Miniatures in a Jar

Let's make this awesome little waterless snow globe shall we?  It would make a sweet addition to your holiday decor and it's a little reminiscent of Narnia, isn't it?

*Pssst... if you like this project, be sure to check out my miniature winter scene in a book, and my wee garden in a teacup.

Onward!

Glittering Musical Ornament

As you may have seen in a recent post, I had the pleasure of guest posting over at Craft Snob this past week as part of the November Handmade Ornament Parade.  There are some fantastic creations over there, so I hope you'll go check some of them out!  As for mine, I'm finally sharing it here!

It may look like a normal ornament.  Glittering with utter lovelyness, granted... but what's so special?  It's a music box!  What a wonderful gift for someone (or yourself of course).  I will be making one for a certain someone in my life who seems to have 'everything' and is almost impossible to shop for.  I think most of us have someone like that in our lives.

Materials:
Music box workings
Mod Podge / brush
Glitter
Box cutter
Drill
Glue

Make sure your music box workings will fit into your ornament and that the wind up key will be able to come through the side with enough room to wind it up.  I chose to use a flatter style plastic ornament for this reason. I purchased it at my local craft store for super cheap.  Sometimes you can find them at the dollar store as well.

My music box workings are from Tuned Teeth, but you could recycle the workings from a music box rescued from the thrift store too.

Drill a hole in the ornament where you want the turn key to be.  Make sure the hole is a big enough that it wont interfere with the movement of the key.

Cut the ornament open.  I used a box cutter and it worked great.  I didn't cut through the neck of the ornament.  Just cut around the sides enough to get the music box inside.

This is the ugly part!  Glue the ornament to the inside.  Don't be skimpy.  I used E-6000 which is an awesome adhesive available at your local craft store, applied with an old paintbrush.  I then used it to glue the ornament back together.  Hard part over.  Go have some tea while it dries.

Coat the entire ornament with Mod Podge.  Load on the glitter!  Who doesn't love a little glitter?  Especially during the holidays!  Once it dries, make sure there are no naked spots.  If there is, do another layer of Mod Podge and glitter it again.  I got my glitter from the dollar store.  Try mixing various shades of the same colour glitter together.  It will look even more awesome when the light catches the different shades.  PS, I took off the turn key before this step so it wouldn't get covered in glitter.

I know, you're thinking, 'What the heck did she do to it!'.  Listen up, this is important.  Yes, we love glitter.  But do we love getting glitter all over the place?  On our hands, face, clothes?  Not really.  So this is my biggest tip.  Once you've got your ornament 'glitter-fied', give it a final coat of Mod Podge.  It will dry clear and it will still sparkle.  I promise!  And, no glitter transfer!  Once it's dry, glue the ornament top on and screw on the turn key.

Serious.Glitter.  And it sounds lovely too!  This one plays, 'Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas'.  And just in case you are wondering, the sound is clear and crisp, not muffled at all by being in the plastic ornament.

I hope you enjoy making your own!

Featured on Craft Snob's, Handmade Ornament Parade!

Oh Christmas Cards... What to do With Thee?

It's starting!  We'll be sending and receiving Christmas cards making our mailboxes happy with something other then junk mail for a few short weeks of the year.  But what the heck do we do with them all?  I hate throwing out cards... but once the moment has passed.... what use are they?  For my most treasured cards, I like to do this....

Binder style rings are available pretty cheap from office supply stores and are perfect for making little card book keepsakes for yourself!

Start with your smallest card and punch holes in it where you want the rings.  Then, transfer those measurements over to the next card by placing the punched card over the next one, put a dot where you need to punch the holes.  Do this with all your cards.  No rulers needed.

Punch all your cards with a hole punch and put them on the rings.  Now you have a special little holiday book of cards that you can bring out each year instead of having piles of them all over, cluttering up your mantle! 

If you can't find binder rings, ribbon or yarn is always an option too!  Keep this in mind for birthday cards, weddings, engagements etc!

Pass it on :)

Guest Post on Craft Snob

I am delighted to say that I am participating in a very cool Ornament Parade over on Craft Snob that has been taking place throughout the month of November.  I'd love it if you head on over and check out my little  contribution to this amazing parade of talent in blog land!  There are so many sweet and creative idea's to inspire you to get you craft on this holiday season!


Here is a sneak peek from my post... this is all I can show you for now!  So if you want to see the entire project in all it's glittering wonder, go check it out!  I'd love to hear your thoughts on my little creation :)

~ Amber

Guest Post at Randee's Organized Chaos!

Hey everyone!  So my little felt Gingy House is making a guest appearance over at Randee's Organized Chaos today!  I hope you'll go and check it out!  Thanks again for having me Randee!

For any of you popping over from the Chaos, I hope you'll stick around for a bit and check out SaltTree!

Ugly to Fab - Dollar Store Bird Redo

I think almost any crafty person frequents the dollar store looking for cheap ways to feed their crafting habit.  I'm in there all the time when Christmas starts approaching.  There is so much stuff and they are always putting out more and more fun holiday decorations!

I found these birds.  They are ugly, but it's not their fault.  Cheap plastic with obvious seems where it was glued together, and plastic hair for a tail.... poor thing!  Time for a little stash busting :)

I pulled off the cheap plastic tail and coated the bird with Mod Podge.  Mixed up some glitter.  I almost always use more then one colour as it gives it more colour depth, this was wine red and copper mixed together.  I did two coats of glitter to be sure it got even coverage.  After it dried, I gave a top coat of Mod Podge so the glitter wouldn't transfer onto things.  And yes!  It still sparkles!

