Bitz of Me

life is always about the journey...

Wednesday, November 27, 2013

DIY Rustic Holiday Banner!




Happy Day to you all!  So here is Part 3 and the final phase in my Holiday mantel project.  A rustic holiday banner made with canvas, jute and paint...super easy & inexpensive to create!  You can see the other parts of my mantel:  Christmas Mirror HERE and Frosted Glass Holiday Hurricanes HERE.




Here is the entire mantel in all her glory...dressed with some burlap and greens from my yard!
Phase 1 of Holiday Decorating done :)



You can buy banners in many materials ready for you to use at most craft stores...but they are pricey.  Simply measure them if you like the size in the store (like me heehee) and then buy a 1 yard of canvas material yourself (mine was $2.89 for a yard on sale).  Or you could use a canvas drop cloth...many inexpensive ideas for material depending on what you want.  However I did buy the canvas flowers pre-made at Hobby Lobby...they were $2.99 each but on sale 50% off each!

Then you need to decide how many banner flags you will need depending on your saying or holiday word!  I went with BELIEVE because on my mirror project HERE I used "Believe in the Magic of Christmas" and liked the repeat of the word!

Supplies I Used:
Stencil
Sisal twine or Jute
Acrylic Paint in Color of Your Choice
Banner Material
Embellishments
Stencil Brush
Elmers Glue
Hole Punch




Once you've cut your material into your triangles for your banner you are ready to paint them.  I cut letters with my Silhouette Cameo to use as my stencil. I cut one out of inexpensive cardstock first to check the size...then cut them all out of thicker cardstock once I determined the size was correct.  This way my stencil was a tad thicker and better for stenciling in with.  Then I sprayed the back with my handy-dandy Crafters Companion Stick-n-Spray and smoothed the letters on each banner flag to stencil.  I used a stencil brush because its much better at pouncing which is what you want to do...you don't want your paint to bleed under the edges by wiping the brush back & forth. (no no no)



Here are my letters all done and drying...I wanted them really dry before I started handling them. Red paint is highly pigmented no matter what form its in and it can just smudge and spread...yuck.



I used just a regular hole punch to punch holes in each corner of each flag.  You could use a Crop-a-Dile tool if needed but this worked fine for me.  Now canvas likes to fray kind of like burlap so it is best to reinforce your punched holes.  You could use Modge Podge or a fabric non-fray product...but I used Elmers Glue...cheap and easy.  I squirted some on my finger and wiped around the punched holes on both side.  Then let it dry completely before you start stringing the banner.  The canvas flowers are pinned on at the end and I used 3M Command Hooks under my stone mantel to hook the banner on.  Those hooks are A-MAZING..they stick to most things and are super strong...and they come off when you're all done!



And here it is all done up!  I wanted something that might have been done in the 'olden' days around their homes, not anything fussy or fancy.  Not a lot of materials or embellishments used.  Simple yet pretty and so fun!  This is a fun project to do with your kids too if they want to help...mine are teens...they rarely want to help with such things ;)






Hope you enjoyed and are busy doing your own holiday decorating too!
I will be doing that all weekend once I get through Thanksgiving!






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Sunday, November 24, 2013

DIY Frosted Holiday Glass Hurricanes!

Happy Monday everyone!  Hope you had a great and WARM weekend...oooooeeee its cold here in Virginia and windy. I'm of course HATING every minute of it...I so could do the holidays with 70 degree weather, no problem!  But I got a lot done this weekend including finishing up my dining room painting and door painting so I'm pleased about that.  Now to move on to the next project which is stenciling the one large wall in the dining room...sheesh...we're never really done right?


But today I'm sharing part two of my Holiday Mantel that I shared HERE the other day.  I'm sharing with you how I made these beautiful frosted holiday hurricanes.  Not only is it an easy DIY but it didn't cost very much either...a total win win!



Here's the supplies I used:

-2 glass candlesticks from the Dollar Store
-2 glass vases from the Dollar Store
-tube of E6000 adhesive (already had this)
-1 can of Valspar Frosting Spray
-Stencil or Vinyl design
-embellishments to decorate if you wish (from my studio)
TOTAL COST FOR ME:  $10 for both




I used my Silhouette Cameo (my workhorse) to cut a holiday holly-vine out of vinyl--it was called "holly border".
You could use a stencil or something else of your choosing as well.  This was a very delicate cut-out and it was very hard to handle...I won't lie about that fact ohhh noooo.  I had to cut it in pieces to get it to untangle and go on the glass the way I wanted it to (there may have been some cussing on my part, but I'm not tellin'...hahaha).  Any type of small, delicate scrolled design like this cut from vinyl can be harder to handle...so if you can cut it into smaller pieces it does help with handling issues. Or if you have transfer paper I'm told works well too...but I had none of course LOL.  Once I got it on my glass where I wanted I then sprayed the glass (on the outside) 4 times to get the level of "frosting" that I wanted.  In the picture above you can see the design before & after I sprayed the frosting on.  This spray is very easy to use, it never clogged and went on nicely for each coat.  No real waiting time in between coats either.  I just kept turning it around and spraying until I felt it had enough.
I let them dry for about 30 minutes before I pulled off the vinyl though.



I didn't get any pictures of this but THE NEXT STEP is to adhere the glass candlesticks to each of your glass vases.  I use E6000 adhesive because I know its super strong and I've never had issues with it.  However use what you feel comfortable with.  I used the adhesive outside, with gloves and a mask on...because I'm very cautious as always...and added the adhesive to the top ring of my candlesticks. Then adding the vase on top sliding it around until it was centered.  I let them sit in my garage for about 35 mins to cure the glue a bit before I started decorating them.



Then it was time to decorate the hurricanes.  This is an optional step of course but I always think 
a little MORE adds a lil' something extra to your projects...that's coming from a papercrafter ya know ;)
I used burlap ribbon to add a wide swath of material to the center.  Then added some very silky ribbon around that and for a bow.  Then various burlap and paper flowers were added with my favorite Scor-Tape.  So these can be easily slipped off and replaced with a different color scheme down the road if I choose.



And here is what it looks like all finished.  I love how they turned out!
I didn't frost the candlesticks because I liked the two-tones together but that's an option too.



I can't wait to have them lit during December to see the emitting a soft glow on the fireplace.



Here is what the whole mantel looks like in case you missed that post below.
I will have a tutorial on how to make your own holiday banner on the cheap next in
part three of this series :)

Hope you enjoyed & if you make any please let me know so I can see too!!
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I'm entering these into the following Linky Parties:



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