grapes – A Smith of All Trades

Grapevine wreath

November 30, 2013November 26, 2013 Jessica Smith

I think I should be outlawed from going to Michaels. Every time I go I buy something I definitely don’t need. About a month ago I stumbled upon these adorable grapes and I just couldn’t pass them by.

This wreath was fairly simple to make, but not without error.

I started with two large grapes, a pack of small grapes and a grapevine wreath.

I started this project with the intention of hot gluing all of the pieces to the wreath. Plastic + Wood = perfect, right? Nope. For some reason, the hot glue and the grapes didn’t mix, so they all fell off. Oops.

Instead, I attached the grapes with wire. To do so, I wove the wire through the grapes and the vine, then twisted it around the back so it was secure.

Wire

I did this for each of the grapes until everything was secure. I think my brain wasn’t working because I’d lay out the pattern for my grapes, then flip over the wreath and they’d all fall off. Thankfully, it wasn’t complicated (obviously) and I was able to place them all where I wanted each time I made that mistake (at least 3 times).

Even with the small snags, this was a very easy-to-make wreath.

I know what will be gracing my front door once winter is over!

Thanks for stopping by. Check back tomorrow for my DIY GIFT GUIDE 🙂 See ya then!

Christmas, Craft Projects, Holiday, Quick and Easy Crafts, Wine Crafts

Wine cork grape ornaments

November 20, 2013November 18, 2013 Jessica Smith

I think this craft is one of my all-time favorites. My neighbor and I did a craft night before my Trash to treasure fair and we made so many cool things out of corks!

Unfortunately, I only have photos of the finished project. It’s hard to remember to take photos when you are crafting with one of your best friends. It’s basically non-stop talking mixed with singing along to Christmas music.

Anyway, check these out!

To make a wine cork grape ornament, you will need 8 wine-stained corks, a thin piece of cork, wire, hot glue, ribbon and a leaf!

First, you will need to cut the tops of your corks off. We used sharp knives from my kitchen to cut through the cork. Err, correction, Allie used the sharp knives… I couldn’t stand the noise it made. Either way, cut about half an inch from the wine stained end. We didn’t care if ours we all the same length because the different sizes gave the ornament a nice depth to it. (Can an ornament have depth?)

Once the cork tops were sliced off, I arranged them on a flat piece of cork that Allie got from TJ Maxx. It’s super thin and was meant to be a placemat. It worked great for this project, but you could use really anything to glue the corks onto. Cardboard, maybe.

Once the corks were arranged in a grape shape, we traced around them and cut out the cork. Then, we glued the leaf at the top (from a fake flower) and proceeded to glue each grape onto the cork.

When the glue dried, I poked wire through the cork and made a hidden loop behind the leaf. Then I strung my ribbon through the top and hung it on our holiday garland!

I absolutely love these ornaments and will definitely be gifting a few this holiday season.

Life, Vacation

The Finger Lakes

October 17, 2013October 16, 2013 Jessica Smith

My husband and I aren’t big travelers, but in the past two months we’ve visited Chicago, New York City, Atlantic City and the Finger Lakes in upstate New York. Oh, and I’m going to Philadelphia this weekend! So much travel!!!

Anyway, we just got back from a week in the Finger Lakes, which is a gorgeous area to visit.

If you are ever looking for a relaxing vacation, I highly recommend visiting this area, even if only for a long weekend (that might even be better than a whole week).

We started our vacation in Corning, NY, at the Corning Museum of Glass. I was pretty nervous about bringing the hubby to a glass museum, but it was pretty darn cool. The museum has a huge portion dedicated to interactive displays ranging from heat-sensitive windows to telescope lenses to walking on glass. They also had glass blowing demonstrations and a make your own glass class! It probably goes without saying that I HAD TO DO THIS CLASS! And it was awesome.

Yup, she’s holding my thousands-of-degrees-hot (I think it was thousands anyway) Christmas ornament! How fancy!

After Corning, we headed to Watkins Glen, NY. We stayed in a beautiful hotel on the harbor. Look at our amazing view of Seneca Lake.

Holy smokes is that amazing!

Next, we went hiking in Watkins Glen State Park, which is a gorge you can hike/walk/climb up. The views were breathtaking.

When we were finished hiking, we walked back to our hotel and hopped on a local boat tour of the lake. Then we hit some wineries.

We drank A LOT of wine on vacation haha.

Day three was a day for horseback riding, which was probably my favorite part of our vacation. We rode at Painted Bar Stables with our guide Erica. She was hilarious and such a good teacher. I was nervous at first, but it was fantastic. MY horse’s name was Dozer and Brian’s horse was named Mac.

He looks like a super trooper!

After horses we explored the lake before heading to our hotel for the night in Seneca Falls. The town was itty bitty with not much to do, but had a lot of beautiful buildings to look at. The old knitting mill was my favorite.

The leaves were also super beautiful here, probably because it was the northern end of the lake.

That evening we got the treat of a lifetime. Brian and I did a six-course dinner at Belhurst Castle paired with six of their wines. The castle is right on the lake, so that was a win. AND we had two wine experts all to ourselves explaining how to sniff the wine and different ways of tasting the wine. It was pretty incredible. And did I mentioned dessert was chocolate crème brûlée? Possibly one of the most delicious things I’ve ever eaten!

After Seneca Falls, we headed over to Cayuga Lake. First, we stopped to go apple picking!

I have always wanted to go apple picking. First of all, how novel is that. Second, the apples were SO CHEAP! I’m talking $1.15/lb. The orchard was called Beak and Skiff and it was just too cool. They had tractor rides out to the part of the orchard you were allowed to pick in. They had a hard cider tasting room, a cafe, a bakery, an apple barn, a playground, a gift shop… they had everything!

We picked 10 pounds of apples, which I have already turned into applesauce and apple butter. YUM!

After our apple adventure, we hiked Buttermilk Falls in Ithaca, NY.

Seriously, upstate New York has some pretty incredible parks to hike with some amazing scenery. What we didn’t know about this hike was that the hike started as a pretty steep climb up about 300 stairs. We were so tired by the time we got to the top, but it was so worth it.

Our trip ended with a nice stay in a local bed and breakfast, a few more wineries, and a kayak excursion on Cayuga Lake.

I say it was an excursion, but it was just us. And only one of us was good at kayaking. I’ll give you a hint, it wasn’t Brian!

Yes folks, I love to kayak. Love love love. I can thank my dad for that! He’s taken me many times and I’m pretty darn good at it.

My hubby, on the other hand, is pretty bad. He is SO SLOW and can’t paddle straight to save his life. But he was charming with his kayaking inadequacies and it ended up being the perfect way to end our trip.

We are home now and so relaxed. It really was such a great trip filled with so many wonderful activities.

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