Metal sheeting candleholders

Say that title three times fast.

Did you just say it? Me too.

Oh yeah, it’s about that time! The kiddo will be out of school in a few short hours and after that it’s staying up late, sleeping in, eating cookies, watching movies and all kinds of general holiday debauchery. Cannot WAIT!

This is my last project working with True Value this year and it’s one I’ve been wanting to try for eons. Seriously, I’ve walked by these metal radiator grates for years and years and always wanted to do something with them. They’re just so pretty! There are so many designs to pick from too.

I picked up the cloverleaf design at my True Value for this project:

(For you locals I go to the Pendleton, IN location.)

I had two projects in mind and started with the easiest one. The other one will have to wait but I think it’s going to be awesome. :) This time I made some pretty candleholders with it and I think they turned out pretty cool!

You can see the design on the metal sheet better here:

This one is a pretty brass/gold color but there are other finishes available as well. Isn’t that cool?

I used tin snips to cut through it but scissors work too (it’s very thin):

It’s a good idea to wear some hand protection (even SpongeBob gloves would work) while cutting – the edges aren’t crazy sharp but you need to be careful with it.

By the way, I held my glass holders up to it to see what size to cut it first. Don’t forget that part. :) I used some extra Goodwill cylinders (just like I used for the Christmas mantel) – I told you I had a ton of these! They are ALWAYS at my local GW.

When it was cut out I rolled it up a bit so it would start taking the cylinder shape – you need to kind of help it along:

Then I wrapped it around the glass to see where the back met up. I took it off and then used a simple line of wire to secure the two together:

I wrapped the wire at the bottom and the top of the metal to make sure it was going to stay put, and then just slid the metal “wrap” over the glass. That’s it!

I placed some simple votive holders with candles inside:

So pretty eh? I kept walking by them after I was done and oohing and ahhing to myself. They really are striking! I’m nuts over that metal design and the color. Of course you could spray paint the metal sheet any color you wanted too.

I think these look pretty for Christmas but they would work any time of year really:

Couple of things – if you have little hands around you may want to add some ribbon around the top or bottom if you think kids will try to handle them. Like I said, the edges can be a bit sharp (it really depends on where you cut them).

Also, you really don’t need to have the glass candleholders! You could just as easily just roll them up, secure the back together and then place a votive holder inside – you can’t really tell there’s glass there when all is said and done.

And finally, this metal sheeting isn’t cheap – I think $20-something each? I’m not sure. But I got three good sized holders out of it and had plenty left over to make another, so it goes further than you think it will.

Have you tried any projects with this metal? I’m planning my next one already…I’ll let you know if it works out!

I’ll be taking most of the next week away to be with family – I’m sure I’ll be back before the holiday, but just in case I don’t “talk” to you before then – I hope you have a WONDERFUL holiday season. Stay safe and enjoy your family and friends!

 

I was one of the bloggers selected by True Value to work on the DIY Squad. I have been compensated for my time commitment to the program as well as writing about my experience. I have also been compensated for the materials needed for my DIY project. However, my opinions are entirely my own I would have done this project anyway and I have not been paid to publish positive comments.

Easy Christmas paper craft

Guess what?! I’m a grandma. :) My stepdaughter had her precious, sweet, beautiful boy yesterday and we are over the moon for them. It was so emotional, more than I even thought it would be, to see him and touch him and know he is finally here. I only have a few pics since it was a crazy day but I want to wait to ask to her before I share any on the blog. (It didn’t seem appropriate to bring up my blog yesterday. Bigger things happening.) I’m sure I will (he’s too precious not to share) but it’s Mama’s decision to make.

I recently put together an ornament craft for my friend Kari’s blog but wanted to share it here too in case you didn’t see it. There seems to be a Christmas theme on the blog this week so I figured I’d just go with it. If you read this over at Kari’s you can just fast forward to see what I did with them all at the bottom. :)

This one is easy folks. There’s very little talent involved here, just good old gluing skills. The only part that takes time is the cutting, but I have a solution for that too.

So here’s the thing – I love using paper for holiday crafts. I do it at Halloween quite a bit (bats!) and I’m always thinking of ways to do more with it at Christmas. I love paper crafts for two reasons – you can get really creative with all the fun papers out there and they are SO easy to store since they barely take up any space. (You just want to be a little gentle with them.)

