Transformed Butter Cookie Tin

 It makes even more sense to eat those yummy butter cookies, now that you know you can make something this pretty out of the tin.

 Spray paint white, then pink on the bottom piece of tin. Cut out a snowflake pattern that fits the lid, and hold that on the lid as you paint pink over that. That gives you the lacy pattern on the lid.

 Paste a lovely rose in the middle. When dry, spray all over with a clear coat for extra protection and gloss. You can add lace around the bottom piece if preferred. You could also put the lace on, then spray paint with pink just like we did with the lid, and you would have the lace pattern there without needing to use the lace itself. It should definitely last longer that way.

Linked up at:
The shabby Nest

More on bottle cutting

I realized I should have included the link when I talked about bottle cutting before. this technique works the best for me so far. I do not have the bottle cutter, but a small cheap tool from the hardware store. I fasten that in a vise, then with a solid grip I turn the bottle around in a circle, letting the cutter cut all around the bottle once or more if needed.

 The piece on the left is a cut cod liver oil bottle, and the glass on the right is from a sprite bottle. (In Belize most sodas still come in glass bottles)

 This can be tricky, and too often I end up with broken bottles.They don't break while cutting, but while pouring the hot or cold water to separate the two pieces.

 Do you see that this bottle is thick in some ares and thin in others? If you have a bottle like this, you just happen to be unfortunate, because they don't want to behave when splitting. I threw away two of these big rum bottles and am thinking they might never work for me.

 I am most successful with the regular wine bottles that I cut at the bottom. These I can turn into wine glasses or candle lanterns, either one.

 If these glasses tip over, they will most likely break. Trust me, I speak from experience! 

And here's what you don't want -- an explosion. Too bad for me, I had to find this one out personally too! Before pouring hot water for the first time, make sure the cap is off! I had a frosted bottle that was supposed to work out well, but since I had forgotten to take the cap off, it exploded into two when pouring the hot water. DON"T do that! No one got hurt, but it still gave me a good scare.

They do make lovely flower vases.

Recycled canning lids

For me, the motto often is: better not throw it away; it might come in handy sometime. And when enough time has passed, I often come up with a good idea. You just never know when that will happen.

Take used lids, clean and spray paint any color you prefer. 

Cut out a catalog picture or any other picture you like. A baby food jar lid is a great pattern to hold on the picture and trace around. Paste that into the middle of the lid. Spread glitter around the edge with glue and glitter or glitter glue. When all is dry, spray paint with a clear coat that will give it protection and add that sheen. Stick a magnet on the back, and there is a beautiful magnet.

...I joined the party at:
the Shabby Nest

Glass bottle cutting projects

Lately I have been into crafting quite a bit. Seems like I have my times where I enjoy doing a certain thing and then I do a lot of it... Here are some projects I have done after baby this past year, but most of them are from the past months. I plan to do a series of posts on DIY projects I have done lately, so be sure to check back.

 This is my new hobby, to make things out of cut glass bottles. This is a juice bottle I have cut and glued back together this way. I can't wait to do more of this kind of fun. The possibilities are endless! No more nice bottles going to waste here, except the ones that break when I try to cut them.

 A close-up of the glued part.

 

 Cut bottles that we glued neat pictures on, then spray-painted with a clear coat to keep them looking good. These make lovely gifts. (we gave some to the children's school-teacher.) These could be made into drinking jars, but require a lot more sanding than I have time for.

 

 And one of my favorites. A wine bottle lantern. I placed a baby food jar inside this one with a candle in it.

 Come back soon to see what else is new!

Barbed Wire Roll Egg Basket

 When Daniel built some fence a while back, he came home and I found this 'bucket' frame among his tools and other fence things. It used to hold a big roll of barbed wire, and the handle had a red plastic on it to make it easy to handle. My first thought: I have got to turn that into a bucket! I found some leftover chicken wire from our coupe, and in a short time fashioned a little egg basket out of it. Now I love it! I wonder if I should paint it white? :)

 Linked to:
Funky Junk Interiors

Tin Buckets

Here is a very good way to recycle those coffee can tins you have been collecting but don't know what to do with.

What you need is:

tin can

coat hanger

pliers

nail

hammer

spray paint

Open up the coat hanger, and sorta bend the wire around the can to get an idea at what length you want to cut it. 

With the hammer, make two holes opposite each other just underneath the rim for the wire to go through.

Bend the wire ends upward.

 Spray paint it with your or your child's favorite color.

 It really is quite simple, yet so much fun for the little ones to play with!

Linking to this party: The Shabby Nest

Aquarium Craft

We have this very good craft book by Kathy Ross and the children love finding easy crafts for them to do. Today they wanted to build these aquariums. They were able to do most of it by themselves, but I needed to help with a few details like the clear plastic wrap on the outside.

1. Take a small to medium box, and cut all around the box at about 2-3 inches from the bottom
2. Paste blue background paper on the back (which is the back of box).
3. Paste some pictures of seaweed or rocks on the blue paper.
4. Cover with bubble wrap.
5. Now paste pictures of fish and other sea creatures on the bubble wrap.
6. Cover clear plastic wrap over box and tape on the sides

The instructions say to use foam for the fish, and then not paste them on, just leave them loose in the aquarium, and then you are supposed to be able to rub a tissue or your hand on the plastic and the fish should move around to your touch. We did it more simply. I have no idea how well that idea works, but if you find out, let us know!

