Bottle brush trees on corks

This weekend was a crafting weekend for Janice and me, we were up to our eyebrows in glitter and clay making another year's bundle of bottle snowmen. My kitchen is filled, in every nook and cranny, with a whole lot of sweet snowmen smiling up at me. My husband has become accustomed to the mess/glitter/clutter/snowmen. "These are looking awfully cute", is what he just said to me. He doesn't know he has glitter on his face as he's talking to me. He couldn't help it, my house is one big glitter ball. Janice's house is also. We both just smile at our husbands when we see them all glittered up. I'll post pictures of them later. Right now, they're in their "naked" stage... no glitter. They are still curing. Oh wait, that sounded like our husbands were naked and curing... LOL. No, no... I won't be posting pictures of them, I will post the snowmen pics. Teehee, I make myself laugh.

Janice came up with the idea of adding glittered bottle brush trees to our assortment of wares and has been working furiously on them. Hers are adorable, as are all of her crafts. She has them in assorted bases, like vintage door knobs, and vintage thread spools. Here's the crafter's dilemma in July: guess how many stores have bottle brush trees right now to purchase for crafting. If you guessed zero, you'd be right. It is only July 10th, but I am seeing signs of Fall foliage in Michael's and before you know it, Christmas will follow. If we had a Hobby Lobby (dammit) I bet they have some stuff soon too. So we did what a lot of us crafters do, we raided our own inventories (yes, sadly we have enough ap-cray to open our own Hobby Lobby) which leads to another crafter's dilemma in July. Our stuff is either in the attic in crates (Janice) or in the garage in crates (me) and considering it is hotter than deep fried hell outside, you can imagine how hot it is in our storage spaces. I had an idea... I found an old artificial wreath that wasn't too hard to get to and thought I could just cut some branches off to make my own trees.

It is a pretty nice one, it is wired with tiny lights, but I never fell in love with having a cord hanging down from it to keep it lit. So, I have declared it my sacrificial wreath.


















Inside my cool craft room I have a box of wine and champagne corks I have collected from my friends. I'm not much of a wine drinker myself. (I'm sipping on a coconut rum and coke - or a "mama coke" as I call them, even as I write)

 

I cut some of the branches from my wreath...

Using wire cutters, not the scissors that are shown. I used the scissors to trim each branch to give them more of a tree shape before I glued them into the corks. I simply poked a hole in the cork with my round nosed pliers and super glued them into the holes.

 

... and how cute are these?! I painted on some ModPodge and then glittered them with mica flakes and Diamond Dust glitter. So fast, and so easy.

 I found this roll of baker's twine at TJMaxx/Home Goods and was just waiting for the right project to use it. I thought it would make the perfect bow around the trees. 

and, yes, it did... so cute!

 

Christmas in July! 

 

 

Well, duh!

I finally figured out what is wrong with my sewing techniques... I've been doing it all wrong. My friend Terri sent me this fabulous sewing tip to help get me in the right direction.

Well, there ya go! I had no idea I was supposed to look as attractive as I could before I started sewing! Nor did I know I was supposed to make up my beds and wash the sink full of dirty dishes. Why, thank you, Singer! I just know that from now on, I am going to love, love, love sewing while I'm in my clean dress. With a martini in one hand in case hubby comes home unexpectedly, and a bag full of chalk in the other. Wait, that doesn't leave any hands for sewing. Oh, now I get it.