ETCETERAS: Gold Leaf Elephant Trinket Dish with Heart Footsteps

I jumped on the gold leaf trinket dish train and also borrowed some inspiration from the painted animal trend. Combine the two and you you get a Gold Leaf Elephant Trinket Dish complete with little heart footsteps for Valentine’s Day.

CELEBRATIONS: Animal Snow Globe

There have been a couple of trends that I love in the crafty world – snow globes made from jars and painted plastic animals. I decided to combine the two into a holiday stacked animal snow globe.

Little Craft: fuzzy animals

I love picking up those bags of plastic animals at the dollar store. I’ve painted some and even glitterized some. And at a dollar for a bag of animals, these make great kid crafts.

Little Craft: piggy piggy bank

Using plastic animal in crafts have been very popular for awhile now. I created some jars a few years and I’ve seen some fun and creative projects on Pinterest.

Upcycling: gold leopards to stone leopards

Just like Medusa from Greek mythology, I turned these leopards into stone. 

Or at least, faux stone.

When I was sorting through Christmas décor, I found these leopards at the bottom of a box of holiday décor. The leopards are made from paper mache and I think they were a gift. They’ve never worked with out with my holiday look…

I started by covering the leopards with a white paint primer.

To achieve this faux stone look, I mixed the same white paint and some leftover grout. 

Once the white paint grout mixture was dry, I distressed the leopards a little. I know there’s special paint you can purchase to give projects a distressed look but I used Martha Stewart Liquid Gilding in silver. 

I applied the gilding with a cheap course bristle brush very sparingly and used a toothpick to add a few dots here and there. Close up the gilding has a pretty metallic sheen. 

It would be fun to apply this faux stone or as I call it {Medusa} technique to a variety of objects.

This project is linked at the parties listed here

Upcycling: silver animal jars

I'm taking a break from all the holiday projects. I wanted to make something fun and whimsical and these definitely fit the bill - plus they can be used for decorating or organizing.

Many of you may have seen the fantastic, colorful painted animal jars {photo above} that have made their way around the craft blogs and Pinterest. They’re from House to Home and have been featured many, many times. 

Like many of you, I fell in love with these adorable jars and decided to make my own grown up versions. I used smaller jars that were originally sample make up and lotions. The animals are the cheap plastic toy animals that can be found at local discount stores or dollar stores. I used a sheep, pig and cow from a farmyard set.  

For the pig and sheep, I used Martha Stewart Multi-Surface Metallic paint in Sterling.

The original lettering on my jars wouldn’t come off so I wrapped embroidery floss around the jars and painted the floss in the matching silver paint. Of course it would be easier if you have silver embroidery floss which I didn’t.

For the cow, I used Folk Art Enamels Glitter paint in Silver. 

I’m planning on using these jars to organize a few of my supplies like beads and paper clips. There’s something about these little animals that are just irresistible and they’ll be fun to look at everyday.

This project is entered at

Etceteras: fuzzy yarn sheep

These fuzzy yarn sheep make me smile. This is actually a child’s craft that I modified. The original project calls for clothes pin legs and chunky yarn. Here’s how I made my sheep.


Cut out a cardboard sheep body.
Add a face out of black card stock.

Glue on twigs for legs. I taped mine before the glue dried so they would stay in position and the sheep could stand up.

Add a small amount of fiber fill.

Wrap fuzzy yarn around the body like you’re making a yarn ball. Tie off the end and tuck the knot into the body.

Cut out ears and tuck into the yarn with a dab of glue.
You can add a loop of string and use them as holiday ornaments or year-round décor.

Mine are grazing on my office window sill which makes me happy.

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This project has been entered in the CSI Project of the Year Challenge