Painting on Clay Jars

Hi guys! I’ve got another DIY Decor tutorial to share with you. I found these jars that were used for school projects that were due to be thrown out. I really wanted to save them and make them fit the vibe of my home so I decided to paint them using different design inspirations.

As these pots have all been previously painted on, the first thing that I needed to do was to cover everything with a base coat of white acrylic paint. Once every jar had been painted white, I set these aside to dry completely.

Boho Chic-So, for the first project, I wanted to do a boho chic design. To achieve this look, I decided to cover the center with natural burlap. I measured about two inches from the center and measured the same width on the burlap. Then I cut off the excess. The next thing that I did was I mixed a dark shade of green with white to make mint green. Once the entire jar had been coated, I set it aside to dry completely.

When the paint had dried, I got some glue and attached the burlap fabric to the center of the jar. Finally, I coated the entire jar, including the burlap fabric with Mod Podge and let it dry completely.

Industrial-The second jar’s inspiration are the concrete décor that I see so often on pinterest. This was actually a difficult redesign because the jar was painted black and I suspect that the paint originally used on it was poster paint because every time it stuck to something, the paint would chip or leach on to my white base coat. The plan was to paint everything gray and then dry brush it with black. I had to keep going back to it because of the chipped paint, but eventually, it did get to a point where everything was covered. I quickly brushed the jar with mod podge and that did the trick to seal everything.

Farmhouse-The third jar’s inspiration is another popular design theme—farmhouse. For this craft, you will need a bit of polymer clay. I wanted the jar to have this milk jug vibe so I fashioned handles for it using polymer clay. Once I created the shape of the handles, I baked the clay following the instructions on the packaging. Once the clay handles had been baked, I attach it to the sides of the jar with glue. Then, when it had dried, I painted everything white. Then, I dry brushed the entire jar with gray.

Pastel-And finally, I decided to do something pastel. Of the four, I have to say that this is my least favorite and only because the glue gun did not cooperate with me, and I couldn’t make straight, neat lines. I decided that I wanted to have some texture in this jar, and I thought that making the lines with the glue gun would work. In fairness, I still think that it would have worked, but I think that it would have looked better if I let my lines run along the entire jar.

And these are my four upcycled and redesigned jars. I hope you got some ideas on how to decorate your own clay pots.

DIY Christmas Decor

It’s been a while since I last shared a craft tutorial. Well, since it’s Christmas and I know a lot of us are trying to get smarter with our money because of this pandemic, I thought that for this year, I would only being making my own decor. In this tutorial, I want to share some very easy DIY projects with you.

This first one is just something that you can put around the house, on shelves, on coffee tables, basically, anywhere that can use a touch of Christmas.

Christmas Tin Can

You will need the following: a used and washed can (this one is from a canned good), Christmas ribbon (recycled, preferably), twine, burlap holly, plastic figs (from an old wreath perhaps), glue gun and plier.

  1. The first thing that you need to do is to remove any label from the can. Then, bend the sides of the can so that the edges don’t cut you. I also glued some paper twine around the opening for extra protection.
  2. I got the ribbon and glued this around the can. I glued a second ribbon for contrast (note that you can switch up the colors to suit your overall Christmas theme).
  3. I then cut a small piece of burlap, about an inch, to hide where the ends of my ribbon were glued.
  4. Then, I tightly would up some paper twine to glue at the base of then can. This will hold my figs upright.
  5. I decorated my twigs with a bit of holly first before I stuck them to the bottom of the can.
  6. Optional: You can add some tulle, or green fruits bags and fashion them as leaves.
  7. Optional: You can use a white marker to put touches of white on the ends of the fig to make them look like they’ve been snowed on.

I hope that you learned something from this tutorial! For the full tutorial, do head on to the Craft Time Studio – https://youtu.be/0A3n9SoLlh0

Eco-Friendly Dish Washing Net Cloths

I love finding ways of recycling everyday items, so when I watched how I can reuse my fruit nets and turn them into dish washing net cloths, I immediately had to try it out!

What You’ll Need

Fruit nets (about 6 pcs)

Elastic

Scrap ribbon

Scissors

What to Do

  1. Fold the ends of the fruit net at the center.
  2. Form into bow.
  3. Secure the bow with elastic (or you can also sew them up using a needle and thread).
  4. Do steps 1-3 for the remaining fruit nets.
  5. Stack the bows on top of each other and tie with elastic.
  6. Attach a scrap ribbon so that you can hang the net cloths on the faucet.

