Dried Wedding Flower Ornament

Posted in diy, Holiday by peppermintsandhoneybees

Happy Holidays everyone! I have a really easy but special DIY for this Season. And of course they don’t have to be from a wedding bouquet but these are from my wedding which was last June.

I wanted to preserve a bit of my flowers but I don’t want them in a shadow box because I had hydrangeas and things with tiny parts that would just fall apart anyway.

I don’t know how many years they will keep but they should last at least a few years.

All you need is some clear glass ornaments and dried petals and leaves. Be careful when placing everything in the ornaments because they are very thin glass and you don’t want it to break and cut you. It’s that easy! If you don’t celebrate Christmas and/or have a tree they would look great handing from ribbon in a window or from a shelf also.

I added some of my wedding pictures also, since I realized I never shared them on here last summer.

Have an amazing holiday season!

22Oct2015

Terrarium Lamp

Posted in diy, home by peppermintsandhoneybees

I’ve been eyeing this old lamp at a local used furniture store for over a year now, and after it was still there the last visit I decided to make what I had planned for it. Also I got it for $1 and full of rocks!!! I already had the moss and driftwood. I bought fake succulents from Hobby Lobby; 1 because how would I water them and 2 even if I could um…I don’t want to electrocute myself. I spray painted a couple brass parts that had lost their shine with Rust-o-leum Metallic in gold.

It was a little difficult to fill because it opens from the bottom and the bottom doesn’t detach completely since it’s attached to the wiring. I had to fill and kind of shake and roll it around to get things where I wanted but I’m pretty happy with how it turned out. The lamp shade is from Target. Show me what all you have made terrariums out of!

29Jul2015

Painted Shirt

Posted in clothing, diy by peppermintsandhoneybees

I used my Portland vacation for my photos. 😉 I’ll post the rest next.

I had an idea for a graphic shirt without screen printing. (although I’ve been wanting to try screen printing) I used a white tank top and used a plastic bag over cardboard to paint on. I used watered down craft paint, but only water it down slightly because it will run. This is also why you should keep your imagery simple. I love the way it turned out and what says Summer better than watermelon!

I should mention that I didn’t actually paint on the carpet, and I wouldn’t recommend it!

4Feb2015

DIY Kimono

Posted in clothing, diy by peppermintsandhoneybees

If you are somewhere where theses lots of snow like Chicago I hope you’re staying warm and safe! As seen in the pictures I made this the day before the snow hit and it has me dreaming of warmer weather to wear it out in.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve had my eye on the kimonos I see in stores, not so much for winter but as the perfect breezy coverup for summer. I am a lizard woman and even in the Summer I’m always cold, especially in air conditioning! I love kimonos but am not a fan of the prices I see So I found this handy tutorial by By Hand London which after searching seemed to be about the easiest to follow , but of course made a few changes to mine. Everyone’s will be different depending on your size or how big you want it but for mine I bought 5 feet of fabric. Now I wanted to use something with a little stretch or something light and breezy but I couldn’t find any I liked so for my first kimono I just used regular cotton cloth.

Start by folding your fabric in half with the back showing. I cut mine down a few inches so the sleeves wouldn’t be quite as long but of course it just depends on what you want. From there I took chalk and marked where to cut the sleeves. When I was ready I folded the fabric again to cut both sleeves at the same time.

Sorry about the bad pictures but my craft room is pretty dark and I tend to do most of my stuff at night, which in the Winter starts about noon. So these are the measurements I used for mine. After you pin the sides and bottom of sleeves, sew them up and zigzag the ends so they don’t fray. Roll the ends of the sleeves twice so they are about 1 cm. and sew.

Measure the middle and mark 8 cm on each side for the neck hole. find the middle at the bottom and mark up to the neck marks at the top. remember to only cut the top layer for this cut. Sew just like the sleeves and there ya go! I added pom pom ribbon to the bottom of mine but this is optional. Fringe would also look awesome! It’s a little too cold for it now but I have a feeling I’ll be wearing it a lot this Spring and Summer! I’ll probably be making more. 😉

28Jan2015

My New Cross Stitch Phone Case

Posted in craft, diy by peppermintsandhoneybees

So I’m kinda bad at finishing things I started sometimes, or things I haven’t started in this case! I bought this phone case from Rue 21 about a year ago because I knew I could do a cool DIY with it, also it was only about $1 on sale. It came with some patterns but I made up my own and really like the way it came out! I was able to find some of these cross stitch template cases on Amazon made by Coats and Clark if you are interested. I was only able to find some for 5 and 4 and no other brand of phone but you might be able to find some if you search. If you make one send me a picture so I can see!

19Jan2015

Valentine’s Day Garland

Posted in craft, diy, Holiday, home by peppermintsandhoneybees

Hola peeps! I took a bit of a hiatus from blogging, not really on purpose but more because I was too busy to start/work on new projects and before I knew it January was half over! I am totally scared by the way time works and wish things would slow down just a bit. Now its that time of year that I just want to bypass to warmer days but I’m trying to enjoy the here and now and find the good, even in this frozen wasteland, because one day I’ll look back and miss these times!

