Pot of Gold

I know it is a bit late for St. Paddy's crafts but I really wanted to share these cute little table decorations that I made for the tables at church.  The little leprechauns are from Wee Folk Art and the directions can be found here.  When I first saw them I knew I had to make them.  I had a set sitting on my hall shelf as my March decorations and started thinking that they were missing something.

Then I saw this post over on Canadian Living and something in my head clicked and these little pots of gold were born.  While they are really rather simple to make I thought I would share the directions with you. 

You will need:

 

a rainbow pack of Chenille Stems,

baby storage cups (I got these at the Dollar Tree but any 1/2 cup storage container in the right shape will work,

cotton balls,

black paint

cardstock (not shown)

paintbrush (not shown)

Glue Gun

Directions:

First toss all the lids into the junk drawer to be raided later for a recycle craft, you don't need them for this project.  Paint the outsides of each container with the black paint.  I know the picture shows the rims painted on the inside but I discovered that it really wasn't necessary.  Allow them to dry and then add a second coat of paint.

(Yes that is a plastic bag under my painted cups.  Didn't want to move the tablecloth or paint it so I used what I had on hand as a drop cloth!)

If you want a shiny pot I would suggest adding a coat of clear spray paint after the black has dried.  This may help prevent scratches appearing on the paint also.  That is just a guess but it sounds good right?!

Once you pots have dried, or even while you are waiting for them to dry if you are in impatient crafter like I am, go turn on your glue gun and grab your chenille stems.  You want to line up your stems so that they are even and they are in the correct color order (cuz mine are NOT in the correct order in the pictures.  Fortunately no on noticed and I am not telling them!).  The correct order is red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet/purple.  Also cut a cloud shape out of your cardstock.  You want it to be about 1 1/2 -2 inches across but you can really just eyeball it.

Next you are going to pinch the ends together so that they are flat but really tight.

Finally run a bead of glue across this and hold until the glue sets.  To be honest, I usually wet my finger and kind of smoosh the glue down to get better adhesion here.

No flip it over and run some glue along the back side as well to doubly secure the stems.  Repeat for the other end of the stems.

Now, here is the bad news.  H arrived home from school about this time, Princess A awoke from her nap and I had to venture out to pick up Little Man J from school as well as help with homework, start dinner etc.  I tell you this so that you will hopefully understand when I tell you that I had procrastinated on this project and I had to complete it THAT DAY so the rest of the steps were done in the midst of controlled chaos and the camera didn't come out of hiding so I have no more pics.  Even the completed project pics were taken with my phone since I rushed out and forgot my camera when I went to decorate!  Hope you guys have a good imagination for the final couple of steps.  They aren't really hard, so I am sure you can figure it out!

Okay, without bending the stems, find the middle and cut across all the colors of the rainbow so that you now have two six inch rainbow pieces.  I laid them on the counter and gently curved the stems.  Hold in place without pinching tightly and again glue the stems together on both sides.  Your chenille ends will not be a straight line, think more of an angled line with the bottom stem being longer than the top.  You don't need to be neat with the glue on this end since we are going to hide it in the cloud.

Once the glue is dry, stretch out a cotton ball until it is fluffy and glue to one side of your cardstock cloud being sure to cover all of the paper.  It is okay for you cotton to extend past the paper.  Put this side down on the counter.  Place your slanted end of the rainbow on your cloud and glue it in place.  Again fluff a cotton ball and now glue this one over the rainbow and cover the cardstock.  

The final step is to take the unfinished end of the rainbow and hot glue it to the inside of your painted pot.  Taadaaa!

Your pot will be top heavy and won't stand up on it's own.  To fix mine I took some found rocks, painted them gold and hot glued enough into the bottom of the pot to hold it up.  I did this because I wanted the pots of gold to remain standing after the kids at church raided the gold candies so that the grown ups could at least see them!  

On a side note, I wanted to show you my very first leprechauns that I made

I didn't realize that there was a difference between people turnings and Doll Pins  These are made from doll pins that I ended up cutting down to size.  I had to adjust the pattern widths quite a bit, but I still think they turned out cute.  Besides, I am sure leprechauns come in all shapes and sizes despite being magical creatures!


