Cinnamon Salt Dough Stars

I make these around Christmas time for my Booth#555 at the Peddlers Mall. They are a steady seller. Especially at Christmas time because they are adorned with the yummy smell of cinnamon!

Here's how I make them. I start out by making up a batch of salt dough.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups flour
• 1 cup salt
• ½ cup water (sometimes you add a bit more)
• 1 teaspoon of vegetable oil (this makes it a little more flexible, and is optional)

I mix it all up in a bowl, adding a bit more of water, if needed. It should be firm but still good and flexible.
Knead it for a bit and get it all mixed good. If you want colored dough, you could easily add food coloring or something natural like coffee or tea. I prefer it plain for most uses.

I then knead it out into a big ole baking sheet. Then use my star cookie cutter to make the shapes. And then here's where I add a little extra. I take a small star stencil and press it into the center of the star. It just adds a lil extra touch and makes it cuter. And it's totally optional!

And this is what a few of them looks like, notice the star stencil at the top:

and here's a closer pic of the star, after I pressed down on the stencil, just a tad bit. And repeated it on every other one, if you want.

Next, it's time to do the dusting of cinnamon to make them totally smell yummy! I just spread them all out on the old baking sheet and sprinkle with some cinnamon sugar. I press the granules down into the salt dough very easily to make it adhere, but not hard enough to misshape the star.

Then I stick them in the preheated oven at 300* for about 45 minutes. Sometimes more, sometimes less. It mostly depends on the thickness of the salt dough. The just take them out and let them cool, then package as desired.


UPDATE: Sometimes, but not always, I take it a step farther. After allowing them to dry from baking, I dip them down into some scented, melted wax with an old fork, one by one. In the pic below, I had scented my wax with apple cinnamon. Then set aside to dry on wax paper. And here's what it looks like:

The wax just makes them appear way smoother, kinda like a wax tart. I love it! Yet, if you opt out of dipping them in wax, you get a more grungy, prim look! Oh, I just can't decide which way I like best. lol.

Here's another look at them UNDIPPED of wax, just with the cinnamon sugar finish:

And here's a closeup of a few of them dipped in the wax:

Ah, I think my favorite is the dipped in wax finish!

When they are all finished, I package 5 of them in a cellophane treat bag, from Walmart. And add a string of homespun fabric as a tie. Sometimes I will also add a stick or two of cinnamon to the bag. It makes for an almost instant bowl filler. I then price them for $3.95 and put them in my Booth#555 at the Peddlers Mall

Have you ever made anything from salt dough before?

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Salt Dough Buttons

Primitive TOBACCO STICK FENCES

I have been making these cute little fences out of tobacco sticks for a few years now.

(Don't know what tobacco sticks are? Click here!)

I'm gonna show you the basics of how to put one together.

Here is one all plain, just the tobacco sticks:

Simple as it looks.

Just lay out some tobacco sticks, cut them in the lenghts you want and then nail them together.

I use a nail gun so that it goes by faster. And these tobacco sticks are a hard wood.

And then you just start to decorate them however you want.

Here are a few that I have recently made and sold in my 

Booth#555 at the Peddlers Mall.

 Look close, I used a Blue Willow tea cup as a birds nest and put a red speckled egg in it that I made here.

I wired it on with craft wire through the handle.

 As you see, I just lay them out and make a variety of types and sizes.

You really can't go wrong with this craft!

Here's a photo of a few of them in my 

Booth#555 at the Peddlers Mall.

These tobacco stick fences are $9.99 each in
my  Booth#555

Thanks to ya'll who've been buying them!!

Happy Crafting Ya'll!

PRIMITIVE Style WOODEN SPOONS

PRIMITIVE WOODEN SPOONS

I am in love with making primitive themed wooden spoons!

 And this here is about my fourth batch of them so far. I'm addicted! lol. They have been really steady sellers at my Booth #555 at the Morehead Peddlers Mall. 

I've been bundling them in groups of 3 and pricing them for only $2.95. 

I do have more detailed ones that I've turned into magnets for sale as well, for $1.99 each.

I start out with the plain ole' wooden ones you find at WalMart for a pack of 4 for $ .88.

I lay them out on some chicken wire (best ever thing to spray paint on!) with the sides bent just enough to keep the spoons off the ground. Spray them a base color of whatever I have on hand. I like black, dark red and yellow as base colors.

Then after spraying both sides, I let them dry a few good hours. Then I bring them all in and do another color with craft paint. Whichever color you want. 

As you see from my finished pics, I make a wide variety of primitive colors. And the reason I spray paint a first, base coat, is so that when I do my finish sanding, the base color kind of seeps through and makes them appear a bit older. Kind of rugged looking or aged.

And another thing. To give it a sealed, finished look, I always like to take some Satin Varnish from the craft paint section and give each spoon a quick coat.

And here's some more I've just finished up today. 

These say various kitchen words like, coffee, sugar, flour ect.

And some black and off white ones with the theme of eggs, checkerboard and stars:

And some reddish brown colored ones that say Old Crow and have the star and checkerboard on them.

