Budget Minded Modernist
To give a little background….the Crafty Counterpart has been making an ornament for the Things every Christmas since they each arrived. Â He has posted the 2 most popular on Instructables. Â They will be entered into the contest, but voting isn’t until January. Â I’ll hit you up for votes then! Â Go babe!
Airplane from cigar tube Instructable found here.
Helicopter Instructable found here.
It’s really cold today and I’m thinking fire. I’ve been looking for something attractive to keep the firewood contained indoors….
I LOVE THAT. Lurv it sumtin’ awful.
No idea who/where/how…I tore it out of a DWR catalog ages ago…probably a custom job.
UPDATE: Finally figured out it’s by Olle Lundberg in his California cabin.
When the CC gets comfortable with his welding, maybe this can be the ultimate project? Although, that’s a lot of heavy metal…I don’t really think that’s DIYable for us. Paying a metalsmith to make it sounds great, but it will probably be $1000…so…dream on….
This is cool….but, since I’m too cheap to pay $475 for it on Remodelista, maybe we can mold some lucite in the same shape…we’ve had success with lucite molding in the past (with the heat gun-not the crafty one, the real one that peels paint). It would have to be thicker than anything we’ve done before though….hmmmm…
This doesn’t look like it holds enough wood to get through one night. I want something that can hold 2-3 evenings worth so when it’s raining, you don’t have to drag in wood from the wet. Blomus for a mere $355….ouch!
This is nice…and only $95, but again, impractical b/c logs drop stuff. Lots of little bits of dust and wood shreds.  I’d have to vacuum under it daily. For outdoors…great, but I’ve got that covered.
I’m sorry, but I think this is just stupid….uncomfortable and stupid. You can’t keep the same wood in there because of bugs, you’d have to rebuild your chaise every time you had a fire. Really, AK47.
Fugly. But it’s all I got, so I guess I’ll just stick with this $15 bin from Lowes until we fire up the heat gun and see what happens in lucite land…..
…with a Martha Stewart Crafts heat gun.
I have started the wrap-a-thon, and this year I and am having a go at heat embossing with the powders. Never done it before, so the crafty set might sport a big yawn here.
Every year, I like to pick a look or aesthetic and wrap all my packages that way. One year, it was all faux bois papers, another it was plain white with pin-up girls that doubled as tags. Last year, I lamely phoned it in and got some patterned paper at Target…I’d only had a working kitchen for a few weeks, I was still unpacking boxes and I was grumpy and tired. That said, I hated my packages. They weren’t cute, clever or personal. They were ordinary.
On the whole, I don’t do bows, although I’m not against ribbon. Bows are fine for a single gift event. During the holidays, I need stackability and you can’t stack shit on top of a bow now, can you? This year, my preference is no ribbon, no bow, but an embossed graphic on solid paper. I picked up my supplies at Michael’s, plus a smattering of solid color papers, and even tried using some kraft shipping paper again this year. (It’s always a winner…thick enough to create nice edges, and plain enough for cool graphics to shine.)
The embossing WORKS best on the kraft paper, but LOOKS best on the glossy gift wrap. The problem I’m having is that the glossy papers create a static cling with the embossing powders making it harder to keep a clean image. I’m using a dry brush to try and clean it up around the edges. I’m also finding that Martha’s embossing powders work better than the other brands I’ve tried.
The key is making sure the stamp has enough ink and is perfectly flat. No ink…no emboss. It works best to stamp/emboss the paper BEFORE you wrap it unless your package is totally solid. Any give in the box will cause a missed spot on your stamp/ink. You see at the bottom how it looks when the image doesn’t quite make it due to stamper error…Oops.
I also bought a set of sans serif letters and numbers so I can personalize the packages without ribbon and tags, although I am making a bunch of tags to have throughout the year while I’ve got this mess going.
I imagine my last packages will be the best, but if anyone else wants to try it, I figured I’d better get it posted now. I’m getting the hang of it, and having fun picking which family member gets which image or scene. I know it’s a complete shock that I’m using birds and deer.
Back in September, I had visions of harvesting fall lettuces in my new garden beds by now. Since we know that’s not going to happen, I needed a little fix. I’m not very good with houseplants, which is funny since I’m pretty good with outdoor gardening.  Before we had kids, we had a nice orchid collection….they’ve since been given away. Now, I have a beloved Bay tree that moves in and out with the seasons, and not a whole lot else…my Bonsai missed a few watering cycles and is now in ICU. Hopeless.
My childhood fascination with terrariums has never waned…and they are quite forgiving. I got a vintage mushroom jar and scooped up some moss and ferns from out in the yard. 3 weeks on and everyone is still healthy and green, so maybe, I have found my perfect indoor gardening vehicle. I still want the orb one day, but lets see if I can keep this one alive first.
It’s officially Holiday time…the boxes have come down from the attic. No tree yet, but we’ll be ready when we bring it home.
I had commented over at Happy Mundane on his post about agate slice ornaments since I have made these in the past. It got me thinking that I’d like to make some more to revamp my trusty, white feather tabletop tree this year. Smaller in scale than the ones I made for the big tree, I got these pre-drilled in natural from Northern Stones on ebay. 12 for $22.
When I first made these, it was because I loved the ones I’d seen in the Viva Terra catalog a few years back. The new ones from Crate and Barrel are far more reasonably priced – $20 for 4 instead of $42 for six. That said, I still like doing my own…so I did..and did again. I used wire cutters to snip through the fishing line since it will ruin a good pair of scissors.
I draped some strands of Kukui nut I use in my jewelry making to jazz up the bottom of the tree. It’s hard to tell from the photos, but the light shines beautifully through the slices. Despite having less natural light, I decided the tree needed to live against the black walls of the dining room. It was getting lost against the white walls in the entry.
Old ones…and new ones.
Since so many people have already started decorating for the holidays, I figured I’d better post this little DIY even though I haven’t joined the masses yet. These photos are from last year. Here’s the ModFruGal trick for stretching your Christmas tree budget.
I’m a live tree person (don’t hate me eco-cops), and I have high ceilings.  I needed a way to give my tree better presence without having to throw $200 at the project. Instead of buying a 12 ft tree, I bought an 8-9 ft tree and put it on our “wedding cake” platforms. It creates a tiered surface area for presents, makes it nice and easy to get at them…and adds a few feet of height to a $65 Home Depot tree. The platforms took the CC about an hour to screw together with some scrap plywood etc.. we had in the garage. I wrapped it up in some burlap and called it a day.
Guess I’d better head to the attic and start dragging all the decorations down. eh…maybe tomorrow.
