NEW BATCH OF DIY NIGHTLIGHTS with SILICONE DIPPED BULBS

It's time for me to gear up and do another batch of the little night lights with silicone dipped bulbs! 

I'm trying to catch up on these little cuties to stock up the two new booths at the co-op in a neighboring town.  

Here's a link to some I made in a different, grungy, primitive style a while back.

And so here is how I'm doing this new batch.

First, start off by gathering your supplies. 

I get it all at the Dollar Mart except for the 100% silicone which is found at the Dollar General.

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-Night lights without the dimmer detection. Just the basic ones.

-Extra packs of bulbs to make replacement bulbs.

-A short cup, not too deep that you can't reach down to the bottom easily.

-Ground Cinnamon

-String and clothespins to hang bulbs to dry.

-100% tube of Silicone (I strongly recommend only getting the 100%!) & a caulking gun which squirts out the silicone.

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Okay, after all supplies are gathered, start by putting up your string and clothespins to have them ready. Thankfully I have a  year round clothesline just outside my kitchen. And I use that.

Then mix up your silicone mixture.  I use these little plastic disposable cups that come in large packs for a $1.  They are short enough and small enough to hold a good grip on.

 Squirt out about 3/4 of the cup full of the 100% silicone and stir in the other 1/4 with the ground cinnamon.

Then immediately stick in one bulb, straight down into the mixture, give it a twist as you are bringing it out and up and bam, that's it!

Don't worry if you can't get a cute tip on it, it does take a few good tries to get it down.

Then go hang them to dry.  Thankfully the silicone dries fast.  But I usually leave them hanging for about 4 or 5 hours to make sure it's cured, in the sun.

And later on that night I start painting the bases of the night lights in different colors. I usually prefer black, white or soft colors like buttercup yellow.  

I just think those are more of a prim color theme.

After painting them, I tie on a bit of homespun fabric 

and sometimes glue on accent pieces like metal stars.

I use E-6000 glue from Walmart. It's a strong, forever hold.

And that's it.  Stick the hand dipped silicone bulb in to finish them off and here we go.

A cute little primitive nightlight with hand dipped silicone bulbs.

And here is a night shot of it all lit up.
The cinnamon gives it a warm, soft glow.

$3.00 each

I'm not going to put these in baggies to sell.  I'm just going to tie a cute tag to them and sit them in a bowl, probably.

I'm still pricing these for $3.00 each and the packs of replacement bulbs are priced for  2 for $3.00.

These make for great craft fair and booth items to sell since they are so cute and affordable.  I hope ya'll give them a try!

Happy Crafting,
until next time!
~Lisa

AND If interested,
HERE IS THE LITTLE BATTERY OPERATED CANDLE BULBS I previously made:

Always make sure you use the correct wattage bulb for each of your night lights and candles when changing out bulbs! 

These nightlight bulbs are 4 WATS.

ROLLING PIN IDEAS

A few weeks ago, I had an idea after watching an "Everybody Loves Raymond," episode. If you haven't seen the show, over at Raymonds Moms' house, she has a rolling pin on the wall that holds mail.

So I went and bought a handful of rolling pins at the Dollar Mart for only $1.19 each, the wooden ones. And I tried my hand at making them. Well, turns out I'm not great at cutting the back off of the round rolling pins to make them flat against the wall. And the cuts to hold the mail.....well, they turned out awful. Take a look:

See how the lines came out all uneven? I had used a table saw for that and apparently it wasn't the right tool. lol.

And anyhow, I then came up with an idea to use some country homespun fabric and cover up my mess. That way I could try to salvage the wooden rolling pins. And here's what I decided on doing:

As you see in the photo above, I cut a piece of fabric to fit over the pin itself. Then I used a hot glue gun to glue it around the pin. I only glued the back of it. And it has held fine like that.

I also painted the handles in a flat back with some craft paint from Michaels. It just gave them a little bit more prim look.

And I took some craft wire and attached a metal star just to prim it up a bit more.

Lastly, I attached a sawtooth hanger on the back, which is the flat side, to make for easy hanging. I nailed in the small tacks that came with the kit. The kit was found at the Dollar Mart also, for only $1.19.

And that was pretty much it. After taking the pics, I decided to take some sand paper and rough up the handles a bit more. And they did look better after that. And that's all there was too it.

It was a craft fail that actually turned out salvageable. lol.

Happy Crafting Ya'll,

~Lisa

Old Window Makeover

Here's what I started with. I found 5 of these old windows at a yard sale for only $2 each.

  I knew I either wanted to make mirrors out of them or display racks like I've seen in a few craft blogs.

