The ball obsession continues + giveaway winner

A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned that I’ve become obsessed with balls. Well, the ball obsession continues! A while back, I found a picture of glittery Christmas balls on Pinterest and saved it to my crafts board. And now that it’s the holiday season, what better time to make them! They’re so easy and fun to do, and I’m totally bummed that I’ve run out of balls to glitterize. I need to go to the craft store and pick up some more!

I won’t write out a tutorial for you because Amy at Prairie Paper & Ink has already done that, complete with step-by-step pictures (click here for the tutorial). But they’re really easy to make – all you need is plain glass balls, dye re-inker, glitter, a funnel (paper rolled into a cone works perfectly) and latex gloves (trust me, that’s an important supply!)

 

I bought the three inks on the left online from JoAnn. The three on the right are from Michael’s, but they aren’t quite the same thing. Both work for this project, but adding water to the inks from Michael’s caused the ink to get a bit chunky, so I had to use it straight from the bottle. Adding a little bit of water makes the inks on the right easier to work with, and also helps the ink go farther.

So here’s the nutshell version of how to make glitter balls – remove the cap from the ball, put on the gloves, squeeze some dye into the ball, swirl the dye around until the inside of the ball until is completely covered, pour out excess dye, add glitter, shake, and voila, glitter ball!

It’s fun experimenting with different colour combinations and seeing how they turn out. For example, when I was working with the purple, blue, and green dyes from JoAnn, I emptied the excess ink into the same container, which created kind of an ugly dark brown. I thought I’d try it out in a ball anyway. I started with this…

Poured it into a ball…

Added the glitter…

And it came out bronze!

When I mixed green & purple together, out came copper.

And citrus green combined with water turned out almost gold.

I’m telling you, these glitter balls are addictive – I’ve made about three dozen so far, and I need to make more! Here are some of the other colours that are either straight from the bottle, mixed with some water, or two colours mixed together…

   

  

 

If you’re looking for a quick & easy Christmas craft, you have to try these :-)

And now on a completely different note, it’s time to announce the My Memories giveaway winner…

Jessie at Mix And Chic

Congratulations Jessie! Liz at My Memories will be sending you the information you need to download your free software.

And finally, don’t forget that tomorrow is Bake-N-Blog Holiday Edition, Part 2. It’s not too late to whip up a batch of Christmas cookies and participate! Click here for all the details.

Have yourself a crafty little Christmas

I think most people would agree that Christmas has gotten way too commercial. It seems to be all about buying stuff and getting stuff and then getting stuffed with a big turkey dinner. Not to mention the people who go way overboard with the Christmas lights….

 
Whoa! (Images via Socyberty)

For some reason, this year I’m seriously lacking the Christmas decorating mojo. I did put up a tree in the dining room, but other than that, all my Christmas paraphernalia is just sitting there on the floor in the family room. I keep looking at it and wondering what to do with it all. I’m finding that I’m not so interested in putting out all the store-bought decorations that I’ve accumulated over the years. So I think this year, I’m going to pare back on the store stuff and focus more on hanging homemade ornaments and decorations.

(Oh sh*t, not A Hippopotamus Christmas! Crap, now I’m going to have it in my head for the rest of the day!)

OK, so now that I’m doomed, I thought I’d share some of the Christmas crafts that I’ve come across. I’ve made a couple of them, and I’ll be showing you my very favourite Christmas craft project next week.

I love these Christmas balls. I made a bunch of them years ago, and other than one that broke, I put them on the tree every year. These aren’t my balls, they’re from Alyssa Ruklic’s board on Pinterest. I want to make one just like the blue, green, and purple ball on the bottom right. But these balls are kind of a crapshoot – no two will ever come out the same. Which is what makes them all that much more special :-)

Ashton at A Yellow Bicycle made these pretty purple, grey, white, and yellow balls (tutorial here).

Along the same line are these glittery balls that Amy at Prairie Paper & Ink made with dye re-inker and glitter (tutorial here).

I just realized that I keep calling these balls. I did mention last week that I’m a bit obsessed with balls, so it’s just the word that pops into my head. Technically, they’re glass ornaments.

If you like pinecones, here’s an edible version and an inedible version for you. Felt pinecones (these would be the inedible ones!) from Family Circle (tutorial here):

And these much more tasty fondant-covered rice krispie treat pinecones (and acorns and Christmas trees too) are from Bakingdom (tutorial here):

Holly used a wood monogram from Southern Proper Monograms, a sprig of greenery, and a couple of festive ribbons to create this simple & elegant decoration for her front door. Read more about it over at Holly Mathis Interiors.

If you’re a musician or have a musician in the family, you’ll like these stars made from Christmas carol sheet music (tutorial with templates here).

Cute blue & green topiaries made with mini ornaments (from BHG, tutorial here):

Also from BHG, a pretty wreath made with craft store pearls. I’m guessing this one takes a lot of time and patience! The link to the BHG web site doesn’t seem to work anymore, but it’s just a styrofoam wreath that’s covered with a satin ribbon and then the pearls are glued on. You could use the same technique to make balls – errrrr, tree ornaments.

