Week in Review and Blog News

                                                    


                                                  Here's a review of this week's posts.

 But before I get to the review I must tell you my blog will be down for about 1 month.  I will be traveling and will be without internet connection most of that time.  I will return to this blog on 

March 7,  2016.

I am sure I will be anxious to get back to many new projects by then.

I hope you all have fun with any crafts you are working on.

Now for the review.

Monday

Altered Canvas

Tuesday

Vintage Button Necklace

Wednesday

Shabby Chic Tray Redo

Thursday

Small Shabby Chic Tray Redo

Friday

Shabby Chic Tray Redo

Happy Weekend!

Shabby Chic Eiffel Tower Tray

For this project I used another of the Dollar Store silver trays.  But you could use any tray you have or one from a thrift store would work, too.

I found this image on Pinterest and sized it to fit the tray.  I also found a cute French graphic I added underneath.  I matted both of these images on a black scrapbook paper.

For the base image I used a map of France cut from an old Atlas, but I sure you could Google one that would work.

Across the bottom I hot glued a small silver bow and between the images I glued a piece of gold colored trim from my stash.

I glued white gimp all around the tray.  I also glued on a strip of bling, some dangling crystals, a couple of lace medallions and a few rhinestones.

For the hanger I hot glued a string of pearls to the back to hang the tray.

On the center of the Eiffle Tower I glued a metal filigree piece with a rhinestone in the center.

And here is the completed tray hanging on the wall.

Happy Crafting!

Small Shabby Chic Tray Redo

I started out with a small crate type tray.

My plan was to change it into a shabby chic vanity type tray.

I decided to use Graphic 45 Ephemera Cards I had left her from another project.  These cards are thicker than regular scrapbook paper.  I needed the extra thickness to mask the very rough bottom to the tray.

Here you can see where I dry fitted the Ephemera cards before painting my tray with an ivory chalky paint.

The tray only needed one coat of paint. Which I let dry before continuing.  In the picture below you can see how rough the wood was that needed to be camouflaged.

After gluing the card down with Mod Podge and letting them dry.  I coated the top of the cards with Mod Podge and let that dry again.

On each corner I added a lace medallion and a pearl at the top of each corner using hot glue. Then glued a smaller medallion in the center front and back.  I also glue a pearl to each of these.

Here is a closeup of the corner.  For the foot on the bottom I glued a very large pearl to each of the corners that I cut from a strand of Christmas garland I bought for half price at Target after Christmas.

I glued a row of smaller pearls inside each handle.

And the finished tray.  This is another of my favorite paper patterns.  I have already made a book and a couple of other projects using this "Gilded Lily" paper collection.

Hard to believe this was a rough wooden crate.

Happy Crafting!

Shabby Chic Tray Redo

I have had this boring brown wood tray forever.  I knew one day I would finally get around to giving it a makeover .

The first thing I did was to go on Pinterest and find a few images I wanted to use.  Then I decided on the sizes and resized the images using Picasa.

Here is the tray with one coat of pink chalky paint.  After the paint was dry I gave the sides a second coat of paint leaving the bottom with just one coat as I was going to cover the whole area with the images anyhow.

And then using good old Mod Podge I glued my images to the tray.  And let it dry.  

Next I mixed a peachy pink paint and using a small brush blended the edges of the images.

When the Mod Podge was dry I gave all the images another coat of Mod Podge and left brush marks in a criss cross random pattern.  Since it is impossible for me to get a smooth finish I decided a random pattern look better.

And here is the finished.  I will probably give the whole tray a coat of sealer and it will be ready to use.

Happy Crafting!

Vintage Button Necklace

We are having another great day of rain.  It is so wonderful to see our dams filling with water.  We have a long way to go before they are totally back to normal.

It is my hope that this will be the winter to end our terrible drought.  Sorry if I say that so much but no water is pretty serious and it is so hard to keep our 1/3 acre with a dozen trees alive with so little water.  Last summer we had to cut our usage by 35 percent.  We did it, but it required hauling a lot of buckets of water collected as the facets where heating up so not to waste a single drop.

  So toady while I stayed inside avoiding getting wet I was searching through my stash of vintage buttons and decided to create a necklace using some of the vintage shell buttons.

Here is what I used, 8 shell buttons of graduated sizes, crystals, seed beads, crystal spacers and cream colored ribbon.

Used 2 sizes of beads.

Also 4mm bicone crystals and crystal spacers.

Vintage shell buttons

Here is a close up as I was added seed beads.  I knotted the string between each pair of buttons and 4mm crystals.

A little further along adding seed beads.

Here is my transition from beads to ribbon.  I used crimp bead and covers, jump rings and beading wire covers to protect the wire.  I also used 8 pound nylon beading wire.

Finished necklace about 26" long.

Happy Crafting!

Altered Artist Canvas

Getting ready for Spring again, today.  I decided I wanted to do an altered canvas for the wall instead of a painting this time.

I started off with a blank white stretched artist canvas.

I went online and found a pretty floral picture for my altered canvas piece.  I sized the picture to fit a piece of printer paper.

original image

Then I cut out a piece of plain white tissue paper about an inch larger all around than the printer paper.  I centered the printer paper on the tissue, carefully folded all the edges to the backside and taped  it in place.  Next I ran this piece through my printer transferring the image to the tissue side of the paper.  Let the ink dry a bit and cut it off the printer paper along the edge.  Be sure if your image has any writing that you print it in reverse so it will read correctly when glued face down.  The reason I glued the image face down was to put the ink against the canvas to keep it from smearing when painting on the final heavy coat of Mod Podge.

I covered the entire canvas with an even coat of Mod Podge and carefully laid the tissue, ink side down, on the canvas, trying to avoid having any air bubbles.  I very gently dabbed the tissue with my fingers to adhere it to the canvas.  It is very fragile at this state.  So you need to use the very lightess pressure possible to avoid tearing the tissue.  I let that dry and then I painted the edges of the canvas with acrylic paints to blend with the picture and cover the white edges of the canvas.

Once the paint and Mod Podge where dry I coated the entire picture with a heavy layer of Mod Podge leaving brush strokes visible in the finish.

Here you can see the final coat of Mod Podge still drying. The image still has white areas that haven't dried completely,

These are the embellishments I am planning to add to the canvas when it is dry.  

In the final piece I also added a green butterfly to the top right corner.

Detail of added flowers and clear rhinestones.

More added flowers, rhinestones and copper colored flower stems.

And here is the finished piece with lace topped with the white cording to finish the lace's top edge , pearls and dragonflies hot glued to the bottom.

Happy Crafting!

Week in Review

Here's a review of this week's posts.

Monday

Peacock Feather  Wreath

Tuesday

Vintage Paper Crown

Wednesday

Lavender Earrings

Thursday

Vintage Drawer Pull Necklace

Friday

Bee Framed

Happy Weekend!

Bee Framed

I have had this little vintage golden frame in my stash for ages.  I ordered the wooden laser cut bee and filigree inner frame on line and it fit inside the frame perfectly.

I used Alcohol ink and gold paint to paint the bee and filigree frame.  I added 

large amber rhinestones to the frame and 2 small ones for the bees eyes.

For the background I used DCWV Primrose papers and then used distress ink to age the papers.

Bee close up

Added little pink flowers at the top of the bottom of the frame.

bottom view

I also added pieces of tea died seam ribbon perfect for my shabby chic frame.

top of frame

Happy Crafting!