Well, I went with the display racks because I need some more display room in my Peddlers Mall booth.

 I very carefully knocked out the glass in two of them by putting the windows down inside of a big ole cardboard box. A very skinny one. The wicker table had came in it and it was perfect. I then hit on the sides of the box with a rubber hammer until all the glass was pretty much broken out. This way the glass didn't fly around and I didn't have a mess to clean up afterwards either.

 Next, I put some chicken wire on the backside of them both. I stapled it on with a big ole staple gun from Lowes. Then I stenciled on the "Primitive" saying at the top. On one of them I cut some fabric and added a little curtain to make it more country. The other I left plain. And that's the one I like best.

And here it is. I use those metal "S" hooks to hang items on these in my booth. They save me alot of space and look so cute for displaying about anything!

Small HOMESPUN CANDY CANES

These are great for the small primitive trees. And you can make these super fast with very little material. Always a plus!

I got the idea for these from the blog eyeballs by day, crafts by night. And immediately bookmarked it because I knew it was a cute Christmasy craft to do. And best of all, they will even look cute on your little prim trees all year, if you wish.

Here's how I made them:

I started with the tiny little wire ones, that had some type of bakers' twine wrapped around them on Etsy. I couldn't find the more plastic common ones this time of year. But you can bet that at the after Christmas sales, this year, I will hoard them all. lol.

See how small they are compared to a normal sized pen. Super cute!

All I did was put some hot glue at the small curved end, and began wrapping a strip of cute fabric around in a circle. About mid way down the side, I put another dab of hot glue to make sure the fabric held tight.

Then I just finished wrapping and added some hot glue at the end, cut it, and pinched the ends together to kinda seal it. Notice I left the little strings of fabric sticking out. I like that look for the old country themed trees.

Here's another pic to show the size.

These have already been a hit last week in my booth, and I'm gonna try to make some more over the weekend.

TIP: If you don't have these little candy canes, you could always just use some of those rolls of wire either from a craft or hardware store.

Just bend them in the shape, snap with wire cutters and cover! I did this when I ran out and it's gonna be a way cheaper process!

I might get enough of these made to throw a few in my Etsy shop.
Not sure yet because my local craft booth is running low.

Happy Crafting until next time ya'll,

~Lisa

DIY GRUBBY VOTIVES AND TEALIGHTS with Homespun

 

Today I turned these plain votives from Biglots:

into these cute grubby votives with homespun and buttons:

(sorry the pics aren't so great, I was in a hurry and had hot wax on everything! lol)

How I did so, coming soon. Right now I need to go clean up my mess lol.
Okay, so back now and everything is cleaned up.

If you want to make these, this is what I did.
(Please be extremely careful, this melted wax can scald your skin!)

1. First off, go buy you a box of cheap, plain votives at Big Lots. Case of 24 for around $6.00 there.
2. Melt you some old candles or wax, any colors, in a candle warmer and have it ready for use.
3. Mix a bottle of cinnamon and bottle of nutmeg in a tin foil pan. The cinnamon and nutmeg usually turn out brownish in the end. So you need not worry about the color wax you've melted to use.
4. Be sure to do all this with wax paper underneath!
5. Now you're ready for the messy part.... CAREFULLY dip some of the hot wax out in a dipper or whatever you can find to fit, and pour it into the mixture of cinnamon and nutmeg.
6. Wait about 45 seconds or so for it to thicken a bit, not much, just a bit, and then start rolling your plain votive around in it. Cakeing the wax onto the lil votive. Sometimes I use my hands, sometimes I use the old spoons you see in the pic. 
7. Just don't get burned!
8. You can repeat this process until your little grubby candle is just how you like it, more or less. In the pic above, you can see, some has alot, and one has very little and is still grubbish~.
9. I then set it over on a new piece of wax paper to dry.
10. Then tied on a piece of homespun and hot glued a cute button on it. And then they are ready to go.

The pic below is what's usually leftover after I make a batch. And be sure to keep these! You can melt them chunks down the next time you go to make some. And the cinnamon and nutmeg left, can also be used next time.

I also use the same process on the tiny tea lights that comes in bags at the Dollar Mart for $1.00.

Here they are:

Here is a few more pics of the votives:

And to finish them up, I put them in a bakery cupcake bag, tied with homespun and finished it off with a grubby hang tag.
HERE is the link to my Grubby Tag Recipe

For a little bit of detail, notice I first stapled on the tag to the bag, then I used a mini clothespin
to make it look like it was also pinned!

See ya'll next time!
~Lisa