Candy Cane Candle

DISCLAIMER: DO NOT LIGHT THIS CANDLE! I am not responsible for what goes on at your home. I cannot tell you enough that this is only for display and is not meant to be lit. 

Okay..with my little disclaimer out of the way...here is the candy cane candle. I decided to make this when I didn't have anything to match my Christmas decor on my mantle. This is one of the easiest projects I have ever made. 

Take a completely white candle, or buy one of the ones that have the LED lights in them. I would have gotten one of those, but this is what I had laying around my house. 

You do not have to use the silhouette cameo for this one, or transfer tape for that matter. All you need to do is cut strips of the adhesive vinyl. After you cut the strips, place them on the candle and cut off the overhang. 

Take the strips anyway that you see fit. I made some bigger and then placed the smaller ones in between.

My mantle doesn't normally have an elf on it, but this is where he was this morning and we aren't supposed to touch them - I have many little people eyes watching to make sure that nobody touches him. I left my other candle white so you could see the difference. 

Personalized Wrapping Paper

You can buy personalized wrapping paper...which is obviously really cute, but the wrapping paper gets torn to shreds with in a matter of minutes and has cost you a lot of money. I love the thought of having my own recipe on my wrapping paper, or my name, whatever I want...so I made my own. I used the sketch pens that I finally got in the mail and created this. I'm going to do some other designs and add tags, but I couldn't wait to show y'all!

 

 

To complete this project I bought the postal wrapping paper. It is 30 inches wide, which is obviously too big for your machine...so you need to cut it. You can make the width 24 inches and then fold the paper in half and send it through the machine on your mat. Change the color of the sketch pens as many times as you like, but remember to select no cut when you are wanting an object a different color. If you have any questions - let me know!

Letter to Santa Pillow

You know that I'm big on Christmas...everything Christmas. My house is actually in the North Pole and people call me Claus. ;) What's a better way to communicate with Santa then a direct pillow talk route? My kiddos love to write letters to Santa, well...not the ones that can't write...or speak yet for that matter, so a fun way to do this is to have them write their letter and put it in Santa's pouch. They can even write a letter on Christmas Eve for Santa and he can leave his response back in the pouch for the kiddos! Pretty much you can put whatever you want in the pouch, or nothing at all. You can give this as a gift and put some Christmas goodies in it like cookies, candy canes, gift cards, subpoenas etc.

**If you are feeling extra crafty, which evidently I am because my friend told me I am, you can put your children's names under the belt so that they can have their personalized letter to Santa pillow. 

The Tutorial:

I used red fleece from Hobby Lobby and cut 3 pieces 12x12. I used a tape measure.

I used the fake fur, also from Hobby Lobby and placed a 2 inch wide strip down the middle (I sewed on both sides leave) and then sewed 2 black buttons on. 

Take your 3rd piece of fabric and fold directly down the middle and iron it. I used my silhouette cameo to cut out the pieces for the belt, but you can use whatever you would like. Then I used my iron and put them on the fabric. 

Match up the bottom belt piece to the front of the Santa suit. 

Place your extra piece of fleece and put down on top of the layers creating a sandwich. 

Pin your pieces together. I pin my stuff like this...I'm not sure how other people pin their projects together - but I like to do it this way. Make sure to mark where you will leave your opening to stuff the pillow. I left my opening by the "arm" of Santa. 

Pull your fabric out the little arm hole and make sure to poke all points with a tool...such as your scissors. Your next job is to either use your pillow form or some cluster puff...both of which you can buy at Hobby Lobby. 

