Crafts

Hello again! With school over, I should finally have some more time to keep up with my blog. In the meantime, I'm behind! I thought I'd share some crafts I've done over the last few months, where the ideas came from and the changes I made from the originals.

Over the summer, I made this book page wreath:

I used an old book from undergrad (The Plantation Mistress), cut the pages into spirals to make flowers, and hot glued the flowers onto a Dollar Store wreath. I already had the frame and tulle. I know those things all cost money at some point, but to me, this felt like a $1 project! Making those roses took forever though...not gonna lie! I got my inspiration here. The original is so perfect looking, but I made mine with different sized roses to add some interest.

Halloween rolled around, and I made this witch wreath:

I followed this tutorial. I actually bought the stuff for it last year (tulle, ribbons, felt, wood plaque, and paint) but never got around to making it. Again, pretty cheap, the plaque was like $2, I bought cheap paint, the spray paint was about $7 I think, but again, I have used it for several things and still have a lot, so well worth it. Probably about $20 all together, but I have lots of ribbons, paint, and tulle left over for other projects. And, as you can see by the name, I decided to give it to my sister since she loves Halloween! The blog I found this on said to glue the tulle to a wreath, but I just left the wreath out to save the expense and glued the tulle to the plaque.

I also saw this neat pumpkin and had to make my own:

This was a Dollar Store pumpkin and 3 packs of Dollar Store gold thumb tacks, so a total of $4. Those were 300-count packs of thumb tacks, so again, time-consuming! Also, slightly heavy from all the tacks! Here is a work-in-progress shot:

If I were to do it again, I would probably spray paint the pumpkin first so the orange wouldn't be as hard to hide, and I would work from the bottom up because apparently the angle at which I push in the tacks is a bit upward and the pumpkin actually looks a lot better turned upside down. Oh well, next time!

I decided I needed more stuff on my walls (and still do...they are still pretty bare after 3 years living here!), so I made a starburst mirror:

My inspiration was from here. The picture is of the mirror sitting on the floor because I hadn't decided yet where to hang it when I took the picture (ended up in the master bathroom). The mirror was a mirror candle plate from the Dollar Store (did I mention I love the Dollar Store??) and the skewers were a pack of 100 for $1 at Wal-Mart (I do NOT love Wal-Mart, but I couldn't find them anywhere else). Just hot glue them to the back of the mirror! The blog said to cover the mirror when done to spray paint the skewers, which I did, but next time I will just spray paint the skewers first while they are all lined up together because spraying the skewers all fanned out on the mirror I think wasted a lot more spray paint. I just glued a piece of cardboard on the back and cut a little notch out (notch not in the picture) to hang the mirror:

I plan on making 2 more of these to hang next to it, and I'll cut down the skewers on each so that all 3 will be different sizes. $4 for all 3 starburst mirrors, not including the spray paint from the other projects.

And finally, Ben got to dress up for Halloween at work, so we made this lego piece which he wore around his neck hanging over his stomach:

Cardboard box, bottoms of red Solo cups, hot glue, red spray paint. I thought this was quite funny. :)

I have the materials bought and ready to go for about 5 other craft projects, so I'll blog about those once I get around to them.

Happy crafting!