Craft Projects, Quick and Easy Crafts

White and Mint Metal Candle Holder

I really try to like colors that aren’t a shade of blue or green. Honest, I do. I bought a coral/pink candle holder from Target a few weeks ago on clearance that I thought would add a nice pop of color to my living room.

Console In the room

You can see it on the table, pulling the same color from my poppy pillow on the couch.

Console2And again on my console table pulling out the color in the maraca I brought back from our honeymoon.

I like the coral color on both of those pieces, but I hate it on the calendar. Seriously, it is awful. Every time I walk by our living room it jumps out at me. “Ha ha, there’s ugly pink in your rooooooom.”

Well, ugly pink no more.

Pink candle holder

I didn’t want to return the piece since I paid $5. It was a good price and I liked the overall look, just not the hideous color. I taped off the wooden based and, for good measure, a stripe to remain coral.

Then I rushed outside to spray paint the whole thing.

taped off top

Ahhhh, so much better already.

Once the white dried, I pulled off the tape… and still hated the coral. So I sanded down the line left from the paint and did the entire thing in white. I liked it, but thought it needed something special. Something extra.

candle holder sprayed white

So of course I added mint to it. I can’t help it… I just love mint green. And aqua and teal and blue and green.

I then slapped a light stain on the wood base!Finished candle holder

It looks so much better (to me anyway). And now it looks right at home on my new console table.

White and mint candle holder2

No more ugly pink staring at me in the room. I can breathe a sign of relief.

White and mint candle holder

So what do you think? Better before or after? If you are pink people, then you probably think I’m nutso. It was a cool piece to begin with. But if you are like me and coral pink makes you want to tear at your eyes, the after is much better.

Tomato Tally: 120

Craft Projects

Burlap Rosette Candles

I am excited to share that I’m participating in a craft fair in a little more than a month! On Nov. 10, I will be at the Watkins Nature Center partaking in their Fourth Annual Trash to Treasure Green Craft Fair! I’ve done this fair two times in the past, but missed it last year. I’m excited to go again — it’s the coolest fair I’ve ever been to and I am really looking forward to it.

Anyway, my new few weeks will be spent making crafts out of recycled goods, scraps, trash, etc. The goal is to repurpose things you might otherwise throw away into something neat and useful again.

For my first project, I made a set of candles using fabric scraps or burlap that were barely big enough for the task at hand. I also used old buttons and thrift store glasses. The only “new” supply I used was some pink ribbon.

My piece of fabric was about 9 inches by 7 inches, so just long enough to wrap around my candle. I cut out a strip and placed a dab of hot glue midway down the glass to secure one end of the fabric to the candle holder. Then, I placed Mod Podge beneath the fabric as I wrapped it around the glass. Once it was in place, I slathered on another layer of Mod Podge on top of the fabric.

I let this dry, then added a skinny pink ribbon through the middle of the fabric. For the ribbon, I secured it to the glass only with a few dabs or hot glue.

After the ribbon was on, I started to make a few rosettes out of the burlap fabric. (Note: It’s not actually burlap, but it looks close enough so that’s what I’m gonna call it.) To make the rosettes, I used skinny strips of fabric and Mod Podge.

To make the rosette, I twisted on end of the fabric in my fingers and added some Mod Podge. This is the center of the rosette.

I kept twisting the fabric, winding it around itself as I twisted and all the while adding Mod Podge. Once the fabric ran out, I was left with a cute rosette that I set aside to dry.

Fast forward: The glass is dry, the rosettes are dry — time to combine!

I pulled out my hot glue gun to add the rosettes to my candle holders, along with some buttons.

I glued two rosettes to one glass and on onto the other. Then, I added buttons in the center of each rose, and a few alongside each.

Ta daaaaa! Two candle holders made out of fabric scraps and buttons 🙂

What a cute pair!

Craft Projects, Thrift Store Finds

Bird Wall Sconce

Holy cow, this was an exhausting weekend. As you may know, our dishwasher has been broken for what seems like ages now. We finally got the go ahead from Samsung to return our dishwasher back to Best Buy, so we went there on Saturday to process a replacement. Turns out our dishwasher is already discontinued — guess everyone else thought it sucked, too — so we had to just return the dishwasher for a refund, wait for that to go through, and buy a new one. *sigh* As if that weren’t a hot enough mess, everything in our house seemed to leak this weekend… pipes, washing machine, sink, etc. Ahhhh the joys of being a homeowner. We are hoping to buy a new dishwasher tomorrow *fingers crossed*!!! I would love to fill the gaping hole underneath our cabinets with a working dishwasher and reattach the pipes underneath our sink. Can’t wait.

Luckily, that was the only bad/stressful part of our weekend. We went to a bonfire and I did lots of crafts. Lots!

On to the crafts!!!

I don’t even remember where I picked up these wall sconces, but they were in need of some l-o-v-e love.

I was originally going to spray paint them, but neglected to do so for real. So, I busted out some of my paint samples and got to painting. I went with a light teal and a light brown.

I took off the candle holder with a screwdriver, then painted the back of the sconce teal and the candle holder brown.

After several coats of each color, I painted the outer trim of the sconce a light brown, too.

Once everything was dry, I pulled out a stencil I’ve been wanting to try. This time, I used stencil adhesive. If you use a stencil, USE STENCIL ADHESIVE. It really does help keep the stencil in place while you paint.

I placed my stencil on the sconce exactly where I wanted it, dabbing on the adhesive around the cutouts right before.

Once the stencil was secure (I only waited about a minute after placing it on), I painted the tree brown, the leaves green and the bird blue.

I pulled off the stencil as soon as I was done painting. Once everything was dry, I screwed the candle holder back onto the sconce.

Now that’s an improvement, wouldn’t you say?

I love it!

I do have a confession, though. It wasn’t until I started writing this post that I remembered I have a second sconce somewhere around my house!! Should I make a second bird sconce since it turned out so well, or should I do something completely different?

I hope you all had a great weekend. And a special thanks to those of you who checked out my blog this past weekend — I had a record number of views on Saturday and was so very excited about it. You guys are awesome and I hope you keep coming back for more!