Dollar Store Crafts – A Smith of All Trades

Craft Projects, Dollar Store Crafts, Holiday, Valentine's Day

Hot Pink Valentine’s Day Boa Tree

January 18, 2013 Jessica Smith

Valentines Day Boa Tree

Need an inexpensive, cute Valentine’s Day decoration for the upcoming holiday? Why not make a Valentine’s Day tree!?

OK, I know trees are usually just for Christmas, but just follow along with this one because the end result is pretty darn cute.

Supplies:

1-2 boas from the dollar store
1 cereal box
Hot glue
Tape
Embellishments (ribbon, chain, etc.)

Step 1: Cut your cereal box down to one panel.

Step 2: Fold your cereal box panel into a cone shape and tape the heck out of it so it keeps the shape. This becomes the base for your tree. You can’t see the tape through the boa, so feel free to use however much you need.

Step 3: Trim the edge of the cone to be flat. You will have a lot of excess from the cereal box, so it is OK to cut a lot off. Cut it to the size that you would like your tree. I only had one boa, so I made a small tree. If you have additional boas, your tree can be taller.

Step 4: Starting at the top of your tree, hot glue your boa to the cardboard. Boas usually have small finger holes at each end that are made of rope. I put this little ring around the top of the tree and glued that on first.

Step 5: Start winding down the tree with hot glue and boa. When you get to the bottom, cut a small slit into the bottom of the cardboard base and place the other knotted finger loop in the slot. Hot glue it in place to secure the boa on the tree.

Step 6: I stuffed the base of my cone so it was a little sturdier. To do so, I spiraled hot glue in the cone and put two crumpled up paper towels in the cone.

Step 7: Embellish. I added a silver chain, black ribbon and a black bow to my tree.

Step 8: Display in your house for everyone to see. Mine’s on our mantel right now and I love it. It looks half tree, half little pink monster hiding behind our wedding photos.

Come Christmas time next year, I want to make several of these trees using white boas. I’ll probably make them in varying heights. How pretty would that be?

Happy friday and have a great weekend! Got any good plans for the holiday weekend? It’ll be visiting with family and lots of football at our house.

Christmas, Craft Projects, Dollar Store Crafts, Holiday, Quick and Easy Crafts

Red flower ball ornaments

December 7, 2012 Jessica Smith

My tree needs more red. It also needs more lights, but that’ll have to wait until next year. But as far as red goes, I can fix that now.

I bought 30 or so styrofoam balls at Granny’s Attic (an indoor yard sale benefiting Dana’s church) in November for only 50 cents! Total score! These things are inexplicably expensive at craft stores, so I was really excited to find such a bargain.

I grabbed a styrofoam ball and some red flowers from the Dollar Store and starting making a flower ball for my tree.

First, I took a bead reamer and pierced a hole through the ball.

Then, I threaded a button into some black wire and placed it through the hole in the ball. At the top, I twisted the wire and made it into a loop to hang from the tree.

I picked a pretty button so even that part of my ornament would be fancy. Oh la la!

Next I pulled the flowers off of the wire stems and hot glued them to the ball. This was tricky because hot glue melts styrofoam a tad bit, so I had to hold the flowers onto the ball for a while until they dried completely.

As I added more and more flowers, the ornament took shape. To fill in any white spots, I glued red petals directly to the ball.

When I was finished, I ran upstairs to hang it on our tree. It adds a nice pop of red to the tree without being terribly heavy.

Love it! Now I just need to get more red flowers to create more. I had just the perfect amount to cover one ball.

Craft Projects, Dollar Store Crafts

Fabric-Covered Pumpkins

September 22, 2012September 24, 2012 Jessica Smith

It is the first day of fall. Hooray!

Did you see the adorable pumpkin I transformed yesterday from a sweet Dollar Store find? If not, check it out here.

I had two pumpkins left over to complete my fall decor trio, so I decided to cover both of them with fabric. I had a gold tablecloth I’ve been wanting to use for a project, as well as some burlap remnant I picked up from JoAnn’s. I also picked up silver tacks at the dollar store, so I chose to use them as little studs in my fabric-covered pumpkins.

I started with the gold fabric, cutting the fabric into scrap strips. I started pinning them to the pumpkin using the silver tacks.

Once the pumpkin was covered in studs, I painted the stem of the pumpkins gray to match the Mod Podged pumpkin. Love it.

I did the same thing to the third pumpkin with the burlap strips.

The only thing securing the fabric to the pumpkin are the tacks, but I used about 150 per pumpkin (wowzer), so I don’t think that fabric is falling off any time soon. Having said that, I found it important to overlap the strips of fabric since there is no glue underneath the fabric. With the overlap, there is a nice texture of rough edge on smooth fabric, and there is total coverage of the bright orange pumpkin underneath.

The tacks run down the valleys of the pumpkin — it is OK to adjust your tacks as you go. If your lines aren’t exactly how you want them, fix them!