb the moisture. Now I wish I’d paid attention in Science class.

Once the color has dried, take a cotton ball moistened with rubbing alcohol and clean the outside to remove any oil from handling them.

If there are any drips around the ornament’s opening, a utility knife will easily remove them. Then put the ornament hanger will fit easily.

You’ll want some place to set the ornaments while you’re painting them. A few split peas or beans in a bowl or the box they came in works great.

Of course, if you use rice to dry the inside then you’re all set.

To decorate the outside of the ornaments, I used Martha Stewart’s Multi-Surface Craft paint in Silver. Since it’s multi-surface, it’ll work fine on glass or plastic. But the other reason I love it is because they make these fine tip tops that screw right on to the paint bottle. Instant puffy paint or paint writer!

I used silver to match the ornament hanger but gold would be lovely too.

Like with anything, you’ll want to practice a bit – even though all we’re doing is basically dots. You still want to get a feel for the flow of the paint thru the tip.

It only requires minimal pressure on the bottle to get the paint to flow. If you have to squeeze it, get a straight pin or needle and remove the clog. Otherwise you’ll wind up with a spurt of paint when and where you don’t want it. Trust me on that.

There’s no right or wrong way to do this. I just start making dots, then I decide if I want to connect them with a line or not.

This is where having a place to set the round ornaments comes in really handy. Although I prefer holding them in my hand while I’m dotting them.

The silver will dry pretty quickly – nothing like the Sheer Colors. The paint will ‘cure’ after 28 days.

That’s all there is too it!

Now you have two less presents to buy. Unless you keep them for yourself.

I won’t tell. I promise.

Thanks so much for hanging out with me today! I hope you’ll come visit me at Just Paint It soon. You can also find me on Facebook, Google+, Pinterest and Instagram. And of course, I’d love for you to drop by my Etsy and Zazzle stores.

50 Plus Gorgeous DIY Flowers to Make

by Johnnie Collier

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Whether you are decorating for a DIY Wedding, spring our summer party, or simply want to make your space more beautiful, this roundup of DIY paper flower tutorials is a great place to start! We have gathered our 50+ favorite handmade paper flowers from all around, and you are sure to find what you need to add some zero maintenance, everlasting floral decor to any occasion. Enjoy!

DIY Crepe Paper Roses	diy giant closed crepe paper peony	3d Watercolor Paper Peony Flower
DIY Paper Hydrangeas	Paper-Bag Flowers	Paper Daffodil Bouquet
DIY Paper Tulip With Printable Template	DIY Crepe Paper Flowers	Make a Halloween Bouquet
Coffee Filter Flowers	Crepe paper flowers by How About Orange	PRETTY PEONIES MADE FROM CUPCAKE WRAPPERS
Lovely crepe paper ranunculus flowers	Paper Roses	DIY PAPER FLOWERS
How to Make Hydrangeas	Paper Flower Basket	WATERCOLOR FLOWERS
DIY Egg Carton Daffodils	Crepe Paper Flowers and Girls Valentine Boxes	Paper Flowers Wall Art
Paper Spider Mums	Martha Stewart cupcake liner flowers	Printable Spiral Rosette Template
GIANT STANDING PAPER FLOWER	DIY: OMBRE PAPER FLOWERS	Paper Flowers and Flower Light Strings
Tissue Paper Flowers	Paper flowers by Papercouture	Make a Paper Poinsettia Wreath
PAPER MUM PRINTABLES TUTORIAL	Make a Giant Spring Sign with Paper Flowers	Paper Flowers With Paper Punches
Monogram With Recycled Plastic & Paper Die Cut Flowers	DIY Coffee Filter Roses	Paper flowers by I Love This
Easy DIY Paper Daisies	Sewing pattern paper flowers at Country Living	Paper roses
Book Page Flowers	Flowers Made from Magazine Pages	vintage book page flowers
Glossy Paper Flowers	Food Coloring Dyed Cupcake liner flowers	Recycled Magazine Flowers
Red, White and Blue Paper Flowers	Cupcake Liner Flowers	Paper Flowers from Cupcake Liners
Paper Plate Gratitude Flowers	Inkling: crepe paper flowers	Crepe Paper Flowers

InLinkz.com

DIY Winter Felt Tree

by Johnnie Collier

Hi, I’m Vidya from Whats Ur Home Story. Very excited to be a monthly contributor at SBLC. I blog about how our family of 4 is turning a cookie cutter into a unique and interesting home that tells our story. I believe that no project is too small to try be it home decor, DIY, crafts, gardening, sewing, or organizing.

Today I would like to share with you an easy winter craft, a winter felt tree.

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I made both the trees myself but the one on the right is by far the easiest and most forgiving project I’ve done.

