Sarah Jane's Craft Blog

3 years ago I made a wreath with some cheap silk daisies (I think I bought them at Dollar Tree eons ago). After a summer out on the door, I noticed that the wreath was starting to fade a bit in the sun. I even posted an update to watch the changes. It lasted 2 more summers before it became so faded that the purple had turned almost all back to white, so it was a time for a refresh before I hung it on the door for this summer. The green and the blue seemed to fade the least, but the wreath was definitely in need of an update all around. I started with the most faded flower. I tore up some small pieces of parchment paper to protect the wreath itself and applied my alcohol ink along the edge of the felt applicator . My flowers were dyed with ink from the Summit View  and  Dockside Picnic sets by Ranger. The flowers soak up quite a bit of ink as you stamp it on, so I was only able to cover about 1/3 of the flower with the ink from my first application....

Happy Christmas Week! Here's wishing you all a great week of wrapping, baking, crafting, packing, etc...in preparation for the holidays. This week I made a fairly quick project out of a floral arrangement that was given to me a few Christmases ago but was not really my taste and starting to fall apart a bit. Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture of what it looked like before. I was a bit excited to tear the thing apart. I grabbed any floral accessories that I had that might fit a Christmas arrangement and piled them on the table with the parts from the original arrangement. It used to be all blue and green, but I ditched most of the blue and any of the overly rustic looking greenery and replaced it with some red roses and ornaments.  I replaced the floral foam with some fresh foam, stuck some of the tall pieces in the back and then trimmed the 3 roses to be different heights and stuck them in the foam...then it was just putting the pieces back in until I liked t...

I have had these blue silk roses for a while. They were purchased with a bundle of red and white roses in the clearance section at Wal-mart. I assume they were leftovers after the 4th of July. Since they aren't exactly a natural color, I didn't know what the heck to do with them. So I decided to make some silk flower pens with them for someone whose favorite color is blue. This fall I made a whole bouquet of flower pens , but this time I'm just making a little bundle. Flower pens are easy, inexpensive, and make great gifts. You'll just need some stick pens, some silk flowers, a roll of floral tape , and a scissors. Floral tape is funky stuff if you've never worked with it before. It's available everywhere that sells craft supplies, and it's kind of like stretchy masking tape, but it's not very sticky. Line the stem of your flower up with your pen and start rolling and stretching your tape over the stem--sticky side up. It's not that sti...

Last week I posted about making some ombre painted terra cotta pots .  In a quest to find something useful to use them for (since they are kinda small for putting plants in for any length of time), I decided to make a pen bouquet. I have made these in the past.  They make great gifts for administrative assistants, receptionists, or anyone who works someplace where people steal your pens, but they are so cute, inexpensive, and easy to make, that you can easily make one for your own desk at home too. You'll need: silk flowers a wire snipper stick pens with caps removed green floral tape a pot gems or river rocks Start by cutting your silk flowers off of their bunches. I used a pliers that had a wire cutter built in, but anything capable of cutting wire should work. Leave a stem (at least a couple of inches long, but no longer than your pens) and if they have leaves, remove them or push them up to the flower's base. My flowers had the kind of leaves t...

Last spring I saw an adorable simple gerber daisy wreath on pinterest. I knew it would be the perfect spring wreath, but I didn't want to have to buy bunches of different colored daisies, and most of the nice looking silk gerber daisies were not cheap.  So here I was, another spring had come, and I still wanted a cute spring wreath for my door, so I dug into my stash of leftovers and found some large white daisies, and I thought, I could color them--I've seen tutorials of using alcohol ink to dye silk flowers for cardmaking and scrapbooking, it shouldn't be too hard.  So, I had talked myself into it. I had 5 white daisies, so I picked out 5 bright springy colors to dye them. I started with purple (because it's my favorite). I used a few drops of rubbing alcohol on my applicator before dropping 4 or 5 drops of alcohol ink on to the applicator to thin the ink down a bit and help it soak into the flower. Then I started stamping on a covered surface (I used a ...

Michael's had a sale a while back on wreath forms...a long while back...like a year ago.  This grapevine wreath cost me $1.99 last fall.  I knew I wanted to make a fall wreath that I could use before and after Halloween.  So I picked up 3 bunches of different colored chrysanthemums at Walmart for 94 cents a piece and a fall inspired ribbon.  Then I picked up an assorted fall bunch at Michael's that included berries, leaves, a pumpkin and a pinecone. This one bunch was on sale for $1.49.   So for under $10 I was able to whip up this wreath.  I laid out my flowers and other items where I thought they looked nice and then glued them down with a hot glue gun.  This is my second wreath using silk flowers--however I'm no stranger to wreath making--but one thing that I've learned from working with silk flowers on wreaths is to buy bunches that have different sized flowers if possible. I wish there were even more variety in the sizes of the chrysanthe...