One Last Christmas in July | Beautiful Christmas Decor You'll Love!

Hey everyone, it's Marla here, and as promised, this week I'm giving you one last Christmas in July. I can't believe this month is almost over. If you are new to my channel, my name is Marla, and I'm the owner and creator behind From Rust to Roses Vintage. This week I have three projects for you that I think you're going to love. So let's get started. For project one, I grabbed this sign that I had thrifted several weeks ago. In a previous Christmas video, I mixed up a custom green color of milk paint to use on an ornament storage box, and not wanting to waste it, I grabbed this sign and gave it a couple of coats of that same green paint with no plan in mind for what I was actually going to do with the sign. However, because it was green, and I knew I was going to do another Christmas video, I grabbed it and I started going through my transfers to find something to put on it. Before applying the transfers, I wanted to go around the edges of the sign and give it some of that old vintage distress, and so here I'm using one of my favorite products, my Vintage Antiquing Paste. Now many of you have asked about this product, and Amazon is currently out of it. However, you can find it on Etsy. It is Stamperia Vintage Antiquing Paste. Now many of you know that I am a lover of birds, and so when I was going through my transfer books from last holiday season, I found this one that I hadn't used, and I knew it was going to be perfect for my sign. And so I grabbed it and I started applying it. Now I made a mistake here, and I don't know if many of you see the mistake. I didn't see it for the longest time. I'm just working away, putting this transfer on, and when I finally got the transfer off and I looked at the sign, I realized that there was a wreath in the upper left-hand corner and a small piece of holly with berries below the sign, and neither one of them really went with that image of the birds on the branches. And so I tried removing them, and I had pretty good luck with the small piece of holly with the berries, but not so much luck with the wreath. And so I went through the transfer book, and I found two boughs of holly that were the same color and type as on the branch, and so I used those and just added those to the sign. And I think in the end it worked out fine. Certainly wasn't the first time I've made a mistake and had to fix it. Probably won't be the last, but next time I'm going to look at my transfers a little more closely. After I finished applying the holly transfers, I looked at the sign and wished that the branch could be extended and that it had more birds for the length of this sign. And luckily, because I am an IOD stockist, I had a second copy of this particular transfer book. So I went into the book, and I took out that same exact transfer, and I cut out a couple of birds and some of the branches, some of the holly, and extended it to make it fit my sign better. I think the addition of the two extra birds and some of the holly was exactly what this sign needed. I love the way that it was looking. To seal in my transfers, I gave the entire sign a coat of DIY's liquid patina. You might have noticed that there are holes in both ends of the sign, and the original sign had some jute twine going through those holes. So I decided to decorate them, but I used some red velvet ribbon on one end and the twine on the other. I love the way the two go together, sort of like leather and lace. I think the sign turned out beautiful. I got some amazing crackle from that milk paint. I love the birds. I love everything about the sign. Let me know what you think in the comments. For project two, I grabbed the second wall pocket out of a pair I had thrifted at Goodwill. Now I upcycled one of these wall pockets a few weeks ago in one of my videos, but I hadn't done anything with the second one. So I started out by giving the wall pocket a coat of DIY in the color white swan. I have a stash of molds that I keep on hand because every time I pour resin, I want to make sure that I use all of it up. And I found this beautiful Christmas tree from the old Christmas tree mold that came out a couple of years ago. I'm using a heat gun here to soften the resin so that I can bend it to make it fit on the front of that resin, or excuse me, of that metal wall pocket. I held it up against the wall pocket long enough to get the curved shape, and then I applied some of my Titebond quick and thick glue and a lot of painter's tape to hold it on the front until that glue dried. I also found two coordinating molds that went with this, and I did the same thing, warmed them up with my heat gun, held them in place until the curve was set, and then I used Titebond glue to glue them into place, again taping them, and then waiting about 30 minutes before removing the tape. The Titebond quick and thick does dry pretty quickly, but I wanted to make sure that these were very secure. I had added a couple of resin snowflakes that I also found in my box of molds, and then I was lucky enough to find a third one because I don't like to do anything in even numbers. I think odd numbers are much more pleasing to the eye. So I glued a third one on, and then I mixed some salt wash with that