PRIMITIVE SNOWMEN JINGLE BELLS | Various Styles Over the Years

It's that time of year again! The time that I really start to begin painting more Christmas decorations for my Booth#555 at the Peddlers Mall. I got the Christmas spirit in September, lol.

And today I am starting on a new batch of Snowmen Jingle Bells. I got inspiration for these from the Oriental Trading Catalog. Theirs sale for $16.00 per dozen.

To buy them at $16.00 per dozen to resell wasn't really leaving me any room for profit in my craft booth. So I decided to find the plain jingle bells, same size and paint them. I found a package of 6 at the Dollar General Store for a $1.50. And then after the Christmas sale, I bought all the rest of them for half off! Totally amazing deal! So here's what I have started with:

I seriously buy every box of these I find, especially at the after Christmas sales! I will get around to using them, believe me!

I've came a long way through the years with these. I started making them back in November of 2010. You simply paint a base coat. I hang the hangers on a strip of wire and spray paint a bunch at once. And then just sit and paint on the snowmen in sections. Bodies, heads, arms, clothes, then snowflakes, etc. I do them in sections like that to not have to be changing my paint color much. And a hint is to lay them in egg carton tops, lined with paper towels, to help keep from rolling around. Here's what my first batch ever, looked like:

2010 Batch of Bells

$1.59 each

 

2011 Batch of Bells

Sold for $1.00 each to move faster, it seemed

 

2012 Batch of Bells 

Raised back to $1.59 each since I finished them in wax & began to package them.

These I experimented with dipping them in hot, butter colored wax, after painting. It made a great finish. 

Can't really see it in the pics, but looks pretty good. And the middle one is an old, black crow wearing a santa hat. 

 

Being as I did the extra wax dipping, is why I raised these back to $1.59 each.

2013 Batch of Bells

PHOTO COMING SOON!

Keep in mind, these are great crafts to make and sell. Especially if you find them in boxes of 6 marked down to half price to only $.75cents. That makes you only have like 12cents each in them. Sometimes even less if the sale is bigger. Then just your time to paint with paint you already have, probably. 

They are steady sellers for my craft booth. And with changing the theme a little each year, it makes a great item for people to look for. Sometimes I even put the date on the back of them. When I remember to, that is.

Hope this gives you some ideas to do with those plain ole' jingle bells!

Happy Crafting ya'll,

-Lisa

Primitive Wood Shelf | FAITH FAMILY FRIENDS

I made this simple little wall hanging shelf outta some leftover pieces of pine boards.

They were used earlier by me, to make a concrete cross.

So after I took the frame back out, I knew I could use them for something else as well.

I just started arranging them in no particular order, just trying to piece together something that would look cute. And then after a few here and there mis-licks, I came up with this cute little shelf looking thing. lol.

It looked kinda country, so I decided to just nail it together with some headless nails and add two saw-toothed hangers on the back.

You can see that at the bottom, one of my nails tried to breath through. Oh well, I just left it that way. It was easier than trying to take a headless nail back out. lol.

Then I added some black, crafting, apple barrel paint for the base color. And then used some flat, plastic wording stencils for the "FAITH FAMILY and FRIENDS" saying. I applied it with a makeup sponge.

And here it is, all finished and from scraps of wood:

I think it's okay for a fast project out of scrap wood, don't you?

OLD WINDOW MAKEOVER for Laundry Room

Since making my last Old Window Makeover post, I've been inspired to try something new. And this time it is a vintage window with the glass left intact. I am turning it into a decoration piece saying, "General Store," to hang in my laundry room.

Here's how it went.

I started out with a plain, old wooden window. I left the glass in it this time. The only "work" I done on the window frame itself, was to add a sawtooth hanger to the back.

Here it is before:

The other side had less peeling paint, so I made it the front.

After making up my mind that I wanted to put "General Store" on it, I printed out the words using Microsoft Word. I kept playing with it until I got the size right. I then taped the printed out papers underneath the window and outlined the words "General Store," with a black permanent marker. This helped me tremendously to get the wording kinda centered.

Then I just peeled off the tape, and colored the rest of the words in with the same black, permanent marker. So easy!

It was very simple. The permanent marker dried really quick. The only aggravating part was that you have to make small markings to fill in all the words really good.

But other than that, SUPER EASY!

Oh, and then I took a plastic, red and white checkered place mat and put it on the backside of the window with some clear packaging tape. Just a few pieces, one on each edge. This way it made the words really stand out. And since my kitchen area and laundry room are joined, the red and white checkered matches my kitchen!

And here it is again, all finished, from a little farther back.

That is all directly above my washer and dryer. I think it looks really cute. And I added the old crock and red handled rolling pin to try and tie it in with the kitchen decorations.

And there you have it, an old kitchen window makeover for my laundry room. Hope you find some old windows here or there to re-do. I got this window, along with 4 others, for only $2 each at a yardsale a while back.

To see what I done with the other 4 windows I had, click here.