Studio 27 - By Jennifer Adams: 2021

Friday, December 17, 2021

Thrift Store Fix-Up - A Christmas Deer Cloche

With Christmas and New Year's rapidly approaching, I'm ready to take my annual two week break from blogging and online business. But first I want to leave you with one last post for 2021- this cute thrift store fix up project:

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Disclosure - This post may contain affiliate links. If a purchase is made through an affiliate link then (at no additional cost to you) I will receive a commission. You can read more about affiliate links here

Here is the cloche as I found it; very white and stark with lights that no longer worked. But for around $5 it was definitely worth taking home and fixing up!

I liked the size of it and the deer that were already in place, but the trees were just too plain. I did make sure to keep those miniature cardinal birds though, and ended up saving one to put back into the finished piece.

The first thing that I did was to remove the lighted trees and clean up the base.

After painting the base of the cloche a pretty gold, I removed the bottoms of some bottle brush trees. This made the trees shorter and gave a nice flat surface that I could add glue to. With a bit of hot glue I positioned the trees around the deer.

(Here is another post where I used bottle brush trees in my holiday decor crafting)

Next I used spray adhesive and faux snowflakes (both from Dollar Tree) to give a softer look to the ground of the scene.

Lastly I tucked one of those cardinals into the tallest tree before putting the dome back in place.

And there you have it, a lovely winter scene from a thrift store find.

I hope you enjoyed this holiday decor post, thanks for stopping by!

Happy holidays and see you in the new year!

-Jennifer

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This post was added to the following link parties:

Unlimited Link Party

A Themed Link Up

Thursday, December 9, 2021

Customizing Bottle Brush Trees

If you have been reading for awhile now, you know I love my Christmas trees! Well in addition to my big trees, I decided to customize some small, bottle brush trees as well.

These were all done very easily with a bit of hot glue and crafty items that I already had,

check it out:

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These trees are probably my favorite!

Using some more of those slime charms that I mentioned in this gingerbread house post, I gave these trees a sweet makeover.

I'll be using them with the rest of my candy Christmas decor, which you can see here.

Using tiny rosebuds I added a bit of floral decor to this set of

trees that I'll be using in my craft studio.

Wait, what?! A craft studio?? Yep, we finally moved and I have my very own spot!

Eventually I'll share some pics 😄

I pulled these miniature holiday lights out of my stash for these trees

that will be added to my holiday village.

(You can see pics of my holiday village in this old post. It's from before I rebranded the blog, but the houses are still the same 😉)

Using some trim from my ribbon drawer and a few faux snowflakes,

I added sparkle and 'snowballs' to these tiny white trees.

(This set looks great in my Holiday Village Makeover)

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I hope you enjoyed this holiday decor post, thanks for stopping by!

-Jennifer

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This post was added to the following link parties:

You're The Star

The Really Crafty Link Party

Craftastic Monday

Inspire Me Tuesday

Tuesdays With A Twist

All About Home

Wonderful Wednesday (Oh My Heartsie Girl)

Wonderful Wednesday (Penny's Passion)

Party In Your PJs

Thursday Favorite Things

Creative Crafts Linky Party

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This post was featured at:

You're The Star

Friday, December 3, 2021

Dollhouse Turned Gingerbread House

Would you believe that I made this house last spring?! After finding an old dollhouse I could not wait to change it into a gingerbread style house for my Christmas decor.

Check out how easy it was to do:

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Here is my dollhouse as I found it, $5.99 at the thrift store.

After a good cleaning, I sprayed a base layer of white spray paint.

And then used acrylic paints for the roof, door and wood detailing. I chose to go with chocolate colors to keep with my gingerbread/ candy theme.

After that it was a simple as piping on lightweight spackle to serve as icing, and then popping in embellishments while the spackle was still wet:

The sprinkles are multicolored foam balls that I picked up at Dollar Tree, while the tiny candies/ ice creams are called 'slime charms' and can be found on Amazon. Here are links to some similar sets;

I couldn't resist adding a few faux cherries as well 😍

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Here are some close up photos of the details:

Cherries on Top

Gingerbread Men Holding Lollipops

Ice Cream Decor

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And a couple photos of the finished piece:

And there it is, an adorable faux gingerbread house ready for Christmas decorating!

Want to see more sweet themed holiday decor?

Check out the following links:

Faux Holiday Chocolates

Faux Caramel Apples

Faux Christmas Cookies

Faux Hot Chocolate

Artificial Gumdrop Trees

Artificial Sprinkle Trees

Artificial Icing Trees

I also have more village house transformation posts:

Halloween Village From Christmas Decor

Dollhouse Turned Halloween Decor

Holiday Village Makeover

I hope you enjoyed this holiday decor post, thanks for stopping by!

-Jennifer

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This post was added to the following link parties:

You're The Star

The Really Crafty Link Party

Craftastic Monday

Tuesdays With A Twist

All About Home

Wonderful Wednesday (Oh My Heartsie Girl)

Wonderful Wednesday (Penny's Passion)

Party In Your PJs

Thursday Favorite Things

Creative Crafts Linky Party

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This post was featured at:

The Really Crafty Link Party

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BFF Open House

Saturday, November 27, 2021

Artificial Icing Trees

I hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday weekend!

Today I'm sharing how I put together my faux icing trees, take a look:

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For this project I used light weigh spackle as my icing that I put in a sandwich bag with a Wilton open star tip. The foam cones were a yard sale find - can you believe they were only a dollar?!? The cherries, glitter and cake turning stand were things that I already had on hand.

Starting at the bottom I began adding swirls of spackle that looked like tiny rosettes.

Having the turning stand made things sooo much easier!

You can find this one at Walmart.

*Even though the turning stand is plastic, I'll still sometimes add a bit of parchment to the surface. That way I can move the item that I'm working on before it's completely dry without ruining the project.

