Charlie Brown's got NOTHING on this tree!

Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Making X-Mas Gifts, Oh What Fun it is to create a one of a kind presentttt!Hey! Happy Holidays my fellow crafters! Have you been as busy as I have trying to make ALL of this years gifts? Well if the answer is no then please read on (if the answer is yes, then here is a new idea!).

As you will remember, a while back a hefty amount of wine corks was bestowed upon me. For sometime now I have been struggling to come up with a crafty enough gift to make with them. Well look no further than Pinterest to find your next treasure( honestly what would I do without Pinterest?)... 

Wine Cork Christmas Trees!

Utterly simplistic, but amazingly cute! This craft only needs a collection of wine corks(depending on how much you drink it may only take you a few nights to create one of these special treats!), a hot glue gun with a generous supply of glue sticks, some sassy Christmas ribbon (I used colored raffia, clearance at JoAnn's Fabrics!), a simple rustic tree topper, and green paint (which is completely optional if you would rather an au natural look of the 'purpled' ends of red wine!). Now stack up your corks with gobs of ooey gooey gluey, tie them together with your choosen ribbon, and add your so called rustic decoration( I used rust colored sleigh bells to top my tiny wine-o trees).  Hmmm now we must create a stump, but the tree is so top heavy? What could possibly hold it up right?

Ahhh HA! Pop the champagne! I have an idea!

First pour your self a delicious helping of the bubbly! Then take that over sized chunk of cork and put it to use! Your stump has been found! Glue that baby on and you have just created the perfect gift for that wine-o in the family!(Or you have the cutest cost effect gift for a yankee swap! Shhhh it only cost a few dollars to make, minus the cost of the wine of course!) Nobody can turn down a homemade gift, NOBODY! So get drinking and get crafting this festive one of a kind decoration! You're welcome.

Webster just loves the Holidays!

Eat, Drink, and be Merry Christmas!

Home is where your crafts are!

Saturday night, lounging on the couch, cruising on pinterest, and a craft idea is born. Recently I moved into a new home with my significant other person so the home decor crafting has been revisited (aggressively revisited I should add). I just want the new house to be puuuurr-fectly sweet and unique. Now I can look around my living room and see a dozen homemade, one of a kind, Salamander creations, but that is just not good enough. I want the WHOLE house to be a pinterest favorite! (Crazy I know, but I just can't stop!).

Now I have already drilled and hammered enough new holes in the house that it could be confused with swiss cheese on halloween, so this craft had to be power tool free. So what to make? What does THIS house need that will be special? The address? How about the state (been there done that)? I've got it...I will pin point the house on EARTH!(Get it, I was on Pinterest and I want to pin my location...silly me!)

Note: The original craft photo was removed
 for privacy purposes..oops!

Voila! Latitude and longitude! Honestly, how much more unique can you be? (Want to know your earthly location...click here!)


Now how to display my new found locale? I could wood burn it, but I am always looking for a new medium to express my creative self so I would need to find something else...but what? Well ask and you shall receive. Living in a construction zone (aka my house) you only need to look around to find your next inspiration...blank white tiles + sharpies + an oven = sweet unique craftiness! Now I simply wrote my message (when I messed up, I used an alcohol wipe to start fresh!) and baked it in the oven at 350 degrees for a half an hour! Permanent creation complete.

More tile crafts!

Remember: Eat, Craft and find your home!

Attack BeauBeau

          

*Note: The location on this project is only an example of a craft. The exact location is a private residence complete with attack golden retrievers. Beware!

"A month of crafting"

"Here comes the sun"

Being a part of the real world is proving to be much more time consuming that originally planned. I thought that I would be able to have a full time job, while still continuing my previous unemployed life style...I was wrong. It turns out that some things had to be put on hold (blogging was numero uno, crafting numero dos). Well now that I have had an entire week off of work, thanks to a mysterious viral infection ( probably mononucleosis, AGAIN!) I have had the ability/time to return to the arts (and crafts) and to my beloved baby blog!!

Recently I have completed several crafts:

1)A friends wedding gift (no, I didn't really make her a wine cork trivet, that was a mere tactic of mine)

2)Salt Dough Ornaments

3) A wooden painted sign.

