ana boxes

 I'm not sure where the sudden obsession with small boxes came from, but it is most certainly there. Theses were super fun (while somewhat infuriating) to make. My supplies consisted of paper flowers (the ones meant for scrapbooking and papercrafting, not the plasticy ones you buy on stems, brads (super important, by far the cleanest look for attaching things to one another), paper tape, and feathers. I titled this post "ana boxes" because the first one I made (which was very similar to the box with the flower and feathers) was made for my favorite 10 year old in the world named Ariana (Hi Ariana!!). There will be more of these to come, for sure. I'm thinking round boxes next.

Little boxes on the hillside.

Most craft stores carry theses little chipboard boxes. They perfectly packaged the earrings I made for Christmas gifts. I really wanted to doll them up so I used adhesive tags, along with ribbon and twine. The best things really do come in small packages. 
Also note if you may, they huge improvement of picture quality on this post compared to previous. See it?! We can thank the ever wonderful Justin Addison for that. Thanks for the camera babe.

Twine Wrapped Glass

Since I've signed up for blogger, I've seen a million things I desperately want to try out. When I saw Smilemonsters' Jute Wrapped Bottle I knew I had to give one a go. I did as her instructions said and used small spots of hot glue through out the bottle.

I did struggle to wrap the bottle at the top where it slopes, but with enough hot glue and patience I finished it. I also ending up wrapping a retired bottle of Justin's Gentlemen Jack.

Holiday Collection 2010.

Disclaimer: These ARE Christmas presents! So if you are a close friend or family member of mine and dread the thought of ruining a surprise, you probably should have closed this tab 30 seconds ago. Sorry!

A couple of weeks ago, I began to dabble in jewelry making. I've done a little bit here and there in the past few years, but never with supplies of my mine own. So these that I have done, are super super basic; I've been really cheap with the whole thing. I loved the shaped of each individual earring so I displayed them on a lamp for pictures. The silhouttes are gorgeous and inspires me to re-vamped this lamp for a future project. Once created, pictures of the gift-boxes for these will be added.

 

It's not just your mom's hair thats getting frosted.

 Unfortunately, these were created some weeks ago (the lack of snow gives me away, seeing as its been snowing for a record of 100 hours straight now, here in lovely Syracuse). Fortunately however, I do enjoy them enough to still share. The one on the left is simply: Old pasta jar + sponge + yellow acrylic paint + stolen flowers. For the wine bottle, I used a handmade sticky stencil (contact paper, cut in the shape of a pear) and sprayed the bottle with frosted glass spray paint. The same is done with the candle, except no image. Just frosted. The last jar is painted on the INSIDE with a TON of water, and very little paint. The outside I again, frosted. The top of the jar is wrapped with decorative tape.

From pasta jar to candle jar!

First I started with a couple of clean pasta jars. I recommend running these jars through the dishwasher first, so you no chance of ruing your project with the scent of old tomatoes. 

Secondly, I made a wash over the jar. For the jar in the middle I used a mixture of [blue+yellow=] green and black acrylic paint and lots of water. The jar to the right is simply blue and black acrylic paint, again, mixed with a lot of water. I like to use sponge brushes for these washes. If your like me and like lots of texture you will love the rain-washed look lots of water will give you on a sponge brush.

 

These jars look pretty cool just painted, but adding an image only makes them looks better. For the bird, I forced my wonderful boyfriend Justin to draw a picture of a bird on plain lined paper (its an image I've never quite been able to produce on my own). Once Justin finished his two-minute masterpiece, I created a stencil out of it. The bird was painted on with a mixture of black acrylic paint and modpodge. The modpodge does a great job thickening the paint and making it opaque. 

The jar with the leaves, is exactly how it sounds. After painting the jar, I grabbed my flash light (seeing as I only craft between the hours of 9pm-2am) and my roommate Tracey and venture to our backyard for a collection of beautiful leaves. The leaves are adhered with matte modpodge. 

Lastly, I wrapped a little twine around the top. I like to tie the ends in knots. Also, burn the twine slightly to keep it from fraying and to darken it.

These work great with pillar candles inside, or marbles, or even just to use as a pretty pen and pencil holder!