Crafty Christmas – DIY Gift Tags

Have you seen the price of gift tags lately? Unless you’re buying the little stickers then you’re probably paying an arm and a leg for them so why not make your own? These tags were so easy to make but are really cute and unique enough that your gift recipient will take notice.

The measurements for these will vary depending on the size of tag you use but the method will stay the same. Cut three strips from a piece of double sided paper making each strip a little shorter than the last. Score each strip along even intervals and then fold them accordion style. Pinch the longest strip together a bit at the top and hot glue it on to your tag. Repeat with the remaining strips being sure that the middle strip is flipped over so you can see the coordinating pattern. The last step is to glue little paper stars to the top (I cut mine out with my Silhouette).

Simple, cute and you can make them on the cheap because, let’s be honest, they’re probably getting thrown out with the wrapping paper! I made some of these for my craft sale that were about 5 inches tall. I priced them at $2 each and sold 6 of them.

So, how’s your gift wrapping going?

Crafty Christmas – Upcycled Wine Bottle Vases

Popping in with a quick post before getting the weekend started. And by that I totally mean putting on my pajamas and catching up on Grey’s Anatomy ;) But first, I wanted to show you these easy, pretty winter vases made from wine bottles. I pinned these last winter but, since we don’t drink wine, I wasn’t able to try them until someone donated some bottles to the cause this year.

Start by cleaning off any labels and giving the bottles a good scrub with some hot, soapy water. Once they’re dry give them a coat of white spray-paint. I found that one coat was enough but don’t be afraid to add a second if you can see through to the glass. Once the paint is dry give the bottles a quick blast of spray adhesive (don’t spray the necks) and then roll them in Epsom salts. Done! Since taking this picture I’ve added a few glittery flower sprigs that I originally bought to put on a wreath. I think they look beautiful and I can leave them out all winter.

These were part of my inventory at my craft sale and I sold two of them at $10 each.

A quick warning – if your cat is anything like mine you’re going to want to keep these bottles somewhere he can’t get to. My cat licked some patches bare the first night I left these out. Luckily they were easy to repair :)

Have a great weekend!

Pinned It – Did It Count: 4

Crafty Christmas - $2 Tinsel Garland Done Two Ways

Is it just me or are Christmas decorations really shiny this year? Tinsel trees seem to be everywhere! I love the retro vibe that tinsel can have so when I found $2 strands of tinsel garland at Walmart I knew I could make them into something great. I bought two strands for a total of $4 and made two different projects. The first is my tinsel tree set.

 

These were really easy to make! I created tree forms with a pizza box (the kind that you cook in your oven, not a delivery box) because it was sturdy but not so thick that I couldn’t roll it. Once the hot glue had dried on the forms I used some more to glue on the tinsel. I started at the top and that way, if I ran out, I could just cut off the bottom of my tree form. The last step was to take some mini ornaments that I bought for $1 at the dollar store and hot glue those onto the trees. So easy and so cute with a real vintage feel. These cost me less than $3 to make (I had leftover ornaments) and I sold the set for $15 :)

Next I took my second garland and started wrapping it around a wire wreath form. My plan was to cover the whole wreath but I obviously hadn’t guesstimated the correct length of garland I’d need as it only made it about half way around.

Not to be discouraged I rummaged through my stash and found the pretty blue yarn that I used on last year’s Yarn Winter Wreath and wrapped it around the other side. I went back over with some random strands to try and give it a more natural look. I tied a bow with some silver ribbon and hot glued that onto the tinsel side and then added all the silver ornaments from my $1 pack onto the yarn side. I wasn’t sure about this wreath at first but I really like the way it turned out. I love the way the yarn is in such contrast to the tinsel. I was asking $20 for it and it got a lot of compliments but didn’t sell. I can’t be too upset about it though since it only cost me about $3 to make (not counting the materials that I already had).

So what do you think of tinsel? Vintage or tacky? Or maybe just trendy? While you ponder that I’ll be off working on some toddler Hanukkah crafts that I’ll be sharing next week!

Crafty Christmas – Dry Erase Christmas Countdown

Today I’m sharing another one of the projects I did for my craft sale – dry erase Christmas countdowns. I’d seen the idea for writing on glass with a dry erase marker on a few blogs recently and I thought it would be the perfect way to keep track of the days leading up to Christmas!

I started with some 8x10 black frames that I bought at Good Will for a few dollars each. I removed the glass and the ugly bathroom art and sprayed two with Nickel and one with Red paint. Painting only one coat allowed the black to show through a bit which gave the frames a kind of vintage feel.

While the paint dried I used my Silhouette to cut out “Days Until Christmas” and the little dashes to write the numbers on top. I glued my letters down on some Christmas paper and arranged some additional paper elements. Then I popped the glass and the paper back into the frames.

 

And it was as easy as that! I was selling these for $20 each and including a dry erase marker with each one. I thought that was pretty reasonable for decently sized Christmas decor that can be used year after year and I think they would have sold at that price in a different setting. Unfortunately, I didn’t sell any of them. If you like one of them and you’re local or you’d be willing to pay for shipping just let me know :). Otherwise, give this craft a try yourself – there’s still 18 days until Christmas!

P.S. Linking up with Clean & Scentsible, Free Pretty Things For You, Someday Crafts

Crafty Christmas – Dictionary Page Ornaments

So as I’ve mentioned previously, I participated in my very first craft sale this past weekend. I worked really hard to build up an inventory of awesome Christmas crafts and decorations – things that I was really proud of. I was up until 2 the night before the sale putting the finishing touches on things and I was very pleased with my 8 foot table piled with Christmas goodness. So you can imagine my extreme disappointment when I sold almost nothing! The good news is that I don’t think it was my fault. We got a lot of snow the night before the sale and the roads were a mess in the morning which meant not a lot of people came. So now I have a bunch of boxes full of Christmas crafts in my basement but I also have a lot of great projects to share with you. First up are super simple Dictionary Page Ornaments.

I bought a bunch of Styrofoam balls at the dollar store and decided to turn them into “unbreakable” ornaments. Basically, ornaments that would be safe should your toddler decide to throw them or your cat decide to climb your tree (I’ve lost many an ornament to my cat’s antics). For this project I chose balls that were a bit bigger than a ping pong ball.

I started by tearing up pages of an old dictionary into small squares and strips. Then I applied a layer of Mod Podge to the balls and covered them in the dictionary pieces, overlapping them to make sure nothing would show through. This is the point where it got messy – I then applied a generous amount of Mod Podge to the top of the dictionary pages and used my fingers to really rub it in and smooth everything out. My hands were black when I was through!

To dry the ornaments I set them in an old egg carton so that they wouldn’t stick to each other or anything else. Once they were dry I used straight pins to attach a loop of red ribbon for hanging. And voila – Dictionary Page Ornaments. I think they turned out simple and pretty and I was selling them for $2 or 3 for $5. I got a ton of compliments but I didn’t sell any. Oh well, they just might make it onto our tree this year ;)

Making sure you keep checking back as I’ve got a lot more Crafty Christmas posts coming up!