holiday crafting!

Happy New Year!  Now seemed like a good time to show off some holiday crafting goodies.  It was a mellow crafting holiday, after the big Twist push in November.  But still, a few super fun, quick and well-received presents were created - check them out!

reclaimed from the bees:  

hand-rolled beeswax candles

(all 8 days, now that's a lot of rolling)

snapped up these bags, 

made to hold jammies, at the

Pine Cone Hill tent sale, and 

upcycled them as reusable wrapping

can't get enough of the salvaged clothespins,

this time making themselves of use as 

napkin holders

another gorgeous jammie bag, this time

repurposed as a cover for a garage-sale tray

two layers of poly (over two layers of Mod Podge)

and voila, a waterproof tray!

Now that the holidays are over, and our nephew Otto (or BabyOtto, as Gus calls him), is on his way, stay tuned for some awesome reclaimed baby presents!

Can't. Stop. Decoupaging.

I want to decoupage everything that moves (cats and baby Gus emit sighs of relief).  This project was inspired by a beautiful decoupaged plate I got at Twist several years ago. 

It began by scoring a bunch of large square glass tiles from FreeCycle.  I then sat down with a bunch of magazines, some old books and my alphabet stamps and started decoupaging.  It looked a little high school (you know, when you cut out a bunch of pictures and words from Seventeen and Glamour Magazines and put them all together and gave them to your friends...or maybe it was just a Long Island thing?).  So with Laurie's help, I changed some stuff and came up with this summer-themed square with a very preppy paper background:

While I loved the design, it kind of still felt like a glass tile with decoupage on it.  Pretty, not practical, and we at Reclaimed Crafts are all about pretty AND practical.  And lots of Mod Podge.  Then Laurie, thinker of big, creative thoughts, remembered the vintage glass stoppers we got at Brimfield even though we had no idea what we'd do with them:

Feet!  Of course.  They were meant to be feet, so that Decoupaged Glass Tile would become Pretty Summer Cheese Plate.  And so, with a touch of Gorilla Glue, it did.

My map obsession grew when I found a maritime map at Goodwill.  It wasn't just any maritime map, it was a maritime map of Long Island, where my stepdad has his boat.  His boat clearly needed a tray for cocktail service, and it needed to be decoupaged with the maps of where the boat was going.

And then there are all of those vintage road maps from gas companies long gone.  Perfect little present for my mom, the compulsive organizer, to clip her papers neatly together.