Holly Jolly Recycled Craft

 

Hello and Welcome to the 'Do It Over' Designers Blog Hop!!  In case you haven't heard, the "Do It Over Designers" is a group of creative bloggers who love to recycle/upcycle/ DIY, hosted by Anne @The Apple Street Cottage. It happens the 4th Saturday of every other month and it's all about taking something old and/or unused and 'doing it over' into something new. Once in a while, Anne will choose a theme for us to do over. This month it's The Holidays! Thanks Anne for hosting this wonderful blog hop!

Here's a fun way to make a holly jolly recycled craft for the holidays! Can you imagine creating hollies out of clear plastic water bottles? This holiday season why not embrace the opportunity to re-purpose and recycle material into beautiful art, ensuring your holiday decorations are both eco-friendly and unique! A creative way to reduce waste while beautifying your space! I bet you liked the way that rhymed, lol!

Enjoy making an eco-friendly Christmas Holly decoration made out of water bottles with almost unbelievable simple techniques using recycled materials! Offering a stunning, sustainable decorative piece!

SUPPLIES:

• Plastic water bottles
• Knife/scissors
• Parchment paper
• Iron
• Holly leaf templates
• Double-sided tape
• Green glass acrylic paint/metallic acrylic paint
• Sponge brush
• Hot glue

 Disclosure: I am a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites, this post may contain links. I may receive a very small commission at no cost to you! Plus Google Adsense provides a platform for me to monetize my content by hosting ads from Google's network of advertisers. The money I earn helps pay my crafting expenses. Thanks so much for your support!

HOW TO:

First, remove the labels and then make sure your clear plastic water bottles are clean and dry. Then begin cutting off the top and bottoms of the bottles. 

Next, cut open the bottle straight down the middle and .  .  .

lay it out as best you can on top of the parchment paper.

To create a flat sheet of plastic, place the plastic piece between two sheets of parchment paper. 

Then gently and evenly press a medium hot iron onto the top sheet to flatten the plastic, moving the iron slowly in a steady motion. Allow the plastic to cool completely before touching it. 

I flatten eight water bottles to make holly leaves.

Next, it was time to make four different holly leaf templates -  I found a holly leaf template online that I've used before here, copied, changed the size, pasted in Word, printed, and cut out.      

                 

Once all the different sizes were cut out, instead of trying to draw around the shape of the templates with a marker or pen on the plastic, it was easier to apply a strip of double-sided tape to the back of the templates and .  .  . 

attach the template to the plastic to cut out eight holly leaves in each size.

This way was so much easier, quicker, and with no marker or ink marks on the plastic to remove!

Do this for each size holly template - for a total of thirty-two plastic holly leaves.

Once all the holly leaves were cut out, it was time to paint them! Use a sponge brush to pounce on a thin layer of acrylic paint. I started with glass paint since the leaves were clear plastic thinking the glass paint would provide a glistening effect.

I'm not too sure about using glass paint!

For a richer color, applied a second darker green multi-surface shade in a satin acrylic paint after the first dried.

I like this color so much better!

And if I turn the petals over, they do glisten and sparkle from the plastic!

Now, to put the holly design together. I started using Beacon Super Fabri-Tac Glue and .  .  . 

 Aleene's The Ultimate Multi-Surface glue but .  .  .

none of them really worked. I waited a few hours and the leaves still didn't stick. So I had to get my trusty .  .  .

hot glue gun out and tried that! And it worked!

To finish the look, I glued on a smaller group of holly leaves and .  .  .

placed a few berries in the center.

I haven't started decorating for Christmas yet. I usually start just after Thanksgiving but I tried this piece in a couple of different places to see how it would look.

 

and noticed that the green color changes with the wood background in the photos. I tried taking it in different ways and the green color always turned out different than it actually is. Maybe it's the time of day, so I will try later when the sun goes down a bit.

                                                                  

I am really pleased how the water bottle plastic holly leaves turned out - and hope you do, too!

Before you leave, don't forget this is a blog hop and the designers have some amazing upcycle/recycle/do-it-over projects to share with you.

Be sure to visit all of this month's creative projects by the 

 "Do It Over Designers"  listed below:

The Apple Street Cottage

Birdz of a Feather

Exquisitely Unremarkable

Modern on Monticello

Pandora’s Box

Purple Hues & Me

Sum of Their Stories

Vintage Style Gal

Happy Holidays!

DIY Outside Inside Door Swag

 

Have you seen the latest fad in decorating your front door for Christmas? It's an outside inside door swag! An adorable double sided door swag that provides a festive look for both the outside and inside of a home! 

Imagine two identical bow swags joined by a length of gorgeous ribbon that drapes beautifully over the top of your door! One side that greets your guest while the other side says goodbye! A balanced swag bow design that looks identical from both the front and back of the door ensuring a uniform, decorative bow arrangement for anyone entering or leaving the home. Sounds cool doesn't it?

Materials:

• 5" wide velvet wired ribbon - 50yd roll
• White pine sprays, berry & pinecone picks, gold frosted berries picks, berry & pinecone sprays
• Hot glue gun/glue sticks
• Bowdabra/wand
• Bowdabra bow wire

 This project was originally published on the Bowdabra.com site, where I am on the Design Team!

How To:

Begin by cutting a 72" length of velvet wire ribbon. Fold the ribbon evenly and loosely lay the ribbon on worksurface. 

Glue on the white pine sprays 6 inches from bottom of ribbon on both ends.

Then begin gluing on picks - first, gold frosted berries & pinecone picks .  .  .

then red berries picks .  .  .

one on each side.

Make sure the arrangements look the same on each ribbon tail.

Time to make the Bowdabra Bows!  

Cut an 18″ piece of Bowdabra wire, fold together and place in the Bowdabra, tucking the ends under. Then cut a 28" piece of 5" wide ribbon, creasing the center and placing it down into the Bowdabra for the bow tails

                                                      

Next, leave the ribbon on the roll and crease about an inch from the end of the ribbon and insert down into the Bowdabra. 

                             
Since the velvet is on one side of this ribbon, fold a 7” loop, creasing, and twisting the center of ribbon down into the Bowdabra.     

Fold and twist ribbon to make a matching loop on the opposite side, down into the Bowdabra. Hold loops up along the Bowdabra tower to make sure the loops are equal in size.

Then make one additional 7” loop on either side for a total of four loops.

Use the Bowdabra Wand to scrunch all the loops down. 

To finish the bow, make a button loop to cover the bow wire, cutting off excess ribbon.

 While the bow is still in the Bowdabra, thread the loose ends of the bow wire through the loop and pull tight while gently pulling the bow out.

Take the bow wire around to the back, tying the wire in two or three tight knots - cutting off excess bow wire.

Dovetail the ends of the ribbon by folding the ribbon together and cutting at an angle from the corner tip up to the fold. 

Add hot glue to the center back of the bows and .  .  .

attach the bows at the bottom of the picks. An after design thought to the ribbon ends was to add white pine sprays to cover the ribbon in between the bow tails.

How gorgeous is this!

On both sides of the door.

Thanks for stopping by

and take a little time to enjoy,

Happy Crafting!