Crafty projects are all about using your imagination and creativity. Tiffany at Living Savvy came up with the idea to make these cute Christmas trees. Can you guess how she did it?

Would you believe poster board and Epsom salt?! Check out Tiffany’s tutorial here.

And finally, Mrs. Mustard Seed created this beautiful no-sew – that’s right, NO-SEW – ruffled tree skirt ♥ I really want to make one, but I don’t know if I’ll have time to do it this year. But next Christmas for sure! (Tutorial here).

There are loads of great Christmas crafts out there, these are just a few that caught my eye. If you’ve come up with a great Christmas craft, I’d love to see it – leave me a comment with a link and I’ll check it out :-)

TWO REMINDERS!

My giveaway for the My Memories Suite digital scrapbooking software is open until 11:59PM on Monday, December 12th. It’s the perfect Christmas gift for your favourite scrapbooker, decorator, or YOU! :-) Click here to enter.

Bake-N-Blog Holiday Edition, Part 2 is happening next Wednesday, December 14th. Get our your KitchenAids & baking sheets and join in the fun! Click here for all the details.

Happy weekend!

Ho, Ho, Ho! Time for a Christmas giveaway!

If you’re a scrapbooker, you might already know about My Memories Suite. And if you’re a decorator or just love to design moodboards, then you need to know about My Memories Suite too! My Memories Suite is digital scrapbooking software that has all sorts of cool features that allow you to create scrapbook layouts, photo books, cards, videos, moodboards…. you name it, you can probably create it :-) Here are a couple of moodboards that I’ve  put together using My Memories:

My friend Lisa at Lisa Goulet Design has used My Memories to create some moodboards too. This is one that she designed for her new cottage.

My Memories is fun and easy to use, and there are countless ways you can set up your page either by choosing an existing template or creating your own. Upload your pictures, lay them out on the page, and then apply embellishments to really jazz things up. My Memories will even take a group of your photos and put a whole photo album together for you in less than a minute! I uploaded some of my pictures from Budapest to My Memories, selected a holiday template, and voila, photo album!This is one of the pages from the album:

Trust me, once you start using My Memories, you’ll have a hard time stopping! And guess what? Just in time for Christmas, I have a copy of My Memories Suite to give away to one of my lucky readers!

Here’s how to enter:

• Click here to check out the available digital scrapbooking kits. Then come back here and leave comment on this post telling me which kit is your favourite.

For additional entries, do any or all of the following and then leave a separate comment for each thing that you do:

• Click here to “Like” My Memories Suite on Facebook.
• Click here to follow My Memories Suite on Twitter.
• Spread the word about the giveaway on your blog, Facebook, and/or Twitter.

So that’s a total of four possible entries.

But wait, there’s more! Can’t wait to find out if you’re my giveaway winner? Need to buy a Christmas gift for the scrapbooker or decorator in your life? Then use the following code to save $10 when you buy My Memories Suite, plus receive a coupon for $10 to put towards anything from the MyMemories.com store.

Discount code:
STMMMS18291

The giveaway is open until 11:59PM on Monday, December 12th, and I’ll announce the winner on Tuesday, December 13th.

And don’t forget, Wednesday, December 14th is Bake-N-Blog Holiday Edition, Part 2. Click here for all the details.

Things are going to be very festive around here next week – don’t miss out on all the fun!

The Big Bang Theory chandelier

It’s taken ten years, but FINALLY we’ve replaced all the ugly light fixtures in our house – YAY! The Hollywood lights in the bathrooms were some of the first ones to go. Easy enough, they’re not too high up on the wall, just a step or two up a ladder to reach them. Unlike the chandelier in the entry, which has a vaulted ceiling about 14 feet high.

I’ve been wanting to replace this chandelier pretty much since we moved into our house 10 years ago, but convincing hubby to take it down wasn’t the easiest thing to do.

A couple of weeks ago, Bellacor had a sale and the chandelier that I really wanted was too good a deal to pass up, so I bought it :-) Seeing as the huge box it came in took up half the entry, he had no choice about hanging it ASAP ;-)

Hubby came up with a creative buy scary way to reach the ceiling… Eeek! My poor dining table!

     

So onto the dining table and up the ladder hubby went…

And down came the brass & plastic-trying-to-be-crystal chandelier. YAY!

The canopy that came with the new chandelier was too big to fit on that little build-out on the ceiling where the chandelier hangs from. So, I took the old brass canopy, sanded it, and sprayed it with a combination of silver & cold paint that I already had.

Half an hour later, the canopy was dry and it was time to hang the new chandelier… it’s the Solaris in Olde Silver, and I love it!

Ahhhh, soooooooooooo much better than the old chandelier! Hubby says he doesn’t like it, so I’m trying to convince him that it looks like a Big Bang Theory atom. Kinda, sorta, yes?

So that’s the latest makeover in our house. I’m linking up to Metamorphosis Monday at Between Naps on the Porch – head on over to check out this week’s other makeovers.

Don’t miss out on Bake-N-Blog Holiday Edition, Part 2 happening on Wednesday, December 14th!

Click here for all the details.