Crafting: September 2011 Archives

Martha Stewart really knows her stuff. Her new line of yarn from Lion Brand is wonderful! The weights, textures and colors are absolutely Martha- and by that, you know I'm indicating that they are awesome. One yarn that caught my eye is this Lofty Wool Yarn. The super bulky weight and essentially single texture with a small fiber ply makes this yarn versatile enough for knitting and crochet projects, as well as crafts.

A great orange color is featured in the collection, "Autumn Leaf".  Immediately I was inspired by a yarn wreath. I have seen these yarn wreaths before but I have never done one myself. They are so easy! I bought a Styrofoam rounded wreath base from the floral craft section at my local craft store. Tightly wrap the yarn all the way around, knot it off to secure and boom, done! I was astounded to find that one ball of Lofty Wool Yarn was EXACTLY enough to wrap a 12'' wreath. I had 4'' of yarn left over...that exact.

For the embellishments, I used a variety of Riley Blake ribbon and trims to make rugged little flowers. No sewing involved! Take a sewing pin and gather the ribbon (click here for video demonstration) and stick it to the wreath. You can use this technique with all kinds of ribbon for all different flower effects- I used pom pom ribbon, lace ribbon, grosgrain and ric rac. Since its Styrofoam, the pins are great because you can rearrange and replace! 

When a new holiday rolls around I don't really get in the mood until I have decorated my house. While I do love to decorate my home, making the decorations is even more fun. This year I decided my Funkins just were not FUN enough so I spiced them up a bit with Glitter after I saw this idea on Martha Stewart's Craft site.

While I love Martha's glitter color choice in the video, I felt it was too tonal for me so I spiced it up a bit with green, red and orange (yes, despite what I just said about tonal, but it is a bright orange). And I set to work. I had a blast, a glitter obsessed, pumpkin decorating, Halloween loving, blast. All you need to make your own are a few pumpkins, real or fake, some white glue, glitter in several colors (Martha makes the best- really branches out of the primary colors), a medium sized art brush (doesn't need to be fancy), some newspaper/craft paper, a cookie sheet and a place to work. You want to lay out the newspaper/ craft paper on the cookie sheet. This will be your main work area to catch all the extra glitter. Paint your pumpkin's skin with the glue and then cover it in glitter. You can do it a number of ways, roll it in the glitter, sprinkle it with glitter, brush it on, etc. Whichever works best for you. Once covered, set your Glitter Pumpkin aside to dry and get to work on the next with another color. This project is good for kids over the age of 6 because of potential for huge messes.

Since they were big pumpkins, it did take a while to get each covered but because I went with the fake pumpkins, I can use them each year. I am also branching out into other glitter covered objects for Christmas (apples), Chanukah (also apples but in blue or silver), Thanksgiving (Gourds), New Years (Pomegranate), or Easter (Eggs). I already have many of these items laying around just looking for a second life. My only real decision and purchase is lovely glitter. I think I need a stash of glitter as well as yarn and fabric!

Picture it. Kristl from the merchandising department handed me a stack of frames and let me "go wild" with my craft imagination. I went home and starting searching through my craft boxes to see what I could use to jazz up the photo frames.

I located some completed yo-yos, fabric, stickers, ribbons, costume jewelry, and buttons. Once I found my trusty glue-gun and season one of the Good Wife, I was ready to start crafting.

Yo-yo frames:

I opened my tote of completed yo-yos from last year and pulled out some blue and brown yo-yos to adhere to the photo frames. All it took for this size frame was 10 yo-yos that I strategically placed on the frame. I put a couple dabs of hot glue on the fabric and then pressed the hot glue to the frame. This was extremely simple and helped create a fun fabric photo. 

Fabric frames:

After my success with the fabric yo-yos, I thought that I would adhere fabric directly to the frames. That way, I could have an entire frames covered in fabric. This turned out to be a disaster! The frames had a polished finish. I could not paint them - the paint would not adhere to the slippery frame. Then, I used decoupage to get the fabric to stick. This did not turn out well - the fabric was wider than the insert to put the glass back in, I couldn't get it to line up correctly and it bunched up when it dried. I think someone with more patience and a finer cutting tool could make this work.

Ribbon/Sticker frames:

This was my least favorite of the finished frames, but I think it is because I started this out incorrectly. I learned from the fabric that I would need to be careful with the ledge so I could stick the glass back into the frame. I started winding the ribbon around, but could get it to look nice on the corners. So, I cut strips of ribbon and used hot glue in order to keep the ribbon flat on the frame. I added owl stickers as embellishments. Of all the frames, I think this looks the "cheapest" but all I needed was a frame, ribbon, hot glue gun and stickers to make this.  

Button frames:

This was the easiest of all the frames. I pulled out my button jar, which was organized quite well by my nephews and nieces a few weeks ago by color. I used pink and brown buttons, putting hot glue on the back and pressing down against the frame. I made a second row of buttons on top of the first, adhering them with hot glue.

Jewelry frames:

This one turned out to be the favorite at the office. I took old costume jewelry that I picked up at a flea market for this type of project. I tore it apart and then added it to a picture frame, hot gluing it all down. This frame is by far the heaviest, but looks the most unique (in my humble opinion). If I had more beads or chains, I think I could have made a consistent design. 

Craft safety first! I spent a bunch of time with my glue gun and actually burned myself this time... those glue guns are unforgiving. Look forward to hearing how things went for you!