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Secret Santa-ed

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‘What did you get for Christmas?’ ‘A house’ ‘Well merry Christmas to you indeed’ am I right?

It’s a little scattered here 

  
How did we get so many chairs, all the furniture we own consists of chairs  

 luckily I planned ahead a little bit so I’ve got a few posts I can share with you 

So lots of people are likely doing their secret this coming week and I thought I would show you what I did for my secret Santa. 

My secret Santa wanted gift cards (boring) or ear rings (I can work with that) 
Most secret Santa gifts are limited to around $10 to $20. You can’t get much for that anymore. And to me small presents are all about the presentation so along with some $8 earnings from H&M I got $2 worth of craft supplies to make a little ear ring holder/ornament. 

You’ll need two laser cut frames like I used in one of my very first posts found here. 

  
Some paint, lace and some ribbon or twine for hanging.

  
First I painted my frames using a stippling technique to give them some texture. 

  
Then I just used hot glue to glue lace to the back side of one of the frames. I also layered some tulle in there simply because my lace had very large holes and the tulle would secure ear rings better.

  
Then I spot glued a small length of ribbon onto the back of the frame to serve as a hangar. 

  
Finally I coated the back of both frames with wood glue and sandwiched the lace and ribbon in between the two by gluing the frames back to back and carefully lining them up.

  
I clamped the layers together with clothes pins while it dried 

  
After about one hour I had a lovely way to gift ear rings and money left over in my Santa budget for other goodies. 

  
  

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Clothes Pin-terest 

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As you saw in my last blog I’ve been scouring Pinterest for DIY Christmas ornament ideas so Mr. Smith and I can have some memories for our first Christmas as husband and wife (maybe even in our first house if everything goes to plan) 

I came across a few involving clothes pins the other day that looked pretty easy so I thought I would give them a go.

  
Start by taking apart some (by some I mean 8) wooden clothes pins.

    
Then glue the flat sides together like so

  
I followed that up by staining them  along with a lot of other Christmas ornament supplies by using diluted paint. That’s completely optional though

  
This is also completely optional. I wrapped the edges of the pins with washi tape. 

  
Next lay out your pins in a star/snowflake pattern. It’s easiest to first do four at 90* angles from each other and four in between those

  
  
Then find a bauble to glue to the middle on each side.

   
I chose to use a small fabric flower topped by a wooden snowflake

   
Just string some twine or ribbon through one of the small holes in the pins or glue one on and you’re all set

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All That Glitters 

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Another quick one. 

After last week’s failed attempt at a little guilding I had to have another go at it. 

  
This time I got the necessary supplies

  
And the ugliest vase known to man.

  
It actually used to hold those little reed diffuser things. I once again utilized some washi tape as painters tape… I should break down and get the real thing as the washi tape method could get expensive.

  
A little bit of how’s-about-I-just-follow-the-directions-on-the-box  and…. Not so ugly anymore

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A Minute

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Soooo it’s been a minute, again. Life has been busy, but really great. So there is that. 
I took a few minutes today to make a little something we’ve been missing.  

   
I just had to fold a piece of paper in half then in half again.

  
 Then cut a square off the folded corner. Eventually I’ll have a bookmark so I can stop using random pieces of junk mail for bookmarks.

  
Cut a slit halfway up one of the folds in order to wrap it around to the other side.

 
Use a ruler to mark the corner off and cut the extra tail off one side. 

 
Glue the flaps together on each side. I put magnets in each side but they aren’t strong enough to make a difference.

   
You can decorate however you like. I just used some washi tape.  

   

And tah dah I have a book mark. 

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Simplicity

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Keeping it short and simple this week. I stained a little letter using a fun and easy technique.

  
For this project I used a little monogram from target but if you have a good scroll or jig saw you can make your own shapes. 

  
I drew out what design I wanted in chalk first but then decided just to wing it

  
Using a small brush I painted the design on using plain old wood glue, nothing special just elmers.

  
Let the glue dry thoroughly

Then apply a thin coat of a dark stain (or at least darker than the natural wood tone) and quickly buff off any excess

  
Voila your pattern is left natural. 

It’s a quick and easy way to add detail to a project and it’s pretty versatile as well. If you’re not comfortable free handing a pattern you can always mask off a geometric pattern like stripes or chevrons.

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Free!

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I am going to attempt the impossible. I set out to make a completely free diy project.

  
And by free I mean by using leftover “junk” around the house.

  
Let’s start with some bottle caps, 10 to be exact. Grab my trustee nail polish and pick out a couple of contrasting colors. Paint 5 bottle caps one color 5 another.

  
A couple more colors and some Xs and Os, you can probably see where this is headed.

  
Next grab a little linen sack or something similar. This one came from some novelty gum Mr. Smith just had to have. Use a fabric pen or paint or just a sharpie to put on the grid.

  
Once everything is dry you can toss it all in the bag and voila you have an on the go conflict resolution implement for the kiddos, or frustration for the adults when they figure out how to always end up in a draw. 

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Keepsakes

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I like to make artwork out of things that aren’t really “art” I suppose it’s a bit like scrap booking, I call it Keepsaking.

