This has been a work in progress for awhile, but is finally complete! From when we went to Barbados 🙂
[Little grainy photo, better to come…]
Author Archives: birchwoodcat
Birthday Cards!
I made all the birthday cards for my staff and coworkers for the year by the end of January (yes, sometimes I am a bit over prepared but I don’t want to get busy and miss someone’s birthday!). Since we work in the veterinary industry, the cards this year are of course animal themed, and related to their personal pets. I can share two so far since their birthdays have come and gone. But I’ll be sure to post more as the year goes on.
You can make some fun cards with silhouettes…and super easy to make- cards from Michael’s, scrapbook paper, some letter stamps…
Custom Painting Complete
Here’s the most recent custom painting, finished today…
More Coasters
Besides the hunting coasters I did some additional ones at Christmas, nice and bright for a pop of color. But they’d make a great birthday or housewarming gift as well!
For these I again used the tiles from HomeDepot (14 cents each!), felt backers, ModPodge, scrapbook paper and some fabric scraps. All sorts of possible combinations!
Dog Sweater Fix-up
So PetSmart was a little low on the dog sweater/jacket options lately, and our dog being a Boston Terrier gets a little chilly in the Minnesota cold, but I couldn’t pass up this skull and cross bones sweater…
While fantastic, these are a little more difficult to put on than something with velcro, and it didn’t fit as well as I liked (too long for our dog). So I opted to cut it up, add some fleece to the underside and Velcro:
Now, easy to throw on him when going out in the chilly weather!
Hunter’s Coasters
I’m sure a lot of you have seen various coaster projects on Pinterest…I did my own this year for a present for my dad (who yes, is a hunter). White tiles from Home Depot (13 cents each). I got the decals again from ArtScraps (that random store nearby me) although really you can use anything your heart desires, used some modpodge and for the deer painted on some prints…I did use an acrylic sealant spray over them as well. The felt backers you can also find at Home Depot.
Fake Flower Arrangement on the Cheap
For Christmas I made these fake flower arrangements for my stepmom. She had been looking for something for the front porch at their place up north (where they’re not there every day to water!). However, usually fake flower arrangements are so crazy expensive. Well, step in to Goodwill…add a basket or two from Michael’s along with some flower foam…and voila!
Christmas Bags!
Yes, tis the season, so most of these posts will be centered around Christmas. Each year I do small presents at work for everyone, and decided to make the gift bags this year versus buying some. I had an unused set of plain white gift bags from Michael’s and used stamps that I made years ago- the wreath. Then I happened to have “to:” and “from:” stamps. Since I like things to be reusable, I put the names on red scrapbook paper and put them on with tape so they can go ahead and reuse the bags again!
Christmas Wreath #2
So making an upcycled Christmas wreath is pretty easy, and they turn out really well (inexpensive easy holiday decoration!). I made a compliment to my first wreath so I have two outside my door. All the materials except for the wire frame and florist wire (from Michael’s) came from ArtScraps (that I mentioned in my previous post). The material for the second wreath cost maybe $2.
BUT then I showed my husband’s grandma, and she had me make one for her as well:
Christmas Wreath, reused materials
So there is this great little art store that essentially has tons of art scraps nearby me, thus the name, ArtScraps. Well, I wanted to make a wreath and had a wire frame so I stopped by there, and picked up some remnant supplies- i.e. pinecones, some thin green garland for fill-in, and ornaments.
Birchwoodcat 