Santa Spiral Deco Mesh Wreath

A friend of mine showed me a wreath that she really liked

that she had seen on Pinterest.  It was a curly/spiral deco 

mesh wreath with a Santa belt across the middle and 

"Ho Ho Ho" in letters across the top.

I had made a curly deco mesh in Fall colors.

(For a tutorial on how to make this wreath, see

 "How To Make A Curly Deco Mesh Wreath".)

 After I took it down to put up Christmas decorations,

 I realized that it had really gotten faded after

 being in the hot afternoon sun for about two months.

In that faded condition, I would probably not use it anymore.

I wondered if the deco mesh could be spray painted a red

color and re-made into a Santa wreath for my friend.

"Nothing ventured, nothing gained". 

After one can of red spray paint the wreath looked like this:

After another can of spray paint had been added, it looked

acceptable.  (I probably should had tried a third can but I 

was running out of time.)  Even though I had used a glossy

spray paint, the wreath color was flat.  The different colors of

mesh also absorbed the paint differently.  To sparkle it up and

to hopefully unify the colors, I sprayed it with adhesive and

sprinkled on red glitter.

Lightweight wooden letters from the craft store

were painted black.

I added more sparkle with black glitter on the letters.

A "belt" made of black deco mesh (like the Pinterest

wreath had) was attempted.

I folded the 21" wide black deco mesh longways

 into fourths and hot glued it together.  

I probably should have used regular glue for this part

because hot glue and deco mesh are a recipe for 

getting blisters on your fingers (but again, the time thing).

The belt I made for another Santa wreath out

of craft foam was much easier..see directions here.

I did go back to the craft foam for the belt buckle.

The Pinterest picture had a silver belt buckle so I added

silver glitter to the foam shape by brushing it with foam

glue then sprinkling the glitter on.

The glittered parts of the wreath look look much better 

in person.  Is there a trick for getting glitter to "glitter"

more in photographs?

Because there aren't flat surfaces on the spiral deco mesh

wreath, it's tricky to get the letters to stick.

I just globbed on some hot glue onto the backs of the letters

one at a time, pressed them down lightly until the glue dried,

and that seemed to work OK.

The belt got threaded through the buckle.

The ends of the belt were gathered up in a pipe cleaner

then attached to the back of the wire frame.

You can see from this picture that I did not even 

try to spray the back of the wreath red.

To give the wreath a trial run (and see if anything fell off),

it was tried out on my front door.

The new supplies for re-making this wreath were two cans of

spray paint, two containers of glitter, a roll of black deco mesh

and the wooden letters.

Of course, if you want a Santa deco mesh wreath from
scratch, buy the already red deco mesh. 

The original wreath used a 16" wire frame and four rolls

of deco mesh.  The costs for a sprial/curly wreath will 

vary depending on how much you have to spend on

 the deco mesh.  I have gotten it for as little as $5 a roll

(on sale at Hobby Lobby) and also have spent $12 a 

roll at a specialty store for a particular color I needed. 

Deco mesh is sometimes hard to find locally.  An internet

site that looks like it has a good selection at reasonable

prices is Mardi Gras Outlet. 

In the end, my friend and her children were thrilled with

the "new" Santa wreath at their house this Christmas.

Framed Chicken Wire Card Display

 

I have been wanting to copy a project that I saw 

Debbie at ReFresh ReStyle blog did last spring

where she backed an open frame with chicken wire.

Debbie shows how you can have the framed chicken wire

 function as a sort of bulletin board or even a jewelry holder.

  I also thought the frame would serve well as

a display for Christmas cards so they could stay out

and in view to be enjoyed during the holiday season.

The frames started out as black frames with glass from
Michael's.  To make them look richer, I  painted the frames
gold then added patches of gold leafing on top of the paint.
I ordered reproduction antique blueprints off the internet
to approximate a designer's look I had seen that was $1000.
The copy cat attempt was about $100.

After a couple of years of the blueprints under glass, I switched

the artwork out with art posters.  I added a finish to the posters

that made them look kinda like original works with no glass.

This past summer I changed the posters and the paint finish on

the frames.  I tried to make the frames look like driftwood to go

with the beach-y art prints with a hand painted look.

  I wasn't very happy with the frames or the prints of this change.

I was ready to get rid of that look and try the framed chicken wire.

Cutting chicken wire and hammering nails seemed like a

good man-assisted project but Tom Kat wasn't too excited

about participating. In the end, he helped anyway.

The 2" opening chicken wire was the least exensive roll I

found at the home improvement store...it also would require

less cutting...so that's how that decision was made. 

The chicken wire was not wide enough to cover the opening

in the frames so we cut two pieces of chicken wire for each

 frame to layer them to cover the opening.

If you have a good stapler, you could just staple the 

wire onto the back of the frame.

We don't have a good stapler so we used nails that

 look like large staples and hammered

them in to keep the chicken wire in place.

