Tag: embellishments

Craft Projects, Quick and Easy Crafts

Clothespin Candles

Jessica Smith

Pinterest is amazing, huh? I see some of the cutest stuff on Pinterest and I love when I get around to trying my own version of these creative ideas. One idea I’ve been wanting to try is making a candle holder out of a tuna can and clothespins…. except I think using a tuna can is sort of icky. Don’t get me wrong, I love tuna — but I think I would forever convince myself my candle would smell like fish, so that is a no go.

I made a project out of a mason jar that I haven’t shared with you quite yet ( it needs one last thing that I can’t seem to find anywhere!), but because of that project I had an extra lid lying around. Perfect!

I wanted to make a permanent candle holder, so I pulled out my hot glue gun to make sure no clothespins would fall of this bad boy.

I placed a bead of glue on the inside rim of the lid, then popped the clothespin on top. Once it dried, I did the same thing on the outside.

More than 30 clothespins later, I had a nice form for my candle holder.

Time to embellish — I pulled out my roll of twine and carefully glued it in the naturally created ring in the middle of the clothespins.

As a final touch, I added gold buttons around the twine and a small, glass tea light holder. Voila!

The fun thing about this candle holder are the shadows it makes on the wall and ceiling.

I also like the rustic look that the clothespins give off.

Craft Projects

Decoupaged clip boards

Jessica Smith

My girlfriends and I got together this weekend for another day of crafting. We planned to do decoupage crafts and decided to try a Martha Stewart-inspired project: Decorative clip boards.

Carrie saw this online and had been wanting to try it for a while now. She had two matching clip boards already, and we picked up two more at the thrift store.

To start, we created templates for the clip board. To make this easier, Carrie and Amy tied their clips open with twisty ties. My clip board didn’t need that because the clip style was different.

Once the templates were created, we cut out the paper of our choosing to cover the board.

Now Amy and Carrie did theirs the right way. In fact, Carrie diligently research how to use Mod Podge before tackling her board. Me… well I just went for it.

I’ve used Mod Podge before with no problems, so I covered my board in a layer of the stuff and slapped my paper on top. WRONG! The paper I chose was really delicate and thin, so it was ridiculously impossible to smooth out any of the bubbles in the paper. So my tray looked like crapola.

I ended up ripping my paper off and opting to cover my board in fabric.

Carrie and Amy stuck with their original plans. Carrie found a tip online suggesting you coat both the surface of your project and the back of the paper with Mod Podge. That seemed to work a little better for this project. I personally think it depends on the thickness of the paper.

Anyway, I got to covering mine with fabric. It was the first time I’d used Mod Podge with fabric and I loved it. With fabric, it is soooo easy to get rid of any imperfections because you can pull the fabric any which way without worry of it ripping. So after I put on a coat of the Podge onto the board, I slapped my fabric on top and got to smoothing. I also folded my fabric around the edges of the board for a nice clean look. Once it was all smooth, I cut away a piece for my clip and put a thin layer of Mod Podge on top.

I had some scraps left over, so I created mini rosettes to embellish my clip board. I’ll do a whole post on those later, but all in all, they were pretty easy to make.

Once my rosettes were dry, I hot glued them to my board. So cute!

If you think my board is cute, then check out Amy’s and Carrie’s boards!

I love their paper choices (courtesy of Paper Source… love that place). Carrie said she will probably hang hers (center and right board) in her kitchen. Amy said she will probably bring hers to work.

Crafts aside, my weekend was so much fun. The hubby and I got to meet our friends’ new baby, Declan.

What a sweet little guy.

Declan and I are pretty much best buds now. And the hubby? Well, he and Jax are best buds.

It was a great weekend with great friends.

Happy Monday!