Christmas “JOY”

Well, this is what the Holidays are about, right? A time of  year when we try and remember all the Joy in our lives and share a little with others. So why not say it in a fabulous way?  Hang it high for all to see!!!!  Sorry, I got carried away!

I picked up these letters from Pat Catan's for about $2 a piece. That also where I got the GLITTERY ribbon.  I found the scrapbook paper at Wal-Mart for 97 cents a pack….can’t beat that!
First I stained the edges of the letters using a dark brown stain.  I let that dry overnight.  Now comes the fun part – the part where I get to Mod Podge…yayyyyy!  I cut the scrap book paper about an inch larger than the letters on all sides, Mod Podged the hell out of the front of the letters and laid the paper down.  Carefully smooth any bubbles out from under the paper taking care not to shift the paper or rip it – that would be BAD.  Again, let that dry overnight, or over three nights, however long it takes for you to get back to it.  Having a 2 1/2 year old I sometimes have projects laying around for weeks before I have a chance to get back to them, but I digress.

Once this is nice and dry, lay the letters (paper side down) on a cutting mat and trim off the excess with an Xacto knife.  Get as close to the wood as you can, but down freak out if there are rough edges because we’ll take care of that.  Once you have all the letters trimmed, take a piece of fine sandpaper and clean up those edges.

Now it’s time to bring the stain back out.  Well, that is if you even bothered to put it away in the first place, which I can’t say I always do.  For this part you can either use a sponge brush or a cheap little paint or artist brush.  Dip your brush of choice into the stain, but do not saturate it.  Now take your brush and blot it onto a folded up paper towel, getting as much stain off as possible.  It’s time to dry brush people!!!! Take your blotted brush and starting from the edges of the letters dry brush the stain toward the middle.  How far into the center you dry brush is completely up to you.  I stopped about a half inch from the edge, but that’s just my preference.  When I was done with my brush I just threw it away because I didn’t want to put the work into cleaning the stain out of it – that why I used a 25 cent sponge brush.

Next I cut my choices of ribbon about 10 inches long.  I gathered one end of the ribbon and stapled it to the back of my wood letters.  Then I tied a double knot in the ribbon, trying to keep the length consistent between all three letters.  For me the same length wasn’t crucial because I plan to stagger them when I hang them.  If you want them to hang the same height that’s going to take some more time and patience on your part – good luck.
When I’m ready to hang all the Christmas decorations, I’ll just throw up some Command hooks and enjoy the JOY of the Season.  I just love this time of year.  Hope you enjoy and try to make some JOY of your own!

HAPPY CRAFTING!!!

Kim

Upcycled Christmas Decorations

Well, Christmas crafting is occurring at a feverish pace around here.  Last year I developed a small obsession with pallets thanks to Pinterest.  I had dreams of a pallet palace, but that dream died quickly when I realized how difficult it is to find QUALITY pallets around here.  I did, however, pick a few up roadside and they sat, collecting dust in my garage until just a few weeks ago.  While reorganizing the disaster I call a one car, I’ll never see a car inside of me garage I decided to cut up the pallets to save room. 

Then it hit me…..CHRISTMAS IS COMING!!!! I remembered the cutest wood sign I saw over at Eyeballs by Day, Crafts by Night and thought that some of the pieces I had cut would be the perfect size.  So began my adventure with Christmas crafting using reclaimed wood.  OK so it wasn’t reclaimed from a cool barn or anything, but it WAS reclaimed from that place that was just gonna throw it away.  Maybe we should call it Christmas crafting with rescued wood.  There – that’s sounds better.

Anyhow, I grabbed a piece of my rescued wood, slapped on a couple coats of Glidden Candy Apple Red paint and I had the base for THE CUTEST little Christmas stocking wall hanger I have ever seen.  You see I have neither a fireplace nor a mantle, so my poor Christmas stockings have lived haphazardly tied onto the wrought iron railing in the living room and people that’s just wrong!!!!
A few rusty tin stars from Pat Catan's and some white lettering cut out on my fabulous little Cricut mini and HERE IT IS:


Oh my goodness, I almost forgot the knobs.  Three of the cutest little drawer pulls that I got for 50% off at Hobby Lobby and we have perfection.  Alright, maybe not perfection, but it’s freakin’ cute!!!!

Then I figured I already have the red paint and the wood, why not try something else?  So I cut three pieces about 5 inch wide, sanded them down and painted them with my Candy Apple red. The next part involves one of my favorite things in the world, call it an addiction if you will – GLITTER! Glitter makes me happy, happy, happy.  As a matter of fact, I have been known to say that Glitter is a single, crafty woman’s crack cocaine!!!

Anyway, I just happened to have some silver glitter card stock lying around.  So, I cut out some more letters on the Cricut mini and slapped them on with some Mod Podge.  Then I got to use another one of my favorite products – GLITTER MOD PODGE.  I was in Heaven……aaaahhhhh.

Once the glitter Mod Podge was all dry and I came down from my crafter’s high, I stapled some fabulous grosgrain ribbon on the back.  I also hammered a saw-toothed picture hanger to the top of the top block. 
I still have plenty of rescued wood left.  I’m not exactly sure what I’m going to craft with it just yet, but I’ll keep you in the loop!
As always – HAPPY CRAFTING!!!



