Merry Geek-Mas

Earlier in the year, I started making ornaments for our tree. I was doing my usual Glitter and Paint Ornament thing and had an idea for some of the Olive-ish Green colored paint I have...

A Grinch! So I practiced a few times and then made this one:

After I made that one, and showed it Shaun and he was impressed with it (He thought it may have been store bought), I had the idea for other ones I would love to have for the tree including My Little Pony, Batman, and Captain America. We have yet to make Captain America, but we did get to make the others:

I say "we" because while it was my concept and I did the paint and some of the other stuff, It was Shaun's awesome drawing skills that really helped me bring the Cutie Marks and the Batman Logo to life.  I then wrote the names of the Mane Six Ponies on the back, in a style that they would use themselves, I imagine. I LOVE the way they turned out.

Here's how they look on the tree:

Our tree is kind of accidentally My Little Pony themed because in addition to the six cutie mark ornaments we made, Shaun gave me a set of MLP ornaments last year or the year before, and we have two foam ornaments we bought (Pinkie and Dash) and we bought a Princess Luna figurine ornament this year. So since it has so much Pony-themed  on it, I said maybe one year I will make the mini ornaments (like the paint ones) with the colors of the ponies and make it an intentionally themed tree. That could be fun.

What do you think of our "Geek Tree"? We LOVE it. Someday, we'll have even more of the things we love on it, too. :)

Have Yourself a Wreathy Little Christmas

This is a Christmas/Holiday Wreath I made today. After making a Halloween wreath (I'll post in another post, I am working backwards at this point), I knew I wanted to make a Christmas wreath too, I just didn't know what. A friend and I went to Michaels for some inspiration and I decided I would make a red and silver/white themed one after finding some cute red/white sparkly baubles.

This took me about 3 hours (or even less) today, and I just LOVE how it turned out! Overall, I spent less than $10 on this wreath as well. The baubles were $7.99 at Michaels, but I had a 20% off everything coupon yesterday, which made it about $6.40; the wreath form, flowers, and red/silver sprigs all came from the Dollar Tree, and I had the ribbon at home already. Gorgeous wreath for $10 or less? Score!

For how beautiful it turned out, you'd think I'd been designing and making wreaths for years, not that this was the second wreath I'd ever made...

What do you think?

Without flash to show colors.

A closeup of how shiny the decorations are. I love Shiny!

5th Anniversary Ornament

After looking all over stores and Amazon for a special ornament to commemorate mine and hubby's 5th Anniversary throughout this year and not finding anything, I decided to make something-I just didn't know what.

I was thinking that I wanted to make a heart-shaped version of either the Glitter Ornaments or Paint Ornaments, but I was unable to find any heart-shaped glass ornaments to fill, so that plan was out the window as quickly as it was in my head. I did, however, find a cardboard base ornament that could be decorated, so decided to make something with that. So I made this cute little ornament- a sweet memory and decoration for a sweet price of less than $5:

Isn't it adorable? Even though it's not a complicated thing, hubs and I really love it!

Here it is on the tree:

I love that you can see it clearly from even across the room. :)

(And yes, we have stockings for our stuffed animals....)

And I learned some useful information as I was experimenting while working on this: when painting things made out of cardboard base like this, Paint by itself takes forever to cover the surface without streaks or cardboard showing through. But paint + clear glue (which is what I had, I'm sure white glue that dries clear works, too) = magic. I did it as an experiment just because, but it drastically reduced the number of coats needed and the time spent working on it versus paint alone.  So, if you're ever painting cardboard, maybe this trick will work for you, too.

More Glitter Ornaments

Oh, Boy. I've been a terrible little crafty blogger again, and haven't updated in a long time. I am really going to work on updating the blog as I make my various crafts-sometimes it's hard though when the object is a gift and you don't want to spoil the surprise. But I'll work on doing better, I promise! For now, let's get caught up-there will be a lot of posts one after another. Here we gooooo.....

Here are some more glitter ornaments that I have made. Aren't they pretty?

(I made several others that are not here because they were gifts and I forgot to get a picture before giving away. Oops.)

Paint Ornaments

Oh, Boy. I've been a terrible little crafty blogger again, and haven't updated in a long time. I am really going to work on updating the blog as I make my various crafts-sometimes it's hard though when the object is a gift and you don't want to spoil the surprise. But I'll work on doing better, I promise! For now, let's get caught up-there will be a lot of posts one after another. Here we gooooo.....

Here are the paint ornaments I made for our tree/as gifts. This is a really fun and easy way to make unique ornaments... but can be really frustrating, too if the paint dries in a weird way or chips. But I ultimately found a way to keep them in a good position-yogurt cups from the recycling to hold them in place. Genius, I know. :)

I really like how these all turned out. The pictures just don't do them justice:

Anyone know what this shape ornament is called? I love it, and would like to find more, but don't know what the shape is.

These tiny ones are great for paint! I originally bought them for the glitter ornament project but that turned out terrible, so I don't recommend it. There were too many empty spots, and it was hard to get the materials into the tiny opening so it's just not worth it. Paint, though--that was super easy and only took a tiny bit, and looks great.

So there you are, adorable and easy paint ornaments. What do you think?

Sparkle, Sparkle, Ornament Shower

Oh, my, my. I have been a VERY naughty blogger and have not been keeping up on updates. Well, time to fix that! You'll see a lot of posts in rapid fire as I get caught up. Ready? Here we go! Post 2...

I've been working on some glitter ornaments for this year and have been having a blast making them because they are so fast and easy! Here are the three I've made so far:

With the Ducks one, I wanted it to mix the glitters, but was thinking it would just make a mess and I'd have to wash it out and just stick with one color and get the other color some other way. I was so, so thrilled when it worked out better than I anticipated and I got this swirly/tie dye-ish look to it. The Duck (which is on both sides, but obviously you can't see the side against the window) are just stickers I bought at the Duck store in the mall. Easy, peasy. :)