Easy summer crafts to celebrate the 1st day of Summer

Edited 7/20/10: Linking up to the impromptu mantel party over at The Stories of A to Z.



Today is the first day of summer. Welcome, welcome.

As much as I love summer, I hate the heat. Here in southern California, June is usually the coolest month of summer. We can get what is called "June Gloom". It will be overcast and cloudy in the morning & be quite cool. At the beach, the sun sometimes never comes out in June. But I live inland, so the sun usually breaks through the June Gloom between 9-11am. So the temps only reach the mid to upper 80's. Sometimes the 90's. By late afternoon the marine layer starts creeping back in and it starts cooling down. Then we get a cool breeze off the ocean. Nice early summer sleeping weather.

But in another week or two that all goes away & it will get hot, hot, hot. And the monsoon season starts so it will get humid. Nothing like the south or back east. I know you are all laughing at me complaining about humidity, I've been to Texas, Florida & Washington DC in the summer before. How do you stand it? But I'm talking humid by California standards. And it won't cool off much at night. August & September are our hottest months. But sometimes June & July can be just as hot. This year we are lucky to have a cooler June.

So for now, I am enjoying the cooler summer temps. In celebration of the first official day of summer, I thought I would make a few easy summer crafts to decorate my mantel to welcome summer.
I decided for my summer mantel I wanted to feel cool. What better way to feel cool than to use green, blue & white for my colors.

My favorite summer flower are white daisies. I found some this spring at Dollar Tree and thought I would make me some more flower balls. I made some green ones for spring, and I thought white ones would look great for summer.

Here are my supplies for making the flower balls. Styrofoam balls (picked up at the thrift store for super cheap, you can even find them at Dollar Tree sometimes), the flower heads pulled off 3 bunches of flowers (Dollar Tree), my trusty glue gun and some glue sticks.

I just glued the flowers all around the ball. Easy, peasy.

And I ended up with a pretty flower ball for decorating with.

I made 2 white daisy flower balls. I wish I had purchased more bunches of flowers as I would have really liked 3 flower balls. But I didn't get enough & now they don't have them. Boo hoo. I placed the flower balls in tin buckets that I picked up from the Dollar Spot at Target awhile back.

Then remember my empty photo frames from my last mantel? I decided they needed some art for summer. I found some file folders at Dollar Tree last month that I liked. I thought I could cut it down & use in the frames. So I did. I just plopped them in the frame & taped on the back. You can make art out of just about anything. Another easy project.

And finally I decided I needed some blue vases to hold some more white daisies. But I didn't have any blue vases and I didn't want to spend a lot of money. So I decided to make my own.


I picked up 3 clear glass vases from my local thrift store for 50 cents each.

Then I bought the cheapest craft paint from Michael's. This was 59 cents a bottle. I got Robin's Egg Blue.

Squirt some paint inside the bottle & keep turning the bottle until the inside is coated with paint. Just squirt a little bit of paint at a time. You don't want to use too much or you'll have a ton at the bottom. I did turn upside down & poured out the extra paint. Be sure to wipe the paint off the lip of the vase. And no, this is not my hand. I had hubby demonstrate while I took the photo.

After each vase was coated with the paint, I placed on their side to dry. I kept turning them every 5 minutes or so for an hour. You don't want them to lay on one side for very long or all the paint will go to that one side. Darn that gravity. Keep turning them every few minutes. After an hour or so I felt it was dry enough to stand up.

Super easy to do. And I love how they turned out. They were still a little wet inside the next day. I guess I could have put them in the oven on low to dry even more. But I was too anxious to decorate.

I may try this again but instead of adding paint to the inside. I may try spray painting the outside.
With paint on the inside, I'm not sure what water will do to it.

I just used my "faux" flowers as I didn't want to take the chance with water right away. Who am I kidding. The real reason for the "faux" flowers is that I don't have any "real" daisies yet. I just planted some seeds this weekend. I won't have any real flowers until end of summer. If I'm lucky.



All in all I am pretty happy with how my summer mantel turned out. But are we ever really satisfied?

Besides, I now need to do some patriotic decorating for the 4th of July. But my summer mantel will reappear once the 4th is over. By then, I'm sure I will have found my box of shells, so who knows what my mantel will morph into by then.

Stay tuned.




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What do you do when you don't like split pea soup?

Why you make a wreath!!!

