NEW IN THE STORE: Electric grubby candles!

I has taken me YEARS (literally!) to perfect the creation of these grubby electric candles. First I bought a mold that ’said’ it was for making these (and paid $50.00 for that mold!) but it was too small. So I had to ‘justify’ the purchase of that mold, so I was able to use it for making candles that hold tea lights (battery operated or regular)

All the while I had been searching and searching for the RIGHT mold to use. And I finally DID find it. I still have to ‘hand carve’ the hole for the light base a little, but it’s do-able.

The candles come in a light caramel or dark primitive color; and wrapped in a plastic sleeve. Pans are sold separately. Regular retail on these is $29.95. Sophie’s price is $15.00!

I can only ‘crank out’ ONE of these babies a day, so supply is always limited.

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Christmas 2008 ~ the white and silver decorated tree

 

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 TO PURCHASE OUR ONE OF A KIND HANDCRAFTED PRODUCTS, E-BOOKS AND CRAFT SUPPLIES; PLEASE VISIT OUR ETSY STORE : 

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The GREEN Christmas tree ~ 2008

 

This one is a small 5′ Alpine tree tucked in-between the primitive Christmas tree and the turquoise tree.  I usually put the shorter trees ‘up on something’ to bring them more to eye level.  This one is on a big round coffee table, along with the turquoise tree.

This is my very favorite ‘tree topper’ this year!  I just love those sparkly curly twiggy things!

I have a couple more of the heavier curly twigs sticking out on the sides of the tree.

I debated whether or not to put that green and blue ball garland on the turquoise tree or the green tree.  Ended up doing it on the green tree simply because it was a smaller tree and I could get by with just using two; which leaves more packaged to display under the tree to sell more easily.

These giant size green jingle bells are so FUN!!!  Would make a cute centerpiece on a platter of greens with a ‘jingle all the way’ tag!  I need to make some tags!

OUR WEBSITE : www.cscrafts.com/aj.html

OUR BLUJAY STORE :  http://www.blujay.com/folk_art_originals

 TO PURCHASE OUR ONE OF A KIND HANDCRAFTED PRODUCTS, E-BOOKS AND CRAFT SUPPLIES; PLEASE VISIT OUR ETSY STORE : 

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And here is where the turquoise decor that WAS on the red tree ended up . . .

I was a tad leery of putting the primitive tree next to two such sparkly trees, but I didn’t really have a choice!  There’s just not that much ROOM in my little store to spread the trees about.

But I do SO love how the turquoise tree and green tree look side by side!

I’ll post detail pictures of the green tree decor tomorrow.  Here are the details of the turquoise tree:

I could only get a ‘partial’ picture of the top of the tree!  The very tipy top had to be left out because the ceiling light was right behind it and washed out the picture.  (gut you can see it in the first picture) I think tree toppers are my favorite part of the tree, and almost NEVER just ‘one thing’.  This one has one of those old fashioned tall pointy bulb thingys (what ARE those called?!?!)  on the very top; then this fun spikey thingy and some small beaded floral picks with ribbon.

These big seed bead ornaments are GORGEOUS in person!

Lotsa fun old fashioned bottle brush ornaments!  Love how the light shines through the ice blue snowflakes.  OH!  And speaking of lights . . . !  After having SO much trouble with more than half of my lights burning out BEFORE Christmas last year, I was about ready to go ‘lightless’ this year on my trees!  I LOVE lots of lights on a tree, but can’t stand it when half a strand burns out and leaves a ‘bare spot’!  So I made one last trip out in search of lights that had some kind of GUARANTEE to last.  Lo and behold, the new LED lights are guaranteed to burn for 25,000 hours!!  Hallelujah!  And I found some strands of 60 at Big Lots for $8.50.  Even Costco is more expensive than that!  The ‘light’ isn’t quite the same soft glow, and actually a tad ‘bluish’ (reminds me of the old fluorescent lighting) but if they STAY LIT, I’ll learn to live with them!