And some more various colored ones in cinnamon, yellow and colonial green:

Those old crow hang tags are some I also made by using a simple stencil purchased from eBay.

I hope I've given you a crafting bug for those plain old wooden spoons you probably have already laying around! I have to go get some more done, because I am restocking my shelves tomorrow at the Morehead Peddlers Mall. And also putting some in my eBay shop at

CraftBooth555.

And if you'd like to see more, here's the link to my other Primitive "Kitchen" Themed Wooden Spoons

And here's my holiday themed wooden spoons in Snowmen

 

and Ghosts:

 

Happy Crafting Ya'll!

And see ya next time!

~Lisa

Americana Primitive Kerosene Heater

I first started with a very old & rusty kerosene heater. It's pretty rough and needed a major makeover before I wanted to display it in my Booth #555 at the Peddlers Mall. Here it is on the day I bought it at a yard sale for only $10.00.

But if I was gonna keep it for myself, a quick clean up and some lights would be all it would need, lol. So to get it ready for sale, here's what I done.


I first tried to make it a more primitive themed by adding some reds,whites and blues. But I got sidetracked and forgot to paint the top part white...... UGH! But I'll get back to that.....

And then, Still not realizing I hadn't painted the white part, I went on to add some stenciled stars......

And it was finally then, when I stood back and looked at it, I realized I had somehow skipped painting the white part..... WEW! That is way too much BLUE! And so I set back off to do so, painting over the blue.... ugh! Sometimes, I think I've smelled too much craft paint. lol.

And so here's a pic after the first coat of off white (FINALLY) to the top. lol. A long time coming...

Okay, I was happy that it's finally starting to come together.... And that I got some white on there. Oh, I really mixed some off white with some brown I had to kind of make an antiquey older white. I just tend to say white when I'm writing. Same goes with the blues and reds. They are really a navy and a colonial red.

And now for the more detailed painting with the smaller brush and stencils. I thought since it's a red white and blue theme with stars, that adding 1776 to it would kind of add a cute touch. So here's what I came up with.

I decided to add a weeping willow tree to the front. And if you look close, you can see some sheep grazing under it. I just free handed these, but if you don't feel comfortable doing so, I'm sure there are plenty of stencils available on eBay.

And here's another shot of it all lit up. Oh, let me tell you how I made it electric... SUPER EASY! I just looked out in my garage for a holiday prop, like the plastic pumpkins or plastic santas, until I found a pumpkin that had the plug in type. It was just a basic light bulb on the end of a cord. And it had little clips on it. It slid right out of the pumpkin with a pinch! And I just inserted it into this heater by opening up the top. That's it. The cord comes out the side like this:

And here it is all lite up:

To get the better looking finish, I applied one coat of all purpose sealer, found in the craft section of paints. One coat was plenty for me. And it gave it the better, medium gloss finish. I like it way better than the flat. And that's it.

Here's the before and after pics one more time:

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Primitive Wooden Spoons

A country must in my prim themed kitchen is old time colored prim wooden spoons.

Instead of going out and buying some pre-made, I thought I'd try to make'em. After all I had plenty of plain wooden spoons laying around after making the Snowmen Wooden Spoons.

Here's a pic of a few of my finished prim spoons:

If you notice, I try to stay with old timey colors such as reds, greens, grays and blacks. I just like them better. I wanted to throw in a mustard colored one, but have ran out of that color.

If you want to make these, here's how I did it. I started with some plain wooden spoons from Walmart. I choose the cheap pack of like 6 or 8 for $1.50. Can't remember exactly, but it was cheap. They looked like this:

This is my favorite crock. And here is where I store my plain spoons. I just love it!

First off, I took them outside and lightly spray painted them, both sides, black in the Rustoleum brand.

 I also tried to hand paint a few, to see which ones I liked better, with flat black craft paint:

The color was nice and strong, but it took forever doing so by hand. Keep in mind, I bought about 10 packages of these spoons to make, so that I could also sell some in my Peddlers Mall Booth. So I'm sticking with the spray painting!

Then I brought them inside and grubbied them up an extra bit while adding some color at the same time, like so:

by mixing the preferred color (at this time it was actually another flat black but I had a pic of the burnt umber) I mix them about 50/50 and apply kinda sparse. You don't wanna fully cover up your first coat of spray paint. You want to let it kinda show through. (I wish I'd snapped a pic of another color spoon below other than black to show what I'm talking about, but I'm sure you get the idea.) You just wanna kinda give it a paint on paint look. Not just one solid color.

Then I take some heavy grit sand paper and scuff up all the sides and inner rims, and down the handle a bit like so:

And then I went back and added a piece of jute string to some of the handles. Just to make a lil more country look.

I've been mixing the colors and selling them as a 

set of 4 for 

$4.95 in my Peddlers Mall Booth. 

I'm also planning to add these to my Etsy shop soon.

They'd be great as a display in an old mason jar in your kitchen. I may be making some Christmas ornaments out of these in an upcoming post. So I better get going and start drilling some hanging holes. Don't forget to check back soon to see them!

And you can check out current items in my booth by visiting facebook, Booth #555

 

Here's some mixed in with my Snowman spoons too.

Happy Crafting!