This is an easy project to make with stuff from the Dollar Store. The only problem is that the peas fade after a little while and they start to fall off. At least mine did. I really should have taken my photos when I first made this a few weeks back. Or if I had photoshop I could have fixed the color & no one would be the wiser. But no, I procrastinated showing you this and I don't have photoshop. Even if I did, I probably wouldn't know how to use it. Plus I originally had it hanging on my front door, so it faded even faster and it was getting banged around so the peas started falling off. You can see the original color if you look very carefully at the reflection on the left side of the photo. The underneath is still bright green. The side that shows, has faded. But you get the idea.

First I started with a green Styrofoam wreath I picked up at Dollar Tree.

Even the glue came from Dollar Tree. I just used regular white glue. I squirted it on & used a foam brush to spread it around. Not sure how this would work using hot glue. I didn't want to get burned, so I didn't try.

After spreading the glue I sprinkled split peas on top & pressed down with my fingers. I got my split peas from the bulk food bins at my local grocery store. I bought 2 lbs but only used about 1 lb. I'm sure you can find split peas at the dollar store, but in the bulk bins it was actually less than the dollar store for the peas.

This project did take me a couple of days only because I had to wait for the glue to dry. Plus peas kept falling off. So I would have to squirt a little more glue in some spots & press on more peas.

I did glue peas on all sides of the wreath. After it was dry I added a flower that I had left over from another project. It also came from Dollar Tree. I just hot glued it on the front. I also hot glued some green ribbon on the back & tied in a bow. I think the ribbon also came from Dollar Tree.

I love how this wreath turned out. Except for the fact that it is now fading. I wonder if I had sprayed it with a sealer if it wouldn't have faded already. We will never know.

This was a super dooper easy project and cost me about $3.00. But I still have lots of peas left over in case I decide to start liking split pea soup. But don't hold your breath.




Linking to:
Project Parade @ The DIY Showoff

Frugal Friday @ The Shabby Nest


Dollar Store Challenge @ The CSI Project

I finally got it done!!!

Did I tell you that I was the queen of procrastination? Well I am. And here is proof.

See this bare wood trunk? I've had it for over 15 years. That is fifteen years!!!! 15!!!

I purchased it from JC Penney online in it's unfinished state for about $100.00 plus free shipping. I had always planned on painting it. But year after year, after year, after year, it sat in it's unfinished state. Getting dirtier, and dirtier and dirtier. You get the picture.

If not, here is the proof of how dirty it got. Fifteen years is a long time to go neglected.

I finally decided enough was enough. I had procrastinated this project long enough. Plus I had a little motivation from Donna over at Funky Junk Interiors. She is having a "Gitter Done" party this week. So I had to "gitter done".

So I got to work getting hubby to sand it down for me to get rid of the 15 years of neglect. Looked like new when he was done sanding. Too bad I didn't take a photo.

Then I started painting it white. Did you notice that I said that I started painting? Hubby didn't like the sloppy way I was painting, so he took over. Works every time! I'm good at getting other people to do my work.

Once it was all painted white. I thought it needed something (it was really hubby). He suggested we add a wood applique. I thought it was a great idea. Why didn't I think of that? So off to Home Depot we went.

This is the one we picked out. They don't have much of a selection. I think this was our only option. We glued it on the front and added some new wood plugs as a few had gone missing over the years. Painted the brass handles ORB and had hubby finally put them on. I then distressed and antiqued the entire trunk (yes, I did do this part of the project).

And here is the pretty lady now.

I'm pretty happy on how it turned out. What took me so long?

The wooden applique was just what this trunk needed. Thanks honey for suggesting it!

The back.

The handles were originally brass and had never been put on the trunk. I spray painted them Oil Rubbed Bronze (ORB). Much better than brass.


This was a pretty easy project. Why did I procrastinate it so long? If I had known how fabulous it was going to turn out, I would have done this years ago. Like fifteen!!!!

On top I placed a little vignette of some thrifty finds.

The subway art tray came from Target a few months back. I got it on clearance for around $10.00. Clearance has to be one of my favorite words.

I would love to travel to all these places some day. The only ones I have seen are the Golden Gate Bridge, Big Ben, Vatican, Roman Colosseum (hubby's favorite), and the Eiffel Tower (my favorite). Someday I hope to see all the rest.

The urn was a recent thrifty find from an antique store in Riverside, CA. It was only $2.00!!!

My fleur de lis finials also got a mini makeover. They were originally brown and came from Dollar Tree for a buck each. I spray painted them Heirloom white & then antiqued them. I love how they turned out.

I still need to make a burlap runner for the top of the trunk. I hope that I don't procrastinate that too much longer. Knowing me, burlap will be out of style by the time I get around to it.

Thanks for stopping by & taking a look at my long awaited trunk makeover aka: "Gitter Done" project. And I hope that I won't procrastinate the next project as long. Do you have a project you have procrastinated? Can you beat 15 years?



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