"Out of the Box with Helmar" in October (sketch challenge)

Ok Helmar Fans........it is time to think and create "Out of the Box with Helmar" in October!  Yep, we are digging deep and challenging you to Glue Outside the Box!  October is about Fall, Spooky Things and Halloween.  So what scares you creatively?  Is there a Helmar adhesive or art medium you have not picked up and played with?  Time to challenge yourself! For more information click on a Helmar link or the image below.

Decorating on a Dollar - Trick or Treat Wreath.

Today I am going to show you how to take a 12" $1 store foam wreath and turn it into an 18"-20" holiday decoration. This wreath is on display and for sale at Dinah's On D St. Bookstore. Please feel free to contact her or myself if you are interested in purchasing it.

Begin with a $1 wreath from the Dollar Store. Some Acid Free Glue from Helmar and a smidgeon of water. I thinned out the Acid Free glue with a bit of water in a disposable cup. Using a brush with the glue and strips of newspaper strips to the wreath. I chose this glue because of the finish it has when it dries. It sealed the paper with tough, flexible surface.

Once the wreath is dry use Helmar Premium Craft Glue to help adhere book pages that are rolled and stapled in a cone shape.

Using Helmar Premium Craft Glue allows a little slower dry time for you to place and adjust the book pages into a circle and place the points where you like them. Continue all the way around the wreath adding width and volume. You need to have a hole about 5"-6" wide in the center.

Print a circular frame off of the computer on cardstock. Cut a circle around it and ink the edges with a complimentary color to the crape paper in the next step. Place it upside down for the next step.

Using Premium Craft Glue from Helmar, glue black (or any other desired streamers) crape paper streamers around the back of the printed frame.

Measure the center of the printed frame and cut a circle out of coordinating (with the desired glitter as seen in the first photo) cardstock to fit inside of it. Spray Helmar V2 Vellum Adhesive to cover the entire circle and let it sit (per instructions on the back of the can) for a few minutes.

Then glitter with desired color of glitter. Glue this circle into the center of the printed frame with either some Helmar V2 Vellum Adhesive or Helmar 450 Quick Dry. Using a die cut machine cut a silhouette image out of black cardstock and use Helmar 450 Quick Dry to adhere it to the center of the printed frame and glittered circle. I used the trick or treat witch image from the Cricut Cartridge "A Child's Year".

Glue the Printed, glittered image over the center of the wreath and use Helmar 450 Quick Dry to glue it down to the inside of the rolled book pages. Once dry tie a ribbon or string around the top of the wreath to hang it from the back.
Hope you enjoyed this project.

Decorating on a Dollar

A couple of weeks ago I shared with you a Witches Skull project that was from the $1 store. Since then I have been back to a few of our local $0.99 and $1 stores to find unusual items that I saw potential in.

This week I am going to share with you an idea I fell in love with on Pinterest. The original was done with real pumpkins and if any of you have bought real pumpkins lately you would find they are about the same price as what I paid for these artificial ones at the $1 sore. However, I don't want to remake these every year. So I opted for the fake pumpkins.

Here are your supplies:

• Black lace
• Black feathers
• Black acrylic paint (or Ranger's black crackle paint)
• Black (gloss) and Off White (satin) spray paint
• (3-5) Fall silk leaves
• (3) Artificial Pumpkins (mine are from the $1 store)
• Print "Trick or Treat" (or any other saying) in the desired font on your computer.
• Black Gemstone swirls (say it in crystals by Prima)
• Black Sharpie
• and of course... HELMAR 450

Step 1: Spray paint - the pumpkins with primer or several coats of the off white and the silk leaves with the black.

Step 2: line up the printed "Trick or Treat" on the desired pumpkin and trace over the printed word slowly with the Sharpie. Remove the printed word when done.

Step 3: Fill in the outlined letters with black acrylic paint and paint the stem with also. OR, use gemstone glue to fill in the letters and then glitter or micro bead them. Supper cute!

Step 4: Use HELMAR 450 to adhere the embellishments to the stem. (feathers, leaves and lace)

Step 5: place your swirled crystals onto the pumpkins where desired. (these could also be painted on)

Here you go! Don't you just love it. Now I had all the supplies accept the pumpkins in my craft room. Get crafty and use what you have.

Have a Happy Helmar day!

Spooktacular Skull

It's that time of year again... time to get crafting for the holidays! My favorite is Christmas but I always go in order... something about the fall colors that make me feel all warm and cozy inside. Though I have to admit... Halloween is not warm and fuzzy to me. I still have young kids and we don't do "scary".

This project is not for my home though the skull is kind of growing on me... It's for a new endeavor I am working on and if you fallow my blog you will learn more about it in the coming weeks.

Believe it or not after almost a month of creative block, (yes we all get it) this project came to me in the isle of the $1 store. Yup, I jumped out of line and headed over to the Halloween decor and snagged up a cheap… cheesy plastic skull. I almost put it back too, after getting back in line behind about five people that were originally behind me. "What the heck? It's only a $1, right?" I thought, convincing and rationalizing with myself. In the photo below you can see the wondrous thing of beauty that is the $1 plastic skull... with it's poor paint job and bad dental job.

Though this looks bad, I rarely “never fear when I have Helmar near”! LOL... really I used that handy dandy Glue chart in the upper left column on this blog and found the best glue to adhere paper to plastic. I chose the Gemstone glue. I like in this case that it was not fast drying, I added a bit of water to it also to help the torn pages of the dictionary mould to the shapes of the skull.

Once dry I added a layer of Helmar's Acrylic Sealer to the entire skull to give it a shinny and sealed surface. Once the sealer was dry I used Helmar's Gemstone Glue to fill in the sockets and mouth with black glitter.

Using some beautiful paper from Robbins Nest I began to create the witches hat. Cutting it into 1/3 of a circle and then using the amazingly fast drying Helmar 450 to create the cone top. I added the brim of the hat also using Helmar's 450.

Sealing the hat with Helmar's Acrylic Sealer, I love this stuff, gave the hat just the right sheen.

Once the hat was in place the project started to grow on me... Here is the back where you get to see this great paper from Robbins Nest and some of their Dew Drops (Mardi Gras). These are not brads and oh my they are so much easier to use. They look great and give a metal feel. I just had to add this tear on the brim to have another opportunity to work with them.

Robbins Nest is such a great company. I love all their products. Though this project didn't have much room to so their rubons I did get to sneak one on it with a Tear Drop (Forest Fun), also another product of the Robbins Nest. The Tear Drop brings this spider to life!

I hope you have had a great week seeing the wonderful projects with Helmar and The Robin’s Nest.

Have a Happy Helmar Day!