DIY fireplace redo; Legend of Zelda papier-mâché fire

Today I’d like to share a DIY project by my husband, Jon. Jon has been getting into the DIY spirit lately and decided that we needed to update our fireplace niche.

We live in an older home and have a handsome fireplace, and like many people, we don’t actually use it for its intended purpose, that is to say, we don’t light fires in it.

This doesn’t mean the fireplace niche has to be empty or “dead” space. We knew that we wanted to fill it with something interesting and eye-catching, yet integrated with the rest of the room.

This faux fire is the perfect solution. Jon is a big fan of old-school Nintendo games, so this project incorporates that perfectly into fun and graphic fireplace art.

While the following is not a complete step-by-step tutorial for making your own paper-mâché geek craft based on the Legend of Zelda fire, the pictures do show much of the process.  The materials at least are easy to come by and cheap.  All you need is some foam core or cardboard for the inside structure, newspaper and/ or paper shopping bags to use as the paper-mâché, some watered-down white glue (such as Elmore’s), and acrylic paint.

Happy crafting!

The fire has a bit of thickness to it (it’s almost 2 inches thick), so it’s able to stand on its own (see top of post). However, Jon wanted the fire to appear as though it was floating (above photo), so he suspended it with monofilament from a dowel rod wedged into the chimney.

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Shamrock Garland

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. And when you make too many shamrock pins for a craft fair; make St. Patrick’s Day garland!

The pattern for these shamrocks came from  the 1984 Leisure Arts leaflet 328; “Holiday ‘Fridgies’ to Crochet.”  Though this leaflet is 27 years old, you can still find it for sale online at places like Ebay, Etsy vintage, and other sites.  Or, if you are lucky like me, perhaps you already have a vintage shamrock pattern bequeathed to you by a relative.

To make the garland, I first carefully removed all of the pins from the backs of the shamrocks so as not to damage them and so that I could use the pins for future projects.  Then, using my light green yarn I made a chain, attaching the shamrocks at regular intervals using a single crochet stitch.  That was it!  Now we have a pretty garland to dress up our dinning room window or fireplace.

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Winter Wonderland + Cozy Fireplace

After some beautiful weather last week (clear, sunny skies and mild temperatures), winter has officially returned.  The following are some photos that I took from my apartment this morning.  Surprisingly, it didn’t feel that cold on the balcony where I took the close-up shots of the frozen branches.

It’s easy to romanticized winter in November and December when holiday decorations and excessive amounts to hot-out-of-the-oven cookies are surrounding us.  It’s a time for shopping, giving, and over-eating that makes us feel so good at the time, yet so bad for the first few months of the following year (i.e. now).  Hence the need for New Years resolutions.

I always think it’s kind of sad to see the Christmas decorations come down around January 1st because they represent so much warmth and coziness, even if we are sick of seeing them by then. It’s as though the house becomes ten degrees colder because their aren’t strands of twinkle lights and Santa Clauses surrounding us. Almost everyone wishes for a “white Christmas,” when in reality the snow is usually at its worst from January through March.

This is why I wanted to do something to add some warmth and coziness to our apartment now, when we really need it. So I directed my attention to the prominent, beautiful, yet unused fireplace in our living room. It seemed like a shame to leave it empty, but we didn’t know what to put there.

Finally, I decided on a small Christmas tree. When I first mentioned this idea to my husband he was skeptical about my interior design taste. “A Christmas tree? It’s January,” he said. I could see his point. After all, the tree did have a red, velvet bow around its base and a strand of blue lights which seemed to choke the poor thing more than provide festive decoration.

After I removed the lights, the bow, and fluffed up the branches it looked nice, and much less Christmas-y. However, it still looked a bit sad and lonely in the fireplace all by itself. It was as if it was waiting for us to come along, light a match, and burn it to ashes at any moment.

That’s when I thought of the crochet snow flake ornament patterns my Grandma Virgie had given to me recently.  Why should snow flakes be reserved strictly for Christmas? Below is the pattern booklet, circa 1983, along with some of the snow flakes that I made.

I like the way that the crisp, white flakes pop against the dark cavity of the fireplace, while being framed by the white mantle and book cases. In the spring I’d like to paint the walls a light, warm gray to make the mantel pop even more.