Crafted by Corie's Minis Challenge/ Bunnies, Bees & Blooms Tiered Tray Budget Friendly Crafts

Hello my crafty tribe, this is Artsy Maddie and let's make some bee, bunny, and bloom decor for our tiered tree. We are going to start off with these little miniature beehives and I'm just making them out of some tumbling tower blocks and I just used some wood glue and put four blocks together. I needed mine to be a little bit narrower to fit into this truck. You could by all means make them more of a square beehive as well, I think that would be super cute, with eight blocks or six blocks maybe. And then I'm just using regular size popsicle sticks, so the tiny ones that come in a hundred pack at Dollar Tree, and I am just measuring them up to be the same width as the little tumbling tower blocks that I've cut. And then I just used some sandpaper on any of the rough edges. Treat yourself to some good sandpaper, do not use the sandpaper from Dollar Tree, it is absolute garbage. So again, using wood glue, just because it's really strong and I know it'll hold together really well, you can always use hot glue, whatever you prefer. I just chose to use wood glue because I know it will be really strong and last a long time. So what I did was just touch the little popsicle sticks into the wood glue and then layered them, just like siding on the house. And then same thing for the narrow side, I just went in and measured all the little pieces to length and then again just touching them into the wood glue and then stacking them onto each other just like wood siding. And then if you do have any leftovers on the edge you can just take some of that better sandpaper to those edges too and just even it all out once it's dry, just let it dry for a couple hours. So then for the top, I'm going to be using some of this square dowel that I just scored in my grab bag haul from Michael's, I will have a link to that in my description box. But by all means you can just use some regular round dowel or some wood skewers, whatever you have sort of thing, instead of these square dowels. So again just using some more wood glue and then these are the wider popsicle sticks that they sell at Dollar Tree. They're about three quarters of an inch wide and a little bit thinner, nice and easy to cut. For all of this cutting I just used some tin snips, by all means if you have miter shears or whatever you like to cut your wood with, but I found the tin snips are quite powerful enough for those thicker little regular popsicle sticks, they work quite well. So now I'm just going in with a really skinny square dowel that was in that grab bag haul as well, but by all means you could just use a skewer for this too, like a wooden shish kebab skewer. Again just using the wood glue because I know once it dries it'll be super secure and hold together really well for me. But if you're impatient with waiting for glue to dry, by all means just use some hot glue. So then I'm just going to draw the little opening, the little hole for the bees to come in and out of, and then I'm going to give them just a little bit of a shelf for the little guard bees to sit on. So what I did was I just cut a sliver off the top of those little regular size popsicle sticks and just made like a little rounded ledge, touched it in the wood glue and then just put it right underneath the opening of the beehives. I think they're adorable, I hope you guys like them too. So then if you recognize this little truck I used this back in my sunflower video, sunflower farm last year, I'll put a link to that video as well. I had left the little wheel wells red for that but I knew I'd be painting them eventually, so I am just using some black nail polish just so that this truck will be a little bit more neutral and be able to change to the seasons a little bit easier. So this truck came without wheels but luckily, like without the rubber tires I should say, not wheels, and luckily my kids had some lego wheels that fit it perfectly so I was super happy about that. And then I just looked up honey farm logos and I found this really cute little logo for this sweet bee company and I printed them very small so when you have your print options if you go to wallet size and then there's usually an option to print even more than wallet size and that's what I did just to make them really small for printing. And then for the front of the little truck there I just curled the edges with a paintbrush just to make it sit nicely on the front hood of the little truck there. And then these are just some tiny little flowers from dollarama and I'm just fitting them in on the truck. I want everything to be temporary so that I can change this truck out for different seasons so I was just using scotch tape rolled up to attach the little logos onto the truck. And then I even cut up another little logo there to just set on the back of the truck and I just kind of rested that into the little bumper there. I also found this super cute little globe that kind of had the right coloring that I'm wanting on this tiered tree so I thought I would just add that in there as well. The little potted plant I've used in some tiered tree videos before. It was just a thrift find the pot and then the little plant was from dollarama. The little silver gardening tools these little miniature tools those are also from dollarama but hopefully you guys can find something similar at your dollar stores or maybe target or something like that. So moving on I came across these beautiful beautiful seed packets from a funny enough this gardening organic gardening store out of Kuwait of all places. So I'll have a link to that