gold – Page 4 – A Smith of All Trades

Christmas Tree craft

January 2, 2013 Jessica Smith

I got the best Christmas present ever when my dad called me on Dec. 23 to ask if I wanted to do a Christmas craft on Christmas Eve morning before all of our festivities began. I said yes (duh) and dad went out hunting for supplies. When he was younger, his mom made Christmas trees out of mixed nuts that she decorated and hung on a wall in their home. He wanted to make one just like it for his home and for mine.

For this project we used:

Thin sheets of wood
Hot glue
Nuts in their shells (three or four bags)
Pinecones
Metallic spray paint
Small ornaments
Fabric
Batting
Drill
Jigsaw
Wire
Felt

Step 1: Bake pinecones to kill any critters that may be living inside. Bake for 25 minutes at 200 degrees. That should do the trick. We gathered ours outside of our gym at 6:30 a.m. … in the dark. I’m sure we looked wayyy creepy.

Step 2: Sketch out a tree shape onto a piece of wood. We drew a triangle for the tree, a small rectangle for the stump and a trapezoid for the base.

Step 3: Cut out your tree using a jigsaw (or a hand saw if you prefer).

Step 4: If you want to make more than one, use your cutout tree as a stencil and trace it onto the first sheet of wood.

Step 5: Drill a hole in the top of the tree and string wire through to make it easy to hang later on.

Step 6: Start gluing on your nuts and pinecones. I used a pine cone for the top of my tree. Dad used a prickly seed from a sweet gum tree as his topper.

It is OK to have gaps in your nuts and pine cones because you’ll be filling it in with ornaments later on.

Step 7: Spray paint the top of the tree using a metallic spray paint of your choice. Dad went with a bronze metallic.

I chose a metallic silver for mine.

Step 8: Once your tree is painted, it is time to create the trunk. I clipped edged of pinecones and glued them onto the trunk.

Dad went with thin twigs. If you’d like your trunk to be the same color as your tree, do this step right after gluing on your nuts.

Step 9: Glue your ornaments onto the tree.

Step 10: Cover the base of the tree in batting. Then, cover with fabric. Our wood wasn’t thick enough for staples, so we hot glued all of our fabric and batting directly to the wood.

Step 11: If you see the need, which we did, glue felt to the back of your tree (small circles will do) to spots of the tree that might rub against the door or wall you will hang it on. You don’t want to scuff your walls, and small circles of felt in the corners and around the wire will help.

Step 12: You are done! Hang your tree up for the holiday season and admire.

This was definitely best part of my holiday break, which is saying a lot because I had an amazing holiday break. I loved doing such a fun and sentimental project with my dad. We have one more base for next year. Dad’s got grand plans for how to make our next trees even better.

meanddad

Thanks for the great idea, Dad 🙂 Love you.

One last thing…. happy birthday to my awesome mother-in-law, Robin!

Christmas, Craft Projects, Holiday, Life

Hope Ornament: #BloggersforSandyHook

December 21, 2012 Jessica Smith

A week ago today, 26 lives were cut short by a senseless act of violence at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Today we blog for Sandy Hook.

As part of the #BloggersforSandyHook tribute I wanted to share an ornament I made for our tree this week.

In honor of the grieving community and the 26 people who died at Sandy Hook Elementary School last Friday in Newtown, CT., I made a “hope”ornament for our tree.

I really like the idea of having this on my tree each year to remind me to hug my loved ones extra tight, especially at Christmas.

If you want to make one too, here is what you’ll need:

Gold paint
Thin paint brush
Crystal beads or gems (26)
White ribbon
Christmas ball ornament (it can be any color)

Using Martha Stewart gold metallic paint and a thin paint brush, I painted the word “Hope” onto an ordinary glass Christmas ball. I chose to write the word in basic handwriting versus anything fancier — I like that it looks like something a kid could have written, plus I don’t trust my ability to paint in cursive. I then added 26 small dots all around the word “hope” to symbolize those who passed away at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Lastly, I painted one gold star as a tribute the bravery exhibited that day.

After the paint was dry, I carefully went over it all a second time so it really popped on the ornament and on our tree.

Next, I removed the silver top of the ornament and placed 26 crystal beads inside, again, one for each life lost. They are super sparkly and look really pretty inside the ornament. The beads I picked are plastic and sort of chunky, and I’d imagine that little girls would have loved to make necklaces out of them.

As a last step, I put the silver cap back on and tied a white ribbon to the top of the ornament. I added a bow where the ribbon meets the ornament as the final touch.

I was having a heck of a time taking a decent picture of the ornament and didn’t do the best job. It is beautiful and because of all of the gold paint, crystals and white ribbon it looks rather ethereal — which seems very fitting.

To all those grieving in Connecticut: May your lives be filled with hope for a better future and your hearts be filled with the happiest of memories of the loved ones lost. You are in our thoughts this holiday season and inspire us each day to hug our loved ones a little bit tighter.

I am truly sorry for your loss.

Jess

Craft Projects, Quick and Easy Crafts

Clothespin Candles

October 4, 2012October 4, 2012 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!