same DIY white swan paint and started going over the wall pocket around the molds. If you remember from the original wall pocket I did, or if you noticed on this one, it had little raised bumps all over it, and using this texture really helped to disguise those bumps. And another interesting thing I noticed, the salt wash is kind of blue in color, and with this white paint a little bit of that blue was showing, and it almost looked like snow. After I finished with the salt wash, I grabbed some green milk paint that I had mixed up for Project 3, and decided to go over the Christmas tree and the pine boughs on the sides with that green milk paint. After all of the pine was painted, then I went over my three snowflakes with some fusion mineral paint in the color snow drop. It's a very pure bright white that I love. Now it is Christmas, and so I wanted to add just a little bit of glitter to this project, and I have some glitter paste that I purchased from Pent Art in several colors, and this green is absolutely beautiful. I wasn't sure at first how it would look, because I've never used it before, but it's translucent, the glitter is very fine, so it's not garish. I don't like that kind of glitter, and it just brought out the green in the pine like you wouldn't believe. I also purchased it in silver, and so I decided to add a little bit of that silver glitter paste to my snowflakes, and then over the snow or salt wash, I took some ice effect that I've used in previous videos, and went over that to add just a little hint of iridescence to my snow as well. Of course, I wasn't done there. I knew that I had to add a little bit more to this wall pocket, and so I decided to use my bows mold, and create a bow to put on the front of it, and here I'm mixing up the resin. It's equal parts of part A and B, and you just stir those together for about 20 or 30 seconds, and fill the molds, and this is amazing casting resin in the color tan, and this stuff will set up in about 10 minutes, and so I like to use it because it just is so quick. It makes the projects go a lot faster. I didn't know if I was going to use the large bow or the small one, and so I poured both of them. I also wanted to embellish the top of the wall pocket, and I just really felt like clay would be the best choice here, because I could easily mold it around that shape, and so I'm using the trimmings mold and some of my air dry clay, and just press it down in with your fingers. I love the little rims that IOD has along the edges that makes it easier to get a nice clean edge, but I also go over my molds with a little artist trowel to flatten it out. Some people use credit cards. I find this little trowel works best for me to give me a nice flat back for gluing down the mold. I apply a generous coat of Titebond Quick and Thick to the back of the mold, just feathering it out towards the edges. You don't want a lot of it seeping out, but you do want to make sure that your edges get glued down, and so I was pretty careful to make sure I got the glue all the way to the edges. I also like this mold because it is designed for the pieces to fit together perfectly, and so I just had to cast a second one and fit it in with the first one that I put on the wall pocket. After the molds were in place, I gave them a coat of the Fusion Mineral Paint in the color Snow Drop. I like to paint my molds before they're completely dry to help reduce the amount of cracking that you get, and then I decided to use the small bow on the front of this. I mixed together two Fusion Mineral Paint colors, Cranberry and Fort York Red, to get a color that I thought was just a little bit more of a vintage red, a little bit darker. I used some extra pieces of bow, and I placed those on my wall pocket first so it would look like they were coming out from behind the bow, and then I glued on the bow itself. I absolutely love the pop of red this bow gives the wall pocket. Now there are some little areas on these Christmas molds that look like ornaments, and so I mixed up some gold metallic pigment with pigment fix and decided to paint those, and you could absolutely do the same thing with just gold metallic paint. I love the way it dressed up the Christmas tree. I didn't want to go overboard, but this is for Christmas, and so I really wanted to add a little bit of that gold metallic. After I finished with the tree and the bows, then I took out some gold wax and I went over just the high points on the bow. After I finished the bow, I decided that I wanted to paint around the rim. There are two ridges that stick out, so it made it very easy to paint those, and I just used some gold metallic paint for those two ridges. I think it added just a touch of elegance to the wall pocket without going overboard. You'll have to let me know what you think in the comments. I filled the wall pocket with some Christmas florals, a vintage looking candle, and a vintage copy of the first Noel. I also added a doily just to soften everything a little bit. I love the way this turned out, and I can't wait to use it this holiday season. Let me know if you had this wall pocket, what would you fill it with for the holidays? For project three, I decided to take one of the wooden arches that I purchased from IOD and put this