Spoon Flower Napkin Ring

Materials:

Spoons (9)

Small glass jar candle

Decorative accent filler

18” florist wire

Crafting beads

Small needle nose pliers

Glue gun

Small tube

     Light the candle. Take a spoon by the handle and hold the bowl portion over the flame (not too close or it will blacken or create a hole). You will begin to see movement of the plastic. Move the spoon around the heat of the flame. This is how you can shape the spoon into a “petal” using your fingertips, by bending it up or back or letting it flop. Visualize how a flower might look and have fun shaping. If it gets too hot, move it away from the flame and let it cool.

Once you’ve gotten the desired shape for all of your petals, hold each end of the spoon and place the curve part of the handle over the flame and pull the handle away from the petal. Let cool. Do this for all 9 petals.

     For the flower, layer one, consist of 5 petals, and layer two, 4 petals. Begin, by taking 2 petals and holding the “handle” ends over the flame until they soften, pushing them together (side by side). While still warm, press together (flatten) using your fingertips or needle nose pliers. Be careful doing this, the plastic can get very HOT! Continue melting the ends of each petal (one by one) to the first two until you’ve put together all five petals. This is the first layer. Stagger the next four petals over the first layer by placing just the melted ends into the center of the first layer, one by one. This is the second layer. Now that the actual “flower” is formed, glue five small pieces of decorative accents (fillers) into the center.

     To make the napkin ring, thread crafting beads onto an 18” straight floral wire, bending the ends of the wire with the needle nose pliers to secure them.

 I then wrapped the beaded wire around a small tube (a saran wrap tube is smaller and sturdier than a toilet paper tube). 

Holding the shaped beaded wire together, hot glue the bottom of the flower to the wire.  Ta Da! A lovely spoon flower napkin ring!

Now to make seven more! 

                               Got carried away . . . .

 Made some for my friends .  .  .

and me, too!

Thanks for stopping by

and take a little time to enjoy,

Happy Crafting!

My "Blinged" Out Toothbrush Holder

Hey There,
I use a battery operated toothbrush and I'm tired of chipping or breaking bathroom cups that I use to hold it. Most bathroom cups are not deep enough to properly hold a battery powered toothbrush, and if I do find one that would work, it's usually too expensive or doesn't match my decor.  I was at Michaels the other day and found $4.99 glass containers on sale for $2.99. I found one that had a nice weight and depth to it and decided to buy it to hold my toothbrush.  I liked the shape, but it was very plain. I am a fan of the HGTV show, "Donna Decorates Dallas" in which she whips out her trusty glue gun and adds "BLING" to most of her projects.  Since I had a few lavender glass fillers on hand from an old candle accent piece, and a glue gun, I decided to try my hand at "adding bling". I didn't have quite enough to cover all of the glass, but I thought it turned out pretty good.

Cork Accent Piece

Today is such a cold and windy day outside - which is my kind of crafting day!  Some friends gave me a bag of wine corks so I decided to make an accent piece out of them. I already had styrofoam balls, glue gun and paint on hand, so this project was basically free and very easy to make.

After painting the ball a neutral shade and letting it dry,  I  glued on the corks starting in the center and then around the diameter.  The next row was glued on between the first row and continue in that pattern until  .  .  .

the ball was completely filled with corks.

Then I decided that I wanted a larger accent ball so I glued on more corks on top of the first corks:

This looks so much better!

Take a little time to enjoy

and

Happy Crafting!

What I Made for the Holidays

Hey there, thinking about all the things I did for the holidays, and wanted to have them in print. I enjoyed decorating my new home and perhaps got carried away. I always wanted to make a topiary since the ones available to purchase are extremely expensive. I was pleased how it turned out although it might have been a bit over powering. Basically it's just a styrofoam ball wrapped with lighted white garland I had. I used floral pins to keep it in place. I attached the ball to a tree limb I white washed painted. To secure it to the container, I glued styrofoam to the bottom, put gravel rocks in for weight, inserted the limb and sprayed insulation foam all around to stabilize it. After drying or curing for a day, it was ready to be decorated. I used break resistant ornaments and a small white wreath on the container. I also added lights and ribbon.

As Always,

Hey there, this is my first blog, so bear with me. Gsnags is from a nickname my husband gave me years ago, when we were dating. My first name is Gail (G), and I had to have a tooth pulled (snaggle-tooth), so he started calling me Snags. I come from a family of seven children, and believe it or not, never had a nickname. Except, my sister Sandra would call me "stinky" sometimes.  I love crafting, sewing and decorating, and I love most shades of purple. Lately, I've been fascinated with reading blogs on crafting and decorating. I want to be apart of this  so I plan on publishing my thoughts and ideas, too. We just moved into a new home, after thirty-five years in my old house. I am excited about home decor all over again. I have this purple comforter on my bed. It's no longer available from Bed, Bath and Beyond, but I love it. The chair is from Target and is made from a Duralee plum fabric. I have two of them in my living room. I was able to find additional fabric online. How cool is that? I want to make pillows and other decorative items from the fabric, and I need some ideas. I have so many ideas and projects going through my head that I don't know where to start. 

As Always,