For these DIY ornaments I gathered some festive paper:

The red and cream are the textured cardstock – my favorite! Love that little extra detail.

To do this you’ll need “petals,” so I just free-handed one and then traced it to make a bunch more:

These do not have to be perfect! Is a flower petal ever perfect? Do they all match exactly? No. That’s why we love them. :) Once you get one petal you like you can just trace it over and over.

The trick to cutting out a bunch at a time is to layer your sheets of paper. So I would cut two or three strips out of one piece of paper and then lay the outlined part on top, then cut them out. Does that make sense? So instead of cutting out one each time I was cutting two or three. It helped a ton!:

Then you’ll want to do the same thing again, this time with slightly smaller petals. You won’t need nearly as many of these, probably half.

To start building your flower you’ll want to have something as a base you can glue on to. I just cut circles out of a paper plate, but anything will do:

Just make sure it’s not too big so that it shows behind the petals.

Then start making your flower! I used hot glue but regular glue would work fine. You just need a little dab on the back to make it work. I actually looked at photos of poinsettias to see how many “petals” I should use:

I put six larger ones on the bottom and then three on top. The middle is where I got creative:

I ended up using three jewels on them instead of one, to look more like a real poinsettia bloom.

I only used one piece of each color paper and got eight large flowers:

You can see here how I used a paper punch and scrapbook paper for the centers on some of them:

I kind of pulled the petals up on each one as well to give them some dimension – not a fold really, just a slight bend. I’ve folded the petals down the middle before to make them before and that makes them look even more authentic. But with this many it was going to take forever, so I went easy.

I added some little glittery jewels I found in the scrapbook area to the others:

Those are my favorites. I always say – I’m a non-scrapbooker who LOVES the scrapbook section. ;)

The best part? All of these were just a few bucks. The paper was less than a dollar (half off) for three sheets and the sparkly jewels were a few dollars with coupons.

OK, so my favorite thing about these is you can do whatever you want with them – to use them as ornaments just tuck them into the tree, no string needed! You could hot glue twine or ribbon to the back and turn them into a garland. Stick tape to the back and put them on windows, mirrors, whatever. Or make a bunch and create a paper wreath with them – the possibilities are really endless!

I ended up sticking them inside the Goodwill shadow box I first showed you here. I turned it on it’s side and it’s instant holiday art. :)

I love these things – they are so versatile and they take up next to zero storage space! Major score.

I’m off to squeeze the baby some more right now and then I’m hosting our annual ornament exchange tonight with my girlfriends. This girlfriend needs to clean her house. :)

Hope you have a wonderful weekend, stay warm!

A quick and easy holiday project!

OK, I feel SO behind this year with the Christmas decor! I mean we lose a week anyway, right? (Between Thanksgiving and Christmas?) And I usually have a decent start going before Thanksgiving. We got a couple trees up before our trip last week but not much else.

I’m determined to get it done this week – I’m just going to enjoy it and take my time. Have you started? Finished?

This is a fun little decor idea that I’ve shared before, but it has a Christmas twist and it’s SO easy I wanted to share it again.

In the past couple of years I’ve fallen in love with holiday-themed pillows this time of year. I just think they’re a festive addition, and all you do is toss. Toss, toss! (Name that musical.) Throw one or two on a sofa or chair and the room instantly feels Christmasy. Try it. It works.

Well the past couple of after Christmas sales I’ve picked up a few more placemats to make my favorite pillows EVER. Yes, placemats:

If you’ve been around for awhile, yes – I’m making more of these. Yes, I’m obsessed. It’s SO stinkin easy people. Even if you don’t sew I promise you can do it.

You need a placemat that’s double sided, so two pieces of fabric sewed together. A seam ripper makes easy work of making a hole in one side:

I usually open up about five or six inches, enough for me to comfortably get my hand inside to stuff it.

I use this poly-fil stuff:

You just pull clumps out and stuff it in the placemat. I used to kind of fluff up the filler before I stuffed but I don’t anymore. It take less than five minutes to get it stuffed – just make sure you get some into the corners.

I like them pretty fluffy so I use about 3/4 of that poly-fil on one. Then just sew up your hole:

Yes, I know – this involves a needle and thread. But I believe you can do this. :) It took me two minutes to whip that back together. It’s not perfect but I promise you no one will notice.

