Paper Mâché Reindeer

I found a paper mâché reindeer at the craft store really cheap and even tho I had no idea what I'd do with it, I knew it'd be something. Too cute to pass up. I've been seeing deer antler art a lot lately, and that led to my thinking the paper mâché deer with fake flowers would be cute hanging on our front door.

Because it's paper and not sealed and our door gets a lot of sun, wind, occasional rain, I painted the face with a light creamy-colored craft paint just to help seal it. Then I wrapped the antlers using thick twine, just adding a drop of hot glue here and there to hold in place.

I tried a couple different types of twine before
deciding to go with the one on the right

For the flowers I found a bouquet of white flowers that looked wintery to me, what I really like is that the bouquet is already tied together so I didn't have to come up with how to attach individual flowers to the head. I just trimmed the stems down so they are flush with the back of the deer head, and held them in place on the deer with more twine tied around the hanger that came on the back of the deer. I'm not permanently attaching the bouquet so I can change it out with the seasons as I see fit (I already bought a pink bouquet on sale the other day at the craft store - look at me planning ahead for Valentine's day!).

For Christmas I hung it on top of a tinsel wreath with a big silver bow and put a couple pieces of fake pine garland around the antlers - wouldn't ya know it, we had a wind storm and the whole thing fell down and one of the antlers broke. Sigh. I performed surgery (removed the twine, hot glued back together, reinforced with masking tape, then re-wrapped the twine) and it's good as new. Better. Stronger. 6 million dollar man-like reindeer....or was that the Bionic Woman? Whatev. I fixed it.

Note that has nothing to do with how to make this project: Dave naturally rolled his eyes when I showed him our new front door-flower-decorated reindeer and asked why "the buck" was wearing a flower crown. I pointed out that it is, in fact, a female reindeer and did he know that female reindeers grow antlers? Hope you're sitting down and ready for this - because if you know Dave you know this is a shocker - he doubted me. Mumbled something about only males having antlers. And then I got to PROVE HIM WRONG by googling the fact that female reindeers do indeed grow antlers! Oh man that felt good.

One more reindeer fact because I'm on a roll - male reindeer shed their antlers in the fall and females in the spring. Which means Santa's reindeer are probably girls because the males don't have antlers in the winter!!! Mind blown, right? 😁

1.4.18: cookie sheet hack
1.4.17: grilled turkey ruebens
1.4.16: scrabble tile keychain

Updated Side Table

before...

I have this little table in my office that is too modern for the space - I was in a 'that's gotta go' mood but then thought maybe it just needed a fresh look. It started with the frosted glass top that was a weird off white greenish color - I happen to have a fresh roll of that woodgrain contact paper (are you sick of seeing that stuff by now? So far I've made Sarge's 'doghouse' and covered the chair backs at our new game table with it) so I simply cut out a big circle and stuck it to the top. Much better. It was still pretty modern looking tho with the metal legs so I got some thick twine for $3 at the hardware store and started wrapping. I didn't glue anything and the contact paper can easily be removed so I haven't permanently changed the table if I ever want to change it again. Easy fix and it looks so good now in my little space!

...and after

one year ago: eggs and avocado toast
two years ago: citrus scented lamb stew

Shamrock Garland

Brooke must have been busy this week, I didn't get any of her awesome kid craft videos to share with you today...so instead I've decided to channel her and come up with my own craft that I think she'll approve of - naturally by asking myself "what would Brooke do?" I had to use the hot glue gun! And yep I burned my thumb - she seems to be better at being careful than I am!

I had a left over package of foam shamrocks from making the wreath the other day (see here for that project) and some twine, and of course the hot glue and thought a quick garland to hang from a door would be cute.

That is literally all I did, glued shamrocks back to back (making sure the stems matched up) every few inches on a long piece of twine. Stuck up one of those little Command removable hook things to the top of the door and looped the top of the garland string around it.

Paper Christmas Lights Garland

Shout out to my friend LeDonna for this cute idea - she saw it and sent a picture to me, and I agree with her that it's a fun easy Christmas craft for young and old alike :). Thanks L!

Because I'm a little bit of a perfectionist I didn't want to just wing it if there was someone who had actually figured out exactly how to make these somewhere online, so of course I googled and found a few different ones. I followed these directions and they worked perfectly.

Supplies are few:
- cardstock in a few different colors for the lights, and gray for the tops
- hole punch
-ruler and scorer (scoring isn't necessary but it did make the tops fold easily and look neat)
-glue stick or adhesive of your choice (I used my Stampin' Up rolling glue thingy)
- thick twine to string the lights on, I used about 48"

Directions:
Cut gray cardstock into 1 1/4"x  4" strips
Cut colored cardstock into 1" x 8 1/2" strips
(note I made 15 lights, so I cut 15 gray strips and 15 assorted colors strips).

Score the gray cardstock every 1/2". You could also just fold it neatly every 1/2" and run your fingernail along the edge to give it a sharp crease if you don't have a scorer. 

Make a dot at 1 1/4" and 2 3/4" in (that turns out to be in the middle of the 3rd space and the 6th space, see my picture - I stopped making a dot after the first couple and just eyeballed it). Hole punch on the marks. Fold the paper on the score lines, glue both ends 1/2" flap to each other making a circle.

To make the bulb: fold a colored strip in half. Pinch the two ends together and push on your palm or table to get a slight bend in the sides of the bulb. Holding the ends together hole punch thru both layers about 1/4" down in the center.

To string them into garland, put the top of a colored strip into a gray circle matching up the holes. Run twine thru all 4 holes. Then continuing adding the lights until you have it as long as you want, making sure to line up the bulbs with the glued gray part all facing the same way. Spread them evenly on the twine.

One thing I did I have a second of trouble with is the twine fraying and becoming hard to fit thru the holes - I wrapped a small piece of tape around the end and that solved the problem.