Painted Jar Flower Vase and Other Upcyling Ideas

I was recently inspired to make something involving flowers after discovering the online flower delivery company, BloomNation.  I love reusing things, so came up with this craft project upcyling old jars and turning them into something beautiful, which I could fill with flowers to decorate my home!

For this project I will show you how to colour jars with glass paint (which is waterproof so won't be washed off when you fill it with flowers and water!) and then embellish the jar with paint, lace and twine.  Decorated jars look lovely as home decor and if you're planning a wedding they would make great table centres too!

You will need:
Glass jars (washed!)
Glass paint (I used Pebeo Vitrea 160)
Nail varnish remover
Paint brush
An oven
Paper (copy paper is fine)
Craft knife
Sticky tape
Gold acrylic paint
Cotton lace trim
Baker's twine

First you will need to thin the glass paint by mixing it with nail varnish remover. If you want to just tint the colour of your jars add more nail varnish remover, or for a darker colour thin the paint with less nail varnish remover.
By mixing 'Oriental Green' with 'Laquer Blue' glass paint I made a lovely teal colour.  I also tried an ombre version with blue / green paint at the bottom of the jar, graduating to yellow at the top.  Have fun experimenting with different colour and patterns!

Paint the insides of your jars and leave to dry over night (in a dust free area).  Then bake in your oven for 40 minutes at 160°C / 325°F.

Once the jars are cool you can decorate the outside...
I created a star template (which you can download here).  Please note it is for personal use only.  If you would like to share the template please include a link back to this post (not the download link).

Cut out the stars with a craft knife.  Arrange the stencils where you would like them on your jar and attach with sticky tape, then paint the stars with the gold paint.  Carefully remove the stencils once the paint is dry to avoid smudging.

Then cut a piece of lace trim slightly larger than the circumference of the jar.  I secured the ends with a few stitches for a neater finish, but you don't have to do this.
Finally, wrap the baker's twine (I used gold sparkle twine) twice around the jar and tie with a bow.

I filled my new vase with some pretty white and yellow carnations.  I found the perfect spot to display the flowers in the hallway at the bottom of my stairs.  The table is a recent addition to my home, although it has been in the family a long time - my great-grandfather made it!

If you are looking for more inspiration on upcycling items for displaying flowers, I've been pinning more ideas to my Flower's board on Pinterest...
  Follow Hazel's board Flowers on Pinterest.
These are some of my favourite ideas:
Light Bulb Vases
Leather Trimmed Hanging Vases
Gold Painted Bottles

BloomNation support local florists across the US by showcasing their floral creations on their marketplace.  If you're looking for floral inspiration why not take look at their blog, Instagram or Pinterest pages?

Halloween Card

On Tuesday I released some new Halloween themed printables; I will be sharing some different ideas over the next few weeks on how you could use them - first up is this Halloween card...


Materials used in the card:
144x144mm white card blank
orange paper
black and white card
Halloween night sky scrapbooking paper (from this set)
Witch, cat and 'Trick or Treat?' digital stamps (from this set)
watercolour pencils
black and orange baker's twine
double-sided sticky foam pads
craft glue / double sided sticky tape
silver glitter glue
silver gel pen
black pen
hole punch

How I made the card...
First I prepared the digital stamps for printing; I layered the cat digital stamp so it slightly overlapped the witch image and printed them onto white card.  I decided to test out my Silhouette Cameo cutting machine's print and cut feature and was very impressed with how well it cut around the girl and cat - I'll be sharing a blog post about this another time!  You could cut around the image with scissors or a craft knife too.  The girl and cat were then coloured with watercolour pencils.

I cut a square of the night sky scrapbook paper, smaller than the card blank and mounted it on orange paper, then glued these to the front of the card.


The 'Trick or Treat?' word stamp was printed onto white card.  This was then mounted onto orange paper and I drew a striped border to match the baker's twine using a black drawing pen.  I threaded baker's twine through a punched hole before tying the twine around the card.

Using my Cameo I cut a bat silhouette from black card, you could also cut this by hand.  Drawing lightly around the very edge of the bat with silver gel pen helped it to stand out from the dark background paper.


I attached the witch, bat and 'Trick or Treat?' tag to the card with double-sided foam pads to add dimension.  Finally, I added a little silver glitter glue to the some of the stars on the background paper.

How to Make: 'Celebrate' Citrus Cake Card using the Silhouette Cameo to cut text

I am loving bright citrus colours at the moment – like in the colour palette I made from my birthday flowers.  I used this palette as inspiration for this card which is made with a patterned scrapbooking paper and digital stamp which I designed.  This card was also a good opportunity to make my first tutorial using my Silhouette Cameo cutting machine which I introduced earlier this week – I used it to cut the text on this card.  If you don't have a cutting machine you could cut the text by hand, print the word onto paper and stick to your card or hand draw it directly onto the card.

To make this card you will need:

• White A6 card blank
• Printable orange chevron patterned paper (see end of post)
• Printable cupcake with a candle digital stamp (see end of post)
• white card and paper
• Coloured pencils and/or pens
• 3x gems (I used pink and yellow round 5mm gems)
• 3mm wide satin ribbon (I used lime green)
• glitter glue
• glue, double sided tape and foam pads
• scissors, craft knife and cutting machine
• Silhouette Cameo 2 cutting machine and Silhouette Studio software
• Computer and home printer

1.  First you will need to print the patterned scrapbooking paper onto white paper and cupcake digital stamp onto white card.

2.  Cut the word 'Celebrate' with the Silhouette Cameo, using Silhouette Studio software:

Type the word 'Celebrate' (I used the font ‘Lobster’, which is free to download if you don’t already have it installed on your computer.)   I adjusted the size of the word so that the letters were approximately 3/4 inch tall.

You will see that some of the letters overlap. We just want to cut the outline, not where the letters overlap, so in 'Cut Settings', select 'Cut Edge'.

I cut the word from white card, with the ratchet blade set to no.2.  (I recommend doing a test cut first to check which setting you need).  After cutting the word I coloured it with pink felt tip pen – you could just cut it from pink card!

3. Glue the word ‘Celebrate’ onto the card blank.  Then stick the orange patterned background paper onto the card blank – lining it up with the word ‘Celebrate’, leaving a small gap between the word and background paper.  Trim the background paper to the size of the card.

4. Colour the cupcake (I used coloured pencils) then cut out leaving a small border around the edge.

5. Glue the ribbon along the edge of the orange patterned paper.  Glue 3 gems below the word ‘Celebrate’.  Then attach the cupcake to the card using foam pads.

6. Finally add some sparkle with glitter glue on the cupcake!

Happy crafting!

About the papers used in this project: The printable scrapbooking paper and digital stamp I used in this card are both my own designs and are available to buy from my Etsy shop – the orange chevron paper is from the Citrus set of scrapbooking papers and the cupcake is from my Cupcakes and Roses set of digital stamps.

March Review

I have noticed a few of the blogs I read doing reviews looking back at their week, month or year and I thought it would be an interesting thing to try myself.  So I decided to take a look back over the last month – reminding myself about some of the things I did in March and sharing bits which I haven’t blogged about already…

New designs / illustrations...

I was quite productive with new designs and illustrations in March, although I still can’t share the Christmas ones I worked on and submitted to Phoenix Trading.  You’ll have to wait until I know if they are interested in publishing any of them!  My Horses card design was released at the start of the month though.

In March I created 3 new designs which I entered into Spoonflower contests; Coral, Mint, Black and White, Beagles and Southwest Baby Bedding.

I finished changing over all my non-customised digital items to Instant Download.  It was quite a time consuming process changing over all the old listings, but should save me time in the long run.  I designed some new printables to add to the Easter range in my shop; some ‘Happy Easter’ bunting, Easter egg digi stamps and a set of pastel bunnies scrapbooking papers.  They’re all available as instant downloads, so there’s still time to use them this Easter weekend as they can be downloaded within minutes of buying!

Sewing...

I ordered a print of my Dragon Cut and Sew Plushie design on Silky Faille fabric from Spoonflower and tested out the design to check it all worked ok.  It did!  So I was able to make it available to buy from my Spoonflower shop.  I’ll be sharing more photos of that soon, with the instructions on how to make it.

I also stitched 2 projects which came with the Mollie Makes magazine I buy – a needlebook and bear embroidery.  I didn’t like the colour of the yellow felt which came in the kit to make the needle book so decided to use some of my own felt instead.  I loved making the little hexies though and trying English Paper Piecing for the first time.

Another sewing project I am part way through is sewing a dress in jersey fabric – my first attempt at sewing stretch fabric!  I’ll share some pictures from that once I've done a bit more.

Baking...

I baked some cheese muffins with my sister using this recipe which I blogged about back in 2013.

Garden...

Spring arrived and it’s lovely to see the blossom and flowers appearing.  I wish I could somehow bottle the scent from this tree covered in blossom as it is going all too fast.

 I started planning what to grow this year, so far we have sown herbs, tomatoes, peppers and aubergine seeds.  I had a herb growing kit for Christmas, but waited until last month to sow the seeds – the basil and chives have come up and I’m hoping the others will start growing soon.

 

Other things…

On Pinterest I have been pinning ideas to my Easter board – including lots of lovely baking ideas, although I probably shouldn't try making them as I have been trying to be healthier after watching a documentary on how much sugar is in our food!

Follow Hazel's Easter board on Pinterest.

I’ve been looking for a new phone but there is so much choice, I can’t decide which is the best to get.  My first and only mobile is getting on for being nearly 10 years old and the battery doesn’t last so long now so I thought it might be time for a new one!  My mp3 player also died so I would like a phone to listen to music on too but I don’t use my mobile a lot so don’t want to spend too much.  I’ve been trying to narrow down my choices by looking at budget smartphone reviews – the Microsoft Lumia 435 looks like a possibility but I’m not sure.  Do you have any suggestions?

I mentioned at the top of this post about reading other people’s blogs – I like using Bloglovin’ to keep up with new posts from my favourite bloggers and still use the reading list in Blogger too.  How do you like to keep up with your favourite blogs?
These are some of the blogs I have been reading recently:
Wonder Forest
Messyla - a lifestyle blog by La.
A Beautiful Mess
Scientific Culture

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Hot Air Balloon Cupcake Box DIY Tutorial

I have been wanting to design a new printable box shape for a while and after much testing, some arguments with my printer and a happy accident I have created this cupcake box!   It is slightly larger than my existing box shapes (3 inches square), so comes on more than 1 sheet but is still easy to make. 

This box has a hot air balloon theme, to match my latest range of printables, but I will be making cupcake boxes with other designs soon too.  There are 4 boxes featuring different balloons and colour schemes (blue, red, green and yellow), in this tutorial I will just be making the blue box but they are all made in exactly the same way…

There are 2 sheets you will need to print for the box, plus an additional sheet for an optional lid.  Each sheet can be printed on A4 or letter sized (8.5 x 11 inch) card.  For best results when printing, I recommend using your printer's highest quality setting and printing on a good quality card.  I print my boxes onto 240gsm white card…

Cut around the outside of box parts 1 and 2.  Then score and fold along the dashed lines (Tip – use a craft knife and ruler for straight edges, and a sheet of craft foam under the card when you’re scoring with a bone folder)

Glue tab ‘A’ (on box part 2) to the centre square on box part 1 (marked side A), your box should now look like this…

Glue the remaining tabs marked with ‘glue’.  You can leave the box like this, and fill with sweets or other small gifts…

Or if you are making it for a cupcake, make the cupcake holder to fit inside the box.  Cut around the edge of the cupcake holder and cut out the circle in the centre.  Score and fold along the dashed lines, then glue the tabs.  Your cupcake holder should look like this…

There is also an optional lid you can make, which is printed on a separate sheet (with 2 lids on one sheet).  Make this in exactly the same way as the cupcake holder (it is slightly larger than the cupcake holder).  Slide the lid over the top of the box.

Alternatively you can cut away the top part of the box before sliding over the optional lid.  You could also glue a piece of acetate to the inside of the lid, so that the circle hole becomes a window and you can see inside the box.

A few other ideas for customising your box are mixing and matching the coloured cupcake holders and lids, using ribbon or baker’s twine around the outside of the box and adding one of the tags (which come on page 1 of the box templates).

If you would like to make your own boxes you can buy the templates for this box and other designs from my shop here: shop printable gift boxes

The baker’s twine tied around the box in the photo at the top of this post is ‘Eton Blue’ – you can buy this (and lots of other colours too!) from my shop here: shop baker's twine

I hope you like these boxes and if you make some of your own I would love to see your photos! :)

DIY ideas for using fabric covered buttons

Remember my diy tutorial on how to make fabric covered buttons?  There are so many ways you could use them in craft projects, here are a few that I have tried so far…

The first time I used a fabric covered button in a project was on this camera case - the button camouflages so sell it's almost invisible!  I made it with some vintage orange and brown needle cord and designed the case to perfectly fit my camera.   I love this little bag but it’s for my old camera so I don’t really use it now :(

Here are a couple of very easy hair accessories made with fabric covered buttons.  This is just a hairband looped through the shank on the button…

You can buy hairgrips with round bases on the end which you could glue a button on (without the shank), but I made this with just an ordinary hair grip pushed through the shank.  Couldn’t be any easier – and within seconds you can be wearing it, no need to wait for glue to dry!

This next idea turns the buttons into brads – great for cardmaking and scrapbooking!  There are different types of buttons for covering with fabric - make sure the buttons you’re using have a wire shank like these and an oblong slot for the shank to go through.  Before covering with fabric, remove the wire shank with pliers and push a brad (split pin) through the backing piece.

Making your own brads means you can match them with any project.  I used one here to attach a fabric flower to a card.  The brads aren’t limited to paper crafts – I also used one on a crocheted garland.  As well as being decorative it was a quick and easy way of layering the flowers without the need for sewing.

Have you used fabric covered buttons in your craft projects before - what have you made with them?

Some recent makes…

I’ve been a subscriber to the Mollie Makes magazine for a couple of years now and have quite a collection of the little kits which come free with each issue.  I love the mix of craft projects, articles and inspiration in the magazines and it’s always nice to get a new craft project to try out each month (even though it usually takes me a while to get around to making them!).  This retro Dachshund is from issue 31 and was designed by Jane Foster.  She makes lovely brightly coloured screen prints inspired by Scandinavian design.  This dog was something nice and simple to stitch in front of the tv one evening.  Just to make it slightly different I decided to add some dried lavender to the stuffing, so it could be used to scent drawers when not sitting on my desk!

I’ve also been making a few handmade cards…

The Steampunk card was for my Dad’s birthday and was made with stamps from the Hexley transport set.  I used a copper coloured inkpad with the stamps and embossing powder on everything except the background pattern.  It’s a long time since I tried using embossing powder with stamps, and I wasn’t very successful with it before but was really pleased with how it worked this time.

I made the other card for Mother’s Day with layered punched and hand cut flowers, leaves and a butterfly from my Butterflies collage sheet.  I also added little gems, sequins and some cotton thread glued in swirls around the flowers.  It doesn’t take too long to cut everything out but I’ve been admiring the Brother CutNScan which would make cutting shapes for cards like these soo quick and easy!

FIMO pets and buttons

Last weekend I made these cute little animals from Fimo.  They started as basic Fimo shapes which I painted with acrylics after baking then varnished.

I’ve had my Fimo for a very long time (I think there's still a tiny bit left from some I had when I was 8!) – some is Fimo Classic and some is Fimo Soft.  I much prefer using the soft as you can use it almost immediately but the Classic always takes me ages to soften and I end up making a mess with crumbs of Fimo falling everywhere.

The little animals I made are really small – this rabbit is just over an inch long…

I painted the rabbit with dutch markings – I used to have a white and grey dutch rabbit when I was small :)  Rabbits are one of my favourite animals.  I’ve been watching the BBC series The Burrowers – where they’re following the lives of rabbits, badgers and water voles in burrows specially made for the series.  Of course the rabbits are my favourite – especially the babies which are soo cute!!

This budgie (only about 1.75 inches long) was partly inspired by my green and yellow budgie, Bobby.  Although she was a girl and this is a boy budgie, as above his beak is blue.

While the Fimo was out I thought I may as well make a few more buttons to top up my jar…

I love the colour of the rose – it’s more minty coloured in real life than this photo shows.  If you want to see some of the other polymer clay buttons I made and find out a bit about how I made them, take a look at this post which I wrote a couple of years ago: http://hazelfishercreations.blogspot.co.uk/2011/05/polymer-clay-buttons.html

My latest craft project – a dreamcatcher

I’ve wanted to make a dreamcatcher for a while and when I saw the tutorial in the latest issue of Mollie Makes (issue thirty) I knew it was time to give it a go!  The tutorial in the magazine used bright neon colours which looked really fun but I thought I would go for a more pared-down palette with natural greens, creams and browns.

I used an old bamboo bag handle as the base ring (not sure why we only had one bag handle, maybe I’ll find the other one some time and make another dreamcatcher!)  I wrapped the ring in cream and green cotton yarn.  Then used some cream embroidery thread to weave the hoop, adding some wooden beads as I went.I finished off the dreamcatcher with some larger wooden beads hanging from the ring and a feather from my budgie, Charlie!  I’ve hung it in my bedroom now – hopefully it will catch all my bad dreams! :)

Scrapbook layout inspiration - Basil my Guinea Pig

I have had a scrapbook album for many years now but have only made a few pages to go in it.  I recently came across Jot Magazine via Pinterest – it’s a new free online magazine on paper crafting and scrapbooking, and it inspired me to get my scrapbook out again!

My album is A3, a bit of an unusual shape with A3, A4 and B4 sized sleeves.  I think if I was to buy an album again I would use a more standard 12 inch or 8 inch square one, but I need to finish this one before I start thinking of doing another!

I made this page on my guinea pig, called Basil – I have so many cute photos of him and wanted to create a memory page of all the things he does :)

These are the materials I used (several of them are available from my craft supplies shop):

• 12x12 inch spotty scrapbook paper from a DCWV stack
• Coloured card and paper
• Photos printed on glossy photo paper
• Journal card from this printable Woodland set
• Leaf motifs from this printable collage sheet
• Baker’s twine
• Paper punches; daisy flowers, scalloped circle, round corner
• Mini brad
• Mini spotty button
• Alphabet rubber stamps
• Small amount of green thread

I used the round corner punch on the three main photos before mounting them on cream card.  The letters for Basil’s name were all cut by hand.

Before I glued anything down I carefully laid everything out to see how it would look.  I drew a faint pencil line for where I wanted the baker’s twine to be, which I then went over with PVA glue to stick the twine down.

I love these tiny spotty buttons!  They’re the perfect size for putting in the centre of a punched paper daisy.

I really enjoyed doing this page and won’t be leaving it so long before doing another.  I think the hardest part for me is trying to decide exactly what to do – there are so many choices!  Do you do scrapbooking?  If you’ve blogged about your own layouts I would love to see them – please leave a link in the comments below! :)