 4) Nephew's First Birthday Gift

Coonie's footprint Ornament

Now the question is, which one do I discuss? The wedding gift was a wood burned sign that was stained (I think we have discussed this before) and then tortured with a screw gun to make a hanging apparatus. The salt dough ornaments can wait till another time (closer to Christmas maybe?), and the birthday gift is pretty childish( get it? its for a one year old!), but the wooden sign is also something we have previously embarked on an adventure with. Hmmm...what to do, what to do?

Wedding gift before stain

Decision made. I will provide my ever patient audience with visions of all of these marvelous crafts. Referrals to previous posts for possible instructions or required supplies while be more than encouraged.

Eat, Craft, and Be Happy :-)

Did you say 200 wine corks?? No, More!

What better way to celebrate a wedding than with wine (corks that is!) Hmmm... Hold that thought, allow me to explain my blogging absence...

CORKS CORKS CORKS

Back in May I was blessed with a job, a real life, grown-up, pay check, career! Craziness has only followed since the day I got hired. I have been working like crazy and having a ton of fun when I have the chance, so clearly the blog was put on PAUSE until I could balance work and fun into a manageable lifestyle and although I am not quite into a well balanced state, I have decided to craft, once again!(HOORAY time to play!)

So this craft all began a few months ago when a friend was cleaning out there garage and found BAGS and BAGS of wine and champagne corks (what a bunch of alchs!). Well supposedly the corks came from a catering company (yeah right!), either way I was psyched to have them! Oh the possibilities of wine related crafts! And what better occasion to use wine corks that came from weddings to celebrate another wedding! I know I am a genius!

Trial fitting for frame

I started by sorting out the wine from champagne corks and rooting out any broken or moldy ones (yuck). Next came the idea process which was not as easy as I had hoped. To my craft room I went and there I found: string, my handy dandy glue gun, a saw (why do I have a saw?), a picture frame, scissors, and a hammer. (Note: I had no idea what I was making so I just grabbed tools). Next I spent over an hour tying corks together with twine...whatever I had in mind to make, was not working. Fail. 

Next the picture frame came into play. Victory is mine. I checkered the corks and hot glued them into place. (I only seriously burned myself on the molten glue lava once!) What have I made though? A trivet? Seemed too simple of a craft to give as a wedding gift. So now what? (Always open a bottle of wine while doing a wine craft for inspiration). 

Waiting for the second coat of wine!

VOILA! I will use wine to dye the corks! So exciting!! Back to my craft room to find a paint brush and a container for some wine ( I didn't want to use the wine in my glass...duh!). The letter of the soon to be last name of the bride seemed an appropriate monogram. Now add a black bow to tie it all together (tie it? get it? a bow!) and you have just created the best gift a wino could give to a fellow wino! 

Eat, Craft, and put all those corks to work!

Love thy Mother!

Mother's Day is just around the corner and what better way to show appreciation for the amazing mothers in my life then to create a special craft just for them! I already had an idea of what I was going to make but I needed to confirm some details for creation via Pinterest. So I set about my search for crayon art! Moms are constantly throughout time providing their kids with crayons, you go to a restaurant and you get crayons, you go to grandma's house and she has crayons, crayons crayons crayons. What better way to show mom love then to give her a crayon (hmmm you want to give your mom a crayon? Interesting.) shaped like a heart though! Silly goose.

First attempt with horrid crayons

The craft was initially going to be done using old broken crayons from an ever present crayon bucket that my niece uses (she LOVES to color) but somehow it has gone missing (Noni must have taken it to her house! Thief!). No big deal I will just buy some crayons ( honestly they are about $1, I can afford that). Well to my dismay sometimes you just can't buy the cheap stuff, it just doesn't work. So I drove back to the store and bought some Crayola Crayons which were another $1.50 plus the gas to drive back and forth (apparently I should have splurged the first time around!).

All melted!

Alright lets get to the craft! Step 1: Peel the paper off the crayons (not really all that easy) Step 2: Cut up some colorful crayons into little pieces (don't use black or brown, just do not do it) Step 3: Acquire some silicone heart shaped molds (conveniently I already had these!) Step 4: Put some cut up crayons into said mold Step 5: Place in oven at 250 degrees for approximately 10 minutes (or until the crayons are melted) Step 6: LET COOL COMPLETELY. If you move the molds too much while the crayons are liquid then the colors will mix together and you will be angry with your self for being so silly (trust me on this).  Once they are all cooled and solidified again you can pop them out and admire just how awesome this new heart shaped crayon is!