The attaching of the chicken wire was pretty easy with two

people...one to hammer and one to keep the wire from rolling up.

I don't have good pictures of this part...a man on a mission

does not like to stop for photos.

We joined the two pieces of chicken wire together with

cut ends of the pattern.  We tried to match up the hexagons.

Here is what the finished product looked like

before any Christmas cards were added:

Since I am using some silver in this Christmas' decor, I tried

dry-brushing some silver paint over the driftwood color frames.

It looked holiday-ish enough.

To attach the cards to the chicken wire, I got some

teeny tiny wooden clothes pins at Michaels.

They got painted silver too.

Aren't the clothes pins cute?

If you need some "fillers" for your Chicken Wire

Christmas Card Display, you can add ornaments also.

I think the framed chicken wire will be great to change out

seasonally with different subject matter.  Debbie put burlap

behind her chicken wire; that is another element that

could be added/changed to the frames to keep them current.

 I'm linking this to the Under $100 Linky Party so here is a

cost breakdown for one chicken wire frame:

Original frame $25 (you may have one on hand)

Roll of chicken wire $8 (lots left over)

Tiny clothes pins $3 for 50

Silver acrylic paint $2

This beautiful card on the display reminds us that

"Jesus Is The Reason For The Season".

DIY Glittered Bottle Brush Trees

So, I have to admit that I have gone bottle brush crazy this

holiday season.  It actually started last Christmas when I saw

other folks on blogs and Pinterest using cute bottle brush trees in 

decorating so I bought some packages of bottle brush trees

 at after-Christmas sales to save for this year's decorating.

The bottle brush trees that I had seen that appealed to 
me the most, were ones that looked vintage. 
To get a vintage look, folks were bleaching new
and fairly inexpensive green bottle brush trees
available in craft stores then adding glitter and/or beads. 

I followed other's directions for bleaching the bottle brush 

trees this year in a mix of water and bleach in my kitchen sink. 

I really didn't measure as well as the directions indicated.

Pretty much it was about 1/3 a sink of water and a

five second "pour" of regular bleach.  Some trees bleached 

faster and better than others (even ones out of the same pack).

I just left them in the bleach solution till they

 lost most of their green color.

For some that was 15 minutes and for others it was hours.

For a few, it was never.

The bottle brush trees need to be made of a natural material

and not heavily flocked to be able to bleach out.  

For the trees that turned out to be non-bleachable,

 I decided to try to spray paint them.

Trees that would not bleach out getting a paint job

I kept trying to come up with the perfect paint color or

combination of paint colors to make the trees look

like the trees that bleached out well.

I tried different whites, almonds, beiges, yellows, even

 matte gold spray paints, but nothing I acheived

 looked exactly like the real thing. 

 However, the paint turned out to be "good enough".

In the end, the ones that looked the best had kind

 of a layering/combination/melding  of the different colors,

(that's just FYI in case you decide that a nice size bottle brush

tree is worth trying to spray paint and glitter. I do think it is.)

I finally had to move on to other projects and stop

 trying to get the perfect color for the trees.

 I hoped that adding glitter would hide the fact that

 the trees were not same colors as the bleached trees.

The least attractive trees got the most glitter.

The process is quite simple.

Apply spray adhesive to the tree and 

immediately add glitter.

Pictured below are the trees that refused to let much 
their green color be covered up with spray paint. 

They got a dose of copper and/or bronze glitter.

Trees that turned out whiter, got silver or white glitter.

To also keep folks from inspecting the less than

 great trees too closely, I decided to put them behind glass

in the bookcase/dresser that I painted this past year. 

Here is a photo of other objects that I was planning 

on painting/enhancing also for use in the bottle brush vignette.

The clear bottles got an "inside job" with Krylon's mirror 

finish spray paint.  I just realized this week that to get 

the reflective finish, it has to be sprayed on the 

INSIDE of a clear object.  That is stated on the label

but I had never bothered to read that bit of info. 

The green bottles got sprayed with white paint.

After the now-white bottles were dry, they got a coat of 

spray adhesive and then were quickly rolled in a pile

 epsom salt to give the illusion of snow on the bottle. 

This idea came from Tracie at her Cleverly Inspired blog.

The too-terribly tarnished goblets that were passed along

to me from my grandmother, were given a treatment

with silver "Rub and Buff" cream from the craft store.

I moved the shelves around in the cabinet to 

accomodate the bottles for this Christmas display.

I'm opening the glass doors for you to see

 close-ups of the vignettes:

The tiniest trees in the cabinet were some that DID bleach well.  You can see how you can 

determine how much or little color you want in trees that are bleach-able by how long you 

leave them in the water/bleach bath.  These little ones only have glitter or paint applied to their 

bases...none on their branches for this vignette. 

The trees that got glitter look much more
"sparkle-y" in person.

I'm sharing this post at 
Glitter, Glue and Paint blog @ Throwback Thursday