Another simple aquarium craft is to take a foam tray, paste small sea creatures to it, and cover the whole tray with clear blue plastic wrap. Simple, but lovely!

Have fun on a rainy day!

Linking to Nothing but Country

Mother's Day

Here is a rose Jessica and myself embroidered on a tea towel for my dear Mother this Mother's Day. (My mother lives in Canada, and when my sister from there visited here, I was able to send it along.)

 Happy Mother's Day, Mom!

We had something very special happen at our farm this Mother's Day. Jessica's cat had kittens! For the very first time she became a mother of five little kittens. That is quite a handful! This is also the first time we have ever had kittens born on our farm, so it is an exciting event.

Melted bead hearts

 

Love is in the air, hearts are everywhere...even in our house.

 Today I decided to make this old fashioned craft my mom used to make. She didn't make them so fancy, she would just use tin caps to melt the broken pieces of plastic in. But, with all the beads available nowadays and the broken cd cases and whatnot, you can make some real pretties. I put foil in a small pan, place a metal cookie cutter on top, and arrange the pieces and beads on it. Turn on heat, cover with a lid, and for the next few minutes check to see if they are melting. Sometimes you need to shift things a bit while melting, or press some pieces deeper down. But, you MUST have good air circulation. Please do it only if you can have your windows open so you don't inhale that fume-its bad.

 Once yo have melted them enough, take out the foil and hold it under the water to harden. Then you can easily remove it from the cutter. 

 With this one I got a little more creative. I scrunched up the foil to give it a rough background, which is seen in the above heart. Then I neatly arranged the beads into a flower shape.

 If you melt a hole into the top with a small nail, then you can make these into necklaces. 

A perfect gift!

Gingerbread Houses

 For a few years I have had this on my to-do list. I just always thought it was too much work or I was too lazy or too busy, I'm not sure which. We did this yesterday, and it went real well. I would not have known that to make gingerbread houses was so easy. The dough turned out perfect, and so did the decorating. Enjoy! The photos, that is. The houses have been demolished already... :)

 

 Spice drops, smarties, pretzels, raisins, candy corn, and coconut for the roof.

Rugs

I have been making rugs for about 20 years. I know, it makes me sound ancient. I suppose I am a little ancient by now. I am trying hard to reduce our stuff lately. I had these shirts lying around, and as I have said before, I have a hard time throwing away something which can be put to good use. So, I made more rugs. Why burn an old t-shirt if you can turn it into a beautiful rug? They always come in handy!

A rug this size uses about 6-7 shirts, depending on the size. I am not good at giving instructions, but here are a few links you can check out; maybe you can make some sense of them. 1, 2, 3.
And if you ever make one, I'd love to see it!

IDEALS

I love pretty things. And pretty magazines. I used to order from Reiman Publications, but now that they have started putting ads in their magazines, they are history here. They used to be ad-free, but not anymore. No one seems to get away from that evil thing called money.

Anyway, I was at the library the other day and saw that they had Ideals magazines for sale for 10 cents. I figured I'd take a few.

I liked them so much I told hubby if he went by the library to pick me up the rest they had. So he brought me a stack!


They have recipes.
They have beautiful photos, poems, and articles,

and paintings of by-gone days.


There are no ads.

There lots of great articles to read, and pictures to enjoy looking at or to use for cards or crafts. If there comes a time when I need something to do this winter, I know where to look! Not that I expct a time like that for a long time, but maybe I will need a change from this busy life now and then, and then I'll do it for fun.

I figured these magazines sure are worth 10 cents to me! If you like them, check with your library, they just might have some for you!

Basket

One very blizzardy day recently when we were all snug at home with nowhere to go, I took some time to put this basket together. I am an avid recycler, and throwing even a milk carton out can bother me, so I try to come up with ideas how to use them. I had the basket idea from before, and I had some burlap lying around that needed to be put to a good use.

Sometimes when I want to use an item for craft that I have at hand, I just need to stare at it a good while and then I might get ideas for how to use it. That's what happened in this case. Once I figured that I could make that little basket and cover it with burlap, I didn't waste any time and got at it. It does not take very long to assemble. All you need is a scissors, stapler and a glue gun, the carton and the burlap. I doubled the burlap so it would not be see-through. I used two pieces, one for the handle and one for the basket.

I am sure one could come up with many different ways of decorating and painting these neat little baskets, and I am always open to your ideas. Don't hesitate to tell me if you have a good one!

Sunday Project

On Sundays I like to spend special time with Jessica, doing a craft, having tea or doing something else interesting. During the week those things just don't happen, so I've made up my mind that on Sundays I will always try to make that time for her. This is what we did today.

It was a nut box that came from Walmart. We pasted black paper all around, then glued a wide ribbon around the center. Put some glue on the edges of the ribbon for glitter, and tied a ribbon and bow around the big ribbon. Made a small bow for the top lid, and pasted a button in the middle of it. (I was inspired for this and some other ideas by this lady's blog. )

Bathroom decor

For a while I have wondered how best to display my blue canning jars. I have a bunch of them, and today I finally had a great idea. Put some sand in bottom of one, and shells on top, and there you go! Very easy yet very lovely. It reminds me of the ocean...

If you have more great ideas for how to utilize these jars, pass them on! I would like to put my others to good use as well.