DIY Felt Pine Cones

So I tried searching for a way to make felt pine cones...well...in the end I took several ideas and put them together and this is what I came up with.

Here's what you'll need:

Hot glue and gun

Scrap paper

Brown felt
Bottle cap

Tim Holtz On the Edge die--Brackets
Tim Holtz Tattered Florals
Sizzix machine

Here's a video to show you how to make them:

You you liked this video! Good luck on your project! Thanks for stopping by!

Spooktacular! A Printable Mini Scrapbook

Well here it is...my newest printable mini...Spooktacular...and in case you didn't realize it a Halloween theme! Check out the YouTube video.

As I've done before...I'm giving away this mini for FREE!!!! This time you decide how you want it! Do you want it pre-made? Do you want the FREE download? Do you want me to send you a printed out kit (which I will get printed at a place like Staples since my printer is cooperating with me)? You decide. And to make this entry a little easier...all you have to do is comment on this post. I will pick a random winner on Halloween! Good luck, everyone!

Pinspiration Sunday: Upcycled Book into Pumpkin

Since my best friend, Angela, and I raided a yard sale scooping up a ton of old Reader’s Digest books, I’ve been looking for projects I could do with them. Making a pumpkin seemed like a really great idea…at the time….I only say that because it’s a long tedious project. Just like my recycled book into keepsake box, this involves a lot of time cutting pages with an xacto knife.

Well anyways…let’s get started, shall we? First things first gather your supplies

I used:

Old Reader’s Digest book

Pattern from BHG—cut out

Valspar's La Fonda Copper Spray Paint

Acrylic Spray Sealant

Cinnamon stick

Burlap

Tattered Angel’s Glimmer mist

Lace/ribbon

Hot glue and gun

First I removed the cover and binding from my book (and put it away for safe keeping so I could do something with it later on). 

Next put my pattern on the book, traced it and started cutting away…this takes FOREVER…and with my RA, it didn’t feel so good on my wrist…but after awhile (for me I did it in stages over many days) you cut through all the pages and you have something that looks like this:

Now it’s time to start hot gluing pages. First, you want to glue the first and last pages together to make the pumpkin fully round. Next, you take a strip of hot glue along the binding, top to bottom, throughout the book. This helps separate the pages a little to make the pumpkin fuller. 

Space between the first and last page--glue these together

Start gluing between pages at the binding--make it full all the way around---fill in gaps

After, I did this, I sprayed the entire thing with my orange spray paint. I tried to separate pages so that the color would get on the inside as well…I was covered in paint by the end but the pumpkin looked good. I let that dry overnight. Then I carefully separated any pages that got stuck together from the paint and I added more hot glue along the binding to help separate pages as needed. Then I sprayed the pumpkin with my acrylic sealer. After that dried it was time to add the finishing touches. 

I took a cinnamon stick and broke it in half, and stuck one half in the center opening of the pumpkin top. I had some burlap leaves on hand that I made up a while ago using mod podged burlap and Tim Holt’s tattered leaves sizzix die. My leaves were in neutral colors so I decided to glimmer mist it using Tattered Angels leapfrog glimmer mist.

 Once that dried (I hurried it along with my heating tool), I hot glued it into place. I finished it off with a piece of lace ribbon that I tied around the pumpkin’s stem.

And there you have it…a pumpkin upcycled from a book! Hope you enjoyed this tutorial! Thanks for stopping by!

Pinspiration Sunday: BOO! Sign

So I've seen a lot of signs on Pinterest that say "BOO!" And I finally decided it was time to make my own. Everything I used in this project I already owned...whoo hoo! So here's how mine turned out:

Mine got a little bigger than I was originally aiming for. Here's my original pin:

This beautiful sign was for sale in an Etsy Shop called PeaceGlitzNGlam but has since sold.

I began my project with 3 wood pieces...I have a ton of these because I came across them one day in ACMoore and they were only 25CENTS!!!!! 

I painted the fronts and sides with black craft paint and a sponge brush. I use sponge brushes whenever I can. They are crazy cheap and great to use and toss especially when working with Mod Podge!

After they dried it was time to cut the burlap. I happen to have a strip cut from a prev project which also happen to be the perfect width. All I had to do was cut the length. Burlap frays so easily...so here's a tip: pull one or two fibers out from the area you want to cut, then cut through that area. See the picture below? I pulled a thread out. then cut along that open space.