Until next time,

Christmas is in the air....

or at least on the walls at my house. I still haven't braved pulling out the artificial tree to put up. Not sure where to put it this year as every bit of corner or wall space in my livingroom/dining room is currently occupied. Gonna have to do some thinking on this one!

I have managed to pull out my Christmas snowmen and put them out and my outside lights are up, although my hubby informed me last night (the first night my lights were up) that only half the strand I put up on my banister is lighting. Upon inspection today I realized that someone has broken one of the bulbs after I put them up.

While putting up my snowmen I noticed that the part of my wall that is immediately visible when entering my front door was bare. Oh no!!! Then I remembered a project I had seen in one of my many craft books. (Don't ask which one because now that I am looking for it, it has mysteriously disappeared!) They had taken an ordinary furnace filter and painted a pumpkin on it and painted the cardboard border. Well, I got to thinking that this would transfer to Christmas well. Keep in mind I am NOT a painter by any means. I can paint in the lines but that is about it so this is a VERY easy project. Thought I would share it with you today.

Also, sorry the pics are sideways but I didn't realize that I couldn't rotate them, or at least that I (read I am not very knowledgeable about blogging or how to make these things work the way I want them to) am not able to rotate them.

Christmas Funace

You will need:

acrylic paints (below is what I used but only because it is what I had on hand, feel free to use whatever colors you want!)

FolkArt parchment #450

Apple Barrel Colors Maroon

Apple Barrel Colors Territorial Beige

Outdoor/Indoor Gloss Real Green #20421

FolkArt enamels Coffee Bean #4013

1 furnace filter that is white (the old fashion kind that you can see through) any size

paper towels

raffia (I used maroon and green)

old toothbrush

hot glue gun

a trash bag (optional)

Directions:

I begin by painting the cardboard border first. Mix equal amounts of parchment and territorial beige. Use this to paint the carboard portion of the filter. You don't have to paint the back, but definately paint the front and sides. This took 2-3 coats for me. Be sure to let it completely dry between coats or it ends up getting soggy and bends/warps out of shape...trust me!

Once the base coats are dry, you are going to "speckle" the borders. Pour some paint onto a plate and dip your toothbrush into it. Now, use your thumb to splatter the paint from the toothbrush onto the border. I suggest you try this a few time on a practice paper first as it takes some getting used to. Repeat until the border is speckled all over with green. Rinse the brush and repeat this with the maroon. Allow to dry completely.

Now the fun part. If you have not already done so, cover your work surface with the trash bag as this step uses LOTS of paint! Put a large amount of green paint onto a paper plate. You will be using pieces of paper towel as your "paintbrush".

Dip your papertowel into the paint and then dab onto the filter. You can put a big blob of paint in one spot, dampen your papertowel and use it to blend the paint out into the desired shape. Or you can just use straight paint and dab. Don't try to get straight, solid lines as it won't work!

If you mess up, I say this because I did...ummm...several times, you can fix it as long as your paint has not dried.

Simply take your work of art to your kitchen sink. Make sure that the faucet is NOT over the work of art (not shown in the picture but TRUST me on this one) and use your sprayer to spray out the paint from the area you want to redo. Allow this to dry completely before painting again or else the gloss paint starts to look pale and bubbly.

Once you have painted the tree with the green, use the same technique to add a trunk and allow this to totally dry. Then, take some maroon raffia and tie it into a bow. Hot glue this to the top of the tree. (Don't apply the glue to the filter, rather apply it to the raffia and then place on the filter. Otherwise, you will melt the filter. Again TRUST me on this!)

Using maroon and green raffia, create a braid about 18 inches to 24 inches long. Poke two holes into the top of your filter. Take an extra piece of raffia and make a loop. From the back push this loop up the hole you have created in the top. Put one end of the braid into the loop and pull the loop back through the hole. Knot the braided raffia, apply a dab of hot glue to the knot and then pull the braid from the top to secure the knot on the underside. Repeat for the other hole to create a hanger for your work of art. Taa Daa! Your own quick, cheap, easy work of art to decorate your house with. Be sure to sign it on the back and enjoy!

Christmas Furnace by Ginny Blankenship is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.