Crafted by Corie's Minis Challenge/ Honey Bee Tiered Tray Budget Friendly Crafts

Hello Crafty Tribe, this is Artsy Maddie and let's get creative. So today I'm just starting off with a bunch of tiered tray crafts that I did. So this first one here is just a DIY craft that I found at a thrift store. And it's this cute little wooden tree that fits together to make like a little three-dimensional tree. So I'm just starting with some burnt umber mixed with a little bit of black, so brown and black mixed together and watered down so that it's almost like a stain. And then just doing a streaky finish on the trunk and the branches of the tree, just to give it a little bit of texture and depth and make it look kind of like tree bark. And then I went in with a nice bright lime kind of kiwi green on the leaves just to give it that nice spring feel, like they're new little leaf buds. And then I went in with some little tiny, tiny yellow flowers. So I found some really small ones at Dollarama and then I just cut off just the flower parts off of the stems and then just hot glued them right onto the tree so that it had kind of these little yellow blossoms all over it. And it was a little bit tedious, but I think it was worth the effort. They look super cute on here. So just keep your eye out for little tiny buds. You can always use them for lots of other projects too. So I have a whole bunch of DIYs today. I'm going to try and go through them fairly quickly and hopefully give you guys enough direction with them. So this next one here is just one of those little Dollar Tree gnomes and I just wanted to repaint it in different colors to match my tiered tree. So anywhere where you have to cover a lighter color over top of a darker color, I always want to go in with a base coat of white just so that the coverage is much easier. And those little eyes, just giving them some white. They didn't have any white before at all, so just start with that nice base coat of white and it'll make your life a whole lot easier. And also just invest in some nice little detail brushes and then just take care of them. They're always a great investment for any little detailed work like this. And another little tip that I would give you is just to anchor both your elbows on the table and then just moving the item that you're painting as little as possible and keeping your elbows anchored. It kind of gives you a steadier hand when you're painting. So just going in with that beigey kind of light skin tone. The paint that they sell at Dollar Tree actually matches the skin tone that's on this little gnome anyway, so it's kind of a nice easy fix without having to repaint the whole thing. And then instead of his green pants I'm just going in with some grey. And this is all just acrylic paint. A lot of it's from Dollar Tree and some of it's just like some Liquitex and other stuff that I had on hand from doing painting beforehand. So just going in with a nice bright yellow and you'll see that that white undertone just anywhere where there was too much of a dark wash or the colors had gone where they shouldn't have on the gnome just gives you like a nice fresh start sort of thing with the colors. So then just going in and just bringing his eyes to life and so much better than they were before. I don't know, they don't give them very much detail at Dollar Tree when they're painting things. So anyway, then I'm using one of my favorite little tools from Dollar Tree, this little embossing tool. I kind of use it as a dotting tool for painting. Just going in and doing the pupils and then just a little tiny white dot just to show that the eyes are kind of glistening and glossy and just brings them to life. So then moving on to this little cute little camera faux wooden frame. This is from Dollar Tree as well. I think I picked it up before Easter time. So I just wanted to deepen that yellow so just went in with a little felt and then I just did a google image search of some bees, watercolor bees and bee art and then just picked out my favorites, printed them four on a page to make them smaller and the sizes kind of worked out well. I had a few options to pick from so just getting this little bee all framed in there and then because this is going on a tiered tray I just wanted to make it double-sided so I love to do that with my tiered tray items is just to make them double-sided and then wherever you're viewing it from it just kind of keeps the tray really interesting and looking good from all angles. So I got this all done on the one side and then just going in and making the sign or the frame double-sided so just kind of copying what was on the other side. It's kind of a simple little camera design so just finding some circles that I can use and just going in with a sharpie pen and just filling it in. I'm just trying to what is on the other side of the frame. So I guess I showed you not too fast just so if you're wanting to copy this you'll be able to and then I didn't do the best job of mimicking it or copying it. If you do end up doing this craft I would actually recommend that you just kind of trace the lines across the sides of the frame and then just line them up completely with what was there. I kind of made the white part on it not as wide or actually wider than it was on the original camera and then it made it hard to copy the details but it still works. It's of course not perfection but just kind of a fun little project just to make it look good from both the front and the back. So just going in copying what was there. I'm just using some of the Rust-Oleum linen white chalk paint and just getting kind of a nice white base coat on there to work with and just cleaning up all those sharpie lines. I thought this