Bow Tie Angel

Bow Tie Angel

Here's a quick and easy project that anyone can make. All you really need is a box of Bow Tie Pasta, a couple of small pom-pom's, some paint, a small piece of wire (strip a bread tie, if you don't have wire laying around your house) and a pin back.

Paint a piece of pasta white, you can add glitter if you want, I did. Glue the pom-pom onto the top for the head. fashion a loop in one end of the piece of wire, this will be the halo. It will look kind of like a lasso when you're finished. dip the loop into glue and then glitter. Glue the wire and pin back to the back of the pasta with hot glue. (position the halo above the head, you can cut off the excess wire if it's too long.) I made these little angels one year for mother's day, they were so easy and inexpensive that I gave one to every mother I know.

Painted Saw

Painted Saw

Yardsale Lovers Listen up! Here is a project that's perfect for one of the little treasures you can find at a yardsale. My husband loves tools! What man doesn't? For this reason, I have 1 1/2 buildings on my property that are full of tools, all kinds of tools. Yet, when we go yardsaleing he is always ready to buy more.

One thing my husband likes to buy are old hand saws, maybe he likes the history. The problem is that we have too many saws now.

One thing you can do to turn that old saw into something new, is to paint the saw. I don't mean paint it brown, or blue, I mean paint a landscape on it, or paint an abstract painting, paint a self portrait. I opted for the landscape, mainly because I can't draw and trees are really easy to paint. Since saws are medal, you need to make sure it's not rusted and don't forget to prime the blade before you paint.

Now I love the saws as much as he does, and what a great gift!

Match Box

Match Box

Think back to when you were young, and bored! I think about all the wonderful crazy things I used to create! We tend to loose our ability to be fun and crazy the older we get. A couple of years ago, I wanted to make something special for my husband. I have mentioned before that I am not an artist, for this reason I knew I couldn't sculpt a bust or paint a great portrait. I decided to do something different.

I bought a 3 pack of those big wooden matches, (not the long ones) and began to glue them together side by side. After about a week of crafting in secret, I finally came up with a really cute box. I woodburned my husbands name in the lid then stained and polyed the whole thing.

My husband loved it, and I felt good.

..When you cut off the match tips, be sure to get rid of all the evidence if you're making something that will be a gift. Unfortunatly, my husband figured out that I was making something with matches, but he didn't know what I was making.

Silver Necklace

Silver Necklace

A couple of years ago, I was really into jewelry making. I would spend hours working on my latest creation. The wonderful part about beading is that there are almost always beads left over. I had this idea one day while looking through my spare beads. I've made this style of necklace before, however I don't usually use expensive beads, it keeps the sale cost down, in this necklace, I went for it. This necklace is a mix of silver beads and some scrap beads I had laying around. I hope you like it. It's pretty easy to make, just use mine as a reference. You should be able to look at it and come up with one of your own without a pattern.

Just as a small note: It is nearly impossible to make a necklace look good in a picture (unless you're a professional). This necklace looks much better in person, and the way that it lays on the chest is so nice. It's one of my favorites.