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Friday, December 7, 2012

Candles, Garland and Nut Babies, Oh My!

Do you find yourself with ink and glue under your fingernails? Are you forgetting to eat? Not sure when you last showered? Can't remember what day it is? 

FINDING GLITTER IN YOUR TOOTHBRUSH???

If you answered "yes" to these questions, YOU TOO may be suffering from Brainiotis Craftiosis.......otherwise known as

CRAFTS ON THE BRAIN!!!

I've pretty much lost my mind working on stuff for the last couple of days. Cutting, gluing, glittering, punching, stamping....etc. Hmm...I wonder what the kids are doing? (kidding)

Anyway, I've come up for air to share a couple of things with you and show you a tutorial for a little craft that's become somewhat of a Christmastime tradition around here- Nut Babies!   

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I've been embellishing these dollar store candles for the past few years, and they are always fun to work on.



I've seen lots of these on Pinterest and on crafty blogs, so I know I'm not the only one having fun! I used some of my vintage sheet music for one.

I have an interesting source for the others I made. A few years back a friend of mine gave me this and it's actually a towel! A lovely linen hand towel that I couldn't bring myself to use because it's just too pretty. So I put it in a frame and I just love the way it looks.
When she reads this she might roll her eyes and shake her head : )
 
 
I like the image so much, in fact, that I scanned it into my computer and printed it in B & W to use for projects just like this one. I had a copy of this french script paper, and tore out the image of the girl to decoupage over it.
  




For this one I just used the copy of the full image from the towel.




 I don't think you can really see it, but I embellished the leaves with vintage glass glitter.









This is actually a craft remake. Several Christmases ago my friend and I made a garland by gluing these beautiful Cavallini Christmas postcards to a wide ribbon. This year I "unglued" it :)



I punched holes at the top of each card and threaded a different ribbon through and hung it on an old sled on my bedroom wall. Don't you just LOVE simple and easy projects?




Now, on to my little tutorial!




I really can't remember how the first one came to be, but these little cuties have been appearing at our house at Christmastime for probably ten years now.


We've made ornaments out of them, but usually just tuck them in to the branches of the Christmas tree. They also make cute dollhouse babies!
 

Here's what you will need to create your Woodland Nut Baby:


Hollowed out Walnut shells for the nut baby's cradle.
Try to split the Walnut as evenly as possible. The ones I used for this were a little "choppy"-I think they were leftovers from last year!

Small wooden beads for the heads.

Acorn caps. These came from actual acorns, but I seem to remember you can get these at craft stores as well.

Cotton balls. I split one in half for two nut babies.

Fabric scraps for creating the little "blanket" top. I used craft felt for these.

Hot glue gun  


 One year we painted some of the Walnut shells silver. Natural or painted? You decide!


I have some fabric leaves just waiting for a little project, so I'm going to try something a little different. I'm tucking one into one of the shells for the nut baby to rest on. Kind of adds to the "woodland" feel, don't you think?



  
Now hot glue an acorn cap onto the wooden bead. Doesn't it make the cutest little baby head?? Sometimes we'll draw a little face on these, but I'm leaving these plain.



  Now hot glue the head to the inside edge of the nut shell.

Now take a piece of cotton ball and fill up the shell. Sorry about the fuzzy photos!




  
Fill the shell with enough cotton to create a puffy look under the little fabric scrap blanket that comes next. 


Cut a little piece of fabric the approximate shape of the nut shell.
Lay it over the cotton and begin tucking it in around the edges and under the head. When you like the way it looks, you can add a little touch of hot glue to keep it in place, but it really isn't necessary.


And that's all there is to it! After all these years, I still think they're just adorable.



Now you have your very own sweet little woodland nut baby : )





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Monday, December 3, 2012

Simple Night


Working on some new goodies for the shop, and watching "Elf" with my teenager : ) Sometimes it's just the little things that make you smile, right? 

 Hope you can find a smile in some of life's simple details today.

 Jeanette

 

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Sunday, December 2, 2012

Free Vintage Christmas Images-Grandpa's Book Pt 3

As promised, here are the final images from Grandpa's vintage Christmas book "A Visit to Santa Claus"-Illustrated by Margaret Evans Price. I just wanted to share a cheerful bit of nostalgia with you all as a little gift of the season.

Inside the front cover (shown in Part 1) is a handwritten note from my great-great-grandmother to my Grandpa dated 1925!


Part 1 in this series can be found here and Part 2 here
I wanted to give you an idea of what the actual book pages look like, and then the cropped version of the illustrations.