How fun are those turquoise feather ornaments?!?!?  And the BIGGEST turquoise ball ornaments are ones that I hand painted!

Turquoise felt chandelier and another big handpainted ball.

I used dark turquoise bead garlands on the tree.  You can see a basket of them in the back left corner.  I only have ONE of these old fashioned tinsel garlands in turquoise.  Would be pretty to decorate a front window with.

See what i mean about the lights????

These little tree ornaments are actually supposed to be package tags!  They were just too pretty to NOT put on the tree!

And of course I almost always ‘fill in’ on my trees with some sheer ribbon bows.  It’s an easy and inexpensive way to continue your color scheme without going broke!  At home (back when I actually decorated a tree!  Now with the store I seldom get a tree up at home!) I liked to do a totally different color theme tree every year.  So the following year I’d use the bows I had made for the tree to tie onto packages, or decorate a wreath that I made as a gift. 

 OUR WEBSITE : www.cscrafts.com/aj.html

OUR BLUJAY STORE :  http://www.blujay.com/folk_art_originals

 TO PURCHASE OUR ONE OF A KIND HANDCRAFTED PRODUCTS, E-BOOKS AND CRAFT SUPPLIES; PLEASE VISIT OUR ETSY STORE : 

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The ‘remedied’ red tree . . .

So, the turquoise decor on the red metallic tree just ‘wasn’t doing it for me’.  The only color of decor I had left to use was some golds and metallics that I had earmarked to take to shows.  I dragged that stuff back to the store and put it on the red tree.

Better????

 

 OUR WEBSITE : www.cscrafts.com/aj.html

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The RED Christmas tree . . .

I discovered a ‘new love’ last Valentines Day.  The color combination of RED and turquoise!  It was quite by accident.  I simply had So much turquoise furniture in the store that out of necessity I HAD to display some of the red Valentine items on it.  I loved how that color combination looked and right then, even though Christmas had barely passed, I was already planning on having a red and turquoise decorated Christmas tree this year.

I have a 4′ red metallic tree (got it at Michael’s craft store two years ago) that I just love.  It was originally ‘pre-lit’ with matching red lights with red cord and sockets even!  Those lights barely lasted one season.  sigh.  (note to self: NEVER buy a pre-lit tree again!  It took me an HOUR to cut off all those burned out lights!)  Anyhoooooo . . . I determined that the red metallic tree would be decorated with turquoise ornaments this year.  I’ve envisioned how incredibly magnificent that tree would look all set up for MONTHS! 

Sadly, the reality of it was a disappointment.  So much so that I actually had to re-do the entire tree!  Here she is:

It just does not look ‘right’ to me.  I left it up for a couple of days thinking that I’d realize ‘what was missing’ and be able to fix it.

After the first day, still not liking the look.

And I STILL did not like it the next day!

But I STILL could not figure out WHY????  I like how the red Christmas stuff I put on the big turquoise shelf looks:

See what I mean?!?!?  I LOVE the red/turquoise combination on the shelf.  But on the tree???  Not so much!  What’s the deal with that?  The color combination on the tree just feels WRONG!

I went ahead and decorated the other trees, all the while mulling over my options for what to try next on the red tree because I could NOT leave it as it was.  So, it sat ‘naked’ for a couple of days, then I finally decided to bring back the gold metallic decorations I had taken home and earmarked to take to decorate a tree at the shows with.

The turquoise decorations look SPLENDID on a regular green tree.  I’ll post pics of the remedied red tree tomorrow.

 OUR WEBSITE : www.cscrafts.com/aj.html

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 TO PURCHASE OUR ONE OF A KIND HANDCRAFTED PRODUCTS, E-BOOKS AND CRAFT SUPPLIES; PLEASE VISIT OUR ETSY STORE : 

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The ‘pink parfait table’ tutorial

 Remember this pretty little table from a few posts back?

Here’s how we made it. 