 

So along with the foreign money I arranged in frames I framed another little keepsake. I was cleaning out my purse not too long ago and I found a ticket stub from Cinderella. I wasn’t overly wowed by the recent live action iteration of Cinderella (fingers crossed for Beauty and The Beast) however it has a more sentimental value. That was the night my boyfriend (ok fine fiancé) proposed to me.

 

When I found the frame for my calendar (you can see that here) I also found this rather epic frame on clearance. So I decided to put my tiny ticket stub in it.

First I had to make a mat for it though

I just cut an old mat up as a template. Then I used some washi tape to jazz it up

And finished off the edge with ribbon

Then, Hey Presto! I got myself a little keepsake for my desk at work.

Not to mention absolutely no excuse to forget that particular anniversary.

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This Week on Tiny Bows

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I kept coming across all of these DIY dry erase boards on Pinterest a while back, where you just take a frame and put in whatever lovely paper you want and use the glass as your board. I thought “how cool is that” then I remembered that I have absolutely no use for a dry erase board. That is until recently. About a month ago I started working as a recept— nope my official title is Client Relations associate… Meaning yes I’m a receptionist, I also run social media and newsletters and anything else that deals directly with our clients on a more personal level— anyway — at a small (as in I’m one of three people) business. Well, I’m a very visual person and sometimes unless it’s right in front of me I won’t remember to do it, so long story longer enter my awesome dry erase calendar. 

  
I ran across this frame(s) on sale at Kohls and knew it would work great. So I rushed off home and got to work. 

I pulled out all of my fabric and paper and decided on a theme. Our office is pretty sparse at the moment but has a teal lamp and abstract painting in it. 

  
luckily I’ve got lots of teal to go around thanks to recovering my dining room chairs and my experiments with fabric dyeing. 

  
So then I just took the stock images from the frames and used those as templates to cut the fabric and paper I had chosen to size for the frames

  
A little jaunt in publisher to make some labeles for days of the week and notes and I’ve got myself my very own Pinterest inspired dry erase calendar.

  
  

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A Plethora of Jars

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Somebody (I won’t name names) has gone a little glass jar happy. Between candles and target bins and advantageous clearance finds I’ve accrued quite a collection.

  
The latest acquisition is these colored Ball Heritage Collection Jars (they are the 100 year old ball design) on clearance for $1 a piece

  
Anyway, what is a girl to do with a whole bunch of pretty jars? I mean I could do wedding decor, but I’ve only got my own wedding to plan and really that’s not going to happen any time soon and it’s going to be a small affair.

So I better go for smaller projects

A Frankenstein project involving an old soap pump and one of the aforementioned mason jars
First I just poke a hole in the lid of the jar and using tin snips and needle nosed pliers make it large enough to fit the base of the pump through

  
Then just seal it with hot glue or even silicon caulk 

  
Tah! Dah! Super easy!

  
You could paint the top or embellish the jar, but I’m lazy lately.

  
Also I used a foaming pump, the ones from bath and body are the perfect size and length for  a mason jar. You can use whatever pump you have after a bottle gets emptied, it just happens to be the one I had. And foaming hand soap is super easy and cheap to make. It’s essentially 1 part liquid soap to 6 or 7 parts water.

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Rings and Things

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I’m taking a little down time while remodeling the bathroom… But it turns out I’m really bad at down time. I feel like I need to be doing something “productive”. Luckily this morning I had a little inspiration brewing. It all started with this little mouse that a friend got me as an engagement present after I had forgotten to take off my ring while we were working on a project at her house.

Then another friend who is going through a KonMari (I had to google it and it turns out I’ve been doing this technique for years) purge mentioned “aspirational clutter”. You know, all that stuff you have laying around that you go “well, I might need it… One day”. I generally hate stuff like that, but I do have a few odds and ends that have managed to hang around for no reason other than aspirational ones. So today I decided to use some of that crap.

(Admittedly the above is not Aspiration Clutter, most of it has actually already been used… It was just the only cluttered picture I had)

Enter Pinterest where I discovered this blog post (you can follow me on pinterest at TinyBows, as a warning lots of wedding stuff of late)

Then I remembered the tiny sad picture frame I had hanging around because “I swear I’ll find something to do with it”.

As you might have noticed most of its rhinestones are gone, so let’s just make all of them disappear, and break out my trusty decorating friend nail polish.

 

Much improved

On to the backing which I’ll be doing with some scraps of fleece and wide lace ribbon. The fleece is another aspirational hang around, it’s just scrap from a Finn the human hat I made for my boyfriend two halloweens ago.

I just cut circles of the lace and fleece the size of the glass that used to go in the frame then did consecutively smaller circles of the fleece to act as stuffing

Now just one last thing, a straight pin with the head painted with the same nail polish to match. It’s mint candy apple by Essie if you were wondering.

I’m pretty sure I now need to do a big one of these to stick my myriad of broaches in.

And now I have a nice pretty ring holder to sit in the bedroom and a nice pretty (but also durable and unfazed by water) one to go in the kitchen or bathroom.