Oh, my goodness! I can't believe it's been 2 years since I last posted here! But then, I think the past 2 years has been a blur for a lot of people, lately.
Honestly, I haven't been doing much crafting lately. Since our move to an acreage, 4 years ago, our focus has been elsewhere, and for the past 2 years, my focus has been more towards gardening, on top of other outdoor work. This has had an unfortunate affect of making my hands very rough, so I can't really handle yarn much. Especially the fussier or delicate yarns. I also find I am increasing losing strength and dexterity in my hands. Arthritis sucks! Still, I do what I can.
And this year, doing what I can meant cans!
(Warning: this is going to be a very photo heavy post! :-D )
We don't often buy canned goods, but every now and then, we pick up canned chicken at Costco. These are larger cans than what I see in the local grocery stores, and I really liked their size.
For this year's decorations, I decided to create little scenes inside the cans. This turned out to be a collaborative effort with my daughter, who started things for me by using her gold spray paint on the cans.
This job took several days and several coats of paint. Normally, this would have been done outdoors, which she tried with the first coat, but it's just too cold out right now. The paint doesn't like the cold! Thankfully, she found a way to finish it indoors.
For the scenes, I rifled through my craft supplies and got other things at a dollar store. A family member had gifted me with a box of wooden items, and I finally got to use some!
I started off by wood burning details on some of the wooden pieces, which I then passed on to my daughter for painting with her acrylics.
I got glitter paper in gold and silver, and used the cans to mark out circles to fit inside them, as backing for 4 of the cans.
I had some metallic card stock and used a can to mark off the dimensions to create a platform to set scenes on.
I used what adhesives I had to fix the backing paper to the cans, and the platforms to the backs. The main thing was to have the adhesive dry clear.
The first platform fit perfectly, so I used it as a template to make three more.
Having a scoring tool to create the folds made things much nicer.
One of the easiest decorations to make was the car. Among the wooden items I was gifted with were several of these cars, and it fit just perfectly!
I'd picked up packages with strips of mixed ribbon and cord at the dollar store, in gold or silver, with a few that had both. After choosing a ribbon and cutting it to size, I hot glued it in place.
For a final touch, some fake snow was glued on as well.
This one was done very quickly!
The next ones used the pieces my daughter painted for me.
Don't these little books look fantastic? I love the metallic gold details. Just gorgeous!
They were hot glued together to fit into the can.
Then they got hot glued onto the platform. After this, they got a ribbon around the edge, and this one was done.
The next one was not quite so easy! :-D
I found some floral wire made to look like sprigs of pine and used them to create little trees. They were positioned so that the larger ones would be behind the church, and the little one in front of it. The stems were punched through the paper, bent and glued in place, before fitting the whole thing into the can. It needed some time to dry before I could continue!
I just love the tiny details my daughter put on the church!
I added some fake snow to the church...
... as well as onto the trees.
The church was almost too tall to fit into it!
Once the church was hot glued in place, I spread white glue around the platform and added more fake snow. A rather messy job! :-D Once that was done, instead of a ribbon around the edge, I added more of the decorative floral wire that I used to make the trees.
In one of the cans that did not get a backing or platform, I glued fake snow to the back and a bit on the sides, then added moss as a nest on the bottom. One bird was glued in place, then the ribbon added before the second was glued in place. Another quick and easy one!
The last one with a platform ended up taking a couple of days, to allow glue to dry. I used the same floral wire the trees were made of, to make a tiny wreath.
I had decorative gems that were way too big, but my daughter happened to have these absolutely miniscule ones!
I could not have done this without craft tweezers, and even then some of those gems were so small, I could barely handle them!
The rest was much, much easier!
For the last can, I added some fake snow on the background. I then had to drill a hole, so I went ahead and did all of them.
Where the holes for the hangers were drilled was determined by where things were inside, and their weights. I used a carving bit on my Dremel to make the holes, as that was the only thing that worked. The curved metal was a bit of a challenge to work on!
The third hole in the one can was to hang bells inside.
I used more of the decorative floral wire to create a loop to hold the bells on the inside, pulling it tight before bending it at the top to hold it in place.
I'd added fake snow to the bells before hanging them, then more fake snow was added to the bottom and a bit up the sides after the bells were in place.
I selected an extra wide ribbon to go around the can, so it would also serve to hold the wire in place.
The final touch was to thread the hanging cords through the holes. With some of them, I had to use craft tweezers to manipulate the cords inside the cans. The church one had very little room to work in! :-D
Here they are, all done and ready for hanging!
I am very happy with how these turned out.
I just had to take a flash picture to show how shiny they are! I think the gold details on the books are my favourite.
These are too big to fit on our Christmas tree. With so many cats in the house, we have a smaller tree hanging against a wall, out of their reach, so these are now hanging with some lights and garlands we have hanging near the ceiling between our living and dining rooms.
These were a lot of fun to make!
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