When you’re done you have a super cute, super cheap accent pillow for the holidays:

I have this whole process down to ten minutes now. :)

My pillow form (aka placemat) was $2 on clearance after the holidays and my filler was $2 and some change (with a coupon). Less than $5 for a fun little splash of Christmas!:

I think the selection of placemats and napkins is way cuter than most pillows I’ve seen. You can see here how I’ve done this with Pottery Barn linens to make much cheaper versions of their pillows.

And last year I used one of their placemats to knock off one of my favorite holiday pillows from Pottery Barn too:

SO much cheaper!

There you go – I may have a bit of a problem (I shop the linens section more than the pillow section), but it’s so much cheaper! Whoot! Have you tried this little trick?

P.S. My friend Kari at Ucreate had me over at her place to share a Christmas ornament craft. See what I came up with here!

Reindeer games

Hey folks! I’m going to keep this one quick because I have a cold and can’t focus on one thing too long. I looked for my keys for 30 minutes last night and looked for my phone for 20 minutes this morning. My brain is MUSH.

So earlier this week I took a break and went into TJMaxx for a bit. I found this lovely lady:

I put her on Instagram and mentioned I was going to glitter her up. I got some “Noooooo's” and some “heck yeah’s” and also a “I don’t think she’s a she,” which is true but it’s just to elegant to be a boy. So I’m saying girl. ;)

Anyway, I wasn't going to glitter all of her – just his her antlers. I used the bag to cover the rest of her up and then taped around the antlers:

To make this as quick and easy as possible I used this Krylon spray paint to glitter them:

 

OK -- I bought this a year or two ago and I don’t I’ve ever used it. These came out a couple years ago and I saw blogger after blogger had issues with this spray paint. I chose to believe that my can was different.

Well, it wasn’t. ;) It was a MESS. It sprayed great for a few seconds, then started sputtering and spraying all on it’s own. Then the glitter wouldn’t come out, just the coating stuff, and it was pretty much a disaster:

That’s actually the good side – the color was horrible, it didn’t cover well and just looked like butt. Not the look I was going for. I think this paint would be good to give something a light, glittery sheen, but I wanted more for this project. 

Then it wasn’t drying so I ended up trying to wipe it all off and it was just a science fair. (That’s what we say when something is a disaster. This qualifies.)

So I was on to plan B -- the more time consuming plan. I grabbed my glitter glue and silver glitter and started doing it by hand. I got this glitter tray at Michael’s this past summer and it worked AWESOME:

You can lay items on it to dry and then when done just take that top part off and there’s a hole in the corner so all the excess glitter goes back in the container. It worked great, I just wish it was a little bigger!

So, after about 20 minutes of glittering she ended up with some major bling:

I actually REALLY love how it turned out! She’s beeeeautiful! Yes, it was pretty to start, but I can never leave well enough alone, you know this.

The silver is SO pretty:

Who knows if it will last till next year, but for now she looks lovely:

Have you tried that glitter spray paint? Did you have the same problems I did? Have you started decorating for Christmas? This is my first piece – more will come out this weekend. :) By the way – have a great one!!

Counting down…

Well it snowed here last night so I’m just gonna talk about it…only 43 days till Christmas!!!

We’re holiday freaks around here (including my husband, the one who insisted on a 12 foot tree!!) and we unabashedly love this season and planning for it. The boy and I have been talking about our plan of attack on the holiday decor for a good week now. I know we have Thanksgiving to go still and yes, I honor that day plenty (and I’m thankful all year round), but I love Christmas most of all. So for today…we’re talking about it!

(Cause it snowed. It’s allowed now.)

Every year about this time I share a few advent calendar ideas so if you’d like to DIY (or order!) one, you’ll have plenty of time. Only 18 more days till December! Am I freaking you out yet? :)

Let’s start out with the tried and true – Pottery Barn never disappoints this time of year. And sometimes you (or is it me?) just want to buy something and not DIY it:

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I’ll take the white planked wall behind it too.

I believe it was Ballard Designs that did the advent pillow idea a couple years back, but I love this PB version too:

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I’ve seen DIY versions of that that I’m sure are much cheaper, but man, that would take a lot of time, right? I don’t know, maybe not.

