Crafting

Yesterday I had a great day crafting.
I made a "Congratulations" sign and a name sign for an upcoming baby shower I'm helping out with. The congrats sign will be recycled for two more upcoming baby showers. I'm doing separate signs with the baby's name. The signs took me 2 1/2 hours; was surprised it took so long. I can't post pics yet but will at the end of Jan (after baby shower).
I made this thread holder. I miscalculated the rods so I still need to add another one. I took a peg board, covered it with scrapbooking paper (Mod Podge), painted and added the trim. The pain in the butt part was cutting all the dowel rods down. But the cutting of the trim and rods were made much easier with my recent Christmas gift, my mitre saw. Then on the back of the peg board I marked where I wanted the pegs to be. The holes were just a tad too small so I drilled at the appropriate whole. Then I took the painted pegs, slapped on a little glue and pushed them in the wholes (you want a tight fit so my hands were quite sore). Then I put a little glue on the back side of the pegs. And there you go! Lessons learned: I probably should have made it a little bigger. Make sure to calculate the number of pegs you need and cut multiple times, lol. Oh, I used 2 1/2 inch rods for thread and 5 1/2 inch rods for serger thread. Ok, so I just realized that this is not the best picture but you get an idea.

I have been wanting a ribbon holder for some time but couldn't figure out what style I wanted (hanging on table top). I decided that the ribbon holders that hang up tend to have the ends of the ribbons everywhere. I saw a similar one to this and modified it. I wanted bright colors in my craftroom so went with the green/pink theme but I'm not sure if I like the green; I'm thinking about changing it to black. I took a decorative piece of wood (from craft store), painted the sides, Mod Podged scrapbook paper on top (but could paint), drilled four holes 3/4 of the way through the wood, used wood glue to hold precut dowel rods (I chose to make mine tall). I put the ribbon on and then topped the rods with a wood ball (buy at craft store with a precut hole). The ball is just loose (not glued) so I can add or take out ribbon spools; I just thought it gave it a better finished look. Lessons learned/changes: I am definitely going to paint the rods and balls to match the base sides but I'm not sure what color yet. Make sure your dowels aren't warped; one of my rods are bent which is annoying me. I forgot to mention, make sure you use a level to make sure your dowels are straight. I probably would have used a more pattern piece of scrapbook paper; you can hardly see the detail in my pink paper. This was a super easy and fast project.