Crafternoon: Painted Ornaments

I blogged about wanting to paint my own ornaments based on a DIY I pinned. The colors were irresistable, so I went to Michael's to get supplies. The clear ornaments were half off, so I scored a ton for less than $10. I bought large and medium-sized ornaments.



 The paint was on sale for $.79. I wasn't sure which type would work best, so I bought enamel acrylic, regular acrylic and gloss acrylic. The enamel acrylic was the thickest, requiring the most paint per ornament in order to spread, but it also provided the best coverage. The plain and gloss paints were thin, which helped because they were easier to spread through the ornament, but they also took longer to dry and some turned out streaky if I didn't work quickly and let them dry completely.



This project is so easy. Take the ornament cap off and squeeze a generous amount of paint into the ornament.





Then, I wrapped my thumb with a paper towel to cover the hole and shook, shook, shook until the paint covered the entire ornament.



Like I said earlier, it took a lot of shaking, especially for the enamel painted ornaments. A good forearm workout.



Then, turn the ornament upside down and let it dry. Excess paint will drip out of the cap. I let most of mine dry overnight, but for the last batch, I was impatient and only set them to dry for an hour or so. Put the cap hook back on the ornaments, and, voila, the ornaments are good to go.

Verdict: super easy and they turned out well. A+.

Fall wreath

I am ambivalent toward wreaths; I love the idea of a wreath, but most of those I see I don't care for. When I saw a tutorial for a modern fall wreath, I thought it would be fun to update our front door for fall with something handmade instead of buying one. Since I am picky, this tutorial allowed me to choose the colors and designs I used (well, at least to a point; I only looked at Michael's, and I'm sure there are other really fun patterned papers other places. I can't wait to find them!) While the start up cost of making one was high, I think it was worth it. I have some ideas for making several different sizes and styles for different seasons and holidays, and I will be sure to post them!


I got everything from the Michael's in Tallahassee; I plan to look at the Hobby Lobby in my hometown this weekend for more options of supplies. Here are a few pictures of the process:

And after a little bit of paint, Mod Podge and hot glue – and waiting for each of those things to dry – here is the finished wreath!

I'm really pleased with how it turned out! Anybody want a wreath made?

Scrabble tile magnets

When I moved into The Bachelor pad, I went crazy every time we got a fun piece of mail or letter because I would go to put it on the fridge of fame and we had no magnets! I decided to put an end to this catastrophe last Sunday and went on a craft excursion.

Since Hobby Lobby isn't open on Sundays, I went to Michael's and bought a pack of 50 circle magnets and a pack of strip magnets. I knew there wouldn't be enough circle magnets for all of my Scrabble tiles, but the cost of the circle magnets (about $5) wasn't worth buying another set of 50.

I also picked up a glue gun and hot glue sticks, since I had neither.



It was such an easy and fun project. I'm a Scrabble nut, and I got a new Scrabble board for Christmas, so I felt OK about using the tiles from the old game as magnets. I simply glued a magnet to the back of each tile and voila! about 70 magnets. It's so fun to write messages back and forth since we hardly see eachother. My sweet husbo's "I LOVE EMILY" looks great paired with the "BUNG HOLIO," don't you think? And did you notice the "SU" in the middle-left of the page? That was supposed to be "SUH," but I think I stole the H for "HOLIO." Jillian's drill team picture used to say "SBDT" in the corners, but A. changed it. Promise.