When each layer was complete I started another, just building on top of what was already there. I found it helpful to place a new layer of rosettes offset from the previous layer, rather than lining them directly above one another. That way all of the foam space was filled in - kind of like how a brick wall is laid.

No matter how careful you are it won't always be perfect, but don't stress! You can use a toothpick or small knife to smooth out any rough spots. Any empty spots can be filled in with a small squeeze from the 'icing' bag.

With the entire foam cone covered and the spackle still wet, I popped a faux cherry on top.

You can find these cherries here on Amazon, though I did find a smaller but similar version in Dollar Tree's holiday section. You can click here to browse the Dollar Tree webpage.

Though it doesn't show up well in the photo, I did give each cone a sprinkling of glitter as well.

It's really pretty in the lights from the holiday trees 😊

And here are my faux icing trees all complete. I loved how they turned out and...

...couldn't wait to combine them with the artificial gumdrop and sprinkle trees that I had already made. These are going to look great with the dollhouse turned gingerbread decor that I'm sharing next week!

Want to see more sweet themed holiday decor?

Check out the following links:

Faux Holiday Chocolates

Faux Caramel Apples

Faux Christmas Cookies

Faux Hot Chocolate

I hope you enjoyed this holiday decor post, thanks for stopping by!

-Jennifer

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This post was added to the following link parties:

You're The Star

The Really Crafty Link Party

Craftastic Monday

Inspire Me Tuesday

Tuesdays With A Twist

All About Home

Wonderful Wednesday (Oh My Heartsie Girl)

Wonderful Wednesday (Penny's Passion)

Party In Your PJs

Thursday Favorite Things

Creative Crafts Linky Party

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This post was featured at:

Funtastic Friday

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BFF Open House

Friday, November 19, 2021

Artificial Sprinkle Trees

If you were here last week you'll remember that I shared a post detailing how I made my Artificial Gumdrop Trees. As promised, I'm back today with my sprinkle version.

Check it out:

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I started off this project with faux sprinkles and foam cones from my stash. I ended up adding in foam spheres too, but not until later.

The faux sprinkles are tiny plastic pellets that came from a seek and find toy that I picked up at a thrift store. If you aren't sure what I'm talking about, you can click here.

Using paint leftover from this furniture restyle project, I gave both cones a thick coating in white. One reason was because I needed to cover up the green cone. Another was because by adding paint I was able to smooth out the surface of the foam, which made my glue easier to work with.

When the paint was dry I then gave the pieces a coating of glue using an old paint brush.

Tip: If you add a tiny bit of water to the glue, it makes spreading it easier.

I began pressing on the sprinkles only to find that many of them would fall off while the glue was still wet. Because of this I did a couple of coats of sprinkles, letting the layers dry in between applications.

I also gave the pieces a good final coating of glue as well. It looks pretty gluey in this picture, but that's because it hadn't yet dried. Once dry they look much better.

And here they are all finished.

You can see that even with a couple of coats of glue and sprinkles, there are still areas of white. I decided not to get hung up on this and let them be, but it's totally up to you 😉

I love how the sprinkle trees (and spheres) look when paired with my gumdrop and icing versions. I can't wait to see them on display with my faux gingerbread house!

*I'll be back next week with how I made the icing trees*

Want to see more sweet themed holiday decor?

Check out the following links:

Faux Holiday Chocolates

Faux Caramel Apples

Faux Christmas Cookies

Faux Hot Chocolate

I hope you enjoyed this holiday decor post, thanks for stopping by!

-Jennifer

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This post was added to the following link parties:

The Really Crafty Link Party

Craftastic Monday

Tuesdays With A Twist

Inspire Me Tuesday

All About Home

Wonderful Wednesday (Oh My Heartsie Girl)

Wonderful Wednesday (Penny's Passion)

Party In Your PJs

Creative Crafts Linky Party

Friday, November 12, 2021

Artificial Gumdrop Trees

When recently working on a gingerbread themed holiday village house (post soon 😍) I thought it would be fun to add sweet treat themed 'trees' to the display. After toying with the idea for awhile I ended up making gumdrop trees and spheres as well.

Read on to see how easy it is to do yourself:

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To get started I needed a whole lot of faux gumdrops. Since I already had the right kind of silicone mold and plenty of air dry clay on hand, I decided to make my own.

(Both the mold and the clay can be found on Amazon)

Once I had a nice collection of gumdrops and they were all dry,

I used various candy colored acrylics to paint them.

For the large candy balls I used foam spheres as my base.

*My foam pieces came out of my stash, but you can find all kinds of sizes and shapes at various craft stores.

With a bit of hot glue I began in the center and started attaching the gumdrops keeping the colors as varied as I could. This can get a little tricky because depending upon the size of your sphere and the size of your candies, they don't always line up evenly. Just do your best and keep going. I promise that once it's all together it will look great!

Here you can see a sphere completely coated with the clay gumdrops. The colors aren't perfectly spaced, but it's all good! If you look closely you can see a bit of white Styrofoam peeking out from between the candies. Not to worry, I'll share a solution for that in a bit 😉

Using a cone shaped piece of foam I started my trees in a similar way. This larger one I began at the bottom.....

...and the smaller one I began at the top.

Neither method was easier than the other, so just go as you wish.

Looking pretty good, but let's talk about those gaps of foam peeking out.

Using white glue and Dollar Tree faux snow, I simply tucked bunched of snow in between each of the candies. This filled out the spheres/ cones nicely and softened the overall look.

I decided that glitter makes everything better and gave each candy form a once over. Just spray lightly with adhesive spray (also Dollar Tree) and then sprinkle the glitter. Give another coating of adhesive so everything stays put nicely and you are done!