4th of July Craftiness

I added a few new ornaments to my 4th of July tree this year. I made these three little barrel ornaments from empty ribbon spools. I store most of my ribbon on old fashioned clothes pins so when I buy a new ribbon spool I take it off the spool and transfer it to the clothes pin. What to do with the empty spool besides toss it?

Why make an ornament of course!

Below are the basic steps to make an ornament. First remove the ribbon. Then carefully take off the round chipboard sides so you just have the "spool" left. I added some music paper to this spool with a decoupage medium.

When that dried I used my crop-a-dile to punch a hole in the spool and threaded a hanging loop through the hole with bakery twine.

The next step was to find a die about a half inch larger in diameter than the spool. One of my scalloped Spellbinders "nesties" worked perfectly! Solid colored card stock or paper with two sides works best as you will see both sides.

I centered the first scalloped circle on the table, centered the spool on top and glued the inside edges. Then I added glue to the top of the spool and centered the other circle on the spool. If your pattern paper has a definite up or down design, be sure to line up the pattern with the hanging loop.
Next step was to weight the spool until the glue dries. I used a several items sitting on my table to weight the spool. A plastic jar bigger than the spool and floral frog.

When the glue is dry, it is time for the fun part! Since these were for my 4th of July tree I used my stash of patriotic papers and embellies to decorate both sides. Crepe paper ruffles, glass glitter, glitter paper, Stickles, punches and dies. On several of the ornaments I also added some paper border trim around the spool. 

I had some bits and pieces left over and put together this tiny garland ornament. Each pennant is only about an inch tall! 

Thanks for looking! As always, any questions post a comment! 

Happy 5th of July

 Happy 5th of July! 

I have not been here for over 2 months!!!! Life has just gotten in the way of my crafting and blogging. 

 I decided to re-arrange my craft room, move my sewing stuff to another room. It has taken me a lot longer than planned and still I am not finished. But I will save that for another post!

I did get my 4th of July tree up! I made a few new ornaments and also fixed one that did not survive the heat and sunlight of the solarium. I made a loopy chain garland from chenille stems in red, white and blue to circle the tree. I also made some little barrel ornaments I will share in another post. 

The ornament on the left started out with some patriotic crepe paper that disintegrated but the collage stayed intact. I added it to a vintage red Christmas light reflector. All shiny & new. 

I also finally scrapped my photos from my Newspaper article post about my 4th of July tree. 

I bought the photos from the Press Democrat and scrapped them on the lay out below. In my album I will have the layout on one side and the newspaper in a page protector next to it.

I used lots of red, white and blue of course! 

Thanks for looking!