Painted Candle Jars (completed)

Well I'm through painting candle jars, you can visit here to read more.  First let me say they weren't difficult to do but between work, studying and other home duties I find I only have maybe 1 - 2 hours a day to get any painting done.

This is what I started with 

I used homemade chalk paint (white) for the base coat.  There are so many recipes out there for homemade chalk paint but I decided to try this recipe from I Heart Nap Time.  For this project I made approx a quart of white homemade chalk paint.  I took about 2 TBS white chalk paint and added about 1 tsp acrylic paint for each of the color.  This beats making large amounts of paint for small projects, plus it leaves me with plenty of paint to play around with for other projects.

For this one I used white chalk paint as a base coat, Gold Metallic paint 2nd coat, and Kelly Green 3rd coat.  I then sanded and later waxed it with miniwax paste finishing wax.

I finished it off with burlap & beads.

On the other jar I used homemade chalk paint (white) for the base coat & Kelly Green 2nd coat.  I decided to use gold foil (I'm experimenting with).  I'm learning not everybody is fond of the distress look  ;-).   I later sealed it with shellac.

I then wrapped with torn strips of sheer, tied off with raffia decorated w/beads.

So here are all of my little painted babies ;-)

Wrapped and ready to go...

Have fun and don't forget to LET YOUR CREATIVITY FLOW!

Kitchen Counter (kinda ready for holidays)

In my previous blog I mentioned I was working on small projects trying to get my kitchen counter together, nothing major, just little stuff that I kept procrastinating about.   I'm embarrassed to say I had the brown frame (far right) displayed on my counter for a while and never put a photo in it...

Gosh, talk about colorless and dull!

Thankfully I finished everything (well almost)... I'm now trying to get everything ready for Christmas. Here are the before and after pics

The leaves are from dry coconut bark

The Jamaican Coffee was given to me by a friend who recently visited Jamaica.

With Christmas around the corner I decided to add some color to bring in some holiday cheer - remember earlier I mentioned my Christmas decorations went MIA - other than what I hung on the tree, this is all I had left.

Yeah, I know it isn't much, but it helps to set the mood. :-)

Wait, don't go yet, I also want to share a few candle nuggets that needed to be wrapped...

Hopefully, we'll chat again before Christmas, but if not have a BEAUTIFUL & SAFE CHRISTMAS and don't forget to LET YOUR CREATIVITY FLOW!

Gift Wrapping

Remember all of those candles I made for gifts?  Well, I still have one or two more to make, but I was debating on how I wanted to wrap them.  I figured if I put them in a box or gift bag, they wouldn't have that same impact and probably look blah, blah.  I wanted each of my gifts to be unique - different - creative... (smile)


While I was toying with what to do one morning, I spotted a fallen palm branch in my neighbor's yard, I called and asked if she would mind throwing it over in my yard, I had a terrific brainstorm!  Here's a peek of my candles all wrapped up and ready to make somebody smile.

I took different textures of fabric and ribbon - cut them into strips and then pulled tiny strips from the palm branch and used it as  twine to give each a decorative look.  Okay, they're not Christmas-y  but you got to agree they are different.

 

Yeah, I know you can see in between the wrapping but is it really wrong to peek at your present before
Christmas? (smile)  Like I said earlier, I was looking for different...

Oh, before I forget, here's a present I wrapped for my son, now i definitely don't want him to see his present before time so I made sure it was wrapped properly.  I pulled  a shirt out of his closet,and after taping I wrapped his belt around it to secure his 'homemade'  Christmas card and because I didn't have a big bow I topped it with one of his fitted caps.  The other gift was wrapped with newspaper.  The gifts were placed under my sister's tree and he'll open them right before coming home to The Bahamas to celebrate the holidays .

If you're looking for a unique way to wrap presents this year check out this blog. I'm sure you'll be inspired.

I have more presents to wrap and I'm sure I'll be using some 'real' wrapping paper and going the traditional route but I think it's always best when you LET YOUR CREATIVITY FLOW!