Dave Matthews Band Fire Dancer Decorative Ornament

My sister is probably the biggest Dave Matthews Band fan to walk the face of this planet.  She’s been to so many of his concerts I think that she’s even lost counts, following him all the way to the east coast and back!  

With that in mind I decided to sculpt a Fire Dancer ornament to give her as a Christmas gift this year and I think it came out pretty amazing considering it was made from aluminum foil, sculpey and acrylic paint.

I separately sculpted the legs, torso and arms and pieced them together by smoothing out the clay together the same way I did in my Bumble sculpting (Mini Sculpting: The Bumble).  I screwed a small eye bolt into the head area to hand it before baking it.

After baking it and allowing it to cool off, I painted it red and yellow allowing the paint to bleed into each other to make an appearance of flames.

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Customized Hand Painted Wine Glasses and DIY Salt Dough Ornament for Wine Bottle Adornment Keepsake

MATERIALS NEEDED:

• Wine glass 
• Acrylic Paint for Multi Surfaces in Red, Blue, Yellow, Orange, and Lite Green 
• Clear Acrylic Spray Finish 
• Fine Tip Artist Brushes
• Flour
• Table Salt
• FloraCraft Diamond Dust
• Stars Shaped Cookie Cutter
• Wallet Sized Photo
• Bottle of Wine 
• Hot glue gun and glue sticks 
• Red and white striped string 
• 

1. Mix equal parts flour and salt, then add half of the amount of water.  (1 cup flour, salt and 1/2 cup water).
2. Roll out dough into a 1/4″ thickness and then use a star shaped cookie cutter to cut a star shape.
3. Use a tooth pick to create a hole in one of the tips of the star to hang the ornament.
4. Once you have cut out the desired amount bake in the oven at 210 degrees for three hours. 
5. While baking, paint a wine glass in a up and down pattern of Christmas lights alternating colors. 
6. Once dried,  paint in the blank areas “let’s lite it up!” in alternating colors. 
7. Once the ornaments have come out of the oven and cooled, spare with clear acrylic spray and then sprinkle the diamond dust on top and scary a second coat to help secure the diamond dust.
8. Scary a even layer of clear acrylic spray onto the wine glass.
9. Cut out the head from a wallet sized photo and hot glue into place. 
10. Cut a small piece of string to secure the ornament onto the wine bottle.

I think the best gifts are the ones hand crafted with love.  They just really seem to show the recipient how much you care about them to put in the time and effort to create a special gift for them.  Merry Christmas!  Five more days to go wild, happy crafting!

Whoville Cookies

As you can tell, I am inspired by the Grinch Who Stole Christmas this year and plan to give out these cookies in addition to my Grinch Cookies that I made last time.

To avoid food coloring dyed hands I used latex gloves when mixing the food coloring for deep color you need to add TONS of food coloring. You can easily see that mine look more pink than red.  Also, this did not yield 4 dozen. I barely ended up with 3.  They also took about 4 extra minutes to bake, maybe I cut them too wide.

After my second batch I discovered that if you chill the dough for an hour they stay round when cut.

Whoville Cookies 

Elf on the Shelf “Elf Kisses”

Cut small squares of aluminium foil and cover chocolate chips for the perfect Elf Kisses!  Just make sure you supervise little ones while eating to make sure they unwrap them first.  😉🎅🎅

Merry Christmas!

DIY Upcycled Tin/Formula Cans as Cookie Tins for Christmas

 

Grinch Cookie Tins

I am always looking for ways to craft on a budget and often think about the various uses for most items for decreasing the cost of my crafting projects.  I love the dollar store because you can literally find most anything and with a little imagination turn them from junky to classy with a little effort.  I know that it is hardly September already and the idea of Christmas is a little soon, but I have learned from several past Christmas’s that it never pays to try to cram it all in starting in November.