website in my description box but they sell these beautiful beautiful organic seed packages and I just thought the little fronts of them were just so pretty so I went through picked out my favorites and then just printed them. So in your print options again I'm just printing four to a page and then that sizes them down to about I would say the correct size to be a seed packet. So I'm I'm just drawing out lines to kind of get them to that right size as well like all squared up and then cut out and then I'm just going to make myself an envelope template. So I won't share this template because yours might not end up being the exact same size just because I used a snipping tool to just snip out those previews for printing and then you just make the little envelope template from whatever size your prints end up being if that makes sense I hope it makes sense. But you're just kind of making some bubbled edges out from the edges of your little seed template and then if you guys have been here with me through last year this is my absolute favorite wrapping paper from the Dollar Tree this little yellow polka dot paper I just adore it. It is very thin though it's just cheap wrapping paper from Dollar Tree so to make it a little bit more stable I am just going to glue it down to just some regular white printer paper. So this is just your everyday white paper got it all glued down once the glue is dry I again just cut out the shape of this little envelope template here. So once that is all cut out I'm going to get my glue stick onto the back of my little seed packet previews and then just center it in the middle of that envelope template and then hopefully this is going to make sense to you guys here as you see it. So then I'm just folding in those little sides so those little bubbled out sides that we had created just folding them all in and then just making the pocket of the seed packet. So I'm going to be gluing those two little sides to the long end to make the little pocket there. So I found just using a glue stick for this just worked great. So then to create the illusion that there is little seeds inside I ended up just cutting out this little rubber gripper mat thing that I had into little tiny pieces and then just throwing a little tiny handful into each package and then sealing them up. You could use whatever you have I didn't want to put in real seeds because I'll be putting these away in storage and I don't want any little critters to get into them so I just used some faux seeds. You guys I'm so excited this video is going to be part of the crafted by Cori's minis challenge. This is another one of my all-time favorite challenges. It's usually all tiered tray that you see in the playlist it's just wonderful. Cori is just the best she's so sweet and so talented. If you haven't checked out her channel I will have a link to it in my description box as well as the playlist be sure to check that out too. So then I'm going to print out another little preview, shrunk it down so just doing four images per print and then that shrinks them down to this nice manageable size and then it doesn't matter if they're high resolution like the actual images just because they are so little. So this is from my favorite Etsy shop it's called The Beehive Shop and she sells all these incredible bee products and this is actually a real garden flag like a large garden flag size that you can put in your yard. I really want to purchase this but I'm just going to make a little tiny mini one for now and I just printed out the flag small on paper and then it'll just be kind of like this little faux flag for my tiered tray here. So just cutting down some dowel reinforcing it with some twine at the little intersection there. You can always burn off the little fuzzies with a lighter if you prefer and then to attach the paper to the wood again I'm just using wood glue because it's the strongest and gives me the best result and I just ran some with my finger down the very edge of the paper and then just butted it up against the little dowel there and it's it's fairly strong I'll have to be a little gentle with it packing it away but so now moving on to these fabric bunnies I found this gorgeous vintage linen fabric at the thrift store and I just fell in love with it I knew I wanted to make some special projects with it so this is going to be our first project these little bunnies and so I copied out four different bunnies that are approximately all about the same size I will have a link to those in my google drives that I always share with you guys so if you're interested in these patterns for these bunnies I will have a link to that in my description box as well and then I just got them all pinned down to my fabric so I'm cutting out two at a time a front face and a back face for the bunnies and just taking my time cutting them out for fabric if you've never used spring-loaded scissors they are the best I will have a link to those in my description box as well keep them nice just for fabric and they make cutting fabric just a breeze they're a dream to have I can't recommend them enough so to make this bunny a little bit softer because this linen is very thin I'm going to put a layer of felt so this is just some white felt again I'm cutting out two one for the front facing one for the back facing of course this step isn't necessary it's just kind of an extra little step I'm going to do to make my bunny not be lumpy like to make it very nice and soft so then you're just going to sandwich the felt between the two pieces of fabric so it's going to go front facing fabric felt felt and then the back facing fabric