Mini Country Jar Candles

I said I wasn’t going to do the jar candles again this year but I just can’t resist the Fall scents! Pumpkin Spice, Vanilla Spice, Mulled Cider, and a new one this year: Pecan Pie! I got these at Wally World, and I think they are an awesome deal. Only $1 a piece, and the scents are very fragrant and long-lasting. Also, the labels peel right off, so they’re great for crafting!

Really, why bother trying to pour your own when you can get these for $1!

Instead of making labels this year, I decided to do something EASY and not as costly, or time-consuming. I simply wrapped the jars with a wide piece of homespun fabric, wrapped with a piece of jute, and finished with a rusty star, heart, or little salt-box house. All secured with the hot glue gun. The pictures aren’t great, because I took them with my phone. Sorry. SOMEONE went to a dog training seminar and took ALL the good cameras in the house!

Originally I was done at this point, but I wanted to do something to indicate the scent. I decided to make little tags to tie around the necks of the jars. I cut down the normal size tags to make “mini grubby tags.” I stamped them with my mini alphabet stamps to spell out the scents – some of which I changed. I didn’t like “vanilla spice” so I changed it to “spice cake.” These mini alphabet stamps can be found at the craft store OR Walmart for $1 too!

Tip: I find it’s easiest to stamp multiple tags at once. Stamp the “p” on all 3, then the “u” on all 3, and so on. It’s so much quicker stamping out one whole tag when you are fumbling around with tiny stamps like this.

I don’t stress if they aren’t perfect…that just means they are one of a kind and have a little home-made charm!

I used to print out labels on brown craft stickers and just tie a piece of fabric around the neck. The labels were a pain in the @$$ to get just right, not to mention those stickers aren’t cheap or easily accessible. Cute, but just not efficient for me.

I really hope people think my new candles are as cute as I do. Guess we’ll find out very soon! If they do sell well, maybe I’ll make a bunch for the craft show in Dec.!

In other news, here are some cool thrift store finds from last week, starting with this very cool, retro scale! I am getting quite a nice collection of old scales and can’t wait to display them together.

Grapevine heart wreaths…for a buck? Heck yeah!

Two country-style boxes, both in great shape!

A round pink jar with a wire frog lid

An itty-bitty rug beater…at least I think that’s what it is! It’s so stink in’ cute!

And lastly, this cool wood pharmacy sign. Not sure if it’s a repro or not but I love the graphics and lettering.

Well that’s all for now! Has anyone else been working on any Fall crafts yet? Or am I the only one who wants Fall to hurry up and get here?! Have a fabulous weekend and BBS!

Folk Art Inspired Pumpkin Magnets, Pins & Wine Corks

Well, I’ve decided I am ready for Fall! I LOVE Fall…it’s my absolute favorite season in every way. I think it’s because I am starting to see all the fun Halloween stuff in the stores that’s doing it. I have been working on some pumpkin items for my booth, and I love how they turned out! I love little folk art Halloween stuff, so that was my inspiration.

Here’s the how-to, should you feel the urge to make some of your own cute lil pumpkins!

I started by spray painting my wooden discs, just like the snowmen. I used this Terra Cotta spray, mainly for the color. Helpful tip: Do not spray paint in the garage within a 3 foot range of your boyfriend/husband’s brand new truck. This will result in major trouble for you. Just sayin’.

The Terra Cotta spray has a texture to it, which I thought would look cool on the pins/magnets. It definitely looked cool, but did not work well when I tried to paint the faces. The black paint pens would run because of the uneven, textured surface. I ended up painting them all with acrylic paint of the same color – lesson learned. The corks were handed painted with acrylic paint.

I used a yellow paint market to dot the eyes, and an ultra fine black paint pen for the noses, pupils, and mouths.

I didn’t want to hand paint the teeth so I cut off a tiny square piece of foam from the edge of a foam stamp. I stamped the teeth one by one!

The cork faces were a bit smaller so I decided it would be quicker to stencil on the mouths & noses. I used this little stencil I found on clearance at last year at Joann’s. The tiny face worked perfect, except I made one the eyes into my new nose. I covered the other eye with tape to create just one triangle above the mouth!

I packed up the corks and magnets in individual baggies (mini clear bags which can be found in the jewelry-making section of your local craft store) with labels I made with my logo.

The pins are pined onto my grubby tags, with my stamped logo. This has become my signature way of packaging/displaying all my pins!

I think this lil dude in the middle is my favorite as far as the expressions. You can really see the sparkle of the mod-podge sealer in this picture.

Well, hope you enjoyed the tutorial on my first attempt at pumpkin people stuff! I really love them and hope all the customers at The Carriage Place do too!

Country/Primitive Fall & Halloween stuff is irresistible if you ask me!

Have an awesome weekend everyone!!!

Thrift Store/Garage Sale Make-Overs

I have been perusing lots of great sales lately and picking up some goodies to start stocking my newly expanded booth starting Sept. 1st. A few of these goodies were kind of BLAH and needed a little make over, including this sturdy, but plain, $4 wooden shelf. I have so many small items that I need to get a few more “display” pieces.

I spray painted it black, sanded it down, and gave it coat of this Walnut Restore-A-Finish; a Howard product from the new line we are carrying at the co-op. I love the results. It really brings out the wood grain that shows through the sanded paint.

I kinda went over board with the sanding and from far away it looks a little “patchy” but up close it looks okay. I don’t really care because I’m not going to try to sell this piece, I just need space to display all my other stuff! It was a good trial for the Restore-A-Finish.

