Quickie Project of the Week: Book Page Frame

I decided to make the project I finished on Sunday the quickie project of the week. It took me a little longer than the usual quickie (30 minutes). I spent about an hour on this project. But some of that was due to not being in a hurry (a.ka. watching t.v. while crafting) and drying time between coats.

We've all seen the book page wreaths (and if you haven't check out Living with Lindsay's tutorial). I found this paper mache frame at the thrift store and thought it would look great Mod Podged with book pages. I think this would work nice on any wide frame.

Supplies:

Frame of any kind

Old book (we are ripping pages here, so don't use a good one!)

Mod Podge

Acrylic Paint (optional)

Here's what I started with:

I used a foam brush to spread Mod Podge over a section of the frame. Then I took my book pages (already torn from the book and then torn in half) and started laying them on the frame. It may requires some smoothing out, depending on your frame. I also ripped some of the pages into smaller chunks and laid them on top for a more pieced look. Here's an in progress shot:

I also alternated the way I laid down the pages so the words were facing different directions to provide a bit more visual interest.

After I got the frame completely covered and let it dry a bit, I put another coat of Mod Podge over the whole thing and let it dry. When that was done, I decided it needed a bit of color. You might look at yours and decide it's perfect the way it is. That's why this next step is optional.

I took acrylic paint (barn red) and dry brushed it over the top of the frame (dry brushing is just taking most of the paint off the brush on a scrap before putting it on the actual piece). Here it is drying:

All Done!

This project turned out great! I might have to make more of these and do a display wall. This frame would look great with a picture in it or empty. In fact, a display wall of empty frames decorated like this would be fab!

Happy Crafting!

New Christmas Decorations

The last couple of days I've been working on Christmas decorations. First, I needed a tree skirt. I had bought some cute fabric when it was on clearance last year. I made a square-shaped skirt with patterned fabric on the top, batting in the middle and solid colored fabric on the bottom. I sewed quilt binding around the whole thing. Here's some really bad pics of the whole she-bang (still using camera with no flash, and I took pics at night):

Here's a close-up that shows the back side as well: The fabric has Santas, reindeer and sleighs all over it with the lyrics of jingle bells.

Tree without a skirt: boring! And look at all the cords showing!

Tree with skirt:

Much better! My skirt is a little big for the space, but oh well.

The next project I did is for the outside steps. I found this basket at the thrift store with all the goodies inside it for only $5!

Look at all the good stuff inside!

Red berry picks, fake sugared fruit, and even some red Christmas balls! I ended up only reusing the berry picks for this project, but I did use the sugared fruit elsewhere which I'll show you later.

I took a cheap fake garland from Walmart and coiled it in the basket. Then I added two nicer evergreen picks in the middle to add some height (I got those from Joanne's when they were 50% off) Finally, I stuck in the berry picks for color. Here's what it looks like now:

Here's a close-up of the inside of the basket:

One of the nice evergreen picks has pine cones on it, and the other has crystal snow. I thought together they were a nice balance.

Here's the basket on it's stool on the front steps:

Well, what do you think? Not a bad looking basket for less than $10 and 10 minutes work! Plus, it's not really too Christmassy to leave out all winter long. (Or at least until my hubby gets tired of shoveling around it!) ;)

Got any small projects you've finished lately?

Happy Crafting!

*sharing this at:

The Inspired Room's Holiday Linky Party

A Soft Place To Land's Do it Yourself Day

Ugly to Cute...It just needs some spray paint.

I love what a can of black spray paint can do. It can take something that looks like this:

To this:

Isn't that cute! I found it at the thrift store for a steal and deer are so in right now. I love quick easy projects like this.

Happy Crafting!