tacks – A Smith of All Trades

Do you know someone who loves snowmen? Or home improvement? If you do, then this decoration made mostly of home improvement findings would make a fabulous addition to their Christmas decor.

Supplies:

Styrofoam balls, three different sizes
Pencil
Mason jar band
Ribbon
Two nails
Thumb tacks
Staples
Wire
Hot glue

Steps:

Take the largest ball and stick a pencil in it. Weird, yes.
Cover two inches of the pencil in hot glue, then stick the medium-sized ball on top. Yes, there is a random sock on my craft table. Thank you, Remmy.
Do the same thing for the smallest ball, but do not push the pencil all the way though. This is the head of the snowman.
Make a face for your snowman using two nails and a few staples. Stick each component into the styrofoam to secure it.
Once your snowman has a face, add a few tacks along its belly for buttons. Place a small dab of hot glue under each tack so they don’t come loose over time.
Make arms for your snowman out of wire. Twist the wire until you have two long pieces for arms. Stick the pointy ends into the styrofoam. Or better yet, find two twigs to do the job.
Tie a piece of ribbon around the snowman’s neck. Cut the ends to the length you prefer, then “fray” the ends with tin scissor cuts. I added No Fray to mine.
Take the mason jar band and line the rim with hot glue. Press it onto the bottom ball to act as a stand for the snowman.
Wrap ribbon around the band, securing it with hot glue.
Display!

Our snowman is currently on the lookout for snow we are supposed to be getting today. Here’s hoping!

It is the first day of fall. Hooray!

Did you see the adorable pumpkin I transformed yesterday from a sweet Dollar Store find? If not, check it out here.

I had two pumpkins left over to complete my fall decor trio, so I decided to cover both of them with fabric. I had a gold tablecloth I’ve been wanting to use for a project, as well as some burlap remnant I picked up from JoAnn’s. I also picked up silver tacks at the dollar store, so I chose to use them as little studs in my fabric-covered pumpkins.

I started with the gold fabric, cutting the fabric into scrap strips. I started pinning them to the pumpkin using the silver tacks.

Once the pumpkin was covered in studs, I painted the stem of the pumpkins gray to match the Mod Podged pumpkin. Love it.

I did the same thing to the third pumpkin with the burlap strips.

The only thing securing the fabric to the pumpkin are the tacks, but I used about 150 per pumpkin (wowzer), so I don’t think that fabric is falling off any time soon. Having said that, I found it important to overlap the strips of fabric since there is no glue underneath the fabric. With the overlap, there is a nice texture of rough edge on smooth fabric, and there is total coverage of the bright orange pumpkin underneath.

The tacks run down the valleys of the pumpkin — it is OK to adjust your tacks as you go. If your lines aren’t exactly how you want them, fix them!