- Kim

Glitter Ornaments

My poor little blog.  I have neglected you so.  Laneybug and I have been busy with playdates, Halloween, crafting and trips to the park.  I am somewhat obsessed with Holiday decorating using the bug's hand/foot prints.  This is what we've crafted up for Thanksgiving so far: (Sorry the pics are subpar.  I took them with my phone)

An 8x10 canvas, Laneybug's foot for the body and her little fingerprints to make the feathers, voila it's a Turkey.  We dressed him up with some googly eyes and Turkey stickers from Pat Catan's.

Here's another happy little Tom Turkey we crafted, again using an 8x10 canvas.  Just painted up that little hand of hers and away we go.

Somehow I've managed to get some Mommy Crafts done too.  I absolutely love, love, love these glitter ornaments.  I found the inspiration and directions on Pinterest.  Lots of people are making them and they're super easy.  Just a little floor wax ( I used good ole Mop N Glo) swished around the inside of a glass ornament, dump out the excess and then drop in some glitter and shake.....AMAZING. 

I'm going a little nuts with them, but they're soooo cute.  Cut a little vinyl on the cricut and they're personalized.  EVERYONE is getting ornaments this year.  The bug's entire daycare class will have one :)

HAPPY CRAFTING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

- Kim

Ornament Wreath Tutorial

I know, I know it’s not even Halloween yet and I’m creating Christmas decorations! I’ll admit I’m all over the place creatively lately.  I’ve got several projects going at once that range from rag quilts to Halloween wreaths to something to display the laneybug’s masterpieces.

I got my inspiration from a wreath I spotted over at ourfinehouse.com.  I had seen a lot of similar wreaths on Pinterest, but the base of the wreaths were wire hangers.  Being a child of the 70’s I had seen Mommy Dearest too many times and got rid of all my wire hangers , so I liked the idea of a foam form.

It really wasn’t until I was editing my photos for this post that I actually realized that this wreath is definitely still a work in progress.  I could see several spots where the foam form was still visible and it needs “rounded off” a bit, but you’ll get the general idea.
Here’s what you’ll need:

• foam wreath form ( I used 12” white foam from Pat Catan's)
• LOTS of shatterproof Christmas balls in your choice of colors (I hit the JACKPOT at Ollie's and scored 8 packs of the large balls for 29 cents a pack!!! I also got 30 smaller balls for just over 3 bucks). There are over 100 ornaments on my wreath already and again it’s still in progress.
• about 3 feet of ribbon (again I lucked out again and got an entire roll at Dollar General for $1)
• glue gun
• a metric ton of glue sticks (seriously, you need a LOT of glue sticks.  I think I used at least 20)
• PATIENCE

  Here’s everything!!!








First off I hot glued the ribbon to the foam base.  In retrospect I probably would not have done this again.  I think I would have been better off waiting until the end and looping ribbon directly over the ornaments.  That would have been easier and then you could change out the ribbon if you wanted.  Oh well, learn from your mistakes!



Then I popped off the little silver hangers.  The first few balls I just stuck some hot glue on the tip and held it in place.  I wasn’t happy with the results so I actually got a wire skewer to create holes in the foam that I could put the hot glue in to and then place the tip of the bulb into that.  I liked those results a lot better.


Then I started gluing away.  At first I was just randomly placing ornaments, but then my OCD kicked in and I began plotting my next move.  Either way I think you’ll get the same results and have a LOT of wholes to fill in at the end.


And then I glued and glued and glued some more.  Then I went to sleep, got up in the morning, made the bug some breakfast and starting gluing again and this is what I had made:

So, now it was time to break out the smaller ornaments and start gluing again!!!!

And when it was all said and done, VOILA
I can not stress enough that it’s still a work in progress, but I think with the addition of some more smaller ornaments to the middle and some larger ornaments to the periphery to round it out, it will be awesome.

Hope you enjoy!
~ Kim

Hello World!!!

Hello All! Welcome to LaneyBugz Creations.  So, before we go too far let me tell you a little something about myself .  My name is Kim and I am HAPPILY divorced (don't judge, it's a looooooong story) and a single mom to the most precious girl in the world.  She's my little Laneybug!   I am lucky to have my Mom in my life, and I mean REALLY in my life, she lives with us :)  Life can be crazy with three generations of very stubborn gals living under one roof and hopefully this blog will document some of the crazy.  Life gets nuttier attempting to keep Delaney entertained,  playing chef to a picky toddler, working full time as a Trauma/Burn Physician Assistant and finding time to do what keeps me sane - CRAFTING!!! 

I have never been what you would call creative, but I must say Pinterest has opened up a new world for me.  It introduced me to a whole new culture - the world of crafting.  It calms me.  It's nice to transition from the serious decision that I need to make during the day at work to simply trying to decide whether I want to learn to quilt or make a wreath. 

Crafting for me is a very general term, basically it means I'm making something.  That something may be a new recipe, summers stackers, Halloween decorations using Delaney's hands and feet, Christmas cards using Delaney's hands and feet, home decor using Delaney's hands and feet.....ummmm...I sense a theme here.  Yep, you guessed it - I like to keep my girl involved whenever possible in my craft obsession.  Not only do I get to do what I love, but I get to do it with the one I love.  Hey, if I can make a little extra money doing something I really enjoy I'm going to do that too, so I opened an Etsy store.

I make no guarantees here.  I can not promise a Tutorial Tuesday or a Fabulous New Recipe Friday, but I will try to share my projects when time allows.  Heck, I'll even try to throw in some tutorials.  Keep in mind, you take the good with the bad, so for every project tutorial you get you may also have to endure a project epic fail or a rant or two from me.  Whatever your reason for stopping by I HOPE YOU HAD FUN!!!

                                                    - Kim