beautiful decoupage paper in the center of it. I started out by giving the arch a coat of DIY's liquid patina in darkened decrepit, because I wanted to use milk paint on this. I'm a huge fan of milk paint, if you can't tell, but I like when the cracks form to have a darker color underneath. I also knew this would help seal that raw wood and make it much easier to get the crackle from the milk paint, so I painted both the back and the front rim with the DIY. I did not add it to the center, because that's where my decoupage paper was going to go. I think my go-to for crackle has been shellac, but I had a bottle of extra bond sitting on my work table, and so I decided this is a small project. I'm just going to paint it with extra bond, because I knew that would give me the crackle I wanted. While I was painting on the extra bond, I started thinking about what color of milk paint I wanted to use, and initially I thought blue, but I looked at the decoupage paper a second time and realized that green was going to be a better choice, and this time I just used sweet pickens milk paint in the color pantry door. It is one of my favorite colors, and so I didn't feel the need to mix up a custom color for this particular project. I painted on two coats of the milk paint, drying in between with my heat gun. I achieved that beautiful crackle I wanted, and so after I sanded it smooth, I put on a coat of sweet pickens dark oil wax, let that set for about 10 minutes, and then wiped it back with a soft cloth. If you want your decoupage paper to pop and really show off the colors that are in it, it's always good to give it a light background, and so I painted the interior of this arch with that fusion mineral paint in the color snow drop, and then I got out my decoupage paper, and I truly hope you're not thinking, oh no, more birds, but I absolutely love birds, and so I use them a lot, and when I got this decoupage paper, I knew that I had to make a wall hanging for my house. I laid the decoupage paper down into the arch and used my fingernails to go around the edges to give me a guide, and then I'm using the water method to tear off the excess paper. I like to use this method because I'm not that good at cutting nice straight lines, especially curves, and I love the organic edge that it gives. Now when I put the decoupage paper down, I realized that it didn't fit exactly. There was a little gap at the top and a gap at the bottom, but I knew I would deal with that later. To decoupage the paper in place, I started at the top laying down a section of decoupage medium. I sprayed the paper with water and then laid it down flat and went over the top of it with my brush and more of the medium. I continued that until the entire paper was laid down. Once I was finished putting down the decoupage paper, I got out some paint that I thought matched the background and started mixing it together so that I could blend in the edges of my paper. I usually use a tiny artist brush as I move along, blending the paint up into the paper itself. After I'd finished with the blending and the paint had dried, I gave the entire project a coat of Sweet Pickens Satin Top Coat. As a final touch, I added some Vintage Antiquing Paste all along the edges and in the creases to give it an aged look. Normally I don't adorn pictures like this that I make, but it's the holidays and that's when I have fun decorating, and so I added some vintage ribbon and some little boughs of pine and holly berries to the bottom. The ribbon I had used is cloth ribbon and was extremely wrinkled, and so to straighten it a little bit, I just sprayed it with some water and then used my heat gun to dry it. You can see me doing that here with the green ribbon because I wanted a little bit more of the ribbon to show, and then I took my scissors and trimmed the edges, and then I decided to add this beautiful pearl button below the pine cones just to give it that last little touch it needed. I looked at it though and thought, oh the top is plain and this is Christmas, but I didn't want to add any more ribbon or any more florals, and so I dug through my transfers until I found the perfect arch of holly leaves and berries to go across the top of the project. I absolutely love how this project turned out. Those little birds are so sweet and beautiful. I got the perfect crackle with my milk paint. It's Christmassy, but I can keep it up long after the holiday is over. Let me know what you think of this project and all of the others in the comments. I want to thank you so much for taking the time to watch my video. I truly, truly appreciate all of the support that you give me. I have so much fun doing these and sharing them with you, so if you like this video, please give it a thumbs up, share it out with others who you think might like it, hype the video to help me get it out to more people, and in the meantime, I hope you enjoy the rest of your week. I just returned to Southern California yesterday to hang out with my two furry friends, and so I'll have time to work on not one, but two videos for next week. My regular Tuesday video and then a second video so I can share the new IOD holiday collection with you, which goes public on August 6th. I already have some great projects in mind. See you then!