I think gold leafing is one of those crafts that you just can’t “dabble” in. It starts out as a neat idea for a project and turns into a full on obsession. In my first gold leafing experience, I added a little gold to a small thrifted wooden bowl. Because why not?

Supplies: gold leaf starter kit, wooden bowl (or anything, I guess), sponge paint brush, washi/painters tape.

First, use your tape to mark off the section you want to gold leaf. Add a little of the basecoat (I accidentally skipped this part! Whoops). After the basecoat dries, brush on a layer of adhesive. The kit I used recommended to wait about twenty five minutes for the adhesive to dry. Unfortunately, the sun was going down, so sorry about all the funky differences in these photos!

Adding the gold leaf is so fun. All you have to do is place the gold sheet on onto the adhesive-covered surface and brush it with the spongey brush. I love how it becomes so smooth and polished. It’s an interesting concept.

A little while later, I added the liquid sealer. The kit also came with an antique glaze, which I decided not to use. I’m sure it would add an interesting effect though.

The last step is probably to fill your wooden bowl with pretty things.

And there ya go! I can’t wait to gold leaf so many more things… Have you gold leafed before? If so, what did you gold leaf? I would love to hear some new ideas. :)

Good morning! Today I want to share a project that I did a while back. I had seen a couple of really good tutorials on gold animal necklaces (this one’s my fave) and I thought it would be fun to use gold, as well as other paints on my little animals. This is by no means an original diy project, and quite honestly, mine ended up being a bit of a diy fail. But that’s how you’ve gotta learn, I guess. :)

Here’s the process:

First get your supplies together: spray paint, gold chain(z), small screw eyes, necklace clasps, jump rings,m small toy animals (mine were from Michael’s and Joann), a ruler or measuring tape, and jewelry tools! I just bought a cheap kit from the craft store.

Measure out your chain and cut it with your wire cutters. Then attach the jump rings and clasps with your jewelry tweezer. I wish that I could elaborate on this part more, but I got some help from my jewelry-savvy friend, Devin (pictured below).

Next, drill a hole in the top of each toy animal and screw in the screw eyes. You can also do this after painting, because you might want to keep the screw eye gold.

After that, give your animals a few coats of spray paint, allowing them to try between each coat. Okay, this is where I had trouble. I absolutely love how the gold looked. However, it never dried. Ever. It was (and still is) super sticky. The other colors were fine, but the gold…man! I hear there is a wonderful line of Krylon spray paint that bonds to plastic really well. My point is, research your spray paint before buying it. :)

I love how the gold bunny turned out! I just need to repaint it with a less sticky gold.

Enjoy your new necklace!

All I really want is to have a wall of all different kinds of dream catchers. I think it would be so pretty! Slowly but surely, I am making this happen. For the second dreamcatcher I made, I decided to focus on a crafty vintage theme. :)

After gathering my supplies, I cute the fabric into long strips, about one inch wide. Then I wrapped the metal hoop with some of the fabric strips, securing it with hot glue.

If you’re unfamiliar with the basic dreamcatcher pattern, this is a wonderful tutorial. This time, I used embroidery thread instead of crochet thread.

As you can see I ended up with all of these knots and flaws. So! I just covered them with feathers and buttons, using hot glue and more embroidery thread (whatever worked best to secure them).

To complete the dreamcatcher, I tied on the different fabric strips using a slipknot method. Suuuuper simple!

Can’t wait to make more, really soon! Is it okay if my blog is all dreamcatcher DIYs and nothing else? Ha… just kidding. Kinda.

I’m the worst when it comes to having self control at a craft store. For some reason, I bought all of these wooden spools last year. I think they were for necklaces, but I seriously can’t even remember. Anyway, I made a spool necklace the other day! It took me probably five minutes. I’ve seen a few similar tutorials floating around the internet. I just did whatever was easiest for me.

For your spool necklace, you’ll need a wooden spool, embroidery thread, a necklace chain with a clasp, and a possibly a needle to weave in the ends of the thread.

Just tie a piece of thread onto the spool and wrap it around. Add as many colors as you’d like! Then loop it onto your necklace chain. It’s a fun project if you hoard embroidery thread like I do.

Enjoy! :)

Happy Tuesday! Here’s a little dreamcatcher DIY for those of you feeling crafty. I have been making dreamcatchers and not finishing them for way too long, but I finally finished one yesterday! Hooray! Here is what my process looked like:

First, gather the necessary supplies. You can choose many things to embellish your dreamcatchers with. I decided to stick with the basic beads and feathers.

Tie your yarn onto the hoop, leaving a little extra on the end (to hang it up with). Tightly wrap the yarn around the hoop. When you get to the end, tie a knot onto the extra yarn you left in the beginning.

This is the fun part! To create the netted part of the dream catcher, I used the crochet thread and looked at this tutorial. It’s easy and super relaxing. Feel free to add beads here and there. Or feathers. Or…anything, really.

Next, tie some pieces of crochet thread onto the bottom half of the hoop and embellish away! I strung the beads onto the string, tied a bunch of knots so they wouldn’t fall off, and then stuck feathers through the beads.

And ta-da! I’m seriously about to make a wall of dreamcatchers. I think they are so pretty. :)