Merry Christmas Vintage Bird Tree

(Image Source: The Graphic Fairy)

Thank you for yet another wonderful year of blogging. Thank you for visiting my blog from time to time. Thank you for your comments. Thank you for your emails. They truly make my time spent blogging worth every minute!

From me to you, I hope you have a truly beautiful Christmas day, Happy Holiday and a Happy New Year!

PHGFancySign

 

how to decorate a candle with tissue paper

One of my favorite and most versatile DIY gifts to make are decorated candles: they are inexpensive and easy to personalize! Today I’m going to share a basic tutorial for how you can use tissue paper to decorate a candle for your home or as a DIY gift.

supplies custom candle decorating

Supplies:

  • Tissue Paper
  • Plain Candle
  • Scotch tape
  • Heat Gun
  • Wax Paper

Instructions:

decorating candle tissue paper

Cut three strips of gold tissue paper long enough to wrap around your candle with a slight overlap.  Vary the thickness of the three strips for added interest. For a 3″ pillar candle the strips were approximately 10″ long and widths were one quarter inch, three quarter inch, and 1 and 1/4 inches wide.

attaching tissue paper to candle

Wrap the strips of tissue paper tightly around your candle and secure with a small piece of tape.  It is very important that the tissue paper be in contact with the candle with no wrinkles or space between the wax and tissue paper.

how to decorate candle

Cut a piece of wax paper wide enough to wrap over the entire candle-approximately 8″ wide for a 3″ pillar candle.  Wrap the paper tightly and secure with tape or hold with your hands.

using heat gun on candle

Use the heat gun to slowly begin melting the wax on the wax paper into the tissue paper.  You will see the change as the wax paper melts and begins to soak into the tissue paper.  Don’t stay in one spot for too long, once you see the wax melt move on slowly and steadily.  Don’t forget to watch your fingers, heat guns are capable of causing burns if not handled properly!

**I know many will ask if a hair dryer will work for this project and in my experience it does not get hot enough.**

After you have melted the wax into all of the tissue paper, gently peel the wax paper off of candle and discard.

how to decorate candles with tissue paper

This easy DIY can be changed to create any number of decorated candles.  Try stamping designs on tissue paper the same color as your candle for another easy way to decorate.  I even had my boys draw pictures on tissue paper to attach to a candle for their Dad when he was deployed-the possibilities are endless!

MelissaSignature~Learn more about Melissa~

10 DIY Gift Ideas for the Rock Star DIYer

10 DIY Gift Ideas for the Rock Star DIYer

Christmas is next week? Christmas is next week! Who else is still running around buying those last minute gifts? {Me raising my hand.}

If you have someone on your list who is an avid DIYer, I have a new list of the Top 10 Gift Ideas for the Rock Star DIYer in your life! These tools will transform the newbie DIY junkie giving them better street cred and true rock star status! (Results may vary.) In all seriousness, these are the tools and products that I found helpful this year.

In order from  least to most expensive Top 10 DIY Gift Ideas: Read more

Christmas journal

Need an easy DIY gift idea that any kid will love?  Jaime from That’s My Letter here to share DIY Christmas journals made from inexpensive kids composition books.

There’s still time to make this Christmas journal gift for all those kids on your list who love to write and draw, it makes a great small gift or a nice add on to a larger gift.

Christmas journal 1

Take a peek inside and you’ll see the kids composition books are printed with lines just their size and bonus!  a place to draw pictures above the writing:

Christmas journal 3

Kids can use the journal to keep track of gifts received for thank you cards, adventures and travels during the school break, all the exciting events surrounding the holiday and on and on.

Wrap your  journal with a fun holiday pencil and printed ribbon:

Christmas journal 4

Supplies required:

Christmas journal 5

Instructions:

Step 1: Give the exterior cover (front and back) a quick sanding to rough up the ‘shiny’ surface – this will help the kraft paper adhere better. Read more

School Library Painted with Montpelier Wedgewood | Pretty Handy Girl

School Library Painted with Montpelier Wedgewood | Pretty Handy Girl

Remember last week when we were picking colors for the school library? Well, I’m back to show you how everything came together!

But first, I’d like to announce the winners of the Valspar paint samples:

Valspar_color_winners

 

Congrats to Bonnie, Lynda, Marion, Cathleen, Joanne, Colleen, Amy H., Nicole, Becky V. and Nancy B!

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To quickly review, we painted the walls and ceiling tiles using Valspar Montpelier Wedgewood. Then we stenciled stars on the ceiling.  After installing the ceiling tiles the library looked like this. Better, but still a bit ho-hum.

School Library Painted with Montpelier Wedgewood | Pretty Handy Girl

I had much bigger plans and was far from finished. I called in some expert help from my friend Leen the Graphics Queen and her husband. They cut and installed all the silver trees and birds. We had an absolute blast working together. There were several birds leftover, so Leen played hide and seek by putting a few birds elsewhere in the library. The kids (and I) had fun trying to find them over the next few days. Read more