Materials

White Felt

Paper mache cone or you could make a cone out of poster board

Scissors

Glue gun

White craft paint and brush – not necessary but if you are a sloppy crafter like me you’ll need it.

Tutorial

Start by painting your brown paper mache cone white with the acrylic craft paint. This way the brown base will not show through any hot glue misses later on.††If you are using a poster board cone, skip this step.
Cut felt strips in varying widths. My cone was 14″ tall. So I ended up using four 1 inch strips, two 3/4″ strips, two 1/2″ strips, and a small 1/4″ strip. It is important to lower the width of the strip as you go up the tree to simulate the look of smaller leaves on the top and wider leaves on the bottom. These are not exact measurements, I just eyeballed them.
Cut out triangles on one side of the strip as shown below. Take care not to cut all the way through. Again no need to be precise here, just free hand.

When you make these you will end up with a lot of felt triangles (the parts that you remove from your strip). I didn’t want to waste these so for my first layer on the tree I hot glued each of these to the base. If you are not a fan of gluing each petal down you can start with the strip instead.

From then on hot glue each strip around the tree making sure there is some overlap between the layers.

Remember to switch to the thinner strips as you go up the tree. When you reach the top cut the extra felt off and carefully hot glue the felt to cover the pointy top.

No worries if there are any empty spots where the paper cone base is visible. You can use the extra triangles that you removed when you made the strip intially to cover up these spots.

Gently fluff up the ‘leaves’ and you are done!

Here’s it is adding glam to my rustic winter mantel.

Hope y’all enjoyed this fun wintery craft. For more easy DIY ideas stop by Whats Ur Home Story or follow me via Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, or Instagram.

How to make Christmas Stockings from Recycled Tea Towels

by Johnnie Collier

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Bringing you back a blast from the past. I am not a seamstress, it’s no secret. You will be able to whip up these adorable burlap, lace, tea towel stockings even if you are scared of your sewing machine! Enjoy.

These Christmas stockings are made from canvas tea towels from Target, the same towels I used to make this stenciled pillow a few posts ago. Two of the towels made all seven. If you are looking for a quick, easy, inexpensive sewing machine project for your stockings this year, you are in luck.

Supplies:

Tea towels or canvas drop cloth
Fabric Scissors
Stocking Template (click here for the one I used)
Pencil for marking fabric
Straight Pins
Jute or twine
Embellishments of your choice

Instructions:

Print stocking on to heavy paper and cut out
Iron fabric and trace stocking onto towel folded in half. I used the seams already in the towels as the top of my stockings. Cut shape from front and back halves at same time.

With right sides together, pin in place. Loop a 2 inch piece of jute on the top at the heel side for hanging your stocking and pin in place. Double back over the twine while sewing to make it extra sturdy.

Turn stockings right side out and embellish as desired. I printed on burlap for the text, pieces of scrap towel and lace on mine.

DIY Vintage Holiday Centerpiece With @Floracraft Foam Trees

by Johnnie Collier

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The holidays are here, and many of you are busy planning decorations and meals. Today I am sharing with you an easy DIY holiday centerpiece using vintage buttons, found objects and Styrofoam™ cones. This is the perfect project for using up those antique embellishments I can’t resist buying every chance I get!

This post is sponsored by Make it Fun: Crafts and Crafts ‘n Coffee! All opinions are mine.

SUPPLIES:

Styrofoam™ cones in 3 sizes

Hot glue gun

Vintage buttons, twine, lace, ribbon, doilies, hardware

Decorative eyelets, pearl and jewel stickers in creams, whites, golds and reds

Gold and white tissue paper

Mod Podge

TUTORIAL:

For the white button tree, I randomly hot glued buttons from the bottom to the top. I made a paper foil star with my Tim Holtz 3D star die and attached it to the top of the tree with a bamboo skewer. The end.

For the red tree, I did the same thing, but wrapped the tree in red organza before attaching the buttons and hardware. This was to prevent the white foam from showing.

I placed it on a candle holder as the stand. Using a gold sparkly mini clothespin, I attached a Christmas tag to the top and tied a bow around that with twine.

For the white and gold tree, I decoupaged gold and white tissue paper onto the cone using Mod Podge. I added a random piece of hardware with a vintage clothespin, and wrapped that with gold organza and black twine. It sits on an old jar lid (same jar that use to hold all those vintage buttons)!

Those pretty, warm lights you see in the background are Design it:® LED Light Strands, which I love because they are light weight and ready to go out of the package. No outlet needed or batteries to buy is always a plus in my book!

I hope you enjoyed this project as much as I did, and are inspired to make the old new again!

