Tolentreasures

You will need: Assorted liner brushes #4 lettering brush or #4 flat brush Assorted Star and Snowflake Stencils Cosmetic Sponge Wedges Decoart Americana Black Khaki Tan Slate Gray Bleached Sand Light Cinnamon Surface of choice, basecoated Black. As always, these are suggestions. Get something close and don't worry if they are not EXACTLY the same colors. I am always perusing the stencil aisle in any craft shop. There are well used stencils hanging all over the bulletin board in my painting room. You can't beat a stencil for adding perfect shaped stars to a project. You can always shade and highlight them to make them look painted, but it sure is a lot easier to stencil them than to try to draw or trace them. There are quite a few snowflake ones hanging there also. Yours don't have to be the same, get creative! I love cosmetic wedges for stenciling. Just a little hint, the ones from Dollar Tree are not quite dense enough. Upgrade to the discount chain ones. Frugal as I am,...

To all those looking for humor, or before and after pics, you will just have to wait. This is a crafting post! You will need:  Wood Rectangles (I bought a huge pack of these at a craft supply place, not knowing what I was going to do with them) Twine Mini Clothespins Rusty Jingle Bells Decoart Americana Sap Green Cocoa Antique White Heritage Brick Black White Regular Painting Supplies Base the rectangles with the Sap Green. I blended a little of the Antique White on the upper right hand corners. Allow to dry and sand lightly. With Cocoa on a round brush (6) paint the letters. You don't need a pattern for these, just paint them. Highlight on the upper and right sides of the letters with Antique White using the same round brush. With Heritage Brick on a liner brush, paint in the stripes. Shade the lower and left sides with Black on the same liner brush. Highlight the letters with White on the right sides. String four jingle bells on the twine. (Honestly, this was the ha...

 You will need: Poster board or lightweight cardboard Freezer or Butcher Paper Scraps of felted wool Two buttons Embroidery floss Small amount of Wool Roving Small amount of polyfil Tools: Scissors Embroidery needle Felting needle Trace this pattern and cut out of lightweight cardboard.  Trace onto freezer paper, two of body, two of head and one of blanket. I flipped the head, but that is not necessary if your wool is the same on both sides.  Iron onto wool with the wax side down, hot setting on iron and no steam.  Cut out pieces and blanket stitch the blanket onto one piece of the body.   Beginning at the right side of the blanket start stitching down the top of the back and around the foot area.  Sew the button on and then stitch up to the middle of the bottom and stuff that side with polyfil.  Finish stitching around, repeating adding the button to the other side, leave a small opening at the blanket and finish stuffing the other leg and close u...

In just a few (maybe more) easy steps, you too can paint these lovely star and berry vines! Doesn't that just sound like an infomercial? TV, here I come! The basecoating. I use Decoart colors. They rock! Using a lot of paint, don't be afraid, load it up. Lay in Black, Russet and Cocoa. Keep it random and messy and wet...make sure you work fast enough that it stays wet. Then, Using a sponge, Sponge all the colors together. Try to leave light and dark areas. Don't overblend it. Then paint the outside edges Russet and drybrush here and there with Heritage Brick. With Milk Chocolate, thinned on a nice crisp flat brush, paint in those checkers. Everything needs checkers. What you should have so far. See that nice blending on the background colors. Now for the vine. You will need a nice, long, script liner brush. Thin down a brush mix of Black and Milk Chocolate and lay in vines the whole way around..or long if you are not doing a round piece. They do it again with just Mi...