** Disclaimer...I have no idea how good you sew - so if you have small children who like to eat things, make sure you get those suckers on tight or use the heat adhesive vinyl to do fake buttons. **

Jingle Bells

Have I mentioned that I love Christmas? It still feels that at this time of the year - everyone most people are happy and loving...except on Black Friday and then you have to watch your back. Christmas crafts are fun, especially while listening to a little Pandora Christmas. Today, with the help of my wonderful Mother, we created re-created (we saw it in a magazine for like a million dollars) this little beauty:

Here is the how to:

Take your iron and steam the burlap so that it's not all wrinkled up. Then take it over to your cutting mat, or carpet area, and cut the fabric 14x28 - this is the exact measurement of the pillow insert. We had cut some previously so we just used that to guide us. You will need to cut 2 pieces (you can do both the same fabric or add a different fabric). 

Using the Silhouette Cameo, I created and cut the word "Jingle" out on some vinyl (I don't have the fabric kit that silhouette offers or I would have used that...it probably would have been a lot easier too). You don't have to use a silhouette, although they are amazing and I love mine, you can use a stencil you have or make one yourself. Weed out the letters in the word so that negative space is there and then apply your transfer paper. 

This step is CRUCIAL! GET IT STRAIGHT! Otherwise you will have a weird looking pillow. Take your transfer paper and measure, measure, measure. 

This is how it should look when you get the transfer paper off and it is just the adhesive vinyl. You are now ready for the fun part...PAINT! 

Take a sponge and dab paint, little by little. For this project, since I don't have the Silhouette fabric ink kit, I used Speedball screen printing paint from Hobby Lobby. It is really hard to let it dry a little because you are so excited to see what you just created...but just wait - like at least 4 minutes. 

We used little sleigh bells to accent the pillow. You can use as many or as little as you like, but now is the time to add them. Next you need to sew the fabric right sides together making sure to leave quite a bit of space to get your pillow insert in. After adding the pillow insert you will want to do a blind stitch to close the pillow up. You are finished and now have a wonderful Holiday pillow! 

Lodge Wreath...and an update

I finally posted the update to the winter wreath below...which actually became the "baby shower wreath" and that's why there was a delay in posting it. If you didn't get a chance to see the post - here is the finished product:

My newest wreath project, the Lodge Wreath, is not quite done yet...but I wanted to go ahead and show y'all because...well...I want to. It is the same technique as the previous wreath except I used wired ribbon. 

I need to add more ribbon around in some areas and then I just might stick a big fat H on there somewhere...or maybe a deer. We shall see. If you have been looking at those extra pricey wreaths you may even have your own idea...like adding a full body deer going directly across the wreath. ;)

Happy Holidays everyone...it's my favorite time of the year. (I've already got my mantel finished and one of my trees up...my friend sent me this: 

....yikes.)

Twine Tree

I love Christmas. I love it so much that I want to enjoy it more than just from the day after Thanksgiving to the day after New Year's. So, needless to say...I have already started decorating. I found these cute little trees at Hobby Lobby for like $3.

The roll of twine was laying right next to them and was calling my name - so I got it!

I took spray adhesive and sprayed as I went, if you spray too much too soon then it gets gummy. Then I just started wrapping directly from the roll. That's my little lovey doing a project - it's a paper tree that I will post later. 

 

You can see that once I got to the top I just started back down the tree uniformly. I did this because not only does it look neat, but you can spray the twine underneath the bottom of the tree to hide it. Another variation would be to add bells or any other little decorations to your tree. You would probably want to go with smaller bells, but this is what I had so I used it to show you. However, I like the look of the twine so I just went with the plain version. The ribbon that you see to the side is for another project with the larger tree. 

Winter Wreath

We have all seen the burlap wreaths that look like this:

Today, my Mom and I have been working on a different spin to the beautiful burlap. Who doesn't like everything winter - especially when it co-exists with burlap? Unfortunately, we ran out of burlap tonight - but I'm going to go ahead and show the tutorial for it and I will post the picture of the finished wreath tomorrow. 

First, don't try to do this with regular cut burlap...we tried and as you can see it began to fray - so we went another direction. 

Cut your strips of burlap into about 2 inch wide strips at 9.5 inches in length. 