DIY Reclaimed Wood Christmas Tree and Advent Artist Blocks

by Johnnie Collier

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Today’s project is a rustic, reclaimed wood Christmas tree advent calendar that you can make for little to no cost! Building from salvaged wood and paper crafting all in one project! I created the blocks using Eileen Hull’s (soon to be released) Scoreboards Block dies. The die makes blocks in three sizes, for tons of creative potential. Think about artist trading cards, but 3-D! Last Christmas I showed you how to make an advent calendar from wooden blocks, and that is the first thing I thought of when I saw this die. Read on to see how I used stencils from Stencil Girl, spray ink, number stickers and washi tape to decorate my mat board cubes. Watch the video to make your own tree, or display your blocks freestanding. These would make great Christmas gifts and decor for your holiday get togethers.

SUPPLIES:

For the Blocks

Mat Board

Heidi Swapp Spray ink Gold, Green, Red

Stickles in red, green, gold

Washi Tape in Christmas Patterns

Stencils (I used Stencil Girl)

Mod Podge Antique

For the Tree

Scrap wood

Mitre Saw

Nailer or hammer and nails

Wood Glue

E6000

5 gallon paint stirrers

TUTORIAL:

ADVENT BLOCKS

You may want to decorate your cubes before assembling them into the 3D shape. First I will show you assembly, then how I decorated my cubes.

I chose the smallest of the three cubes for my calendar. This is what the mat board looks like after it is cut with Eileen’s awesome new die!

Fold cubes along score lines. Two of the scored rectangles are needed for each cube. Place them together to form the cube. You can glue the tabs in place if you would like, but I didn’t find it necessary with the mat board. I haven’t tried other paper.

Place stencils over blocks and spray.

Clean up excess ink that’s on the stencils for a reverse image on the blocks, and you waste less ink!

I used red, gold and green sprays, allowing about 10 minutes dry time between each color.

Once that dried, I adhered washi tape to some blocks, the black sticker numbers and coated with the front surface with Mod Podge Antique for an aged look. I thought it needed some sparkle, so I added stickles in red, green and gold.

RECLAIMED WOOD CHRISTMAS TREE

I made the tree like I showed you in this DIY wood pallet Christmas Tree post, and in the video at the end of this post. The only difference is I used chippy, weathered 2×4 scrap wood I found at a demolition site. I determined the dimensions of my tree based on the 1.5 inch advent cubes. The base is 19 inches, and the height is 20 inches without the frame.

I made the five shelves from paint stirrers, cutting them with the mitre saw to lengths that allowed 2 inches for each block. So the first one is 2 inches, then 6 inches and so on, 10 inches, 14 inches and finally 18 inches for the bottom shelf. I laid the tree flat and added a thin line of E6000 to the back of the paint stirrer and placed them on the tree where I wanted the shelves.

I decided to use scrap wood strips to frame the tree, just cutting to length with my mitre saw and using my Ryobi nailer to attach.

I hope you enjoyed the project and the blocks as much as I did! Visit Artists on the Block for more news, updates and projects as artist trading blocks take over the mixed media community!

Be sure and visit other projects using the blocks in the Stencil Girl and Sizzix Artist Trading Blocks Hop

Blog Hop Order

Leslie Tucker Jenison

Dollar Store Framed Reindeer Silhouettes

by Johnnie Collier

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This Dollar Store Christmas Decor DIY is super fast, cheap and pretty awesome looking. If you are looking for a quick way to create a festive Christmas feel for your holiday get together, this is your project!

All you need:

The sparkly, glittery reindeer come in 2 a pack for $1

Grab as many 5×7 frames as you will need

Foam Mount Stickers

Scissors

Christmas Patterned Paper

Instructions:

Cut out the paper to fit the frames and stick inside just like you would a photo.

Tape the reindeer to the outside of the glass with foam mount stickers, which you can get at any craft store and most department stores. You are ready to display! See, I told you it was fast and easy.

DIY Alcohol Ink Aluminum Can Christmas Wreath

Fall Leaf Aluminum Can Wreath with Alcohol Inks

Aluminum Can Angel DIY

50+ Aluminum Can Crafts

25 DIY Awesome Advent Calendars to Make

DIY Upcycle Lighted Santa Bottles

DIY Ornaments Christmas in July

50 Plus Gorgeous DIY Flowers to Make

DIY Winter Felt Tree

Materials

Tutorial

How to make Christmas Stockings from Recycled Tea Towels

DIY Vintage Holiday Centerpiece With @Floracraft Foam Trees

SUPPLIES:

TUTORIAL:

DIY Reclaimed Wood Christmas Tree and Advent Artist Blocks

SUPPLIES:

TUTORIAL:

Blog Hop Order

Dollar Store Framed Reindeer Silhouettes

All you need:

Instructions:

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SUPPLIES:

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