Super Sparkly Snowflakes

In one corner of my living room stands a silver tree, adorned with vintage ornaments of blue, black and silver. In the other corner was….nothing. Who will save this corner from boredom and shame?
-(insert trumpet call)-
Super Sparkly Snowflakes will!

That was a bit dramatic-I know. I have a tendency to lean that way…
I am just so excited how the Super Sparkly Snowflakes enrich an otherwise boring old corner of the room.

Here’s a close up of the snowflakes as they sparkle away. They’re pretty good at that. These Super Sparkly Snowflakes were also super cheap and super easy to make with super sparkly results.

Here’s what you’ll need to make your very own Super Sparkly Snowflakes:
Hot glue gun & Sticks
Wire cutter
12 & 16 gauge silver wire
Sequins, jewels, etc
Silver Spray Paint
3”-ish foam discs, orbs, or whatever shape you desire
Toothpicks or shish-ka-bob skewers

Poke the skewers or toothpicks into the desired pattern on your foam piece.

Spray both sides of the snowflake and the skewers with the silver spray paint.

If desired, use the 12 gauge silver wire as accents on the snowflakes. I curled one end around a pencil and stuck the other end into the foam piece.

Use a hot glue gun to attach the sequins or jewels to the tips of the skewers. I integrated a pair of needle nosed pliers to this operation because I was tired of burning my flesh. Genius, right? It only took me several ‘dang-its’ before I figured this out.

I added more jewels to the center of my snowflake

Thread the 16 gauge wire through your snowflakes. I interspersed black and blue Christmas balls between the snowflakes for a little bit of color.

Here are the snowflakes against a green wall so that you can see some of their definition.

And this is where they eventually ended up-livening up the very un-Christmasy corner of my living room.
Super Sparkly Snowflakes saved the day again! Super!

Whimsical Christmas Wreath

My two naked front doors forced me to do it. (Yes, we like to buy houses with two front doors, rather if we own them or to rent them). The front doors had basically been ignored during the decorating process for years. So, they locked me in until I came up with something cute, modern and above all, ‘Christmasy’.

I made two different types of wreaths-this being the first in a two-part intense wreath series I will be sharing with you.
Ok, truth be told, it’s not intense. It’s rather easy.

Here’s what you’ll need to make your own:
Styrofoam wreath
Metallic Spray Paint-I used silver, but you can go gold, red, whatever!
Hot Glue gun
Scissors
Brown Paper bags, drop cloth, etc
(ignore the rest of the stuff in the photo. I didn’t end up using it.)

Also:
Beads (these were from Mardi Gras)
Handful of small twigs
Metallic discs (found in the hobby section)
-OR-Any other decor you have laying around-tiny feathers, bells, sequins, gems, etc

Lay out the brown paper sacks or some sort of a drop cloth. Spray the styrofoam wreath and the twigs with the metallic spray paint. Don’t inhale…

Shove the twigs into the wreath until they fit snuggly. Show those suckers who’s boss. Hot glue the metallic discs (or the decor you have on hand) to the wreath with a bit of whimsy on your side.

Lay the beads around the wreath, intertwining them with the twigs. Hot glue the beads at various points around the wreath, so that they are secure but still have the capability of movement.

Proudly display your one of a kind ‘Whimsical Christmas Wreath’ on the door of your choosing-if you have more than one, like we do. ‘Cuz, we’re weird. And we buy weird houses.

But watch out-the neighbor’s with the boring old evergreen wreath might be jealous.

Retro Christmas Tree Skirt

I cherish Christmas.
It’s my absolute favorite time of the year. I anxiously await a reasonable time to launch into new crafty Christmas ideas, as soon as the first leaf begins to turn. This year I made it to the second week of October before I pulled out the decorations.
Ridiculous-I know. Fun-definitely.

This tree skirt was made out of scraps of felt fabric, an hour of my time and a bit of vintage inspiration.

Here’s what you’ll need to make your own Retro Tree Skirt:
2 Christmasy colors of scrap felt (I had red & green on hand)
1 circle piece of felt-about 2’-3’ in diameter (I used black)
Hot glue gun or ‘Heat n Bond’
Scissors
Ric-rac
Card Stock with your desired image drawn & cut out

Pin the cut out images to the chosen Christmasy felt. Cut out 4-6 of each image, depending upon how they are distributed around the skirt.

I cut out four felt deer for my tree skirt. And named them (from left to right: Template Deer “Ed”, Prancer, Dancer, Blitzen & Rudoplh).

And, I cut out five sparkly felt Christmas trees for my tree skirt and named them, too (from left to right: Gerry, Edna, Harry, Bob & Alice). But, I ended up only using four of them, however.
‘Alice’ was very upset.

Cut out a 2’-3’ in diameter tree skirt base. Then, cut a slit from one corner of the circle to the center, so that it can wrap around the tree. Using either a hot glue gun or the ‘Heat n Bond’, distribute the images around the tree skirt however looks best.

I added red noses to the deer and a bit of ric-rac around their necks for that extra vintage feel.

I hot glued two different colors of ric-rac around the edge of the tree skirt for some Christmasy pizzazz

And Tah-Dah! A one-of-a-kind, vintage-inspired tree skirt.
The deer were happy, the trees were happy, my wallet was happy…Now, all I need is the tree.