winter wreath

My wonderful neighbor has decorated her house in blues, silvers, and blacks. I was very excited to make her a present for Christmas in these beautiful colors. I love when people decorate with these frosty wintery colors, but they don't match my house AT ALL so it was fun to have a reason to buy and craft with these magical colors.
The first one had a little ribbon/lace rosette and the next one had a super sparkly silver poinsettia. I gave Dandi the one with the poinsettia and I gave my neigbor the one with the rosette.


I got the wreath from Dollar Tree and just spray painted it black. The sprigs were super cheap at Joann's. I wound black ribbon at the base of the sprigs to secure it together and then used a black twisty to attach to the wreath. Then I just put the flowers on clips and clipped them to the sprigs. I wanted everything to be removable so that I could make fun Halloween things and other holidays decorations to attach.
I have one wreath left and I think I'll have to do something sparkly and wonderful that matches my house (greens and browns).

I linked this post on a fun blog I like to visit-- Sumo's Sweet Stuff.

Felt Flowers

I am making these cute flower clips and pins to decorate goody plates for teachers. So easy and fun. They would look darling on head bands too.

Style #1

I used some poster board to make pattern circles and then used them to cut out 5 large circles and 3 small circles.

Stitch each petal with a running stitch beginning on the back side, coming up, back through, up, back through to gather the petal.

String the petals together, stitching each petal the same as before.

Finish it off by stitching it the last petal to the first petal and tie off.

Do the same with the small petals.

Stack and stitch or hot glue together. Put a button or bead in the center if you want and then attach it to a pin, clip or head band.

Style #2

Cut two strips of felt, the smaller one being 3/4 of the height of the larger.

Cut petals, whatever shape, (for poinsettias make them more triangular).

Use a running stitch to gather the petals.

Gather and stitch the ends together. Tie off.

Do the same with the next strip of petals.

Stack and stitch or hot glue the layers together.

Add a button or bead to finish it off and then attach it to a pin, clip or head band.

Sticky Mess

I really wanted a wreath for my front door for this Halloween season. Here is my best effort so far. This is certainly not my area of expertise, but I'm trying really hard.

I got a bunch of sticks that fell from my tree during the storm last week.

I spray painted them black.

With black twisties and hot glue, I made a wreath of sorts. It still needs something though. Is it TOO sparse? More branches, feathers, a big fat orange bow, spiders? PLEASE comment and tell me what you think.

Pumpkin Patch...

So, instead of crafting that which I needed to, I got sidetracked into do this. Not sure what I am going to do with them. But they were fun to make.

refinish

This was so much easier than I thought it would be! Todd's daddy came in to town and while he was here he taught us how to do it. First you sand down or strip the surface.
Then you apply the stain (apply as evenly as possible).

Todd and his dad working as a team...

Then you apply polyurethane. Then very lightly sand the polyurethane and apply another coat. You can repeat that until you have as thick of a layer as you want....

I'll have to look for the before shot because this table was SERIOUSLY ugly and beat up. It looks wonderful now. Thank you Stephanie for giving us the old table and thank you Stan for helping us make it beautiful. Now it is perfect.

Scary cake, cool idea?

These cakes were "decorated" in the car on the way to the party. It was hot and the frosting was melting but the idea was really fun. Take a photo, place it in a sandwich baggy and place it on the cake. Frost over the edges of the picture(and baggy). Voila! A cake with a picture!

Sorry about the glare on the pictures.

Vintage Dress Refashion

Dandi inherited a bunch of vintage dresses from her hubby's grandmother. Some of them are darling the way they are and others need a bit of help.

This is one of the dresses... a bit scary, but not lacking potential.


We figured out how long of a skirt Dandi wanted and chopped off the top. Then I finished the top edge and did several rows of shirring to create the stretchy waist. I added a few belt loops to run the sash through and voila... a fun new skirt.

gypsy skirt refashion

BEFORE: AFTER:

It is still really wrinkled, but we were too excited for her to try it on... couldn't wait. I got this skirt at Goodwill for $3. I got the inspiration/instructions here and she posts more pictures of different styles here. SUPER EASY!

Lots of Bang for your Buck

If you need something big for decoration or for an award/ribbon of sorts, here you go.

I used a one of the really cheap Costco paper plates. I layered two different crepe papers and stapled them on to the outer edge of the plate, gathering as I went (one staple between each gather). Then I put a big paper circle in the center to cover up the raw edges. The End. So easy and costs less than $0.20 to make.

Although you can't judge how big it is in the picture, it's as big as a paper plate.

A cute, cheap, personalized gift!

I know I've posted some towels already but these are so cute and easy to do that I wanted to let everyone know that if you wanted to make them...you should. If you aren't sure if you could do it, well, if you can sew a straight line then you can put a name on a towel. If anyone wants help or detailed instructions just let me know.

My daddy's beach towel

For my neice...

Christmas in July

While my husband is gone camping, I like to finish crafts that I have started. This was started two years ago, i finally purchased the glass blocks and now I just have to add a bit of ribbon  and put lights in the glass blocks, then they will be ready by this Christmas. (It will take me that long to get the ribbon)

The finished dresses

The girls had a lot of fun donning their festive 4th of July dresses. I love the holiday and remembering all those to whom we owe our freedoms. It is humbling to think that I was so fortunate to have been born here and to be able to choose how I live my life and raise my family. It was fun to have the girls dresses and all our family dressed in red, white and blue at church and throughout the day to honor our great nation.




Oh, I almost forgot! I finished the bottoms by stretching the fabric as I zigzagged the edge. I used a very short stitch length of about 1/2 and a medium width zigzag stitch. It gives it a bit of a ruffled edge.

creatively speaking

We're having creative differences. I'm creative and you're different....

fontgarden.com
go to free fonts archive. enjoy.

nan-a-rama

Here is the FHE board that Nan made for me.... And here is the mirror she got and etched for me..... (sorry about the fingerprint)

GCC