I’ve never really decorated too much for Valentines day but since I have a craft blog now I figured I’d see what I could come up with, and love the results. I’m really starting to get in that heart everything spirit now and even though I don’t do frilly decorations (unless they’re vintage of course!) I made some simple nature inspired pieces. The arrows are inspired by similar ones I found on Pinterest. I used sticks for mine though and used paint and marker for the feathers. the heart tips are cardstock. I also made some of the feathers into earrings for my Etsy shop Peppermint Emporium. The garland is straight from my noggin and is just sticks, coffee filters dyed with watered down craft paint and twine. grab your glue gun and there ya go! Ben buys the unbleached coffee filters so I was a little disappointed that they weren’t white, but afterward I decided I liked the brown color better, it lends itself to the natural rustic vibe I was going for.

27Dec2014

Holiday Gifts

Posted in craft, diy, Holiday by peppermintsandhoneybees

Hello, I hope you had a Merry Christmas and are resting up with family and friends! I know Christmas is over, but I couldn’t post any of the stuff I made as gifts until I gave them out, but you could still make them for yourself or birthdays, or just wait till next year. So here we have wood burned bamboo spoons, hand stamped cork coasters, and yes, those are the marble clay dishes from A Beautiful Mess!

20Dec2014

Bleaching and Dyeing Bottle Brush Trees

Posted in diy, Holiday by peppermintsandhoneybees

I’ve been seeing lots of bottle brush trees all over Pinterest this Christmas season and love all of the different colors. I love the vintage-looking scenes that can be set up with bottle brush trees and I’ve always preferred to decorate with pastels and bright colors instead of the usual red and green themes. I had some bottle brush trees left over from the snow globes I made last year and also bough a bag of small bleached trees from Michaels.

I bleached the trees I had that were green with the intention of dyeing them after I was done but was pleasantly surprised when the trees I had from last year turned light pink before bleaching completely and the one green tree I had bought this year turned a light mint bluish-green. Since this was the colors I wanted to dye them I left them this color and then fully bleached a few.

I used my hurricane glass vase to bleach because I wanted something that was tall and narrow to stick the trees is, normally I wouldn’t use my good glass but ya know, use what you have! I used 1/3 bleach to 2/3 water in the glass and used tongs to dip them in. It really didn’t take long for them to start bleaching and I swished them around in the bleach water to help with the tongs, just wear rubber gloves and be careful. After I bleached the trees I soaked them in soapy water to get the bleach off.

Most of the tutorials I read said to use Rit dye to dye, or food coloring or cool-aid would also probably work, but I used this spray on dye by SEI Tumble Dye that I already had. I love this because it is already made and you can just spray it on, it’s perfect for small dye jobs and comes it tons of colors. You can find it at craft stores or online at www.shopsei.com.

I also touched up the happy accident trees a bit with the spray dye and mixed a bit with water in a spray bottle to get different shades. On the biggest tree I sprayed a couple different colors for an airbrushed ombre effect. That was another reason I used the spray, for the ombre effect, but if you’re going for one solid color, I’d recommend the dip dye method.

I love how they turned out, and I also sprayed a bottle brush wreath I found at Joanne Fabric! Show me yours on Instagram with the hashtag #peppermintsandhoneybees.

Happy Holidays!

13Dec2014

DIY Snow Globes

Posted in diy, Holiday by peppermintsandhoneybees

Hello, I’ve been busy trying to get all of my Christmas shopping done and make the presents that I am hand-making. This was actually something I made last Christmas as presents for everyone and silly me I didn’t take any pictures of all of them before I gifted them, probably because I didn’t have a blog yet, but I do have one left. I kept this little guy for myself to put out.

I had looked at quite a few different blogs to see how they made theirs and after reading about how the ones containing water and glycerin had made the green of the bottle brush trees bleed after a year, I decided to go without liquid. I was worried it wouldn’t look as cool but I was pretty happy with how they turned out, as I was going for more of a terrarium scene than actual snow globe I guess. Plus I didn’t have to buy glycerine!

I used:

Old glass jars with lids
Bottle brush trees
Tiny winter animals, cars, people, houses, ect.
fake snow (mine is from Michaels where the miniature Christmas village houses and stuff is)
glass beads to glue on tree for ornaments (optional)
I used bakers string for the jar, you could also use ribbon or nothing at all
Spray-paint (again optional) I spray-painted all of my jar lids silver because they were from food jars
Glue, I used my trusty E-6000 but hot glue would also work

I glued the tree and animal to the inside of the lid and put the desired amount of snow in the jar. I then screwed the lid on after everything was dry and voila, It’s that easy! I’d love to see what yours look like so put them on Instagram and hashtag them #peppermintsandhoneybees.

7Dec2014

My Weekend

Posted in Holiday, Jewelry, Products by peppermintsandhoneybees

Hello, I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving! I know it’s been a while since I posted but it was because I’ve been getting ready for a jewelry show I did yesterday and trying to get my Christmas shopping and making done. I was at the Holiday Market for an elementary school in my area and it was a great fist show to do. So hopefully now I can start doing more! I have some fun Christmas DIY’s planned for the next few weeks so for now here’s a picture of my table at the market. Have a great weekend!