Dollar Tree Trays Become Door Decor

Dollar stores can be a great source for crafting. One of my favorite projects that can be adapted for any holiday uses metal serving trays from Dollar Tree. You can use any shape, just make sure you get the metal trays.

Paint the entire tray gray with acrylic paint. Once it is dry, paint the center of the tray with chalkboard paint. I use some black paint to "age" the gray rim. If you want a more contemporary look, you could skip the gray paint and leave it as is. 

Next, glue leaves or flowers to the bottom portion of the tray. This can be done with tacky glue or a glue gun. Using chalk, write your message on the chalkboard center. You can also use a chalk writer if you want a more permanent message. 

Make a bow using wired ribbon and attach it to the top with glue. Attach a magnetic clip to the back of the tray for a hanger. 

If you want to hang the tray on an outside door, you can spray the tray with acrylic spray after you write a message and before you attach the flowers and bow. You can also sand or prime the tray before painting for more durable outdoor use. I've hung the trays on an exterior door without doing this step, and they've been fine. However, I think the acrylic might be a good idea in the event of inclement weather. The total cost is less than $10 per tray. These could be done just as easily for any other holiday or with any other message. 

Fiesta Fun

IT'S FIESTA!

The last two weeks of April are Fiesta in San Antonio. It is a city-wide celebration that incorporates hundreds of events, food and fun. To celebrate, I decided to make my first fiesta wreath. Paper flowers are seen everywhere during fiesta, but I had never made them successfully. 

After some YouTube viewing and a little research I made the wreath above. I made two wreaths in one evening while I watched a movie. The time consuming part is fluffing out the paper flowers.

Pre-Cut Flowers Saves Time

Not handy? I found some pre-cut paper flowers at Dollar Tree. The yellow and pink flowers were from a garland that I cut apart. I used the string from the garland to tie the flowers onto the metal frame. I cut down some larger flowers (the pink and blue ones at the bottom of the wreath) that were also pre-cut. I made the green and purple flowers and the light blue flowers myself from tissue paper also purchased at Dollar Tree.  They don't have the tissue flowers on their Website, but I found them in my local store. You can purchase pre-made tissue flowers for about .24 each at Aliexpress.

Other Materials

The 18" wreath frame was from Michael's and the ribbon was another Dollar Tree purchase.  I used the curling ribbon and leftover garland string to tie the paper flowers that I made.

How To Make the Wreath

Wreath making is easy. I used 11 smaller flowers (about 6") on the sides and top of the wreath. Each flower is simply tied to the metal wreath. Three larger flowers  (8") were tied to the bottom. Long curling ribbon is tied underneath the flowers on the bottom of the wire wreath. 

This is a very simple project that look festive. When the flowers are crushed or faded, they are easily replaced since they are just tied onto the wreath and not glued. 

Happy Fiesta!

Goodbye Bridal Shower Games - Hello Crafts

One of my least favorite things is bridal shower games. Word searches, dressing the bride-to-be in tissue paper, clothespin game for crossing your legs... I've played all of them--begrudgingly. So when tasked to plan a shower for a friend's daughter, the thought of more shower games made me want to back out of the event. 

Then an alternative came to mind -- why not do crafts instead? The future bride was an artistic type and most of the guests liked crafting. So out went shower games and in came the crafters.

To do crafts at a shower you need three things:

1. An instructor in the chosen craft

2. Supplies

3. A craft that can be completed in a short amount of time

We chose candle and soap making and cupcake decorating. Guests moved from station to station to create three different crafts.

Decorating the cupcakes was a great idea because it eliminated the need for a decorated cake and allowed everyone to participate in the process. We displayed cupcake creations on a stand. Baked cupcakes, frosting, fondant and decorations were provided. Then at the end of the event, everyone either ate or took home their creations.

Candle making was done by using beeswax sheets to roll candles. Participants chose their color and size and rolled custom candles of their own choosing. It was less messy than pouring candles, plus the microwave was busy melting soap for the third craft.

Soap making involved clear glycerin soap decorated with plastic letters (to spell words like "soap" or "wash") or a variety of plastic decoration in the bride's fall colors (leaves, pumpkins, etc.). Melted soap was poured into decorated molds and cooled while guests made other crafts and watched the gift opening.

The event was a hit with guests and the bride taking home handmade items as their party favors. Better yet was the absence of lame party games! 

Knitting - 100 Needles at a Time

We recently purchased a knitting machine. It is a used Bond knitting machine, which is an entry-level model. I like to crochet, and recently had a friend teach me the basics of knitting. I like how knitting looks, but am slow and really never mastered the art.

Then along came the knitting machine. The machine has 100 "needles.". Actually, they are individual "latch hooks" that pull the thread through in a pattern. You can easily knit a large project in an evening or two rather than spending several weeks or months on it. This is the perfect type of knitting for a type-A individual.

There is a bit of a learning curve getting started with a knitting machine. We watched YouTube videos to get the basics. Some machines come with training videos. It took a couple of evenings to get the hang of it.
Once you master the basics, there are many patterns available, and you can make anything from an afghan, to a sweater, hat, scarf, or placement -- anything you could make with a regular pair of knitting needles only much faster.

Although I only have one scarf under my belt, I have learned a couple of tips so far:

1. Buy a smooth, light to medium weight yarn. It is hard to work with thin or thick yarn. The light and mid-weight ones glide through the machine more easily.

2. It is easier to rip out a mistake than to try to fix it. The rows unravel easily leaving the loops still on the machine. If you drop one or two stitches (which will happen), then sure, go ahead and fix them by pulling the yarn through the loops that were missed. However, if you have more than a couple of stitches to fix, it is probably better to rip it out and start over since knitting a row or two does not take much time.

3. Weight is your friend. Their is a weight bar that you use to start the project, but should your project be a larger or longer one (like my scarf) you need to keep tension on the yarn loops so they stay properly on the machine. You can purchase knitting machine weights to attach to your projects, which is an important addition to your machine.

I still have a lot to learn about machine knitting. It is an exercise in patience until you get the hang of it. Having a more expensive machine would probably solve some of the issues, but these can run into the thousands of dollars. I will stick with my $90 eBay model and muddle along.

I'll keep you posted as I complete other projects and learn more about machine knitting. These are some photos of my machine and an example of a knitting machine weight.