Blog Anniversary: Bloggeriest Crafts of Early 2016

(Disclaimer:  This post is satire.  If you don’t like sarcasm or you are an easily-offended raccoon, you may not want to read it.  Also, any statements about brand partnerships made in this post are lies intended as humor.  Don’t sue us. Thanks.)

Today marks the final day of our blog anniversary series — we started with dueling makeovers of salvaged cabinets, we answered a bunch of questions you didn’t have about us, we talked at length about what it’s like to blog as a pair and why it’s the best thing ever, and now we’re capping things off with our favorite activity ever: totally serious crafts that embrace just a few of the fresh and inspiring trends of the New Year.

In case you missed it, last week we made a few predictions about the trends we think will overtake DIY blogland in 2016:

To stay ahead of the curve, we obviously have to get to work right away. We’re planning to replace all the hardware in Sage’s house with rose gold finishes and start a truffula tree farm in Naomi’s living room (she’s the one with the green thumb), but those projects will take a little while. In the meantime, here are a few quick and easy craft projects we to share with you this week.

Project #1: Oven-Bake Clay Trinket Dish Hand Painted with Adorable Woodland Creature

As predicted, 2016 will be another year in which we put animals on things. But what will be the go-to animal of 2016? Last week we posited it could be slugs, mice, or raccoons. We all know that neutrals are in, so really it could be any of these things. But then we came across the following at Michaels while we were picking up supplies:

Seeing that raccoon notebook alongside the fox (which as we know has been high on the list of trendiest animals for several years now) convinced us that the adorable little raccoon is where it’s at. They’re just so irresistibly cute — we can’t decide whether our favorite thing about them is when they break into our trash, or how they carry rabies.

We just have to get that sweet little face on our home decor!

Here are the supplies we needed: craft paint in the regal colors of the raccoon, gold leaf, a small craft brush, white clay, and an x-acto knife.

First we molded the clay into flat circles to form the base of the trinket dishes:

Oops, sorry — we need more seasonal styling:

That’s better.

Next we folded up the edge of the bases:

We also added legs to both dishes to elevate the project (get it? eh?).  Here are the adorable little bun feet that we put on the smaller dish.

The other dish got little rounded mid-century legs, of course. 

And of course, the last step was to put a raccoon on them. We prepared our palette, marveling at how “on trend” the neutrals are, and got to work.

We couldn’t decide which represented the essence of the raccoon better — its adorable little face or its tail. So we decided to paint a face on one dish and a tail on the other. Then we finished them off with some gold leaf on the rim.

We’re each going to keep one on our nightstands to corral jewelry and other small items. We just love the idea of looking at this adorable little face right before we turn out the light.

Of course if we’ve learned one thing in blogland, it’s that the only thing that can make this project better is an even lighter photo.

So pretty!  There’s really no such thing as over-exposed!

Project #2: Pantone Color-Dipped Shabby Chic Cork Chandelier

The best DIY projects combine multiple things that we love.  Making trinket dishes out of clay, gold leaf, and animals that eat our trash obviously fulfills that charge.  But for our second project we decided to bring together a few more things that are very close to our hearts: DIY light fixtures, Pantone’s new color(s!) of the year, and using corks in projects where corks really don’t belong.

If making a chandelier seems tricky to you, don’t worry!  Just embrace a shabby chic, “beautiful chaos” aesthetic, and it really couldn’t be easier.

And we’re thrilled to announce that we’ve partnered with our friends at Pantone on this project!  When our fiends at Pantone asked us if we would like to partner with them by trying out some exclusive craft paint in their stunning colors of the year, Rose Quartz and Serenity, we totally squealed with joy. Seriously, it was one of those “pinch me” moments.  Are these our real lives?

We just love partnerships.

Other supplies included some corks, yarn, and one of those cut out wood frame things from Michaels.  So other than the uber-elite craft paint that our partners gave us for free because we’re bloggers, this project is super affordable!

We started by painting the corks in Rose Quartz and Serenity.  We only painted half of each of them – not because it would have been messy and annoying to try to paint the whole cork and get paint all over our hands, but because we just love the “color dipped” look.

To add a little variety and class, we gave the champagne corks a brush stroke look.

We seriously could have just kept them like this and used them as a display!  So pretty, and not at all “I just had fraternal twins!”

While they dried, we made one other embellishment for our chandelier: yarn tassels!

How to Make Yarn Tassels (When There Are Two Of You)

If you loved our tutorial on making DIY pom poms when there are two of you, then this will be right up your ally!  The good news for all the crafting pairs out there is that making tassels out of yarn really is a 3-hand-project.  (So, 1.5 people, and here at Plaster & Disaster we round up.)

Start by wrapping the yarn around one hand, looping it until you have a good, tassel-sized amount, as shown below. Then use two of the other hands to hold the yarn taut and cut it cleanly.

This project works best if you do it over a pretty background of seasonal greens and corks, but this is DIY so make do with what you have, I guess.

Next, run some yarn through the loop and tie it off.  You can sort of do this step with just two hands, but it is much easier with three.

Holding it steady with one hand, use the other two hands to tie off the end, creating the adorable little tassel head that we all love so much.  Tie the yarn super tight and cut it off close to the knot for a clean look.

Then, just cut the ends, and you’ve got a tassel!

We made six for this project.  When you’re done, style the results with some corks and seasonal greenery and take some photos.  It’s not really a craft if you don’t have evidence!

The (exclusive and fancy) paint had dried while we were making tassels, so we moved right along to finishing up our chandelier.  We strung the corks on lengths of yarn so that we could hang them around the light bulb.

Of course, these would also make super-chic and trendy necklaces, as we modeled in our instagram teaser of this project.  (Don’t follow us on instagram?  Why not?  Don’t you want to see what we’re working on and get updates on what Sage’s cats are doing at any given time?)

We tied the ends of the yarn onto our wood craft frame, decorated the corners with our special brush stroke corks, and hung tassels from the sides.

Then, all we had to do was stick it up to the ceiling around a bare bulb.  See, we told you this was easy!

This is such a fresh and pretty way to bring the colors of the year into the home.  We love the softness of these colors and the way it goes with the lacy look of the frame.

The casual way that the corks hang is so cunning.  We love that it isn’t orderly or under control at all, and that it looks so effortless.  Here’s a detail shot with a blurry background to really bring it home:

We’re so thrilled to have partnered with our friends at Pantone for this special project using their exclusive line of craft paint!

This marks the end of our official 1-Year Blog Anniversary Celebration. We enjoyed sharing more about ourselves with you, and getting to do some of our favorite things (dual makeovers and snarking the blogosphere). Thanks for celebrating with us, and we’re excited to see what Year #2 has in store for us! Hopefully it’s not a lawsuit from Pantone.

(Sharing at Two Uses Tuesday, DIY Like a Boss, Link Party Palooza, and Tip Me Tuesday)