I found this cute version on Etsy:

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LOVE the fun graphics on that one! You could do this yourself with spice tins and some wrapping paper as well.

I thought this version was lovely as well:

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So detailed and pretty right? I think I love these as much as the kids. (Can I get an adult version big enough for a margarita? No?)

OK, let’s talk do-it-yourself now! This one is pretty basic but kind of BRILLIANT:

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Any guesses as to what that is? Yep, toilet paper rolls. ;) You could also save the paper towel rolls and get a few out of each one I bet. I LOVE the idea of the kids breaking through the front to get to the treat. How fun is that? And you could easily dress that up – use colored paper or again, wrapping paper. You don’t even need to number them really.

And…you could make it into the shape of a tree perhaps? So cute.

My friend Beckie knocked off one of my favorite PB advent years back:

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She used tiny buckets from the wedding section at the dollar store! I looked for tiny buckets all over a couple years back – this is so smart. (I think a few come in a package so this could be done for under ten bucks easy.)

This idea is pretty cute too – using a muffin tin:

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From what I can tell you just cut out the paper (in circles or squares) and then glue magnets to the back. Pretty easy!

This one isn’t quite as interactive for the kids, but Laura’s advent art was so pretty I just had to share it:

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Isn’t that just beautiful? Sigh. Her fireplace always looks amazing too.

And finally, I made our advent calendar five years ago and it’s still going strong:

I usually just put the little boxes out but this year I may corral them into a tray or one spot. I don’t know, still need to think on that some more. It was a lot of work when I made it (but fun!) but it’s held up great!

My son LOVES seeing these come out:

Do you have an advent calendar? Have you made one? Feel free to share a link to your DIY versions in the comments!

Quick and easy Halloween

Hello all and happy Halloween! We’re expecting heavy storms tonight so Halloween has been moved to tomorrow night throughout much of Indiana. Have you ever heard of such a thing – Halloween moved? I’m glad they’ll still get to trick or treat but it better rain like heck tonight. ;)

I don’t know what it was this year but I haven’t pulled out as much of the Halloween stuff. I had some fun crafts in mind but just plain ran out of time to do them. Next year I’m going to plan better and start earlier. (Says the girl who says that every. year.)

We’ve had the outside decked out for weeks and a few things inside, but last night the Bub was feeling better so I pulled the bins in and I let him put stuff wherever he wanted. He had a BLAST and could care less that it will only be up for a couple more days.

I thought I would share some of my projects from the past so you too can plan ahead of time for next year if you’d like to try them out. If you have time and all. ;)

I use a LOT of paper for Halloween decor. The BOO letters are just cheapy wood from the craft store covered with Halloween paper:

I used my vinyl cutting machine to cut out a ton of black bats (out of black paper) and I reuse them every year:

I also cut out spiders and webs and I put those on the inside of the lamp shades:

You can only see them when you turn on the light. So cute!

And yes…I put the mice on the stairs again this year, even after the mouse debacle:

It’s part of my healing process. ;)

The bonus to all the paper is that it’s super easy to store year to year!

Last year I tried a new idea and it turned out well at first:

You’ll have to see the how-to to see how it turned out. It was SO cute though.

A few years back I made mummy votives:

Again, a super easy and cheap project!

I used the computer and printer (and some spray paint for the frames) to make some Halloween art a few years back:

And I free-handed a ghost shape on contact paper and put it on a mirror:

I still use him every year! :)

And here’s how the Bub decorated this year – I found Stan the Skeleton in my office:

Stan scared me to death when I walked in here this morning, not even kidding.

He decorated the TV dresser quite well, I must say:

I especially loved the little touches like a skeleton head perched on top of the spider:

We have a lot of stuff hanging on door knobs:

He made sure to position this guy with his hand up:

Still not sure why but he’s wavin’ it around like he just don’t care.

He ran out of door knobs so moved on to other areas to hang stuff:

And the mantel is positively spooky:

He did good, right? Sometimes I lose sight of the fact that he could care less how it all looks – it doesn’t need to be in a perfect vignette to make him happy. He had SO much fun running around decorating last night. I think we’ll do this every year. :)

Hope you have a wonderful, SAFE Halloween! We’ll be carving our pumpkins tonight since we won’t be trick or treating till tomorrow. Happy Halloween!