Thanks AGAIN, Morena!

The sweet fellow blogger who sent me the DT birds that I initially couldn’t find locally, just sent me the link to HER first project with them.

I”m not typically a fan of metallics,  but this has made me change my mind!  The bird totally looks like vintage pewter.

CLICK HERE  to go to her blog for the complete tutorial.

Anyone else have any DT or bird projects they want to share???

Birds of a feather

Digging  through the archives of my other blog  to show you a re-cap of Dollar Tree birds over the years and what I’ve done with them,

Those are from a couple of years ago.  Ceramic DT birds on thrifted bases (glued together with e6000; and spray painted)  They STILL have these particular birds in my local Dollar Tree stores.  And Dollar Tree glass candle holders would work just as well.  I just ‘used what I had’, which happened to be thrifted ones for the bases.

This bird is from a couple years ago, as is the candle holder I adhered him to.  The color match was so close that I didn’t need to paint these!  GOTTA love when a make-over is as simple as that!

Same little DT bird as previous picture; but this one was added to the top of a finial I crafted.  A new e-book on how to make these and MANY more finials will be finished up for sale in my etsy shop SOON!.

Gotta have some NESTS if you’re gonna have birds!  Thrifted  vintage urns and pedestal candle holders make great nest holders, to pair up with these other Dollar Tree birds on pedestals I made.

For those I used some unfinished candle holders I had on hand.  Again the glass candle holders from DT would work just as well.   Just DON’T ever substitute another adhesive for the e6000!  Let glue dry overnight before painting.

An entire flock!  First painted black, then  dry brush painted ivory, leaving some of the black showing.

Lots of little birds tucked in throughout this display.

This past Christmas I did LOTS of white glittered birds with glitter crowns.  The owls came from Target a few years ago, and were originally brown.

I also did some TURQUOISE glitter birds just for fun!  Only did a few ‘just in case’ the color didn’t “FLY” (did I really say that?!?!)  The turquoise birds sold out very quickly.  Lesson learned!

I tucked the birds in everywhere throughout my booth at the antique mall!

My all time FAVORITE birds from Dollar Tree were these, from a year or 2 ago, with the WIRE FEET.  This was the last of that stash that I was saving.  sigh.  HOPING they will make a come-back this year.  I’m checking weekly.  Watching and waiting for the new spring merchandise to come in.  It’s trickling in right now.  After Valentine’s  day it will REALLY be out.  THEN, I’ll be checking every other day!  And when they do arrive, they’ll all be going home with me!  No such thing as too many birds in my craft supply stash!  (the little red birds I just showed a few posts ago)

Another of the birds with wire feet; this one painted differently.  Cream color paint then Ralph Lauren tobacco glaze.  This set is for sale in my etsy shop.

For Christmas, I did some of the crowned birds glued to the top of gift boxes.

The above set is ENTIRELY from Dollar Tree; the bird, the box, the trees and the snowflakes!  I just added a bit of artistic flair!

Dollar Tree glass vases / votive holders turned into cloches by turning them upside down and adding a bird for a handle.  These birds came from the craft store, but I used the same birds as in the second picture in this post for this purpose when I could get them.

Again, not a DT bird, but would/could have been.  (see what I mean about no such thing as TOO many birds!?!)

Valentine birds.  This set is currently for sale in my etsy shop.

Some PINK glittered birds with vintage sheet music crowns for this Valentine’s Day.

Available for purchase in my booth at Stars Antique Mall in Portland, Oregon.

MORE love for this little ceramic bird from a few years back; this time on top of a ‘make do’ cloche with a nest and egg.  On the right is one of the ‘painted and glazed’ birds mounted on a little paper mache box.  Spanish moss and an egg inside the box.

BIGGER cloche with nest and egg under the glass.  Repainted thrifted pillar candle holder used for the base.

Here’s a better picture of that cloche.  It took some patience to get the bird to stay in place on that domed lid.  The hole in the bottom of the bird helped.  Not using too much adhesive (e6000) helped too!  Applied just a few dabs around the hole in the base of the bird, gently set it in place on the cloche, then quickly removed it and let the adhesive ‘set up’ until it was tacky.  Applied a tad more, then put in place to stay.  Had to hold it in place for about 15 minutes to be sure it didn’t slide off!

Yep, I used those little birds a LOT!!!  some more cloches made from thrifted vintage components.

BIG cloche with dinner size plate base, adhered to a large pillar candle holder.  Spray painted them both ivory.

Little cloche with nest grass and egg.  This is and espresso cup saucer and a mini brandy snifter for the base.  The bell jar behind it was just glued onto a DT candle holder for a base.

These bird tea light holders were originally a dark orange color.  Glued to a DT candle holder (the kind that come in a 2/pk) Painted everything cream color then glazed with my Ralph Lauren tobacco glaze.

Another of the tea light holders, just painted and glazed.

