How to make red, white and blue 4th of July pom poms to top of a bottle of party wine

I love pompoms and dressing up a bottle of wine with a big one when when heading out to a party makes a fun decoration to give to a hostess. This red, white and blue giant pom pom will be fun to bring to a 4th of July picnic.

Gather up red, white and blue yarn along with your pompom maker and a sharp pair of scissors and plate.

This pom pom will consist of 2 pompoms sewn together.  For the first side of the pom pom wrap with red primarily and then a bunch more white. As much as you can get on your pompom maker.

Trim off the pompom maker and set aside.

Make the second one with a base of blue and again cover it with white wraps.

 Stitch the two pom pom halves together with the white section together.

Hold the pom pom over the plate and trim the pom pom round.

Tie the pom pom on a bottle of wine.

50 Small Paintings-Done!

My New Year's resolution for 2015 was to do the 50 small paintings in the book Learn to Paint in Acrylics with 50 Small Paintings. It took me a bit longer to finish them all and even a bit longer to photograph them and write this post. But I should also add I built the shelves along the way to display them too!

 And me being me I did them all on recycled plywood I had leftover from a construction project.

I cut and sanded the plywood down to 5 inch squares.

Then I primed all the wood squares to get them ready to do each painting.

This was the first painting. Boy, that seems like forever-ago!

I can't tell you how fun this was to do! The directions are excellent and each painting is such a pleasure to paint.

I would end up working on several at a time as you need to allow the paint to dry in some cases so it's fun to start the next and jump back and forth. I highly recommend this book and this process. As you can see the collection looks great and you learn so much. I have already started to use the techniques I learned by painting these pieces in new original paintings.

3 crewel embroidery motifs used on a check table cloth

I started this project a long, long time ago and finally put the finishing touches on it and now I can share my crewel embroidery done on this check fabric using the patterns form the book The New Crewel Embroidery.

How to make pom pom carrot Easter decorations

No matter what new materials come out I still seem to think of ideas to make with pm poms. Today's fun little pom pom creations are carrots that my amineko thinks are just too fun not to snuggle, I know she doesn't look happy but she is :)

All that you need for these little creations are a variety of sizes of orange pom poms, a bit of green yarn and a hot glue gun.  Simply glue the pom poms together from smallest to largest.

To make the carrot top I looped a few wraps of yarn around 3 fingers and tied a knot around them with another piece of yarn. Then I tied a piece of yarn around all the loops. Then I cut the loops open and glued the tied end into the large pom. I made a bunch because quite frankly they were so easy and cute.

Color Blocked Craft Table and Accessories

  I have entered this Color Block Craft Table and Accessories project in the Fave Crafts Craft Contest 2016- If you like it please pop on over to their site and VOTE for it! I could win $1000 bucks! Thanks in advance for your support :)

Having a workspace that inspires creativity and keeps all your craft supplies organized can really make your crafting and art making time efficient and fun. 

I made this large worktable out of a piece of plywood and Plexiglass with squares of Fairfield Oly Fun Craft Material in between for a modern color block look. The layers are all held together with office supply binder clips. 



The center support of the worktable is a stack of recycled books! The coordinating desk accessories were embellished with all different types of paint and foil. 


The stemware glass balls were painted with Testors paint. 
The glasses were painted with  Design Master Tint It Transparent Dye Spray Paints. 
The jewelry box was given a new look with Plaid Ceramcoat Chalk paint. 
The little square plates were embellished with  Silver Therm-o-web Deco foil scissors. 
The little plastic animals were colored silver with the Testors Enamel paint marker. 

And since I plan on spending a lot of time at my new craft table coloring in books like Leisure Arts' Art of Coloring Mandalas I sewed a new cushion for the vintage stool and embellished it with a Simplicity applique.

 

I had a scrap of Plexiglass left over from my film industry days and it was a bit smaller than an 4x8 sheet of plywood so I had to trim the plywood down. If you are making this with new materials your plexi and plywood will likely be the same size so you can skip this step.

I used Fairfield Oly Fun Craft Material to cover the plywood. This material comes in pre-cut squares in a great variety of colors as you can see so it was easy to lay them out and arrange them in a pretty pattern.

Then I laid the plexiglass over the squares and secured it with office supply binder clips.

One of the fun things about this color block craft table is that since it isn't permanently secured you can swap out the color blocks anytime!

 

To give a new look to these vintage glasses I used a variety of Design Master Tint It Transparent Dye Spray Paints.

I masked off the bases so they would stay clear. While painting them I placed them on top of some cardboard containers. This made it easy to rotate the glasses for nice even coverage

To embellish the little plates I die cut a piece of Therm-o-web Easy-cut adhesive and applied Silver Therm-o-web Deco foil.

I am eager to try this technique on all sorts of recycled surfaces.

The next color blocked item on my craft desk was this piece of stemware that features little ball shapes. I painted each one with a color of Testors paint.

A project I see on Pinterest a lot is upcycling little toy animals by painting them with metallic paint. The Testors Enamel paint marker worked great for this!

In keeping with my color blocking theme I thought it would be fun to upcycle this jewelry box by painting each drawer a different color within the same color family.

I used a variety of blues, greens and grays of the Plaid Ceramcoat Chalk paint. I used a bit of painter's tape to hold the drawer pulls out of the way while painting. I also took the glass out and scraped the floral image off with a razor blade.

I love my vintage step stool but I thought it could use a bit more padding. The easiest way is to make a tie on cushion. I had a slipcover pillow that I could easily make a new coordinating slipcover for.

All I did was fold a piece of fabric over itself right sides facing with about a 4 inch overlap. Before stitching the sides I pined ribbons in each corner facing in.

 When turned right sides out I placed ta Simplicity applique on the new pillow cover. 
I am so excited about creating all sorts of things in my new creative space.