 

Summer Crafts for Kids #3: Gaudi-inspired Coaster

Since we’re always at the beach these days, we got to collect a lot of sea glass. At a certain point, we had one too many. So, we thought of another super simple craft to make use of these beautiful beach finds.

Level of Difficulty: Beginners

In this craft activity, you will need:

Used paper bowl (cleaned and dried)

Sea glass

Scissors

Silicon

Acrylic paint

Paint brush

What to Do:

  1. Cut the bottom of the paper bowl.
  2. Flip it and paint the sides with acrylic paint. Set aside to dry.
  3. Once the paint is dry, fill the bottom with silicon. (Note: silicon sets very quickly so your sea glass pieces should be on hand).
  4. Decorate with sea glass. Leave overnight to dry.

Summer Crafts for Kids #2: Bohemian Keychain

As a tourist in a foreign country, I found it very challenging to engage my child in crafts, while making sure that 1.) we don’t spend on too many craft supplies that we can’t bring home and 2. We also don’t create more garbage.

As a result of some creative thinking, we came out with this very simple and whimsical accessory.

Level of Difficulty: Beginners. This is literally a 5-minute craft. The only part that took long was for the glue to dry.

In this craft activity, you will need:

0.5 cm wide ribbons, cut into 8 cm strips  (the ones we had on hand were from clothing tags)

Jump ring

All purpose glue

Feathers (*optional. We picked these feathers on the beach)

What to Do:

  1. Get a strip and fold into half.
  2. Attach to the jump ring using a cow hitch knot.
  3. Continue to do this until you’ve covered about half of the jump ring.
  4. To achieve a more bohemian look, you can also glue feathers.

 

Craft Weekend: Cable Organizer

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It’s been a very long time since I’ve posted a craft! And it’s not at all because I’ve stopped crafting. It’s really because I don’t have a decent place to take pictures of what I make. So, before I proceed, let me just apologize for the quality of my pictures.

Now, to my craft! I’ve always been interested in giving new life to disposable stuff. For this craft, I used bread clips. My friend gave me the idea of recycling these clips into cable organizers! Since then, I’ve been saving these clips to experiment on a design!

IMG_0507 I used polymer clay to do my owl designs and then I super glued it to the bread clip. Voila! Very cute cable organizers! Hope you have a craft-filled weekend!

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Halloween Costume: Lego Block

It’s been a while since I posted a craft project. I’m glad that Halloween is coming. It gave me a good excuse to go through my stash to see what I could cook up for Halloween this year. First, I wanted it to be fairly simple to make. Second, I wanted to use what materials I had. I really didn’t want to buy anything. Third, I wanted it to be cute.

Having gone through my materials and the ideas in my head, I settled on making a Lego block. This is my finished product:

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Here are the materials that you will need to make this:

old shoe box, empty tissue paper rolls, brown paper bags (if not available, craft paper), scissors, glue and paint (note: I wasn’t able to paint this yet because I don’t have paint with me–this is the only thing I will buy).

How to do:

  1. Trace the bottom of the tissue paper roll on the paper bag or craft paper. Cut 8 circles and set aside.IMG_2380
  2. Cover the shoe box with brown paper or craft paper.
  3. Cut the tissue paper roll an inch in height.
  4. Glue the circle on the cut tissue paper roll.
  5. Arrange on the box as you would a Lego block.IMG_2383
  6. Paint!

You can attach a ribbon at the back to tie the block to your waist. Cost? Virtually nothing! A very cute, very environment-friendly craft for this holiday. Advanced Happy Halloween to all of you! 

P.S. Posting the end result with paint! 

 

From Sad to Spruced Up!

Salvaged Kitchen Magnet Spruced Up!

I just realized that almost a month has gone by and I haven’t posted anything new! I don’t have any new stories or poems yet because I really do want to devote most of my time to finishing my novel. I say most because I still do crafts when I need a breather. Here was one that I did using a very old and dusty ref magnet. With a little clay, and a bit of imagination, I was able to make this little kitchen set. In my mind, I’ve made the ref magnet happy because I spruced it up and gave it a new home.