little bee was so cute. I think that one came up with watercolor bee art just in a google image search or you can also look on Pinterest or whatever. If you're just doing little things like this it doesn't really matter. If they're the best quality you can just when you're printing them out small they usually look pretty decent. And then I just went in and did some diagonal lines just like on the front just with some Dollar Tree masking tape. Man that Dollar Tree masking tape is horrible. So Dollar Tree masking tape and Dollar Tree sandpaper. Don't bother buying them they are horrible. Do you guys have any like just things that you can't stand from Dollar Tree? I think my favorite item is probably that little embossing tool that I was using to paint the eyes and sandpaper is my least favorite Dollar Tree item. Just a heads up if you haven't bought the sandpaper don't bother. So here just going in that yellow felt just because the white paint hadn't cured yet it was kind of like drying up the tip of the felt so I just decided to go in with some paint instead. But if you let the paint cure then you'd be able to just use the felt but I just was a little bit pressed for time so I just went in with some paint instead. And then just cleaning up those lines because the Dollar Tree masking tape did not make a very good masking for the painting. And then I'm just using the end of these little Bic markers to kind of create some little details on the camera. And then just going in and filling them filling them out making them look a little cleaner. Cut out my sweet little bumblebee picture this little watercolor picture. And then just use some glue stick just to tack it onto the little hardboard piece and got it all put together. So the little glue sticks enough to just hold it all together in place. And then just letting you guys know that today's video is part of the Crafted by Cori mini and tiered tray challenge that she hosts every month. And if you haven't checked out Crafted by Cori I highly recommend her channel. I just love her. She's one of the sweetest YouTubers out there. She also has a Calm by Cori guided meditation page too which I'm really enjoying. And then I'll have a link to the playlist in my description box as well so you'll get lots of tiered tray inspiration. So this next project here is just these little piggy banks from Dollar Tree. Little crowns and I just thought I would fill in the the little coin slot just because they were kind of big and awkward and not what I was using it for. So just filled them in with some spackle just some drywall spackle and then let them dry overnight. Sanded them down and because of the shape they were really easy to sand down so no problem there. It went really quickly. And then I just gave them a coat of yellow paint because I knew I wanted to paint them gold. And when you're painting with metallic acrylic paint you usually don't get the best coverage. A lot of them are quite transparent so it usually takes a few coats. So I'll oftentimes try and give it a base coat that's similar or complementary just so that you can do less coats with the iridescent or metallic. So it worked fairly well. I just had to do two coats with the gold over the yellow and it worked out fine. And then I just went over with one of those little Dollar Tree dabber sponges with a kind of a champagne silvery metallic just to kind of highlight some of the details. And just having that little sponge was able to just hit the details on the little crowns. So really simple and they came out rather cute. I just wanted to have like some gold and bronze and yellow on my tear tray. So this was a super thrift find that was just a little bit kind of beat up and kind of seen better days. So I just went in with some bronze acrylic paint and just touched it up and just tried to hit all those edges that were kind of beat up. So then next project is just one of those little house frames from Dollar Tree. I'm just painting over the the print that's on it just to give myself a nice white base coat to work with. And again I will try and make this sign double-sided as well. So on the back side I just did some Mod Podge. Went a little too heavy with it so we're removing some of that. And then just another cute cute little bee design that I found just doing a Google image search. And I'm using a little squeegee roller just to try and get it all down flat. It did end up with a couple little wrinkles but nothing too bad. So then on the other side I'm just going to make like a watercolor wash. So just really simple, don't be scared, just a really simple wash. Watered down so blue, sky blue at the top and then the light green with a little bit of dark mixed in on the bottom and then a little bit of brown to kind of be like a dirt road. So just super super simple, nothing scary, nothing complicated. Just a nice easy wash and then kind of dab some of that off with the Kleenex and it makes it kind of look like a cloud. And then I just let it dry and then I had found this super cute little sticker set at Dollar Tree as well. I'm sure you guys maybe noticed this too, I just thought it was so cute with that little yellow truck. So I just cut out anything that wasn't really going to picture so there's just like some extra little shelves with plants on them. So I just got rid of those, just cut out the detail of it, pulled it away and it made the simplest cutest little DIY in this little house frame. And then I thought I wanted to add these little kind of bee stickers. They're from the sunflower stickers from Dollar Tree that I used in my last video. This is just from an extra photocopy that I had and they're a little bit smaller in the photocopy so I just thought it'd be cute