Tag: crafting

A Fun Little Holiday DIY

.Reading time 8 minutes.

Hey hey, it’s MJ,

            I did a lot of DIYs around Halloween and I actually had another planned but I am saving that for next year. This year has been a lot, for everyone. I was planning a holiday themed DIY for November but if you have been around for the last month or so my posting has been sporadic, I am sorry. I am a person too though and some days I just can’t. 

            Well here we are in December and I am finally posting a holiday themed DIY that is not a flower arrangement or something that I have done in the past. Woo!

            As I am writing this I have been up since about 4:30 so I have had coffee and chose to DIY instead of sleep, it’s never a good combo, I promise.

            What you need (AKA, Materials):

–           Bottle Brush trees (I got mine in the Target dollar spot section, that place is the best and worst place for me to be in a Target.) I liked the rainbow ones but if you don’t like the rainbow look get all one color or just tree color, you may have to hunt for those though where ever you go. 

–           A frame of some sort, originally, I wanted an open frame but I found this shadow box frame at Hobby Lobby and rolled with it. 

–           Paper, paint, and a paint marker, I did mine with just printer paper and really cheap paint from Target. The paint marker I bought at Joann’s like three years ago and it’s still going strong for all of my holiday DIY’s.

–           Hot glue, because would it be one of my DIY’s if it didn’t involve hot glue?

How I did it (AKA, the instructions):

–           I painted the black paint in kind of messy strokes on a piece of folded in half printer paper because I was doing it more for proof of concept than actually doing it, but I liked how it turned out. I forgot to take a picture of the just black paper but imagine it when you see it with the words. 

–           I waited for it to dry and wrote the words that I wanted in the frame with my trees, that was ‘Merry & Bright’ I write my &’s a different way so that is just a me thing, you could probably use black card stock and paint this on or cut it out in vinyl if you have a Cricut or whatever, but I don’t have one so I am going with what I have. 

–           I waited for the paint marker to dry and then used the insert from the frame to cut out the words on my paper so it would be at least close to fitting, I did use roller tape to put it in the frame because I didn’t want it going anywhere or rolling up more because it’s paint on printer paper and it was already starting to roll. 

–           I realized that I didn’t have enough space for the words and all six trees so I picked four of them and hot glued them down. I promise that this DIY is simple, without drying time for the paper it took me like ten minutes. 

–           I thought about painting the frame black as well but I kind of like the bare wood look so I left it and I put it up in my living room. 

            If I could do it over, I would put the words up higher so I could put all six trees in, but it’s okay to make mistakes when you DIY or craft, it makes it more personal. This was just a fun little project and it doesn’t take very long, what took me the longest was finding the frame because what I was looking for is clearly not a thing this year and that is an open square shadowbox frame, I could have left the glass off of mine and it would have been that, but I kind of like the glass on it. 

            This is a fun little craft and I like it, it has been added to my décor and I don’t know where I’m going to pack it, but that is a late December MJ problem. I should apologize to her now, but I’m not going to. 

            I will be back later in the week with another post, so until then, I hope that everyone stays safe, happy, and healthy!

            -MJ 

A Fun Hangable Fall DIY

.Reading time 7 minutes.

Hey hey, it’s MJ, 

            So I decided to make a more seasonally appropriate wreath for my office door after running into my rose wreath since last spring. I love my more simplistic rose wreath but this one, this one is immense. I wanted something more substantial this time and so that’s exactly what I did. I made it much more substantial.

            I also made the wreath at my parent’s house and that meant that I had to transport it from their house back to my apartment. Which was an adventure to say the least because the drive from my parents place to mine is very curvy and hilly. It made it safely though and I hung it up already. 

Materials: 

            Flowers of your choice (pick colors or flowers that will look cool together, just walk around the fake flower aisles holding all of them, it’s fun.)

