Home made plates

This project is really fun for a rainy day. Go out to Wal-Mart or something and get some clear plates then have your kids go thru old and new magazines to find little clips they like. Then take them to a table and turn the plates over. Take your glue and glue the pictures to the back of the plate. Have Fun.

Decoupage Cedar Chest-Vintage

This can be done to any furniture piece but I did this to an old cedar chest given to me that looked dated. The look created by this design is the modern technique of weathering, basically it turned out to look VINTAGE
You'll need:
1. the piece of furniture you choose to create your design to.
2. sand paper
3. primer paint, or flat white paint, this acts as the "glue" for the paint to stick to, you need this.
4. tac cloth, to whip off the dust
5. a base coat of gray, to go under the glaze.
6. crackle glaze.
7. top coat of paint. I used White.
8. Vintage floral fabric,two yards.
9. scissors.
10. Artists acrylic paint in burnt umber or raw umber.
Sand the piece of furniture throughly. Whip the excess dust away w/ the tac cloth. Prime the furniture w/ the primer or flat paint. While it's drying, cut out the flowers out of the fabric you want to put on your piece, cut out a lot of them, make arrangements. Paint the gray under coat of paint. After that dries, paint on the weathered crackle glaze, it dries kind of tacky, that's ok. With the White Top Coat of paint, make even strokes when you paint, don't go over it twice! (it will really mess it up) It should start to crackle immediately. When the top coat has dried, arrange the flowers to plan their placement. Once you've created the design you like you can begin to put the decoupage on the back of the fabric flowers and stick'em. When they dry, put two coats more of decoupage on top of them to seal them to the piece. You can leave the furniture like this if you want but to give it an aged look rub a paint solution (half artists acrylic paint-raw umber, and half water) with an old rag. It makes the white not be so bright, the more you rub on the more it dulls the white. When it dries, you're done!

Designer Decoupage paper weights or door stops

All I do is cut small pieces of say a busy floral printed fabric and glue with Aleene's flexible fabric glue onto good size river rocks side by side starting at the bottom of whatever I'm gluing until its covered. I then put on a sealer or sometimes use an opal looking glitter on top of the glue. Brush off excess with toothbrush when dry. I also do this on glass/wood/porcelain whatever, floral vases in the same manner. Enjoy

Inscent Burners

First you take an empty wine bottle and soak it in hot water and soap, to get the label off. Then using a ceramic drill bit, drill a hole about an inch and a half from the bottom. Then cut out pictures of flowers, or whatever you like. Try to cut close it gives the bottle a better look. Then use "modge-podge" (purchasable from Micheal's)and paste the pictures on the bottle. Try to cover the whole bottle. Bot DON'T cover the hole. Pick out your favorite picture and punch a hole in it with a hole punch. Then sit the picture over the whole in line with the hole. Then go over the bottle with the modge-podge again. Let dry. Then take a thin rope or cord and tie it around the top. Then add beads where ever you'd like then tie a key ring to the end of the rope. Stretch out the ring and stick the end of the inscent in the ring. Then light it and drop it in the bottle!

candle plates

I buy glass candle plates from the dollar store, then I soak them in hot water to remove the labels. Use bright tissue paper with large patterns. i cut out the patterns as close as i can to the edges then I brush on podgy and place the pattern then brush on more podgy keep overlapping until the whole plate is covered. The tissue paper will not burn as long as you have brushed on at least two coats. Using seasonal tissue paper such as eggs at easter looks really nice.