As pictured above...further up...like a few pictures. You take the burlap and pull it through and tie into a knot. You do this on each level of the wreath ring. 

We got this far by using 2 rolls of the burlap ribbon from Hobby Lobby. It's a little pricey for this burlap with the white lace - $13.99 a roll. To finish it off it will take 1 more roll. This obviously is super easy and didn't take long at all. Especially when you have someone cutting the burlap ribbon for you. I will post the result tomorrow! 

UPDATE: Here is the finished project. It actually became the "Baby Shower Wreath"...slight change in plans. 

Delivering Christmas

I posted yesterday that I would finish the Christmas subway art today and I have!

What you see here is the finished vinyl with the negative removed. Like I said before, I do not suggest doing that way. It was a pain in the rear end both taking them out and then again after I had painted over the stencil. 

Next I applied all by myself with my wonderful husband, the transfer tape and transferred the design onto the wood. I think the "Away in a Manger" is supposed to look like snow...it doesn't. You will see that I left this off in the next post. 

I took the wonderful paint that I got from Home Depot (the Behr paint) and covered the stencil using a sponge. You don't have to lay it on too thick because if you do (and then you let it dry too long) you may accidentally pull up your paint when you remove your stencil. Notice that I did not paint the bottom - I used judgement here and figured that this was not going to turn out well if I did paint it. Let this dry about 10 minutes or so before peeling off. If you notice it is drying very quickly, then use your own judgement about removal. Peel back slowly. 

I let it dry for about an hour before sanding over the entire thing. I sanded the painted letters to give it a better look to it. 

The final project! I really like how it turned out. I may use a little stain in some areas and a good wipe down in others where you may be able to see the white paint from sanding. Otherwise...looks old and rustic and I like it! 

Happy Subway art...ing! 

* I forgot to mention that this was supposed to be a 12x24 inch project. My silhouette machine ate the rest of the lettering. I'm really not sure what happened. The vinyl started twisting and turning and then it just all went to crud after that. I may have my husband cut this down or fill in the negative space with some cute vinyl decals! 

Silhouette Cameo...my new love

So...I have found a new love and it is the Silhouette Cameo! It is absolutely, without a doubt...amazing. 

There's that beauty right there...eating some vinyl. Today I have started some subway art and will continue to post until the project is done. If I didn't have 5 little people, I'd live a life of luxury in the Bahamas I could get this done much faster...but somehow I ended up with them so I'm kind of stuck. ;) The first one I'm going to talk about is my Christmas project. 

I started out by going to home depot and buying a 24x24 inch board that cost me little to nothing. While I was there I went ahead and picked up some red Behr paint (sample size since that is more than enough) for a little over $2. That other thing is what we like to call a paint brush...and I already had that. 

I painted the board the red color, I didn't need primer because Behr is greatness and comes with it in there, and I sanded the edges to round it out a bit. You don't have to sand it..but I did because I like the edges better, plus I will stain them later to give it a more distressed look. After this I had my wonderful husband cut the board in half to make two 12x24 inch boards. No picture...sorry. 

Okay...this is obviously not the finished product. In the first picture there you see what is called Silhouette Studio...it kind of works like Photoshop, but for cutting out projects. Below that is the vinyl that I am currently working on. I'm taking out the negative and so you see the blue coloring underneath. That color will not be there. What I'm doing with this particular project is making it into a stencil so that I can lay it on top of my board and use another paint color to paint on top. There is an easier way to do this. So why didn't I do it the easier way? Because I painted my boards the wrong color. I will show you the easier way at a later date...or you can comment and I will go ahead and answer. 

This is not the same project, but I just wanted to show you this nifty little tool that helps to take out the unwanted vinyl. This is made by cricut. Silhouette also has one, but not one hobby store in my area sells it, which I find odd. Anyways, this is called a weeder - I believe...if not then it is just that tool that they use at the dentist office. 

Okay..that's it for this one. Tomorrow I will fix it all up and post the end result.

Happy waiting!