a beautiful mess....

i blame lorraine, she gave us all the sweetest tiny pink bottle brush tree to use in our paper mache class with terri brush this past weekend at her lovely home. i tucked mine in with a wee santa and then i had none :(

i came home saturday night to a quiet house and promptly made a beautiful mess...
got out every bottle brush tree i had and bleached and dyed them all. next morning i had blue fingers, a pink countertop, and all these pretty trees!
i dont' know if i can stop....

can't wait to post photos of everything we made.

artful thursdays #29 spun cotton snowman winter shadowbox tutorial

this little spun cotton snowman just stole my heart away! i couldn't even wait till after halloween to make this little scene... i used lots of little pieces from my holly jolly decorating kit to make this winter shadow box, just listed today in my etsy shop.

i first saw these boxes by tim holtz decorated for a birthday treasury swap my friend amy at inspire co hosted.
i just took one of them to decorate my little winter scene.

step 1 paint the inside two side walls and ceiling of box with acrylic paint
step 2 cut paper scraps to fit the back and bottom of the box. glue in with a glue stick.


step 3. cut squares of paper to glue to the top, sides and outside back of the box.
i think it helps to put the glue right on the box and smooth the paper over it, trimming the ends off if necessary.


step 4. glue 4 round beads to the bottom of the box using a generous amount of tacky glue. let the glue dry a while before turning your box over.


step 5. for the top half-medallion decoration cut a paper circle to reinforce the foil garland. fold it in half and glue together. gut a piece of foil garland and glue it in a fan shape over the paper circle. glue in place the holly leaves, tinsel nest and glass garland bead.



step 6. dig through your pretty trims and cut 3 pieces to go around the two sides and bottom glue in place.


step 7. now glue in place your foil half medallion. you may need to support it in place for a few moments until it dries.


step 8. make a tiny winter flag with a piece of book paper glued around a paper wrapped wire and topped with a little pearl.


step 9. remove the chenille stem from your snowman and glue inside your winter box.
right next to the winter flag. spread a bit of glue around the bottom and shake some mica flakes inside to coat.



step 10. make a mini bottle brush tree by cutting a piece of bottle brush wreath and trimming with scissors to a tree shape. add a bit of 'snow' to the top cut branches with some white paint. add a few mica flakes to the tree and glue in place.
shake out the excess.


and you are done!
happy winter wishes, julie