Napkin Rings Part 2

I ended up making some napkin rings for my brother-in-law's girlfriend. They turned out really cute. I had quite a time picking out beads and such from Michaels. I plan to make napkins from the fabric in the background and am working on decorating a case for the whole thing. I will post a picture of the finished project when done. I was just so excited about how the napkin rings turned out, I needed to post a interim-project update. :)

Soap Dispenser

I came up with this simple idea to use a bottle from a thrift store, add a little paint and a pump, and turn it into a soap dispenser. It was actually pretty hard to find pumps in a local store so I ordered online and bought a few extra to have on hand.

The pattern inspiration came from the shower curtain and vinyl flooring in my brother's bathroom.

Soap dispensers you buy at the store usually cost $12 minimum and this was only about $3 worth of supplies. The painting was difficult on the curved surface and didn't turn out as well as I would have liked, but if you find cute enough pieces to start with, you don't need to paint. I'm definitely going to keep an eye out for more things to convert into soap dispensers.

Christmas card holder

I'm not sure if you're familiar with the ribbon photo holders, but you could use Christmas fabric and display Christmas cards you receive in it instead of having to find a flat surface to put them on.

Napkin Rings and Utensils

I found this picture on the Pampered Chef website and thought that modifying utensils in some way might be easy and fun. But more than forks and spoons, I was thinking we should make napkins rings. They tend to run about $5 each, which seems super expensive for a napkin ring. But wouldn't it be cute to give someone matching napkin rings and serving utensils...and maybe embroidered napkins, all displayed as a set?

Also, I had a dream last night about stripping the "silver varnish" off of forks and repainting them in holiday metallic colors. While I don't actually think that would look nice or work, I think it was my subconscious reminding me that I forgot to post this last weekend. :)

Here are more napkin ring pictures for inspiration.

The bottom picture is of "chalkboard" napkin rings. Wouldn't it be fun to write people's name or decorate your napkin rings with chalk? It would be easy to make, too, if you could find cheap wood or plastic rings. There is a chalkboard paint that you can buy at hardware stores.

Topiaries Montreal Gardens

A friend sent me an email with pictures of cool topiaries. While I don't think I could do anything this amazing, it would be fun to try and make my own topiary wire frame. I've looked at them before and even tiny, simple ones are $30+.
Testing out the post via email option for this blog. Let's see how it looks!

Gold Bar Days

Awesome products we saw included:

• Green beaded necklace


• Mosaics using glass and ceramic pieces on rocks and vases


• Tea cup bird feeder (Here is a picture of a coffee cup I bought for this project.)

• Cloth eyeglass case


• Bead hair pins


• Cactus gardens and planers in old pots, kettles, wheelbarrows, etc.


• Something that I can't read...alas trying to walk and write at the same time! :)