HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS pt4 NUTCRACKERS & TIN CAN GARLAND

FRIDAY, JANUARY 18, 2013

I promise, 

I'm almost done with the Christmas posts.

A few more and THEN on to this NEW YEAR!

You see my cute nutcrackers?

They didn't use to look like that.

(tin can garland info at the end)

They use to look like this!

 I know, I can hardly believe it myself!

I mentioned before that I had the opportunity to shop

with/for my church for the Christmas events.

The location is for non profits only and the prices are

beyond great.

These along with other Christmas items I decorated with, came from there.

When I got these I had no idea what I was going to do with them.

I just couldn't pass them up.

L. Broken "hippy" nutcracker.

It was missing the mouth flap and his 2 "peace" fingers.

R. Full view of both.

The 2nd one a halloween item.

I searched online for ideas but all the nutcrackers were creepy looking lol.
But then I found this.

I instantly loved them and had to duplicate it.

It turns out Target was selling something similar

and NOT for pennies.

So I guess I scored when making these myself :)

I removed the "accessories", hair, mustache & "hippy's" feet.
The mouth and feet would have to be fixed.
I did my best to remove little "frankencracker's" bolts and sand down.

Sanding was a pain!
If I would have followed MELANIE'S advice,
of using a paint remover, it would have gone much smoother.

Removing glossy paint is work,
add raised glittery paint to that, and you would have quit.

I then tried using craft paint,
huge fail since I couldn't remove all of the initial paint
and the brush strokes were too visible.

I broke down and bought white Krylon paint in matte $4,
Melanie's were glossy.
(cost me more than the nutcrackers),

 I then hot glued his hair back on- No mustache here,
used pecans we had to fill his "mouth" which now looks like a little tie,
and make shoes. I used a stray button my daughter had found
and a tiny twig as a sword!

I'm so proud of these little guys.

Little "Frankencracker" grew up to be a fine young man haha
There's signs of his bolts but greatly reduced.
I left his shoulders black and used 1 side of the mustache,
split it in half and hot glued it for some flair.

WHAT DO YOU THINK?!

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TIN CAN GARLAND

About a year ago I saw a post on tin can luminaries.
They were painted in moss & turquoise colors and hung on a tree,
the glow was beautiful!
In the future I'd love to actually make luminaries.

But this time,I decided to take that idea and turn it into a garland.
I can fill with flowers or moss in the spring,
berries or leaves in the fall
and pine in the winter or anything at all.

 I had been saving my cans for a few weeks until I could start this project.
L. Fill the cans with water and freeze for a few hours, 
just enough to stabilize the can so you can drill the holes/design.
R. I had hubby help me drill 4 holes in each one so that I could attach string cross wise if need be.
 The drill and I aren't that acquainted.

T.L. Run warm/hot water to defrost the ice & dry cans out.
T.R. Since I wasn't going to paint, I used scraps from a sheet
to cover words/dates on cans.
B.L. The bottoms were covered too
B.R. I cut about 5ft of jute which we already had, fed 1 1/2ft through the 1st can 
and knotted it, 
then knotted it on the opposite end. 
 I left 3in. between the next can and knotted again on both sides.
I continued the process making sure the larger can was in the center.

When I was done, I hung it up with nails
and added some of the free scrap pine I got from the tree lot.


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