In Michael’s dumpster divings he found this nice plywood round AND a circle (I call it a donut because of the hole in the middle).  I wanted to give the table a scalloped edge so we needed an ‘inset’ space.  But since the donut was the same size as the table top we had to do some cutting.  To try and shave 1/4 inch off the outer edge of the donut and keep it even would have been nearly impossible.  So my thought was to cut the donut into four even pieces, then cut an equal amount off each end until we got the right size.  Since the donut would not show at all once we were done, the extra cuts were no biggie.

Once we got the right size, Michael glued and screwed the donut to the underside of the table.

Michael went on a ‘bar stool binge’ a while back and we’ve got a bunch of them awaiting a purpose, so I decided to use one for the table base.  I just spray painted it a flat white.  (it’s much more TIME efficient to spray paint things like chairs and stools.  Brush painting around the legs and spindles is just a pain!)

Then Michael attached the top to the base, screwing it in from underneath.  Now I was ready to work on the top!  I gave it a good sanding, two coats of pale pink paint, then sanded to distress it.

For the scalloped edge I painted four pieces of lathe, two shades of pink (one the same color as the table) and two shades of white.

Then cut them into pieces using my scroll saw.  I just cut them ‘freehand’ because I didn’t want them to be perfectly the same.

Once cut into the rectangular sections, I ‘carved’ them and distressed them using my 1″ belt sander.  Again I did this ‘freehand’ not wanting them to be perfectly matched.

I decided to stamp a little bit of a design around the edge of the table.

Using a foam stamp and craft paint.

You can see the design much better in person than in these pictures!  This pale pink paint just does not photograph very well.  NOW it’s time to add the scallops!  I flipped the table upside down:

And just glued them along the inset under the rim of the table.

Alternating the colors.

Left it sitting upside down for the glue to set overnight.

Turned it right side up the following morning and gave it a couple of coats of waterproof matte varnish.

Had a bunch of the scallops left over so I glued them onto a couple of white shelves.

Ah-ha!  You can see the stamped design around the edge of the table better in that photo!

One thing I learned from this project is that the ‘donut’ for attaching the scalloped edge to was NOT the best idea.  It worked ‘okay’, BUT with all the scallops added, the table is a little ‘heavy’ on the outside edges and will tip if you lean on it.  Next time we make one of these we will make the inset a solid smaller piece of wood to better balance the weight of the added scalloped edge.

OUR WEBSITE: www.cscrafts.com/aj.html

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Little chest of drawers re-do; princess style!

Going with a PINK theme in a good portion of the store this month (and donating a % of sales of all pink items to Race for the Cure) so, this little four drawer chest was destined to be pink.

You can’t see them very well, but the knobs have little pink roses on them.  But I had used one of the knobs on this other pink piece, so I had to use different ones on this one!

The four drawer chest wasn’t varnished, so it was really quick to paint, since I didn’t have to sand or prime it.  Just two coats of pink paint; then a quick sanding when it was dry.

With a lot of the brown showing through, I dedided brown wood knobs would best compliment it.

It matches this pink and brown shabby chair I already had in the store perfectly!   

OUR WEBSITE: www.cscrafts.com/aj.html

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Pumpkins ~ plain and fancy . . .

I wasn’t planning on making any of these big ‘porch pumpkins’ (as I call them) again this year.  No specific reason other than ‘been there done that wanna try something new!’  But then a customer requested some, and as long as I was making a special order for a set of three, I may as well make a few extra.  The first picture is the custom made set, just plain orange. 

She specifically requested a tall (27″) skinny one and then two more sized however I thought best rounded out the group, and in brighter oranges.

The other pumpkins that Michael cut out for me (I draw the shape freehand onto the plywood and he cuts them with a jigsaw.  I just don’t like them to be TOO perfect!) I decided to paint in some ‘different’ colors, like the heirloom pumpkins I see in the country magazines.  Okay fine, they are colors other than JUST ORANGE, but I still wasn’t too thrilled with them.  So I rummaged through my box of foam stamps and decided to lightly stamp a design on them!