            Floral hoop (can be any metal or size, mine are 14”  and from Amazon, but you can do bigger or smaller depending on your space and desired use)

            Floral wire (I stole mine from my mom, but you can buy it at pretty much any craft store)

            Pilers (just in general, own pliers) 

            Time (this took me probably 30 minutes to do so give yourself some time, listen to a podcast or some music and hang out.)

Steps (procedure, directions, whatever you want to call it):

This is going to be super similar to my last wreath post because it is roughly the same thing. I did learn some things from the original post so I will be passing that information on here. 

  • As always gather up all your materials, I had the hoops left over from last time and I bought the flowers at Hobby Lobby, I would have bought them at Michaels but Michaels is an hour away and I can’t go up as often as I would like to. 
  • Snip all of the flowers with the snippy bit inside of the pliers, I don’t know if it has a proper name but that’s what I call it. I started out with three pieces from each of my bunches and pulled out more as needed.
  • Unlike the last time I did this project, I didn’t’ strip the plastic off this time, I just wrapped and bent the stems as needed, I didn’t want to go through the process of stripping the plastic off this time because I don’t really think it helped make the process any easier the last time that I did it. So I skipped that step and just rolled with it. 
  • I spent a lot of time checking and wrapping floral wire because I wanted more on this one than the last one and like the last one I didn’t take any pictures of the wire situation while doing it, the only picture of the wire situation that I have is from when it was already hung up and after I actually wrote this paragraph. 
  • When you are happy with it, stop. I really do mean this. Stop when you are happy with it. When you think it’s done, it’s done. I made my last one a little minimalist and this one was much more involved. I love this one, it feels so fall even though it’s still like 95 degrees outside. (when I am writing this at the end of August, it’ll probably be in the 80’s by the time that this post actually comes out.) 
  • Hang it up and admire your handywork, I love this wreath and it already looks so cool on my office door. It might move but I am now used to having a large wreath on the door so probably not because if I put it anywhere else I will just spend time running into it and I would prefer not to. 

It’s really not a difficult thing to do. I might do something with ornaments for Christmas, but I really don’t know yet. You can buy stuff like this at craft stores but I like having the freedom to make my own thing because I know that something like this would have been like $50+ at a craft store. I made it for something like $20 at most. I bought the flowers on sale, that’s my tip, buy the flowers on sale. 

Well I think that’s enough for me as this is kind of a rehash of an earlier post, it’s my blog I can do what I want. Also this one is a lot more involved flower wise then the last one. It’s a lot bigger and more fun. 

I will be back with another post soon so until then I hope that every says safe, happy, and healthy. 

-MJ

A Fun Summer DIY

.Reading time 12 minutes.

Hey hey, it’s MJ

            So I actually did this DIY almost a month ago and I have been considering it for several months I was just looking for the perfect container to put it all in. Here I am with another almost quarterly DIY because I enjoy making things and sometimes I can’t find the thing that I want, so I have to make it myself. 

            I meant to write this post pretty much right after I finished the DIY, I did not. Oops my bad. 

            I love those beautiful terrariums with succulents in them, I cannot keep a succulent alive to save my life. It’s a problem and I can’t seem to fix it, so I figured, I’ll just use fake ones and roll with it. 

            This DIY isn’t even in my apartment, it’s still at my parents’ house because I haven’t figured out how to transport it safely, I should have thought of that before, but your girl is kinda of dumb sometimes. Then my dad told me that he really liked it so I am going to have to make another one just to leave there when I get a chance to get more succulents. He’s not a huge fan of art, but apparently he likes tiny succulents. I arrange flowers for my mom all the time so at least he likes something that I do creatively. I am going to tell you a short story about my father, this was a few years ago when he found out that I like to write books in my spare time and he asked me if I had any of them published. I looked over like I was looking at a camera on The Office and said no, but it’s a goal. You think that he would realize that if I published a book I would have told him!? I love my dad though and this is for sure a very story time moment at the beginning of this post. My bad.