I had a stash of peacock feathers that I purchased off of Pick Your Plum.  It's a great site that offers daily deals on craft supplies.

Glued a few feathers into the end where the plastic tail used to be.  Soooo much better!  Don't you think?

I think they are super pretty :)  I made six in total, two of each colour.  Not bad for a total of $3.00.  They could go on the Christmas tree, on a gift in place of a bow, or anywhere else really that needs a little prettying up!

Check your dollar store!  They always have birds of some sort... sometimes, they just need a little help! 

Glitter combo's used (equal parts of each);
Gold Bird:  yellow gold, pale gold, champagne and silver
Teal Bird:  blue, green
Wine Bird:  wine red, copper

Felt Gingerbread House Ornament

I recently saw some adorable ornaments in a store while browsing the holiday aisles.... I do love Christmas!  I knew I could make it, cheaper but better.  So follow along and I'll make this short and sweet :)  A felt gingerbread house holiday ornament.  And, it's NO SEW.  Let's go!

Materials needed;
1 sheet of brown craft felt (9x12)
1 sheet of white craft felt (9x12)
Scraps of various colours of felt or other decoration of your choice
Glue gun / glue

I put all the steps into a montage of sorts.  Read below for descriptions of the steps.

1.  Cut out your felt pieces as per the template provided at the end of this post.  Part's A and B will be the house colour.  I used brown for this.  Parts C and D I used white for the snow.
2.  Start with parts A and B.  Apply a bead of hot glue along the felt, almost at the edge, starting from the peek of the roof.
3.  Stick part A, to part B like shown in the image.
4.  Run another bead of glue down what would be the side of the house, gluing it at the edges with piece A.
5.  Continue wrapping and gluing piece A around piece B.
6.  Before you get to far, start gluing on the back of the house (the other B piece) using the same method.
7.  Stuff the house with something foofy.  Use whatever you have, cotton balls, tissue... I used a plastic grocery bag.
8.  Glue the roof closed.
9.  Glue on the 'snow', pieces C goes over the roof and D goes at the peak on the front and back.

All that is left is the decorating!  There are no rules here.  Do what ever makes you happy :)  I cut out some little windows and candy for the snow covered roof.  You could use beads, glitter or even pipe cleaner to decorate it.  To finish it off, I threaded a piece of ribbon through the top so it could be hung.

Enjoy making your own gingerbread houses!  And PS, there are no rules to say you have to make your house brown ;)

Template available here, (There are two pages, so be sure to get both of them!).
Gingerbread Template pg1
Gingerbread Template pg2


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An $8 Fix for that Old Fridge

We were thoughtfully given a fridge by my in-laws for our basement.  I'm not sure about you, but one fridge just doesn't seem to cut it for a family that eats lots of fresh foods.  The catch?  It's so very old... and not good retro old... more like not quite cool looking late 80's old.  But... it works fantastic and is in great condition. 

So what does one do when one is stuck with an eyesore of an old fridge, in a newly finished basement, with no where to 'hide' it?

You stop trying to hide it and make it pretty!  Bye, bye 80's almond, hellllooooo beautiful!  Ugh, I still can't believe this is my fridge.  I love it so much now!  Here is what I did...

I picked up a few rolls (four to be exact) of adhesive paper from my local dollar store (Dollarama).  Grabbed my handy ruler and a sharp cutting blade.  There was no science or exact method to this... cut the paper and stick it to the fridge.  Use a credit card or something of the sort to push out air bubbles as you lay the adhesive paper to the surface.  If you miss an air bubble, poke it with a pin after and smooth out the bubble.  It took me about an hour to completely cover the fridge.  Yep.  I did front, sides and top!  Entire fridge = $8.00!

Here is a closer view so you can see the pattern a little better.  I really love this pattern not only because it looks great, but you can't even tell where I had to 'patch' a little here and there.  Especially around the handles where it was harder to cut the exact shape.  The pattern was also such that I could adhere the paper in any direction and the pattern was the same.  All important things to think about!

I may have to wander around my home a little more looking for other things to apply this stuff too!  I've already done my husbands dresser, now the fridge... what's next?  Stay tuned!

The Little Chicken... or is it a Rooster?

Last year was a little too cold out here in Ontario to take our then week and a half old newborn out for Halloween.  This year though... ah..... yes.   Momma made the costume :)  Inspired by a pin I saw on Pinterest,  I made Foster into a chicken!  Looks a little like Foghorn Leghorn, so perhaps he was more of a rooster!

I made the costume a little more then a month in advance...and oh my!  It almost didn't fit him!  He fought getting into it a little but overall, he was awesome!  He's wearing, two long sleeve onesies, two long sleeve shirts, two pairs of pants, three pairs of socks, a hat and scarf.  What a trooper!  Once people started dropping candy and things into his bucket... I think he forgot about the 'trama' of getting dressed in his costume.  You couldn't pry that bucket from his hands his grip was sooo tight!

The haul.  He went over all the candy very carefully and finally decided to focus all his attention on a tempting little lolly pop.  But I'm sure you can all guess who will most likely be eating this candy... gah! 

We had lots of fun with our little man :)  He was so good and everyone loved his costume!  Hope you all had a great time too!  We are STILL finding feathers floating around! :p