and I'm going to use my sewing machine to attach these all together of course if you're not a sewer you could by all means just glue these bunnies together but I am a sewer and I just I really wanted that type of finish on these so I think it was a worthwhile step this is a great project for learning to sew you can just go really really slow and take your time and learn to follow around the edges of the fabric I also like to use a stretch stitch so you might have to look that up for your machine but the stretch stitch goes back and then forward back and then forward back and then forward and makes a really extra strong stitch with your fabric so I wanted to do that so that I'd be able to stuff these bunnies really nice and firm and full and that nice strong stitch allows me to do that so I had no trouble just poking in all of this stuffing this is just some batting you could take apart an old pillow or buy a super cheap pillow from Walmart or something they don't really sell batting at Dollar Tree I don't believe but just any like cheap pillow will give you some batting as well just so you don't have to run out to the fabric store just for that and then of course I had to leave an opening so just like creating a pillow you're just going to leave an opening to put your stuffing through so I left the bottom opening on all of these bunnies here and then we're going to go back and close them in afterwards but just using a couple tools so that's the plastic bone folder tool from Dollar Tree and then just a long skinny paintbrush so here you can see them all stuffed just with those bottom openings and then we're going to head back to the sewing machine and stitch those closed so again I'm just using that nice strong stretch stitch on my machine and then every bunny needs some carrots so I'm just going to make a bunch of little tiny carrots from this one package of clothes pins this is a package from Dollar Tree and I just wanted to mention maybe hang on to those little springs I just thought those were so cute I might end up doing a little garland or a banner or something with those down the road so if you do make some carrots maybe you might want to hold on to those little springs too so to get a nice subdued orange I didn't want it to be super in your face orange I'm using a little bit of orange a little bit of yellow and a little bit of beige and the beige will just dull it down and then I mixed it with hot water so I actually grabbed some water from my kettle and that's going to really absorb into the wood a lot better because it is porous and it opens up all those pores and then it just really sucks in that paint like a really nice stain and then we're just going to be gluing the two clothes pin pieces together in the opposite direction that you normally have like for being a clothes pin so you just flip them around into the opposite directions and it kind of forms a nice little carrot shape and then this greenery I found at Dollarama it kind of reminded me of a little carrot top so I thought that was perfect and then this sweet little wagon I picked this up at Dollarama as well for four dollars hopefully you guys can find something similar down in the states as well maybe with a coupon at Hobby Lobby or or just thrift for it you never know you might get lucky so here's all the carrots just in that sweet little wagon here they are with some of those beautiful little seed packets and these gorgeous little fabric bunnies I just thought that fabric was such a score I just really wanted to do something special and beautiful with it so hopefully you guys are inspired and have enjoyed this video some of my favorite things to create are bees and bunnies if you're familiar with my channel and if you're not hopefully you like what you've seen and will consider subscribing and coming back to see more if you hit the notification bell that'll let you know when I have a new video coming out as I don't really have a regular posting schedule as of yet so that's the best way to keep on top of that and if you haven't connected with me yet on Instagram I love to share on Instagram and I love to connect with you guys and see what kind of crafts you're creating as well that just makes my heart sing and I just I love crafting I really believe in it it's like a therapy it's so good for your soul and I just love to see what you guys create as well and just remember to check out the playlist I know lots of my friends have been working hard on their videos too and there's going to be some wonderful inspiration and if you haven't checked out Cory crafted by Cory definitely check out her channel she's one of the best she's such a super sweet and talented lady and I'm so proud to call her my friend and yeah just check out that wonderful wonderful playlist so I just want to thank you guys so much for clicking on this video it means the world to me I'm so excited about my channel just growing and and every new subscriber is just like a little kind of like a little check of confidence to just keep going keep recording and keep making videos for you guys and definitely in the comments let me know kind of what you're thinking for spring and maybe into summer as well what kind of themes and colors you guys are really into and really excited to do as well I'm actually hoping to add a little bit of lemons into my decor as well in the spring so I'm going to keep on with my bunny theme and maybe add in some lemons if you guys are interested in that be sure to check back for those videos as well so I just want to say have a great week you guys we'll talk to you soon in the next video thank you so much for watching