with the little blue that's in the background that you see. So I thought I'd carry that blue onto the outer edge of the frame so I gave it that white base coat again and then just some watered down blue paint and then again just same colors, that little bit of tan brown and the light green and just kind of copied what was there just onto that outer edge of the frame. And then I just mod podged on the little bees so they're not going to be super sturdy. I didn't really put anything to make them sturdier, they're just paper with mod podge so I'll have to be a little bit delicate with this frame but that's okay it just sits on the tear it shouldn't get too roughed up and I usually package that stuff all up in paper and stuff when I pack it away for the season. So the other little house frame is just the taller one from Dollar Tree and I just have those little coffee stir sticks from Dollar Tree as well and they're kind of the same width as the frame so this is kind of an easy way to just fit the paper in and get a pretty snug fit and so I just used a glue stick on this just to get it all in there and it worked kind of easier than trying to remove the back of the house frame like I've seen other people do. I just thought this would be like kind of a simpler way to do that and then I just mod podged on another little honeybee quote that I had found just in a google image search as well and it says how sweet it is to be loved by you which I love that song I catch myself singing that quite often so just mod podged it on let it dry overnight and then the next day I was just able to sand it all off really easily and quickly it just sands the edges perfectly and then it just looks like it was almost manufactured that way so I really love this finish it's a trick I learned from all my crafting friends on youtube so thank you for that I love those tips we can always learn so much from each other so then just because it was just like a google image search it wasn't like the clearest or best quality so I just kind of went over it all just to give it a little more definition and a smoother line just with a detailed sharpie and trying to remember what I do next so oh yeah then the other side of it so this is double-sided as well so just another cute little bee image that I found it's all the rules this is the hive rules and just really cute little things on there so I just glued it off of the frame a little bit with some cardboard and a little spacer and then I have this cute little fuzzy bear that came off a greeting card I'm forever saving greeting cards and using them for scrapbooks and all that kind of stuff crafts with my kids so I just had this bear kicking around I thought he was so cute and then these are just the little Dollar Tree plastic flowers I just think they're so cute those little mini roses I've been adding them to a lot of stuff lately so just got them hot glued down and that's the end of that project so on to these these are from Dollar Tree as well and I thought I would just give them a little bit of a metallic finish so just going in with some bronze and then a brighter gold color as well so these are just acrylic paints so just those little dabber sponges are great for just hitting details like just hitting the top parts and getting those little highlights sort of things so same thing I have some extra chess pieces uh for my son I don't know how but he loses chess pieces sometimes at his chess club so I just have this like extra box and I thought I would pull out the queens and just put those on my tiered tray as well so just gave them a little bit of gold detail as well and here is the finished tiered tray so I'll just kind of go through um that little bee box is from Dollar Tree the little honey jar is from Dollarama I believe that was four dollars and then just filled it with some honey from our local honey farm the Chinook honey farm it's such a fun place I love taking my kids there they have a glass beehive so you can check out what the bees are doing all year long I like going there at different seasons and you can see how many fewer bees there are and less active they are in the winter and then here's the cute little gnome and that little um bee scep candle was from a thrift store so that was really lucky find actually a lot of this stuff is either thrift store or dollar store actually it is for sure I don't think I've spent any more than than a dollar or two on most of the items here and even the tiered tray itself was a Kijiji find so it was second hand as well I picked that up for twenty dollars and this little bee mine is a little heart from Valentine's time at Dollarama and then I just want to take a moment to thank you guys I have 170 subscribers and I'm so excited it feels so great to be able to share um all my creativeness with so many people on YouTube I'm having a really great time with it and I just want to say thank you guys so much for subscribing and watching my videos it means a lot to me so the little um wicker it's like just a vase filler sort of thing um that was a thrift find and this little cloud is from Dollar Tree and this little dice is from Dollar Tree this little globe I've had for quite a long time I think it was a thrift store find originally um the mug the mug was actually a purchase that was from HomeSense I believe for five dollars so that was my big splurge on my tiered tray and then the little flower pot is from Dollarama and that little yellow um candle warmer on top the little scent warmer that is from Dollar Tree as well and I've seen those recently so they still have those there as well and that's it guys so thank you so much for watching thank you so much for subscribing and we'll see you soon in the next video!