Christmas Project: Holiday Wreath

It's a little early, but to prepare for Christmas, here's a simple holiday wreath: Take a foam floral wreath, cover it in tissue paper of your choice, add silver garland, big snowflake ornaments, tissue paper white flowers, or whatever you're into. Hang it up. Cheap and easy!

Scarecrow Craft

Hi all! Between my first craft show, face painting gigs, and my weekday job...as well as starting up my Etsy page that's listed right here ---> Mirmysaurus Etsy , I've been a pretty busy bee this September! I'm also going to stay pretty busy throughout October but I thought I'd show a picture of a craft I did last night that may inspire you to make one with your kids or to stay in your slim-nonexistent Fall and Halloween decor budget!

Simply take an empty 2-liter bottle, remove the label and the top (I cut the top off, then cut 4 2-inch slits throughout the top to make 4 flaps that I folded over each other to give a flatter surface. This isn't necessary for everyone but since he is sitting on our store counter in plain view I thought it would hide the bottle better. 

My scarecrow is also made to collect donations (Thus the message on the sign, and the heart cut out in his belly!) but if yours is for decorating only, put his shirt right over the front of his belly. Feel free to add the sign with a cute fall message though, that's one of my favorite parts!

Get out your paper, markers, and a little glue and your little fella (or lady) will be ready for decorating wherever you've placed them.

If you have questions, let me know! Thanks for stopping by. 

Whimsical Tissue Paper Flowers

             After taking a roadtrip for two weeks and returning home to begin immediately searching for a job (remember? My book store job closed, so sad! But life marches on) I have been swamped and unable to bring you any tutorials! I am now preparing for my very FIRST craft selling event (and it's for a great cause! Go check out the Toco Festival in Jellystone Park!) and I'm totally excited and TOTALLY scrambling to make sure my friend and I have enough items to sell. So, unfortunately I'm leaving you AGAIN without a tutorial. Instead I leave you with a fun concept and I'm sure all you crafty  whips out there can figure out where I am going with this ;) .

                  

Originally, I had a photo of the inspiration craft on here but I removed it because I did not have permission to use the photo, so to be safe I removed it. Sorry for any confusion!

  

My craft today is inspired by some browsing through Pinterest, where I found a wonderful tutorial on oversized, dreamy tissue paper flowers, and you can find the tutorial for them at Design Sponge. They are made by a company called Ruche, and they gave a great description on how to make them, but I wanted to make them for a window display and didn't want to get into chicken wire and cement (I tend to injure myself with chicken wire, and I get REAL messy with cement!). My budget was also...well, pretty much nothing. More or less, I had about $6 and whatever items I could find on hand. 

See? There's even a pile of junk sitting on the floor around my pretty flowers (and by junk I mean supplies I thought I might destroy to make more flowers!). 

To create my smaller scale version of those whimsical flowers:

For the flower stem:

Cut a piece of strong cardboard (I used a box that a shelf came in) into a slightly curved shape as "tall" as you want your flower to be. The flowers shown here are actually about 3 feet tall, and the curve just adds a bit of dimension to the shape. Then take either another piece of long cardboard or use poster board  (about 5 inches shorter than the curved piece) and bend into a "triangle" shape to add stability and dimension (You can see the straight line down the middle of the pink flower- this is the poster board). Hot glue that to the curved piece of cardboard, starting at the part that you will use as the top. 

Take a smaller piece of cardboard, about 5 inches in height by about 4-5 inches wide. Cut a slit in the bottom of the curved cardboard piece, and slide the 5x5 inside to use as a bottom stablizer (you may want to trim this to be wider at the bottom as a triangle shape to give a more natural flower stem shape). 

Take 2 toilet paper rolls as cut them in half. Then cut a piece of posterboard big enough to fit the curved board, the 5x5 board, and the now 4 pieces of toilet paper tube (one on each side of the stem). Hot glue this poster board to the bottom of everything, creating a base for the flower. Use heavy paper (I used tightly rolled newspaper) or another weighted agent and fill the toilet paper rolls. Make sure the rolls are also glued to the cardboard flower stem. 