This cute mini desk was picked up at the thrift store ages ago, and of course I forgot a “before” picture. It was plain wood…kinda boring, but very good quality, sturdy wood. I spray painted, sanded, and used the Restore-A-Finish on it. I love it now! 

I picked up these shutters at a garage sale for mad cheap, and I knew right away that I wanted to make some kind of hinged, folding display with them.

I was originally inspired by this picture from http://tootsweetboutique.blogspot.com/. I’ve also seen shutters as great jewelry displays, so why not ornaments or my pins? I am thinking I can use unfolded paper clips to put over the edges of the slots and hang stuff from them.

I’ve had these old hinges lying around forever and knew they’d be perfect!

Here she is after I screwed on the hinges!

Another shutter idea that inspired me was this pic from http://kindallscreations.blogspot.com/

So I painted mine black, sanded it a bit, and added some cool black & white knobs from the Hobby Lobby. I also added a wire hanger.

Not sure what to hang from those knobs, but I’ll find something!!!

And lastly, this one is kind of random. I got this plain metal horn at the Salvo and thought it would be really cute for Christmas. So I added the wire hanger, and tied on some pip berries and raffia to make it a little more country. I think it would be cute hanging on a door at holiday time!

Well that’s all for now. I can’t wait to get everything set up in the new booth and play around with the shutter displays. Oooh…the pumpkin pins would look great against the black! Just thought of that…sweet!

Have a great day! I’ll be back soon!

P.S. Send me pix of your thrift store/garage sale make-overs! I wanna see ‘em!!!

Making Over Dollar Store Candles and a Few Other Crafty Tid-Bits…

Ever see these at The Dollar Tree? They are in the tiny wedding accessories section, usually near the craft supplies. I am guessing they are meant for favors? I don’t know, but they are good quality little jar candles, and 3 to a pack is a great deal.

I knew right away I wanted to texture them, but I didn’t want to use the dark brown or the gold. I am tired of these colors and there aren’t other colors of Texture Fierro except a bluish-gray and green.

So…I mixed these two to make a light brown/tan color! I then added a little strip of homespun with the trusty hot glue gun.

I was going to embellish them with a rusty star, but I decided at the last minute to use these left over Fimo crows I made. I originally made them to mix with some Fall themed “fixins” but I had some extras…exactly enough for the candles! It was meant to be!

I think they are super cute. and great for Fall/Halloween! I just LOVE crows!

The other weekend projects I have been tinkering around with are the mini clothespin snowmen for my December show. They were a huge hit last year so I made TONS!

All they need are their scarfs!

And finally, I have been working on some pins/magnets/wine corks for Fall with pumpkin faces. It’s taking a lot longer than the snowmen did, but I am liking the results. Here is a sneak peek!

 Welp, even though it’s a crappy, rainy MONDAY morning (eww)…try to have a GREAT day!!! I am in major crafting mode…more to come soon!!!

Craft Show Best Sellers: Snowman Pins & Magnets…and a New Item: Snowman Wine Corks!

My dining room table has been overflowing with snowmen of one kind or another for the last week and a half, as I have been whipping out snowman-faced pins, magnets and wine corks! The pins and magnets were some of my best sellers at last year’s craft show, and the wine corks will be new this year. It is the craft, food and WINE show, so I figured they were appropriate!

I started out by spraying all the small wooden discs (not the corks) with my favorite off-white spray paint: Rustoleum’s American Accents Ivory Silk. I like the off-white better than bright white!

For the magnets, I use “Dazzle Tac” which is a strong jewelry glue. Those magnets will not budge! I tried hot glue in the past, but the magnets pop right off. Go with the Dazzle Tac or something of similar strength if you want the magnets to last.

I will likely display them on a big enamel pan. I made tons of them; big and small. Sold out last year!

Sparkle Mod Podge gives them a subtle sparkle, and also seals them.

For the pins – same thing. Dazzle Tac to adhere the backs and sparkle Mod Podge to seal. I grubbied up some more tags, stamped them, and pinned them to the tag. This way they can even be hung up on a tree or on a hook for display.

For the wine corks, I ordered these in bulk from Widget Co. They amounted to 55 cents a piece, which is cheaper than the ones I was buying at Wally World (and way nicer too!).

These I hand painted with my off-white acrylic paint (color: unbleached titanium)

Aren’t they cute?

Because of the finish on the wood part of the corks, the acrylic paint scratches off easily. There was no way I was sanding them all down before I painted them…there’s too many and I can’t be bothered. So I decided to give them a couple of coats of polyurethane to harden/seal them up. I didn’t want to get it all over the cork part, so I came up with this solution: poking holes in a thicker stock paper, and pushing the corks down through so that just the wooden part is exposed.

This is wrapping paper that is a little on the stiffer side…perfect for holding the corks in place. I gave them a good 3 coats.

I tried doing some “peppermint candy” corks also, but I didn’t like the way they came out. I am a perfectionist and I just didn’t like that it didn’t look smooth – free handing the black lines didn’t work so well. Maybe a little stencil or something could make it easier?

Overall I have happy with the way the snowmen came out. I am thinking about doing some pumpkin face corks/pins/magnets for Fall. I got a few other little projects done over the weekend as well, including lots of spray painting and making-over some thrift store finds. I’ll share soon!

Hope everyone had a great weekend…now it’s back to the ol’ grind…ugh!