christmas crafts – EAST OF WACO

OK, this is super clever if I say so myself!

I have two wreaths, that I love and have NO idea where I got them, hanging on each side of the TV. I’ve started decorating them at holidays in cute or quirky ways.

Love these cute little pumpkins for the Fall decor.

After finishing the Christmas decoration extravaganza I looked at the wreaths and thought to myself.. “Girl, they need something crazy big for this 2020 holiday!” And hand to God, I don’t know where I get these crazy ideas sometimes but sooooooo thankful I do! I am definitely a creative side of the brain person (is that a left or a right side? IDK!) Like my mom says, our family is mostly made up of those 5 out of 4 people that can’t add. 🤣

The point being here, I can’t tell you in this post how I came up with the idea so let’s just get on with how to make it, shall we?

First things first, the supplies you will need:

Wreaths of your choice
Tin buckets from Home Depot. They’re in the paint department. Maybe take your wreaths with you, or vice versa, so you can make sure the buckets fit well into the center of the wreaths.
Little creatures and trees to create your scene. I got the wooden cut-out animals, tiny trees and wood cut-out wreath at Target. All in that great section at the front of the store full of dollar buys and scores. We allllll know what I’m talking about here (it’s Christmas time so no fibbing girlfriends — ‘you-know-who’ is listening!!). It’s the first place I head when my feet enter a Target store.
Snow flakes of the fake nature. There are two kinds – plastic, irridescent flakes (my fav) or foam balls/pellets. I prefer the flake variety just because they glisten and look prettier.
Spray adhesive cuz you can’t hot glue all those flakes.
Glue gun
Small wooden disk to mount your scene creatures on
Sturdy craft wire
Drill

Slide the arrows to get full pictures of the needed supplies

I ended up cutting off the wooden bases for the creatures I choose. I felt they would fit better inside the buckets. I also lopped off the tops of the trees for a better fit. I used an oscillating saw on the wooden creatures. A small hack saw will work nicely also. Hot glue your scene components to the wooden disk and set aside.

Using a drill, drill 2 small holes as shwon and thread a sturdy and sufficient length piece of wire through the holes. In hindsight, I could have used a smaller drill bit. Secure the wire together. Place a piece of duct tape over the holes to help the bucket lay flat against the hanging surface. I also used some duct tape to secure the wreaths to the bucket. (Remember that craze where kids where making all kinds of crazy stuff — like, jackets, from printed duct tape??? Yep, glad that was just a phase, right?)) Anywho…it’s very sticky and was on sale. Gee…wonder why?

Place the disk scene inside the bucket, orienting appropriately with the bucket handle, and hot glue in place. Just a side note here — do we honestly think the craft world would be where it is today wthout the invention of glue guns? I say NOT! But I digress. Again…🤷‍♀️

I spray painted the cut out wreath, it was a ‘wooden’ print and not really to my liking. Attach the cut out wreath to the real wreath using craft wire, front to back.

Using the spray adhesive, spray a thin coat along the bottom of the bucket and the disk, as shown. Let it snow!

Using your fav ribbon, make a bow (tons of tutorials on line so we’ll skip that part) and tie to the bucket handle.

Hang, stand back and marvel at your creation! You’re amazing!

Thanks for stopping by! Have a wonderful holiday season. Do something nice for a child or family in need, there are too many as always.

Take care and stay tuned for the next project!

Jennifer

Follow me on Instagram at @eastofwaco and on Pinterest at eastofwaco0247

It’s NOEL time! Can we be more excited??!! The holidays are here!!!

Thanksgiving is at our house. The fam will be here just for a short time, COVID-friendly, and all. So as soon as the holiday dishes are done I will be cracking open the Christmas closet and putting my holiday decorations ON! Whoot whoot!

A few weeks ago storm ZETA came roaring through the neighborhood and did a ‘little’ damage. Needless to say…….my neighbors have firewood for quite some time! And this wasn’t the only one to fall… hardwoods and pines.

Have you ever heard a tree fall? Hope you never do…

After the cleanup was over and done I grabbed a few of the logs to do something crafty. Hmmmmmm…..what can I do?, what can I do? I saw this little cutie in a store and tada! Thats it!

A couple of years ago I had a very large tree cut down and had them make a few slices from the trunk to use on the buffet table or centerpieces. Well, it took about a week and boom!, the rounds got huge cracks in them. Wait….what? So I did some research and learned quite a bit about wood. It’s a living thing and when you take away the water, something has to give.

Hey Google! How do you keep fresh wood from splitting? Enter Pentacryl ^TM from Preservation Solutions. https://www.preservation-solutions.com/product/pentacryl/. Their website is informative and taught me exactly what I needed to do to make wood ‘cookies’. Also check out Youtube videos. Pentacryl is readily available and super easy to use. I tried another product but it made the cookies waxy and paint wouldn’t stick.

You’re going to need a chop saw or someone who has one.. Santa… are you listening? 🤷‍♀️ Once you have one you will wonder how you ever lived without one. Right up there with a glue gun, honestly.

I cut up a hardwood log and a pine log. Hardwood has irregularities and pine is much more cylindrical. Point here being, it’s easier to keep a cylindrical shape securely in the saw and cut it straight, than vice versa. But, on the other hand the hardwood branch irregularities give the cookies a uniqueness. I will be using both as I expand this project at home but this post will show the hardwood. Both dry in the Pentacryl just the same.

I cut the cookies in a width of 1/4″ to 1/2″. For no particuliar reason other than, as above, it’s hard to keep an irregular shape in the saw. I predrilled holes top and bottom so they could hang to dry. Drying time, and process, is very important for the cookies. The website and videos will go over the process well. Cutting the cookies will produce an incredible amount of sawdust. I saved a good deal of it and used it to pre-dry the cookies. According to a source at Pentacryl this is ok to do.

Went to the dollar store and bought a couple of plastic storage containers. These worked really well to soak the cookies. I bought 2 quarts of Pentacryl. I wasn’t really sure how far a quart would go. For reference sake, I was able to soak 65 5″ diameter cookies in a quart and a half.

Follow the Pentacryl directions on how to soak the cookies. After soaking I placed them in the sawdust to pre-dry. Left them for about 5-6 hours and then hung to dry. Again, follow the directions as to drying time and procedure.

Using paperclips, I hung the cookies in a draft-free zone in the garage. You can see the shape difference between the hardwood and the pine cookies.

Time to get to the fun part!

Step one – stencil on the snowflake. I’m a lot of things but an expert stenciler is not one of them! 😎 To solve that shortcoming enter a paint pen. Outlining the snowflake gives it definition and covers up any paint that may have slipped past the edges of the plastic template. For variety, I choose different size snowflakes and placed them randomly on the faces of the cookies.

Next, paint on the letters. I choose N-O-E-L but pick anything you want. I plan to do a variety of words and make a set of these to hang around the house. I’ll post those later. Haha… as soon as I find a few moments to get them done…🤷‍♀️

Now, if you are one of the lucky folks to have a Cricut or Silhouette machine, ‘jeally’ doesn’t begin to describe my feelings! I do not have a Cricut. Yet!….. So I hand painted the letters on the cookies. Using a pencil, then a paint pen, then craft paint.

So that the letters are placed uniformly and are of consistent size, use a ruler to draw the letters. Consistent width and height.