For the Flower:

Cut a piece of poster board in an oval roughly the size of your hand (maybe a little bigger, depending on the flower size). Hot glue that to the top of the flower stem. This is now the base of your flower. Cut out large, tear drop shaped "petals" and hot glue them to the base as you desire. 

To finish it off:

Wrap the flower stem in green tissue, making sure to tuck loose tissue paper ends away if you can, then hot glue on  nice, big, loose leaves for added whimsy.

                            

"Read" Upcycled Art

Supplies:

• Newspaper
• Scissors
• Hot Glue
• Cardboard (circle, for back of flower)
• Cardboard boxes (For "Canvas)
• Tissue paper in blue, green, and white
• Floral pins and (optional) floral staples
• Stapler

   I made this for an independent bookstore that I work at. I'm always working on something (or, rather, I was, but we are currently going out of business. BOO!) to brighten up the store and add a little character. Originally, I made this Newspaper Dahlia by following the steps using This Lovely Design at Vively Online for her Paper Medallion.
             It took alot of cutting, rolling, and gluing! I was initially going to make two but... this is more of an "at home" project because it was getting pretty messy. I was going to make one for each side of our TV display screen, but when I held up just the Dahlia against the wall...well, it looked almost dangerous. I'm guessing the newspaper colors against the naked wall made it look pretty sharp? Either way, I thought it needed a little more OOMPH! I decided to take two empty snapple boxes (really, any rectangular semi skinny box would do, I just had snapples on hand and they are a great shape) and I attached them together using hot glue and some floral staples that I had from a different project. I added those for reinforcement.


Lay out a double layer of blue tissue paper, and attach to the inside of the "canvas" using stapler (out of sight). Choose location for the flower, then glue generously onto the back and place on the "canvas". After this has dried, use floral pins and staples through insides of flower petals, pushing pins from the front of the canvas, through the cardboard, and bending them in the back. This should keep the tissue paper from ripping and should keep the flower attached with more stability.

Roll the green tissue paper into a "stem" shape, making sure the bottom tucks inside the back of the canvas, and the top end is hidden under the flower petals. Staple the bottom on. While the rest is still loose, cut out the leaf shape from another piece of green tissue paper and dab glue on it, beneath the stem, then again at the tip of the leaf (do not glue too much, just enough to attach it, but still have it look "leafy"). Attach the stem over the raw edge of the leaf with a bit of glue, then attach with glue under the flower petals.

For "READ": Roll up a thin piece of white tissue paper, lay out the shape of your letter, then put a thin line of glue on the back of the paper. Make the shape and, as the glue is still wet, use floral pins through the white tissue paper and all the way through the back of the cardboard. Use as many of these as you'd like, they add a bit of charm AND stability to your letters. For safety's sake, take some pliers and bend all of the floral pins to keep them from stick straight out (like this ones on this piece of art do, whoops!).

It's very lightweight, so hang wherever you need something pretty in your life. I hope this inspires you to make your own variation! If so, let me know! =) Thanks for stopping by.

Update A Dated Piece of Art

I've lived in my current home for about a year now, and recently visited a local thrift shop for the first time. I'm not sure how I went so long without going to any of the nearby thrift shops, because I've always been drawn to them everywhere I go. Regardless, I'm glad I went! On my first trip out, I found two nice sheets for $2 each, a set of white canvas curtains for $1.50 that I'm going to scrap for other projects, a totally AWESOME chair that will get it's own spotlight on here when I get around to reupholstering it, and these two charming art pieces for a buck a piece:

Cute, right? My two favorite animals, I do believe! That very serious owl is super glossy and very well maintained. I'm not sure what, if anything, I would change about it (maybe add a pop of  bright color around the outer edge?). For now, though, I like it just as it came. The same could not be said for the panda shadow box. While it is hard to see in the photo, the panda is printed onto the front glass with a "shadow box" style frame behind it. I'm considering finding some neat mementos to put inside the frame, but for now some paint and paper will suffice! Here's how it happened:

Step 1: Gather Supplies 

Step 2: Remove The Card stock backing. I kept this piece (even though it was warped) and used it as a sturdy backer for my new background paper.