Feel free to right-click and save the images to your computer to use for cards, tags, or some other fun project.








Isn't this one sweet? I kind of think she might be my favorite of the whole book.




















Even if you don't want to use the images for your own projects, I hope it was fun to take a look at a little piece of nostalgia from my family! 

Blessings-

Jeanette 

See you over at: 
Funky Junk Interiors SNS 
The Vintage Farmhouse-Creative Things Thursday
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The Faux Fireplace Mantel

Awhile back I shared with you about a couple of crib panels that I found on the roadside. One of them I turned into this fun chalkboard. Yes, I know I need to work on my lettering skills.


I just hadn't had the big inspiration moment for the second one, until a couple of days ago.

One of the things I've missed since moving into our current home almost two years ago is a real fireplace. (I'm thinking you've heard me whine about this before) As far as I'm concerned, nothing beats the cozy warmth and ambiance of a real wood burning fire. But, alas, it is not to be in this home. 
But wait, take a look at what I DO have!! Wait for it....wait for it...





TA-DA!!!
 
 Um, hello? Is that crickets I hear? 


I've had this little baby for about three years now, and I really do like it, but it's just a glorified electric heater. It blows hot air and has a fake simulated fire. It warms up my cold bedroom pretty darn quickly, but a little lacking in the charm department, know what I mean? Little black charmless fire simulator needed...

A SIMULATED MANTEL! HELLO INSPIRATION!

The light bulb went on....the wheels started turning.....it all started coming together in my mind. THIS would be the beginning of my faux mantel. 


By sheer magic (and about 20 blows of the hammer) the pieces just fell before me.

  

The faux brick wall panel is a leftover piece from a project at our previous home. I use it as a backdrop for photographing things for my Etsy shop , The Penny and the Pearl. I should have taken a couple of photos of the process, but it really wasn't much!

I originally thought I would use the top piece with the spindles, but I would have had to resize the brick panel, and I didn't want to do that. I realized if I flipped the "leg" pieces upside down, and set that cute curvy little bottom piece on top of them that it would frame the brick panel perfectly! Yay! I love it when things happen the easy way.  A (very) little sanding..
 

 .....a quick brush on with some white paint, giving it a bit of an aged look, and....


  
VOILA!


A kinda sorta mantel-ish backdrop.


I just leaned the brick panel up against the wall, added the wood pieces and put the electric fireplace in front of it. Then I started to fill in the area around it. 


 I found this heavy glass dome at a thrift store (pretty sure it had been from a light fixture) and I knew it would probably fit the round wood base I already had. The board is a little wavy so the glass doesn't fit precisely in the groove, but close enough for my taste. Just the thing-one large, simple piece I needed for the top of the fireplace heater. Another bird (can you ever have too many?) and a white bottle brush tree with that little flag from my birthday that I love so much, complete the display.
 



I filled a large blue-green basket with pine cones, a vintage style glittered bird and large glittered snowflake, and...




...these darling vintage sheet music origami boxes, made by my daughter Tess a few years back. 

Then I put up a black shelf above the white brick panel to hold all the "pretties" you need on a mantel. I also thought it helped balance out the black of the fireplace. 




 I had the hardest time photographing it, but I made a miniature flag bunting with fabric scraps and rubber stamp letters that says, "Let Heaven and Nature Sing". I hung it in the space between the black mantel shelf and the white trim on the brick panel for another layer of interest and texture and cuteness.
 







Now to add some pretty stuff to the shelf.


Some sweet little glass candlesticks that belonged to my Grandma,  a frosted pine cone in a silver vase and a vintage inspired postcard.


 A little mercury glass bird, a real bird's nest, and a little stand I made from an ironstone bowl and silver candlestick, filled with vintage looking ornaments, and a small glittered star.



I hung a chippy white antique window above the shelf and layered a vintage mirror behind it and a John Derian deer ornament in front.





The view from the bed.

I brought in my little work-in-progress chair. Hopefully I'll be able to finish it up and do a post about it soon. See the stuff on the desk? Yeah, don't look over there : )

  
What do you think? Doesn't the little black box look much more charming with a little simulated mantel?

  
I think it's looking pretty cozy. I might just have my coffee here in the morning. I'll show you the rest of my bedroom soon....when it learns to behave and pick up after itself.


Night night, all!

P.S. Don't forget to check out Part 2 of the free vintage Christmas images I'm sharing from my Grandpa's childhood book! I'll be sharing the last several images in the next day or so-stay tuned!


See you over at:
  



























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