I May Not Have a Green Thumb...

I may not have a green thumb but I sure do have green fingers! Lol

This is usually a sign that I have started thinking about St. Patrick's crafts...and that is exactly what happened today. My initial plan had been to get outside and pick up all of the branches and twigs yesterday's weather brought down. We were supposed to have a totally rainy day...instead, we had a bit of rain only to have the sun pop out half way through the day but the winds to pick up a bit.

I have two tables with umbrellas out on my pool deck and I very seldom twist the umbrellas down because, believe it or not, baby bats seem to like to sleep up in the down turned umbrellas and I get a bit freaked out when I go out to put them back up. But, that being said, I also don't like to have to retrieve my umbrellas from the neighbor's yard or, worse yet, the bottom of my pool!

And so, when I saw the umbrellas swaying quite a bit, I decided to take my chances and, by the time I got out there, my one very heavy metal table with a very heavy umbrella base attached had actually moved more than 4'. The wind was definitely worse than I had anticipated and so today, when I was set to head out for the task at hand, I noticed that even though the sun was absolutely gorgeous with not a cloud in the deepest of blue skies, the wind was still gusting a bit. That is when I decided to hold that chore until tomorrow because more branches and twigs were still coming down.

And, of course, that puts me with no plans to speak of...and that always sends me to my craft supplies and looking for ideas. I started thinking ahead to St. Pat's and pulled out some old wood I had lying around and then headed to the computer to download some prints. I wasn't sure where I would end up but I decided to at least start with a favorite...an old piece of fence slat.

I began as I always seem to do...by giving the old wood a fairly dry brushed coat of off white chalk paint.

At this point I wasn't sure what would come next and that is always when I end up forgetting to take pictures because I am too busy trying things out. Most of you know that I love letters and numbers so I found some numbers I liked and ended up painting a nice skinny set of "17" on the board. At this point, the board still looked a bit blah so I started trying some St. Pat's embellishments I have left over from my scrapbooking days. Any of them would have worked but I really didn't like using something store bought on something was was handmade. And so, I reached back into the recesses of my mind and remembered that I had seen a post on making shamrocks from coffee filters...and I was off.

Since my coffee pot uses the triangular filters, I had to adapt the directions a bit. And, I wanted a smaller shamrock as well so I just cut leaves out the size I wanted. Then, I dipped them in water, dropped some green food coloring on them and set them out to dry.

Once they were dry I twisted the ends and then hot glued them together.

It was still missing something so I took some green jute and green and white baker's twine, tied a small bow, glued it onto the middle of the shamrock and secured the shamrock to the corner of the wood.

My next idea was to make another wood tag for St. Pat's but, somewhere along the way, I decided to just make it a small shelf sitter decoration that might possibly find its way into my dough bowl or tiered tray. It was a simple process of just sanding, painting and ModPodging. I haven't added any embellishment to this one just yet. I am leaving it plain until I actually decorate for St. Pat's Day. If I want to change it into another tag, all I will have to do is drill a hole and add a hanger.

And then I decided to make a similar sitter for my tiered tray on my kitchen counter. I really don't ever decorate this tray much for the holiday which seems a bit crazy since I decorate everything else and these trays are all the rage right now. Mine usually ends up more as a catch-all for things I need to file, bills I need to pay or whatever. In any case, I downloaded a Valentine print, painted the wood, decoupaged the print to the wood, and decided to embellish with some small roses that I had picked up at HL the other day. I actually think it's pretty cute.

So that is as far as I got today. If the wind dies down, I'll be outside tomorrow...but, I haven't put the craft supplies away just yet. I still have some wood and some downloads. Now I just need some ideas. Stay safe and stay tuned.