Tag: ornament

Christmas, Craft Projects, Holiday, Wine Crafts

Wine Cork Rudoplhs

Jessica Smith

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OMG OMG OMG OMG. A CRAFT POST.  A CHRISTMAS CRAFT POST!!!!!

Holy smokes, she’s back! Yup, this craft blogger has some crafts to show you! I mentioned a few posts back that I have ben focusing lately on getting healthy and losing weight — well, I am more than 30 lbs down (Thank goodness! Chubby me was tired of being chubby!) and feel like I have a much better grasp on the balance between eating, exercising and all other fun activities like CRAFTS!

Enter Rudolph the wine cork reindeer!

To make this freakin’ adorable ornament, first start with a cork. I like the corks that aren’t true corks. They have a layer of skin (almost) to them that makes this project easier than if you were to use a true cork.

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Drill through the cork — don’t go top to bottom, rather drill through the side of the cork, somewhat near the top. This will be the heigh of your antlers.

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Cut a long piece of malleable brown wire and fold it in half. Stick the wire through your drilled hole, sending the folded end through the cork first. I learned the hard way that it is much more difficult to get your wire through your cork if the sharp end leads the way.

Cork Rudolph_3Your cork should sit in the middle of your wire.

Next, it’s time to form your antlers. I folded the wire about 1.5 inches from the base and twisted the wire until it touched the cork. Then, with the extra wire I wrapped back up the twisted portion and did this again. I ended up with three-pronged antlers, with the extra wire wrapping down along the base of each. Do this on both sides.

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Once the antlers were on, I screwed an eye hook into the top of the cork to make this an ornament.

Cork Rudolph_5Time for the eyes and nose!

Here’s where your cork having “skin” is important. I took a nail and pressed it through the skin of the cork as an appropriate eye level for rudolph. It went in at one point and came out another — these entry/exit points are where the wire will enter and exit.

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Once you create your hole and feed your wire through, add see beads for eyes. Get them as close to the cork as possible, then wrap wire around the base of each eye to secure them to the cork.

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One eye!

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Two eyes!

I used this exact same process for the nose. I tried to make the entry and exit points closer together when feeding the nail through the cork since the nose didn’t need no be spaced far apart like the eyes. I used beads and bells on different ornaments, but each one needs to be secured to the cork by wrapping the wire around the base.

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The final step is to add a ribbon! Voila! Rudolph the Red-Nosed Wine Cork!

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Cork Rudy is hanging on my mini tree in my office. Yes, I’ve started decorating already 🙂

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Christmas, Craft Projects, Holiday, Life

Hope Ornament: #BloggersforSandyHook

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.

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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.

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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

Christmas, Craft Projects, Holiday

Painted Salt Dough Ornaments

Jessica Smith

Remember the salt dough ornaments from Sunday? Well, if not, let me refresh your memory.

BAM!

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Carrie, Amy and I made a bunch of these ornaments at our last craft night of 2012 and I hung a few on my tree right away. I also saved a bunch to paint. And, amazingly, I painted all of them on Tuesday night after work! I guess when no television shows are new it’s much easier to motivate yourself to work on crafts.

I broke out my Martha Stewart metallic silver paint that I used like a crazy person this summer (silver mirrors, silver chests, silver everything!) and a teeny tiny paint brush and started to paint different ornaments. I made three snowflakes out of the silver, adding ribbon to hang them on the tree by. I also painted a few with reds and greens. I painted a lot of ornaments last night.

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I accented this snowflake with red dots using the tip of a small nail head.

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Then I painted this little mitten. So cute!

I’d show more, but they are all gifts for people who might be peeking! You get the idea anyway.

One last thing… if the world ends tomorrow, nice knowing ya! 😉 Happy almost Mayan Apocalypse and happy Thursday.