String my Heart Along..

The month of December is the month of Love at the Function. So we wanted to make a nice centerpiece depicting the word love. This is what we came up with(:
Materials I used:

• Foam Display Board 
• Wrapping Paper (of your choice)Fabric is an alternative  
• Pins (make sure it has a top the won't go through the board) 
• Spray Adhesive Glue 
• Hot Glue Gun 
• Yarn (two colors) 
• Duals (for back support) 

So first I drew out exactly how I wanted it to look. I wasn't worried about making it super perfect because this part will later get covered up. Keep fixing it up until you're satisfied(:

We bought 4 packages of pins from Target ($3.19) so 400 pins, but we ended up having to go buy more. This project used up about 450 pins! When you put the needles in make sure it goes all the way through the board. Also make sure that there is a pin on every single corner of every letter to really define the shape of the letter.

After I finished putting all the pins inside, I made sure that they all went through to the other side of the board. Then I removed all the pins. Next I used decorative wrapping paper to cover the front (side I drew on). I sprayed glue adhesive (which works wonders, by the way, applied the paper, and smoothed out any air bubbles. Then I turned the board over and glued the edges to the back side. Now from the backside, I put each pin back into the preexisting holes. After you complete this step lift up the entire thing and push the needles all the way through. I taped the pins down on the backside for extra security, and so they wouldn't be popping out.

This step was definitely the most difficult. Wrap the yarn the needles, no particular order, just go crazy. Make sure to go between the letters not through them! We put the pins in from behind so the sharp edge was on the outside. Since we used a foam board the needles easily bended towards where the yarn was pulling. This was a problem because the yarn would constantly slip off the needle. So to fix the problem we put a blob of hot glue on each tip of every needle, yes it was time consuming, but it created much better results in the end.

The last step is to choose yarn of a different color and fill in the letters of "love." Make sure to zigzag it like crazy, also we went back and outlined the letters on the outside of the pins so it would be easier to read.

So this is the Finished Product! Tada!

On the backside I horizontally hot-glued wooden duals over the area where the display board folds, to prevent it from folding. Then I propped up larger duals under the smaller duals to make the entire thing stand.

Thanksgiving Grams!

For thanksgiving, my church decided to do something special. Many times we take for granted the special people in our lives, so we came up with a special idea to thank those significant people. Message in the bottle thanksgiving grams! We had people order them in advance (we got around 50 orders) so we knew how much work we were getting ourselves into. We sold them $7 a piece, which is pretty good deal for a handmade, one of a kind gift.
The materials we used:

• Glass Bottles (any kind will work)
• Dish Soap
• Metal Sponge (suggested)
• Spray Paint
• Burlap
• Lace
• Twine
• Hot Glue Gun
• Old Book
• Corks
• Card-stock (for the Letters)
• Gift Tags
• Mod Podge
• Double-Sided Tape
• Scissors
• Spray Adhesive (glue)

It looks like a long list buts it's for three different types of bottle designs so not all materials are necessary.

First of all I'd like to say that I don't support drinking, but most of these bottles are beer bottles sadly. A shout out to Alex for collecting them and bringing them to my house :) thank you!

Washing these guys was a drag!! But we did it. We put lots of dish soap mixed with boiling water and let them sit in there for about 10-15 minutes, and the labels came right off. I should have done it in my bathtub, since I could only fit about 10 at a time in my sink.

Nothing more beautiful than a bunch of clean bottles! Ready for spray paint :)

So while we were waiting for the bottles to soak we did some prep work, using twine we made some decorative flowers. It took about 15 minutes per flower. The picture looks a bit blurry sadly, but basically we twirled the twine around itself to create the center, then hot glued the back. then twisted the twine into petals, also hot gluing it to the back. Five petal flowers seemed to work out best for me, but I went back and added a second layer.

One challenge we faced was a perfect paint job. The ones that didn't turn out so get we ended up covering them completely in twine. We should have found a better way to paint them, we probably needed to get a primer or something, because the paint easily scatched of in some instances. We had to get a little creative with the spray paint, we didn't want to miss any spots. We did two layers of paint. Spray painting is definitely not a strength for me, but I think they turned out all right in the end.

Another prep work we did was cutting out the different silhouettes, first I traced them on regular printer paper right from my computer screen.

Then I found an old book that I knew I would never read again (I got through to the 3rd chapter before I fell asleep from boredom, and never picked it up again) and I ripped out a page that was mostly full of writing. I skimmed the page to make sure it didn't say anything creepy or nasty. Then I aligned to the traced picture and cut it out.

So this is what it looked like after I finished cutting them out. The tree took forever with all those little holes to cut out.

The ones that took the most time are completely wrapped in twine (approx. 2-3 hours until completion)

Place the cut-out onto the bottle as your heart desires and apply the Mod Podge directly onto the cut-out and over the edge. Spread it out evenly and make sure its a nice thin layer. Then just leave to dry. By far the easiest step :) Then it's finished!

We came up with varying designs on the spot. Whenever we used burlap we sprayed the adhesive glue thing, and it worked wonders, I think it's like the best glue I have ever used.

So we were pretty much winging it with every bottle, trying to make them all look different and unique. Use your crafty creativeness (: I hope our bottles help your creative juices flow.

So this was the finished product, with a nice tag and cork.

This is the stage of our church. Before selling themwe used them as a decoraion for the stage. We still haven't put the tag and cork at this point, because we were going to attach them to the messages, and not everyone had them written yet. we did that after the service. This project took about 45 hours for labor(: have fun!