I did this for all three wood pieces. Then I covered the wood pieces with Mod Podge and pressed the Burlap on top to secure.

Next, I cut out letters using the Happy Hauntings font on my Cricut Craft Room and some creepy spider paper I had left from a previous Halloween mini album.

I decided then to ink the edges using Tim Holtz distressed ink in Peeled Paint. But after I started inking the edges, I decided to blend and cover the entire letter. I knew that I wanted to use 3D adhesive dots to help the letters stick off the wood pieces, but my paper was really thin. So I decided to laminate them. This also helped me to ensure that my sign could last through the years.

For some reason I decided to take this project even further. I had this picture and frame that I bought at a thrift store months ago for $1 or $2.

I pulled all those staples out.

Then I tried painting the front with craft paint. But I realized it was going to take A LOT of coats to cover it. So I flipped it over and painted the back. 

I had this bottle of crackle medium...it's a very OLD bottle...but I gave it a shot...

After covering the frame with the crackle medium and allowed it to dry, I painted the frame black.

It worked...okay...but it's supposed to look grungy so it worked for me! By the end I went along some ridges and edges of the frame with silver craft paint too. While that dried I finished off the "picture" part. I knew I wanted something else for the background...plain purple just wasn't going to work. I thought about drawing some spiders on...but then I looked through my lace and I had a small piece of black that was just a bit longer than what I needed! WHOO HOO! Perfect! I covered the purple area with Mod Podge and pressed the lace on top to secure. Then I cut the excess off the ends.

Once it was all dry, then it was time to put the background back into the frame. I secured it with nails I had in a tool kit and added a picture frame hanging bar thing (technical name, I'm sure) to the back. Next I hot glued the wood pieces into place. The hands came from a bag full that I got from Michael's (and they have them this year too)!

Hope you enjoyed this tutorial! Thanks so much for stopping by!

Fabric Flower Tutorial

As I stated in my first YouTube video, I'm going to show you how to make a fabric flower using the Tim Holtz Tattered Florals die. This is a very simple, easy and fun project! Let me know how it works out for you!

Thanks for stopping by!

Pinspiration Sunday: 52 Reasons Valentine's Day Gift

With Valentine's Day just around the corner, I thought I would share what I made for my husband this year. I had originally got this idea years ago after Googling Homemade Valentine's gifts. Then I thought about making it this year and decided to search Pinterest for ideas. I came across this photo.

My hubby likes robots...A LOT..and so I decided that I wanted to do a cover similar to this one. I went searching the web to find just the right image I could use. There are TONS of images out there. I was shocked and amazed by the variety. I finally decided on a Photobucket image called Robots in Love. It was simple and cute and the image was long instead of wide which worked well for me because I wanted my book to open from side to side instead of bottom to top. Then it was time to gather supplies. Here is a list of things I used to make my book:

Full Deck of cards (I bought a Breast Cancer awareness deck which had pink instead of red...which I just LOVED!)
sand paper
Tim Holtz paper distressor
crop-a-dile
binding rings
ribbon
ink in red and black
burlap
ATG adhesive gun
and 52 reasons why you love someone

I bought my deck of cards but I wanted it to look old and used, so I took each card and distressed the edges with the Tim Holtz Paper Distressor. Next I used the sand paper and sanded both sides of each card. Then I took a couple cards at a time and punched holes on one side for the binding. I would use one of the cards already punched to line up another stack of cards. I repeated this until all cards had holes. Next I put the binding rings on and cut some small pieces of black ribbon and tied them to the binding rings for decoration. Then it was time to decorate the rest of the book. I used the Joker cards as my cover pages. I used the ATG gun to adhere the burlap to the front and back. I used the image and added text in Microsoft Word to make my cover. I just printed it out and tore around the edges. (It took several tries until I got the font size right so it would fit on the cards) I also typed out my reasons on Word. I inserted a table with 4 columns and 3 rows. I centered the text using the font Minya Nouvelle in size 18. I then tore out each reason. I inked the edges of the ones I used one the black cards with red and black ink on the pink cards. I used the ATG gun to attach the reasons to the cards. Here's some pictures of the finished project: