Cardboard Wreath

I'm going crazy and posting twice in one day.  Whoa.

Anyway, this weekend I was cleaning up my office and found two poster boards.  I decided that instead of cleaning that I should make something with these poster boards.  So, I was looking around the web for some cardboard art inspiration and found this:

http://modernvintagemovement.blogspot.com/2010/05/splendid-cardboard-craft-project.html

I fell in love with it!  After I posted it to my Pinterest board, I got to work to make something of my own. 

1.  I looked around on the internet for leaf stencils and printed these:

2.  Instead of cutting the stencils out from the paper and then tracing them onto the poster board, I jut put the stencil print out on top of the poster board and traced the outline using a ball point pen an pressing sorta hard. The out come was the stencil as an impression on the poster board and then I just cut those out.

3.  Here are the poster board stencil cut outs I used: 

4.  I traced and cut out about nine of each of the stencils and then Mod Podged scrap book paper, paper sacks, and even dictionary pages to the stencils. 

5.  I laid out the design how I wanted it and then broke out the hot glue gun. I carefully went around hot gluing the pieces to each other so that I wouldn't mess up the design.

6.  Once I had all the pieces glued, I flipped the wreath over and glued strips of card board all around the back to really secure the thing:

7.  I wanted to hang this thing up, so I stuck a big paper clip to one of the strips before I glued it down and then I hot glued the clip to the card board so it would stay in place.  It doesn't look pretty, but I don't care. Nobody is going to see that side anyway!

Here is the finished product on our front door. 

I took a close up of a portion of it so you could see the different types of scrap book paper I used.

Earrings as Art

I seem to have amassed some sweet earrings over the last few years and I was running out of space to store them. I wanted to be able to see them all the time that way I would remember they were there and actually wear them. I searched around online for ideas and I found this page:

http://www.squidoo.com/earringholder

I had random frames in my office from my thrift store trips.  I can't seem to pass up a cheap, sturdy frame when I'm at a thrift store.  I always feel like they'll come in handy somewhere down the line, and it proved to be correct!

Below is my step-by-step process of how I made my own earring picture frame holders.  I did this earlier this year around August, so hopefully I'll remember all the important steps.  Enjoy!

1.  A sampling of my thrift store frames.  I usually spend $2.00 - $7.00 on assorted sizes:

2.  I took apart the frames, getting rid of the glass and the awesome 1960's & 1970's artwork:

3.  On the backs of the frames, I removed all the staples/nails that secured the backing of the frame: 

4.  I chose gold and silver spray paint because I'm so classy:

5.  Outside, I spray painted each of the frames, giving some time to dry between coats.  I did 2-3 light coats of paint.  And because it was a million degrees outside this summer, it dried in no time!

6.  Using plastic screen door material, I cut squares roughly 2-3 inches bigger than the frame I was working on.  Using a hot glue gun, I would glue small sections of the screen to the frame pulling the screen taut. (Every time I type or say 'taut', I automatically say "Tight like a tiger." Thanks Goldmember.)

7.  I wanted the screen to be very taut (I just did it again) and secure, so I glued the small sections by rotating all four sides of the frame, instead of gluing one whole side at a time. 

Trying to explain it now is proving difficult, but I started on one side in the middle of the frame and hot glued the section.  Once it dried, I went to the oppisite side of the frame, directly across from my first glued section, and pulled it tight and then glued that section.  Once that was dry, I went to the third side of the frame and pulled it tight and hot glued it in the center of that side. Once all four sides had a secure section in the center that was hot glued, I worked out from there, slowly gluing the screen to the frame while keeping it held tight. 

(On a side note, I attempted to use a staple gun to secure the screen and I couldn't get the screen to stay tight on the frame.  The hot glue method is slow and steady, but I think it is worth it in the end.)

8.  Once the screen was completely glued into the frame and the glue was cooled and dried, I trimmed the left over screen from around the frame: 

Here are the finished products!  I really like them because they are GREAT storage and they look super artsy-fartsy!