Tag: spray paint

Christmas, Craft Projects, Holiday

Christmas Tree craft

Jessica Smith

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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).

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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.

Tree stencil

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

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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.

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

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

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I chose a metallic silver for mine.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Thanks for the great idea, Dad 🙂 Love you.

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

Craft Projects

Feather tray

Jessica Smith

Since I actually like our coffee table now, I wanted to be sure we keep it looking nice. So it’s time we got used using coasters again… to help us with this, and to keep us a little more organized, I wanted to make a stylish tray to sit on our table to store our remotes (all three of them) and coasters.

I picked up an ugly little tray at the thrift store for $2.

OK, it’s not that bad… just SO not my style. A little too country for this girl.

Anyway, I sanded the tray down and took it outside to give it a coat of black spray paint.

Once the try was dry, I took it inside and Mod Podged a piece of black and white scrapbook paper to the bottom of the tray. It didn’t quite fit all of the way, so I decided to bring the black paint onto the paper to give the tray a more cohesive feel.

With that in mind, I took the Mod Podged tray (once it was dry, of course) back outside to strategically add a bit more black paint.

To finish off the tray, I added felt feet to the bottom and coated the tray with a sealer. I like the overall look of our new tray, but I think I eventually want to add something around the edges. I had a little bit of difficulty getting the edges to stay smooth and flat, which can be obvious depending on the angle.

Either way, it looks good on our table and will help us stay neat!

Craft Projects, Furniture

Sunshine Yellow wooden chairs

Jessica Smith

I love the color scheme in our house — it’s very calming and beautiful. Having said that, it never hurts to add pops of bright colors here and there. That’s just what I did with my most recent project. I found two wooden chairs at a local thrift store that I liked the shape of. So, I snagged them ($5 and $7… not too bad) and ran to Home Depot to pick a bright fun color.

I ended up going with a bright shade of yellow. I set up a drop cloth in my yard so I had plenty of ventilation for my project, then started to spray away.

 

The chairs turned out great. There are a few spots I need to sand down and touch up but very time I spray paint I either grossly underestimate the amount of spray paint I”ll need and run out, or it starts to thunderstorm and I get interrupted halfway through my project. I’ve got about half a can left, maybe less, so hopefully it will be enough to cover a few areas I need to touch up. If not, I’ll buy one last can next time I’m at the store. I used five in total for this project.

Once my chairs were dry, I brought them inside. I’m debating whether to flank each side of my buffet (which I still need to refinish) with a chair so they are against our bluish-greenish walls, or if I should put them on our main floor so they are against the light gray.

Overall, I think they are adorable and oh so cheery.

I also like that we’ll have more seating options for our guests. The chairs are comfy, too!

Now I just need to make two pillows to tie them into whichever room I decide to keep them in. I’m thinking a gray chevron pattern with a cheery yellow flower and an aqua button… That can’t be too complicated to make, right?

That pillow looks dumb and is way too big, but you get the idea.

** The sad part about this project is that while I love the yellow, I keep wondering if I should have painted them an aqua blue instead… I have a serious problem with my love of blues and greens. I have to keep telling myself it’s OK to have yellow in my house :p **