            Back to the DIY because I rambled! 

Materials (what you gonna need): 

            Succulents: I got mine at Michael’s in like March, you can get them from Amazon or your fave craft retailor. Pick ones that you like, I stuck with a bagged package and one that my mom liked (I had to cut that one down off its stem so if you do this, make sure to have pliers, pretty much whenever you are working with flowers. pro tip: have pliers.)

            Moss: or some kind of ground cover. I used floral foam for my base and covering it in moss was the best option for me. You may recognize this moss from one of my Halloween DIY’s last fall. Next time I need moss I will actually have to go and buy more because I used the rest of it. Also this stuff gets messy to be prepared to have dust and particles of moss everywhere. 

            Floral Foam: It’s a good idea to have a base on these kinds of projects especially with the terrarium I chose. I got small blocks instead of big blocks and cutting them with a serrated knife tends to be the easiest. I used my mom’s bread knife, sorry mom. I cleaned it right away though. 

            Terrarium or container: I got this one at HomeGoods and I was so excited because it was only like $15. I wanted a glass and gold terrarium and this one just happened to be there so I grabbed it. You can find these pretty much anywhere anymore, I have seen them at Hobby Lobby and on Amazon. The completed ones in terrariums like this were what really inspired this project but I never liked any of them, so I made it myself. 

            Tiny Rocks: I was actually going to use rocks straight up out of the rock beds that are landscaping at my parent’s house, my mom said no. Luckily we had these river rocks that you usually use for vases in flower arranging and these were extras so I grabs a bunch dropped them on hot glue and that was how I did the little clusters.

            Time: This project start to finish probably took me 30-45 minutes, give yourself time to make it how you want it. 

Steps (procedure, directions, whatever you want to call it):

            -Gather your materials, that should always be your first step. Also get your hot glue gun on like right now. It’s going to take a few minutes to heat up.

            -Next step really is hot glue, get a good base of hot glue in whatever shape you want on a sheet of parchment paper (do not do it directly on any surface that it could burn, stain, or stick to) and drop rocks on it, do not put the rocks down and put the hot glue on top, it doesn’t work they just fall out of the hot glue when you turn it over. Putting them firmly in the hot glue seals them in. Make sure that you give them time to dry, they look like little islands and I wanted to have more substantial rocks and not just sprinkle them around. 

            -Now, get your terrarium and cut your floral foam to fit, you will probably need multiple pieces, I didn’t want mine all at one level so I cut them a little different for height. Some advice from me though, try and keep it as even with the opening of the terrarium as possible. 

This is the mess you can expect!

            -Cover that in your moss or ground cover, I am not here to tell you how to live your life if you don’t like moss, you could use all stones. Yes, I know that succulents grow in rocks and things, I like moss. It’s whatever makes you happy and looks good in the terrarium. 

            -Grab your rock formations and slip them in wherever you feel like it, use your heart. There is no formula for this, it is personal preference on how many rocks you put in or don’t put in. I would suggest at least some though. 

            -Put in your succulents! Arrange them how you want, I started in the center with the biggest one I had and then put the rest around it, I don’t know if I would start in the center again, I think I would start at the back and move forward because it did get hard to put things in. Every mistake is a learning experience right?

            -Take a billion pictures of it at every angle because you love it so much. Display it where you want, I have a spot for mine on the garden table in my living room window. I just have to get it home first. 

            I really enjoyed doing this project because while yes, I could have bought this from a store completely finished; that takes the fun out of it. I like crafting and having tactile crafts keeps my hands busy when I am not writing. If you want to buy something like this premade, cool, you do you. 

            Well I think that’s it for this one, I will be back mid-week with another post. I think it’s going to be my favorite comics, I have no idea how I am going to write that post; we’ll figure it out. I hope that everyone has a great start to the week. Stay safe, happy, and healthy. I’ll see y’all with the next one! 

            -MJ