 

Step 3: Paint the Frame color of choice

Step 4: Secure the new background paper with tape and add embellishments if desired (I made some little paper bamboo strips! I taped those too!)

Step 5: (This part takes a little patience to get it done right) Simply pop the newly decorated background  into the back of the frame. Stand back and enjoy!

A frame like this is PERFECT to get your hands on. You can change the background to match your decor, add little trinkets to keep them on display, and it doesn't take long to change the frame color with a little craft paint. I hope this inspires you to take on your own little craft projects. Thanks for stopping by!

Carnival Birthday Sign

I thought I'd take a moment to share a Carnival sign I made for my nieces joint 1st and 3rd birthday. We are BIG on using what's on hand (my mom, brother, AND sister in law are probably the best team  ever to work with on crafty projects... for real, so many ideas between all of us!) and not big on spending money on things we can make. Here, I used an empty bookshelf box, gave it two white coats of acrylic paint, some haphazardly painted red stripes, then printed "CARNIVAL" using the FREE Circus font by Dan Roseman (I love that guy for creating this perfect font) in 400 pt font. I cut out the letters, lined them up, used Elmer's glue to attach them, then touched up my running out ink with some black acrylic paint. I then added the girls names (the best nieces ever) to personalize it, and added a simple black outline to give it a finished look. I glued the sides back together and we just used it as a standing on the ground sign instead of making it a hanging one. Did I mention we also got way into balloon animals, I paint faces, and my sister in law made this cute balloon entrance stand? We party hard. I would have painted ALL the sides of the box, but I bit off more then I could chew and ran out of time, but I promise we all survived and loved it =) .

I used yet another one of these boxes (hey, I got two shelves and I'm a sucker for leftover cardboard) and some leftover Easter eggs for a TICKETS sign:

I tried to rotate this a MILLION times...
I used the round end of all of my Easter Eggs from two discount packs, spray painted them all a silvery pewter color I had laying around, and hot glued them on. I used blue paint on my letter print outs here (I ran out of black ink and ran with it). 

                                         I hope this inspires you to create something great!

Cheap, Quick, and Easy Angry Birds Pinata DIY

        The day before my brother's birthday party, I discovered he had asked for an Angry Birds pinata but he had been politely told that mom and dad couldn't find one in the stores and maybe he could have one next year. Me, being the crafty (but more importantly, DEFIANT) little critter that I am, said "Yeah, you get the candy and I'll make the pinata happen"...not really knowing what my plan was.
      I read online about many home made pinatas from brown paper bags, and my older brother made one from a gift bag for my niece's birthday....but I wanted something round.You know, I wanted to smash the bad guy, a pig! I would have made paper mache, but I didn't have the time(which seems to be my life story haha). I found my solution at work, and they even gave it to me for free from the window display: A Green paper lantern. They were originally from Hobby Lobby in a 3 pack of lime green lanterns costing $5.99-7.99. I used the big one as the pinata, and the small one as a decorative "play" pig (which I never got a picture of finished, but I just added a paper face!).

Because they have a waxy/wire body, I figured it would be pretty sturdy overall, but the paper is so delicate I reinforced it by gluing it sheets of newspaper to the inside (including 3 in the bottom where the hole was). It became very sturdy very fast! I didn't even use the metal wire support in the middle.

To give it a "Pinata" look, I bought a roll of Crepe Paper Streamers ($0.97), cut the crepe paper about 3/4th of the way through and then ran a strip of glue along the part I didn't cut, attaching it to the lantern.

I made the eyes and nose out of printer card stock and outlined them with sharpie, attaching them with tape.

*****A Tip to Anyone making this: REINFORCE THE TOP 5 inches or so with packaging or duct tape, ours kept it's shape for many beatings but it felt down on the first hit! I think we also had too much candy in it weighing it down. More layers of newspaper (think inner "paper mache") would help as well. I did NOT use the wire that supports the middle as I said, I thought it might be dangerous for hitting. The newspaper was enough reinforcement to keep it circular. The very thin waxy wire that circles the lantern from top to bottom didn't pop out or break at all, it was like this neat piece of dental floss that helped rip the pinata apart =) .