Top Projects of 2013

15.  Cement Candle Holders

14.  Old Bench Makeover

13.  Recycling and Reusing Containers

12.  Braided Leather Bracelet

11. White Sweater Pumpkins

10.  Brady’s Bandana Quilt

9. Wool Posies and Vase

8. Handmade Headboard

7.  Wool Wrapped Trees

6.  How to Make Wool Felt

5. Child’s Teepee

4.  Driftwood and Seashell Wreath

3.  Butterfly Eggs

2.  Free Washcloths

1.  Cement Garden Balls

Thanks so much for following and commenting on my blog!  I would be nothing without my followers!  Here’s to all sorts of new projects in 2014!

Felted Wool Posies and Wool Vase

Posies in all colors! 

Very easy to make…I cut three circles in graduated sizes.  I picked out a vintage button or two for the center of each one.

Then I cut a wire twice the length of the stem, fold it in half, and thread it onto the button and through the layers of the stacked felt circles.

For the leaves I cut a small leaf, and a 4 inch piece of wire. The stem and the leaf wire I covered in florist tape, adding the leaf stem as I covered the stem.

The flowers can be any color, the more the merrier!

And the center buttons don’t have to be a matching color…

The vase is made from a mason jar and a sleeve from a felted wool sweater. I moistened the sleeve as it was rather tight on the jar and then just worked it down over the jar.

This grey plaid wool was a great cover for the chipped mason jar.

I may be linking to these great parties!

Package Pals~~What I sent~~

This is the first time my package pal didn’t have a blog or pinterest board or some way for me to get to know her…luckily Melinda sent me pictures and told me a lot about herself. She lives in Australia and is a nurse like me and seems we both like vintage and we had an instant connection. So I had an idea of what she liked…I hoped anyway!  So I made her a flower pin from felted/fulled wool.

Melinda has this thing for caravans…so I whipped up a pillow with a hopefully recognizeable caravan.  I almost decided to keep it myself but decided to send it off to Australia!

Actually I had fun making it…thought it turned out pretty cute!

I sent it with the flower pin,

some wool felt from my stash,

and a pink bunting made from a vintage sheet. 

I love the whole Package Pal concept!  Thanks to Jamie at C.R.A.F.T. and Julia at Stars and Sunshine for organizing all this!

The funny thing is that Melinda and I both got our packages in the mail the same day!  How unlikely is that??  I am working on a second post for the package Melinda made for me!  It was too awesome to include in the same post!

Wool Wrapped Trees

These little guys did not cost me one single penny to make!

I bought a box of various craft supplies at an auction for $1 and these paper mache trees were part of the deal.  I shoulda taken a before pic, but I didn’t…sorry bout that!

I cut 1.5 inch wide strips of wool from a green wool shirt that I found at the Salvation Army.  It had lots of holes in it so it was quite cheap. I washed it in hot water several times, so the wool was pretty thick.

I used hot glue and just spiraled the strips around upward.  Here you see my assistant stealing helping me show how the strips unroll from the neat bundles I had made.

Here the little thief assistant takes one of the strips and unrolls it completely.

Anyway, who needs extra strips…I only had five trees to cover!  You could use styrofoam trees instead of the paper mache ones, although the paper mache trees have some kind of weight in the bottom so they are difficult to knock over.  My clumsy pug assistant showed me proof of that.

And here the weasel assistant takes the last roll of wool…

But like I said, I don’t really need them anyway!

Stinker!

Love how they look on top of my quilt cabinet…

I may be linking to these great parties!

Thrifty finds this week…

I found a new thrift store this weekend!  I can’t believe I haven’t heard of Savers Thrift Stores, but I saw the one in Fairview Heights and meandered in to check it out!

I bought the small skeins of all wool yarn for 99 cents for a two pack (the packaging says that they are all the same dye lot and color number, but I think not!!) and the larger cones of linen like thread varied but no more than $1.50 each.

The shadow box frame I bought at Goodwill for $1 and the oval frames came from Savers and they were 99 cents each.  I am working on a frame wall and am looking for some different shapes to add to it.

And the last few things I found…a little painted metal shelf (from an auction) and the new mason jar that is “vintage inspired”…I had seen them at Target and wanted one but not 6 of them so I was happy to find this single jar at Goodwill for $1. 

I might be linking to these great parties!