Tulle – A Smith of All Trades

OK, OK, OK…. I promise after today I will stop talking about wedding stuff and Chicago. But give me one more day. You won’t regret it.

First of all, if you want to see some of the most amazing wedding pictures EVER, check out the professional photos from Allie and Stanton’s wedding. Holy amazing.

If you want to see the most amazing wedding craft ever, keep reading 🙂

I wanted to make my sister something for her wedding and was totally inspired to make her bride and groom figurines after trolling craftgawker one day. I saw these adorable wedding cake toppers on Crafts Unleashed, and although they did s’mores and no cake, I knew I had to make them.

To make these figurines you need to buy little wooden body forms at a craft store.

Hobby Lobby only had men figures, so I just used that and they turned out great. Take your time and carefully paint each figurine. Seriously, this takes so much patience. And a tiny paint brush. But mostly patience.

I painted the dress and white part of the tux first, then layered on the darker colors. I did the hair last so I could continuously grab the little head to paint the body. I let the body dry before moving onto the hair.

Wedding people

When I was done painting everything, which took a couple of hours, I added a veil using leftover tulle from my neighbor’s wedding veil.

A small dab of hot glue and some careful placement — my bride doll had a veil!

I ended up giving these to Allie early, so she put them at her and Stan’s spot at their wedding 🙂

So stinking cute 🙂 I wish I had made a set for the hubby and I for our wedding.

Craft Projects, Wreath

Twig Wreath

September 9, 2012October 22, 2012 Jessica Smith

So I’ve already admitted my new addiction to making wreaths, but today I’m going to show you how to make an inexpensive wreath — really! The only thing you absolutely need to buy is a single bunch of flowers from any craft store. I’d say this one cost me about $10. All of my other supplies were lying around the house or the yard — yes, the yard.

To start on my wreath, I found a cardboard box for the base. Using a bucket from Home Depot, I traced a circle onto the cardboard and then cut it out using a box cutter.

Then Remmy and I wandered the yard collecting small twigs for our wreath. We filled the bucket and headed back instead to start gluing our sticks to our wreath.

When the whole piece of cardboard was covered in twigs, I flipped the wreath over and reinforced the cardboard circle with small strips of cardboard. Then it was time to add flowers.

Before I was able to add any flowers, the hubby came down to my crafting area and asked me what the heck I was doing. He suggested I toss my twig wreath, and at first I thought I should. It was a rather odd-looking wreath before I added any bling.

Using the leftover flowers and tulle from my Ravens Wreath, I started adding things to the twigs. First, I pulled off all of the fake leaves from the remaining purple flowers I had purchased for about $5 for the bunch. I had enough leaves to cover the entire inner circle of the wreath, effectively covering all of the glue marks on the twigs and cardboard. Score!

As I glued, Remmy supervised. “Yes, Mom. That leaf looks great right there!”

Once my leaves were secure, I added little white buds around the edge of the wreath.

I really like these little flowers and they came in a huge bunch, so I had a lot left over from the Ravens Wreath. Perfecto.

With the background flowers in place, I started adding the larger purple flowers to the wreath. On my first purple flower I also added my last bit of black flowers, a little bit of black tulle, and a thick black ribbon to hang the wreath.

The tulle was a lucky addition for this wreath, but I really liked how it looked. So, with each extra purple flower (five in total) I added, I made sure to tuck some black tulle underneath. It provided a really great texture to the wreath.

The final two touches to the wreath were these little crystals that I picked up from Hobby Lobby for $1.47 a pack and a black bow to match the wreath hanger.

I let the glue dry, then hung my beautiful twig wreath on my craft room door. Take that, hubs. That is one pretty twig wreath 🙂

No worries, after seeing the whole ting completed, the hubs said he did like the wreath after all. Ye of little faith!

So with a bunch of leftover supplies and a little bit of hunting through my yard, I was able to make this beautiful wreath!

Hope you all had a great weekend. Happy football season!

Craft Projects

Baltimore Ravens Wreath

September 7, 2012 Jessica Smith

The hubby and I are fans of the Baltimore Ravens, and with football season underway and the Ravens’ first game right around the corner, it was time to make some sweet Ravens decor for our house.

I’m really into wreaths right now, so I made us a Ravens wreath for our front door! I saw a Halloween wreath on Pinterest that used black tulle, and I immediately knew that that was how I wanted to make my wreath.

The Baltimore team got its name from Edgar Allen Poe’s famous “The Raven” poem — you know, “Quoth the Raven, ‘Nevermore.'” Poe lived in Baltimore when he died and became famous for his eerie writing, so the black tulle was the perfect fabric to use to give the wreath an eerie feel.

I bought a hay wreath form because I liked the round shape of the wreath. Hay was also a few bucks cheaper than a foam wreath form.

I started to take the plastic wrap off of the wreath, but quickly stopped. The hay started going everywhere and made it difficult to add the tulle. Plus, I have oober sensitive skin and the hay was no good for my bare arms.

Once I started adding tulle, I realized you can’t tell the plastic is still on, so I didn’t care about leaving it there. Phew.

To add the tulle, I cut various lengths and simply tied two knots to secure it around the wreath.

I used more than 120 yards of tulle to cover this wreath — holy cow! It also took me about three hours to cover the whole thing. It was worth it, though. Check out the great volume the tulle gives the wreath once it is all covered.

With the wreath totally covered in black, it was time to embellish.

I carefully selected purple, black and white flowers from Michaels — my purple flowers even have yellow in them! Perfect to match the Ravens’ uniforms.

I added the long vines to my wreath first and foremost, laying them up and down one side of the wreath. I then secured them with hot glue.