Final Craft

Now cut out a heart shaped piece of paper for your background (I used plantable paper because I had some left over from another craft), add your heart (I used a dopple of hot glue to attach it) and add a neat little saying  about how awesome Moms are! Mine says, "The keeper of crayons, the keeper of my heart! Happy Mother's Day!". 

Eat, Craft, and Love your mother! :-)

802, 978, 508, 207? Wrong! It's the 603!

Finished state

In the previous post I created a wall hanging of New Hampshire using bottle caps that I had collected. Since I had deviated from the original plan of 'how to apply the caps' it took longer than expected for the adhesive to dry. In the mean time I had a million ideas of what I was going to add to this craft (I might be a little manic with my thinking). I wanted to somehow add an ode to Vermont along the border (originally I was going to use all Long Trail caps on that edge) but then I would have to do something for Maine and Massachusetts (I felt bad that they would be left out). What could I add to the board for all three states? Area Codes?(VT only has 802 and Maine is 207 but MA has like 10 different ones, lame!) So that idea was rejected.

603 Stencil placement 

With the other states forgotten from the plan the focus was back on the Granite State. So what to add now? I can not just leave it with the caps in the shape of a state? Can I? NO, I CAN NOT! The project was not complete, it needed more(it was probably fine but I had to continue!). I then messed around with the idea of stenciling 'New Hampshire' down the Maine side but it looked off balance. So maybe '603' in Vermont territory and 'New Hampshire' in Maine. Now it was too much. Woe is me.

Finished project!

So after some discussions with my dog Beau on whether or not to add anything to the sign (He didn't really have much to say) I decided on just adding '603'. (It's hard to believe that I could have this much to say over one simple addition to the sign, but there is more!) The color now had to be decided. After a very small discussion with Jason (one text) the color was decided on as BLACK. And just like that the sign was complete. You are welcome. :-)

Eat, Craft, and Be from the 603!

Do you collect Bottle Caps?

When the weather is yucky out, I do not feel the least bit guilty about sitting inside all day and doing crafts! So yesterday, that is what I did...alllll dayyyy. Typically my craft projects are rather quick little adventures that I can complete in a few hours (max) with the wood burned signs taking the most time. Well scratch that concept. This craft that I am about to share with you is a LONG and tedious endevour that you should not undertake unless you have a large amount of time to 'waste' (preferably on a rainy day would be best).

Wooden backing

To begin this project you have to either be someone who enjoys bottled beverages or someone who knows a lot of people that enjoy bottled beverages (clearly I was able to collect my own caps!). Now depending on how big you want to make your final project or which state or shape you are using will change the amount of caps you need (I think this project took just under 200 caps).  I should also add that a variety of caps is best. Once I decided to commence this project I was shocked at how many of certain caps there were (particularly Sam Adams Octoberfest, and Longtrails). Luckily there was enough variety in the other caps so as to not make the project look too repetitive (plus my friend Jason was nice enough to share some of his exotic caps with me).

Laying out bottle caps 

With the cap situation discussed, I suppose it is time to share what the project is. Awhile ago I got the idea for this on Pinterest (For the probably easier instructions go here!) but of course already had my own twists in mind. I was going to make a wall hanging of the state of New Hampshire using bottle caps! Ta-Da!  So Jason helped me to create the backing which was 5 planks of wood simply held together by a couple of cross bars on the back(Note: I should not have been allowed to help hammer ANY nails) and I then acquired a state map which I cut out and used for the outline. Now this is when it becomes a time sucking craft of death.

Map cut out and glued down

Organize your caps into the shape you have chosen while making sure to create enough variety for a visually appealing final project (I completely arranged the caps onto the board twice, total time sucking). Now once you have played around with the caps and got them into the exact locations that you want you have to find a way to make them stick to the board. Not such an easy task. The website that the idea came from suggested using an epoxy but with the warning label using the word cancer, I became rather hesitant. Thank goodness Jason was around to provide a solution.

Syringing on Mod Podge

I decided to use Mod Podge, my new favorite substance ever! But how do you apply this white gooey glue of amazingness? Duh! Be a nurse who has random medical supplies in your house and use a 3ml syringe! Simply an awesome use of resources. Now let dry for DAYS and you are almost complete. Mine was just created yesterday so it is still drying. Now you can just create the map but I have further plans for this craft! Final project: TO BE CONTINUED.... So suspenseful :-)

Eat, Craft, and wait for the final project to be revealed!