For this simple vase, I painted a spare mardi gras bead necklace with a pearlescent paint. This was a little tricky, since the plastic material of the beads is resistant to paint. After using several coats, you can still sort of see the gold through, but I think they look much better! I didn't want to hide the fun shape of this bottle, so I simply wrapped my faux-pearls around the bottle! I am thinking about making another by painting the inside...maybe a peach or a light blue? What do you think? |
For this easy project, I washed some used kitchen jars and made vases to hold some of my paper flowers (to see how I made them, check out this blog post). I have been making so many of these guys lately that I just needed somewhere to put them until I am ready to use them in other crafts (I think a wreath is in order!). The first of these three was made using a spare piece of lace and some twine. I simply wrapped the lace around the bottle and secured it in place with the twine. My lace is wrapped twice, which makes it stiff enough to support itself at the neck of the bottle. I also simply folded the excess lace ubdrneath the bottle. If you'd like a more transparant look, or have less lace, you could cut a measured amount and use mod podge to seal the fabric to the glass. Alternatively, you can stiffen lace with fabric starch to make a delicate vase minus the glass olive oil bottle. Similar to the above oilve oil vase, here I used a piece of burlap and secured it with twine at the top and bottom of the jar. Since burlap frays easily, I recommend cutting in between squares to get a straight edge. Also, as above, mod podge will seal the burlap in place and help prevent fraying (but make sure to trim any strings before you do this or they'll stay there!)
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I was feeling pretty proud of myself this morning when I checked on the seeds and saw so many little sprouts that I had to share with all of you. I've cracked the lid to my seed started and moved it from its former place atop the cabinet above my washer to the top of the washer itself--hopefully it will get more light there--but not too much! Now I just need to think about thinning out the seedlings....maybe for another morning!
I am laughing to myself a bit that I am posting this after a week of snowstorms here in NoCo--we sure did need the water though! With such a dry winter we were almost 8 feet below normal water levels in the beginning of march and now we're up to 90% (though the drought continues in the south). In any case, I am determined to think of spring!
To resolve one of my concerns, I decided to make tags for my seeds. I purchased some clothespins from the dollar store and painted them in fun colors. I decided to use magazine clippings to add labels (a la ransom note style). A little mod podge on the painted pin and a little on top sticks the letters and then seals them down. (If you are so inclined, mod podge makes an outdoor formula--but i just used the regular kind). I wasn't very fussy about letter placement, which I think is just fine--they work well and are pretty cute too!
After my pots were labelled, i added abother scoop of soil and covered the tray with the plastic cover. Now lets hope my seeds sprout! With spring finally underway (ish) here in Colorado, I've decided to attempt some gardening this year (wish me luck!). I have a few plants from my office that were started for me by some green-thumbed colleagues, but they're starting to overgrow their little pots (or cups of water...I'm a very devoted horticulturist, if you couldn't guess by now--the one in the mug is what've been taking care of myself--ha!). I've been staring at this little pot problem for a while--since fall really, (hey let's keep politics out of it! ba-dum-pum pssht!--okay, back to work) and spring, as well as some glaring from aforementioned colleagues, has finally convinced me to do something about it! I of course turned to our ever-steady friends, google and pintrest to get some crafty ideas for resolving my spacing issues. (I've shared some of my search results below!)
To begin, I took one of my little plastic pots and painted it white using some regular craft paint. I think a streaky look is okay here, so don't worry above completely covering the pot. Happy with my white, I added a bit of age to the pot by blotting it with gray paint.
Just blot till you're happy! I think mine came out okay, i may smear it a bit more next time--since I quite like the way the bottom looks on my finished pot. I tried not to fuss too much with the paint, since I'll be covering it anyway with this lovely toile print that I got from the interwebs. The image transfer is pretty easy to do with mod podge, although I recommend using a darker image than the one I am using here, since you will be loosing some detail with the transfer...also the ink color does change a bit, mine looks more blue in the finished project...but since I need to replace my printer ink, this is as good as it gets. Also, if you want to transfer words, remember the mirror effect and print backwards. Cover the whole image to be transferred in mod podge. I probably didn't use enough...I think in this case more is better, and allows more detail to be transferred. Make sure your painted pot is completely dry before you stick the image to the pot, mod podge side down. Be sure to center the image where you would like it before pressing it into the pot...if you try to move it after sticking, you may end up with wrinkles the way I have here. If you do have wrinkles, try to smooth them with your thumb and press all areas of the image into the pot. Let the paper dry completely. I have read that some people will speed up drying with a hair dryer, but since I was pretty tired at this point, I just let mine sit over night. I think it was probably dry much sooner than that, but in the end, laziness won out. The next morning, I dipped paper towel in water and completely saturated my image.
Here's the finished product! I added a little bit of paint to the corners of the image, using a paper towel to blend it. If you'd like, you can seal the pot with a top coat. Now I just need to decide if I should cover the whole pot with more toile ...I may just have to make more! Happy crafting!
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