Monday, November 29, 2010

Bleaching & Dyeing Bottle Brush Christmas Trees

This was such a fun and easy project that I thought I would re-post it this year in case anyone missed it last year. Enjoy!

Have you ever wondered how to get those cool looking cream and colored bottle brush trees. Well I finally tried it this year and it worked!

First of all they come that dark green with the white snow on them and usually a bag full of them. I got a bag of 16--assorted sizes--at Big Lots for 6.99.

This is what I ended up with after bleaching and dyeing. I think they turned out quite pretty!



To bleach your little trees fill a sink about half full or so of water and add a good cup or so of bleach and then pop your trees in. See the dark green one--that was their original color. Let them sit and soak for a long, long time! In fact you'll probably wonder if it's going to even work, but it will. It took my trees each a good 2 hours before they bleached out and sometimes the little white snow won't come off--don't worry about it. You can try and pick it off too.

After the bleaching process was done I then drew up a sink of cold water and added a cup or so of vinegar and rinsed the trees in this. The vinegar will neutralize the bleach.

The light green tree in the top photo is one I took out part way through bleaching. The pink ones I dyed using Easter egg dye. Just mix up the dye tablet per package instructions--I put mine in a mason jar--then add your tree and shake and voila! A colored tree. And they take the dye quite well, so don't leave them in the dye for very long. Then you can add glitter and baubles if you want.



And that's all there is to creating your own beautiful vintage looking bottle brush trees! See I told you it was easy!

Friday, November 26, 2010

Last Day For E Pattern Sale!


NOTE: It's been going so well I'm extending the sale. Thank you Everyone!

Today is the last day for my big E Pattern Sale. I'm offering it on Etsy and at Patternmart. In case you don't do either of those though you may email me at hazelruthe@gmail.com or hazelruthe@yahoo.com and I'll send you a Paypal invoice--(that way you can use Paypal, debit or credit card).

You get all 10 E Patterns for $10 OR all 5 Christmas E Patterns for $5.

Click HERE for ETSY

Click HERE for PATTERNMART

Thank You and Happy Stitching!

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Happy Thanksgiving!


Wishing everyone a safe and Happy Thanksgiving! Let's remember all of the many blessings that we enjoy everyday, as we gather round and enjoy our families and the abundance that surrounds us. And try not to eat too much--wear your stretchy pants!

Monday, November 22, 2010

E Pattern Sale

I'm having a BIG E Pattern Sale on Etsy!



Since Black Friday is this week, I thought I'd have a week long sale, so from now through Friday, Nov 26th, I'm offering my E Patterns in 1 of 2 different Sale Packs.

The Christmas E Pattern Pack is 5 Christmas E Patterns all for the price of 5.00. Yup 1.00 Each!! CLICK HERE

OR

The 10 Pattern Pack, All 10 of my E Patterns for only 10.00! Again only 1.00 each!
CLICK HERE

Happy Stitching!

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Followers & Following & Blogger Issue

First of all let me say a great big THANK YOU! to all of my wonderful blog Followers! I appreciate you!

Next though is my temporary problem that I hope you my fellow bloggers can help me out with. I have been having troubles seeing my Followers on my blog and I can't see them on your blog and I can't join in to Follow on other blogs. I know this is a Blogspot issue and I have contacted them, but they are just too slow. So what's a girl to do!?

I have cleared my cache, made sure 3rd party cookies are enabled, have no new or changes in my firewall, pop up blocker or other like things. I use Mozilla Firefox for my browser and run Vista. I have tried IE and even downloaded Google Chrome and STILL have the problem, so if anyone out there can be of help I would most certainly appreciate it. In the meantime YES! by all means keep on Following. I just need to get this little buggy glitch worked out. Thank you!!