Styro wreathe from DT, covered with strips of burlap and one of the little birds glued on the inside.

Another burlap wreath in a lighter color and with a burlap ribbon at the top.

Can’t wait to see what kinds of birds Dollar Tree will have for me to PLAY WITH this year!!!

Altered Dollar Tree art plaques

Got these wood plaques topped with designs printed on paper, and black wire decorative scroll on the top at Dollar Tree a while back.  A good 70% of the time when I buy ‘supplies’  (items that I eventually ALTER) at Dollar Tree, I don’t yet know HOW I will be using them.  Something about an item just ‘catches my eye’ (in this case it was the pretty black scroll top)  and I just KNOW I will be able to ‘do SOMETHING with it’ and I’ll grab a bunch!

I was painting these gold cherubs (and several others); not yet knowing HOW I was going to use them.  Figured something would come to me as I worked on them.  They were nice and FLAT on the back side so applying them to some kind of flat surface came to mind.

See instructions for the complete transformation of these gold cherubs over on my Trash 2 Treasure blog.  SO, while the cherubs were drying for the final time, I scrounged through my stash to find something to attach them to.  Tried a few different things, and settled on the scroll top plaques.

I was just ‘trying them out’ and laying them on the plaques to see if the proportions were right.   I had every intention of completely covering the plaque with some scrapbook paper.  But, the cherubs fir SO perfectly on top of the bird, AND the wording perfectly fit the theme; so I decided to just glue on the cherub and be done!

Well, ALMOST done!!  After they dried overnight and I hung them to take pictures, I decided ‘something was missing’.  It needed a tad more ‘altering’.

So I gave them some vintage sheet music paper crowns!

NOW they’re done!

Then I did one like I had originally intended to do, covering the entire background with scrapbook paper, and adding some embellishments.

I just used regular tacky glue to put the crowns on.  First, test fit your crown and gently ‘form it’ to the shape of the head.  (this one was a tad oval shaped)  Hold crown upside down and run a generous bead of bead of glue around the entire inside of the rim.  Then turn it right side up and put it on.  Gently (without crushing the tips!) hold crown in place for about five minutes for glue to set.  Then set aside to completely dry.

I put them out in my booth at the antique mall WITH my Valentine stuff, but they really aren’t so Valentine ‘specific’ that they won’t work to display year round.  Something I try to keep in mind when I am creating.

Vintage book pages cone trees

 

Seems like cone trees were EVERYWHERE during the holidays!  I was a tad behind on my Christmas crafting, but really wanted to make some cone trees that could maybe be used to decorate with YEAR  ROUND.  This is what I came up with.

The styrofoam cones from Dollar Tree are about the same size as the ones I used.  I just happened to have some old cardboard cones, which I used for the two small trees, and found a big styro cone at a rummage sale.  Glue does NOT adhere to styro, so first I covered my cones with strips of paper, glued ON to the cone, but also TO each other (which is what STICKS) ; completely covering the entire cone.

Old book pages were hand cut into small leaf shapes, then ‘tea stained’ using my own stain recipe.  You can see how I stained them here.  Then I just started gluing them on!  Using tacky glue and starting at the bottom, I just glued row after row, slightly overlapping.  At the top, I added a few extra leaves, sticking up, then when the glue was dry, I twisted them into a point with my fingers.

Michael said I should have ‘glittered the edges of the leaves’.  Which WOULD look awesome if I was doing them for Christmas decor.  But I wanted these to be more year round, so I abstained from the glitter.  (Never thought I’d hear myself say T?HAT!  I’m usually all about the glitter!)

Colches. Getting the look for less

What IS a cloche??  No, not the HAT kind, the GLASS kind.  It’s a bell shaped glass dome used to cover something.  And a VERY popular decorating accessory these days.  Vintage ones can cost hundreds of dollars.  Even newly manufactured vintage reproductions can be crazy expensive.

I did a quick internet search on glass cloches, just out of curiosity and to see what came up.  Here’s what I got.

In my thrifting and shabby shopping adventures, occasionally I’ll find a reasonable priced one.  But mostly I find glass vessels of a similar shape that I can turn into a cloche.   Even some of the glass vases from Dollar Tree can be made into cloches!

The KEY ingredient is having the right adhesive; e-6000.  Don’t EVEN try any other adhesive.  The small and medium ones above came from Dollar Tree.  The medium one a glass vase and the small one a candle holder.  The large one is from a thrift store, BUT a few years ago DT had those larger ones also.  So it probably initially DID come from a Dollar Tree!

You mostly want to look for glass vessels with FLAT bottoms, for ease of attaching a ‘handle’.  Likewise, look for small decorative items with flat bottoms to attach to the bottom of your vessel as a handle.  Above are two more of the medium vases from Dollar Tree and another, different shape clear glass candle holder.   The smaller one has an old drawer pull, painted silver and glittered as the handle.  For the other two I used some small glass taper candle holders (hole side DOWN when I glued them on)  And in the first picture, I used some ceramic birds from a craft store as the handle.  In the past, I have also found cute ceramic birds at Dollar Tree that I was able to use for handles.