It’s kind of hard to see the designs on the bigger pumpkins in this picture, but you’ll see them in the close-ups to follow.  The small pumpkin that the design shows up best on in this picture is actually my least favorite of the whole batch.  (but just you watch!  It’ll be the FIRST one to sell!) On the rest of them I used a shade of paint just a tad lighter or darker than the color of the pumpkin so the design was more subtle.

And here’s the second set of three (because you KNOW I always have to do things in odd numbered groupings!)

For the ‘ridges’ on the pumpkins I just used the ‘edge’ of my orbital sander while I was sanding the surface.  I sanded and made the ridges BEFORE I stamped on the designs. 

The ‘curly vines’ beside the stems are made from rusty rebar tie wire, wrapped around a dowel.  Drilled a hole (1/16″ bit’) put a dot of tacky glue in to hold them in. 

Michael ‘wrinkled his nose’ at the idea of the fancy pumpkins and liked the plain ones better.  It’s not that I don’t LIKE the plain ones, I just wanted something DIFFERENT!

So, whaddya think?  Are the fancy pumpkins gonna be a HIT or a MISS???  Have you ever seen anything like them done in wood like this?  I’ve seen the ‘carved looking’ ones in resin, but mostly with fall or Halloween themes on them.  All the ‘Paris apartment’ themed stuff I’ve been doing for our booth at Stars was kind of the inspiration for these.  I may even do some in black/white for the space!  Do I dare do a turquoise one?!?!

 OUR WEBSITE: www.cscrafts.com/aj.html

VISIT OUR ETSY STORE: http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5876981

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Another bistro table and chairs set

The first bistro table and chairs set in our booth at Stars Antique mall sold in a week!  One of those “yahoo!” ~ “uh-oh” kind of times because I didn’t have anything ready to replace it!  I had JUST spent several hours rearranging the space to accommodate a table and chairs and was not in the mood to fully rearrange it again.  What do we have that I can quickly fix up (IN ONE DAY!) to make another bistro set from?!?!?

We have several barstools and plywood tops for tables.  Those are pretty quick to put together and paint.  But all the chairs needed a lot of work.  All we had that would be ‘quick was a pair of these gar stools with white metal bases for the chairs:

The PROBLEM was the table and the stools were the same height!  So we had to devise something to raise the table.   Michael suggested a ‘box’ to mount to the top of the wood stool we were using for the table base.  Sounded fine to me.  I figured you wouldn’t be able to see it anyhow.  I went to work painting the tops of the two stools.

I just happened to wander back into the workshop as Michael was positioning the table top on top of the stool base with the ‘box riser’.  “No, no, NO!  That’s not going to work!” exclaimed the designer.  (moi!)  “Sure it will,” said the builder; “I’ll attach this here and that there and it will hold plenty tight.”

“But it looks WRONG!”  bemoaned the designer, who had thought the wood box would not be visible, but had discovered that it GLARED it’s presence!  “We’ve GOT to have it round all the way up for it to look right!”  she added.  “And you want to have this done WHEN?????” asked the builder.  Today, of course, so it can be delivered tomorrow!  Think . . . think . . . think QUICK, what do we have that we can use to make that square riser ROUND?  How about some metal flashing?!?!?

I was SOOOOO focused on getting this thing done that i didn’t take a picture of what THE BOX looked like on it’s own.  But seeing how much the metal flashing is visible in this photo, you can imagine what it looked like to have a square there instead of a round.  Michael just used some super tacky glue to ‘place’ the flashing, them nailed it to the wood seat of the bar stool base!  TA~DA!!

I LOVE how the flashing looks!  Might even have to use this method again ON PURPOSE!

I painted the table and seats ‘opposing’ colors and pattern. 

Here it is set up in our space at Stars:

Another successful trash to treasure mission!

OUR WEBSITE: www.cscrafts.com/aj.html

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