These two are both thrifted vases.  A clear glass spice jar stopper was used on the aqua one.  The one on the right was VERY heavy (very thick glass bottom) so I needed a real substantial handle.  I used a big ole curtain finial!

I usually sell ‘just the cloches’, but occasionally I’ll fashion a more extensive project using one, like I did above.  Adding a wood candle pedestal that fit the size of the cloche, and added some moss and little eggs under the cloche.

The above cloche is a thrifted one (from a cheese plate set).  The plate and pedestal are both from Dollar Tree.  I just glued the inverted glass candle holder to the plate with e6000.  The lid was ‘ready to use’.

Smaller cloches can be created using the glass bells from old candle holders.  Small thrifted clear plates with Dollar Tree glass taper candle holders attached for the base.  The other sets in the above photo were purchased as sets.

To create different heights on the smaller sets, I used some thrifted shorter taper candle holders as bases, as shown above.

Halloween candleabra at Dollar Tree

Pretty cute, eh??? 

Perfect to use just as they are!  although I might add some ‘fire’ colored glitter to the flames.  Would be perfect on a table with the ‘creepy cloth’ (ripped up black webby stuff) as a table-cloth, and maybe a few small glitter skulls scattered around.

Haven’t seen the glitter skulls in stock at DT yet this year.  Sure hope they DO restock them again.  Don’t want to pay 4x as much for them at the craft store!

Pretty glass bottles from Dollar Tree

Found these a couple springs ago at DT.  Just ‘dressed them up a little’ with a strip of tea stained paper, a charm and some ribbon.  How simple is that?!?

Dollar Tree ceramic finials

Not sure if they will be restocking these this year or not.  I bought mine last year, but have seen a few left at some of our local Dollar Trees. 

On the left, as purchased.  Middle, painted antique white (2 coats of water based acrylic craft paint) And on the right,  finished off with Ralph Lauren tobacco glaze.

You can also make different shapes and sizes of them by gluing (with e-6000) them to the top of lots of other things.   For ‘shiney’ surfaces (like these glazed ceramic bowls) I spray painted with FLAT black paint before painting white; otherwise your craft paint won’t stick.

Old wood bowls work too!

And these little flower pots I just found at DT work for the round finials.

The above round was glued to a ceramic pillar candle holder from DT.  Tall wood pillar candle holders work well too!

But I decided to use the ones I have on hand for little birds.  DT had some darling little birds last year.  I bought and used and SOLD a lot of them!  These birds I bought at Craft Warehouse after I couldn’t find them anymore at DT.

I had ONE of the little DT birds left.  Glued him atop a tall taper candle holder.

Another unique wood pillar holder on the left, and a hollow bamboo vase on the right.

 

Dollar bird houses from Michael’s

Of course I bought mine when they had their 25% off your entire purchase sale a while back!  But even FULL price, these sweet little wire birdhouses were a DEAL!  I didn’t care too much for some of the colors, but liked all the different shapes; so I bought some of each.  Then I just spray painted the ones that were colors I didn’t care for. (red, yellow and orange!)

I had some digital collage sheets that I’d bought some time ago with assorted bird images on them; and I cut the birds out into tag shapes, and tied a tag inside each cage with a thin piece of tea stained satin ribbon.

Very simple and quick craft!

I had a ‘vision’ that I’d hang these on one of my BARE twiggy Christmas trees; until I realized I don’t have any of them!!!  Michael got a bunch of dead trees from a lot after Christmas for me a couple of years ago and tossed them out in the field to ‘dry out’ and now they are buried in overgrowth!   I’m soooooooooooo bummed!

But these will still be cute sitting on shelves etc.  I should save them for spring, but I’ll be taking them to the fall show in a couple of weeks.

Fluffy white wreath

Soooooooooooo pretty!!!  Would make a great holiday wreath; and yet is simple enough to stay out year round in a shabby cottage decor space.

Check out “The Virginia House” for the complete (and surprisingly SIMPLE!) tutorial.

It seems that I can never leave ‘well enough alone’, and when I see projects like this, that are PERFECT as they are, my brain starts thinking of variations on the theme.  Here are my thoughts and things I might try when I make one of these:

1)  The wreath form; I’m thinking the hard green floral foam wreaths might be easier to work with than the willow wreath.  (although they might be smaller)

2)  GLITTER!!!  Everything is better with glitter.  Lightly brush glue on the very tips of the ruffles and sprinkle on some glitter.

3)  For a more primitive and rustic look, spritz it with some grubby stain.

4) OR use the tan coffee filters to begin with!

5)  Lightly wrap around a ‘sheet music paper garland’ ; or hang a little banner across the front.