Girls Craft Day

I am having a craft day at my house on Saturday. These are the crafts that will be offered:





The Days until Christmas frame is inspired by this one .The words are printed on white cardstock, the edges are punched on the top and the bottom, mounted again on red cardstock and then framed. On top of the frame is a chalkboard square cut from vinyl. Anyone wishing to do this craft just needs to bring an 8x10 picture frame and I will provide the rest.




The Advent Calendar is made of many different elements. Each magnetic number is unique. I have dice, stickers, cardstock squares and circles, tickets, wooden pieces, number stamps and other ephemera. I wish I could offer the sheet metal holder pictured here, but I can't. I do have large metal circles (aka a pizza pan) that we can spray paint and cover with paper for the magnets to stick to. I will pre drill holes in the top and provide ribbon for hanging. The cost for this project is $10.

I am so excited for this day to get here! We will have soo much fun! Email me if you need directions to my house!

Mantle?



We don't have a fireplace- so I'll call the shelf above our molding a mantle. It's really long and a little daunting to decorate. Right now I have it seperated into 3 areas. I'm not sure if I love it, but here is how it is decorated today. With my CDS (compulsive decorating syndrome) it may be different tomorrow. And yes, my kids are watching tv and would NOT turn it off for the picture.

The section on the right is photos of my kids with a collection of silver trays. In the middle are my fave windows from my mom's old house with a lit wreath.



The left section has a temple picture, a few Christmas art pieces and our stockings.



I made this piece in Word and framed it. It was inspired by this.



This sillouette picture was purchased at Home Goods. (please ignore the ugly shadow - although I'm sure it's hard to now that I have drawn attention to it- we've been having rain storms for the past 3 days so I had to use my monster flash and it bounced off the mirror behind me)



Aren't those stockings cute? I bought them at Old Time Pottery a few years ago. My kids decorated paper mache ornaments with their names on them to personalize the stockings.

I'm linking up to:

The Lettered Cottage

Ready

We are all ready for the big day!

The turkey is thawed...



Our family is here...


Games are being played...



The plates are ready (I scored them all at Goodwill for $5)...


the pies are being baked (ignore my dirty oven)...


and the place cards are done! Bring on the food!
Happy Thanksgiving!

So thankful



Here is my take on a Thanksgiving banner.


I used kraft paper with recycled cardboard glued to the back then ran it through my Big Kick with the Stampin Up Top Note die



then I cut paper circles out of a dictionary (purchased at the dollar store)




stamped "Thankful" onto the circles with stamps, then glued the circles to the die cut notes.


I punched 2 holes in the top of each letter and strung then on some jute.


Today I am thankful for:
  • my kids and husband
  • our extended family-of which 3 members are coming to our house for Thanksgiving dinner
  • good health
  • my camera
  • the ability to do craft projects
  • McDonalds Coke
  • all of you! Happy Thanksgiving!

Linking up to: Embellishing life, Today's Creative Blog

My Faves

I am joining a linky party that 320 Sycamore is hosting.

These are a few of my favorite things! (are you singing that song from the Sound of Music now? )


This mop from O Cedar. It rocks! It has a refillable spray bottle and washable pads. It cleans our hardwood floors so well and doesn't leave streaks.



I have a million little notebooks arounds the house to write my to do lists, Christmas lists, project lists, my journal etc.



This little Black and Decker Mouse hand sander-makes sanding go so much smoother. (haha)



Diet Mountain Dew- fuel!



iphone- I can't live without it!!! I go into a panic attack when I can't find it.



2 cleaners I can't live without: Invisible glass cleaner- works like a charm on mirrors and is streak free; Antibacterial Windex- I clean all my bathrooms and kitchen counters with this.


I've always used inexpensive make up products and couldn't figure out why I didn't get good results. My make up bled, smeared under my eyes, etc. A few months ago, I had my make up done at Ulta. I am now a convert to good mascara (I'm using Bad gal Lash from Ulta), eye primer (seriously, you must try it! I use Urban Decay Eye Shadow Primer Potion), and waterproof eyeliner (I confess that I'm using the super inexpensive E.L.F but it works wonderfully!)

Burlap love

I've seen burlap all over the place but I hadn't ever done anything with it. Until a few weeks ago when I made a wreath. Here's how I did it:




Gather supplies: straw wreath, burplap, die cut machine, fabric and the glue gun. I didn't take step by step pictures, but it's pretty easy to do.
  • cut long strips of burlap about 3 inches wide and wrap around the wreath
  • cut out 9 scalloped circles. I use my Big Shot, but they could be cut by hand. Fold 2 over and glue down to wreath. Place one on top of other two.

  • make a rolled fabric flower. I'm sure there are lots of great tutorials on the internet for these. I just took a long strip of fabric about 2 inches wide. Folded in half. Tie a knot at one end, then started wrapping the fabric around. About an inch in, twist it and glue it. Wrap around, twist and glue. Repeat.
  • do the same with a rolled burlap flower. It's really messy but very cute.

  • glue all the flowers onto the wreath and hang it with a piece of ribbon. (I nail mine right to the door. It stays very well- even in the wind.)



DIY painted signs using freezer paper

Wooden signs are nothing new. 
Been around for a while now. But how does one get the words on the wood? 
I could free hand it with paint...but I'm not so good.
I could use vinyl, but that's been done by everyone and their mother's cousin's uncle. 
Plus, I wanted something I could rough up a bit. 
I've recently been having fun with freezer paper stenciling on fabric 
and wondered if it would work on wood. It does.




Here's what ya need: wood (purchased and cut at Home Depot), craft paint, freezer paper and a way to cut the words out. I used my Cricut, but a exacto knife and a word printed from the computer would work too.


First step:  paint the wood. 
I just slapped it on- not very carefully.


Cut out your word and iron it onto the wood.


Then using a diferent color of craft paint, paint over the top of the words. Wait for it to dry.


Peel off the paper and sand down the edges of the board and over 
the top of the words to give it a worn look. 
The paint kind of bled under the paper a bit, but I think it adds to the character.


And here it is.


I did the initial of our last name as well as my fave Christmas word.  
You could do your last name, a favorite saying, a teacher's name etc. 
The possibilities are endless!

Linking to Just a girl

Cheap and easy art

Some of my favorite decorations now are graphic arts prints. There are many talented people our there, willing to share their creations. They have some skills!!




  • Here is another one.


So you have your cute picture printed, now what to do with it?




For this one in the picture above, I mod podged it onto a scrap piece of wood, that was painted white with craft paint.



I got this one from the same site as the previous picture.


Another way to display them, obviously is to stick them in a frame. I have tons of frames stashed under my bed (kept company by the dust bunnies). I usually buy them from Target or Walmart. My other fave place to get them is from Goodwill. There are always a ton of nice, good quality frames. The frames in the previous 2 pictures are from there. In the first picture, the white one was about $2 and came with the matt. (the large black frame is one that I didn't like, but paid too much to get rid of so I boosted it up with moulding- post to come) In the 2nd picture, the frame was stained wood. I wanted black- so I took everything out and gave it a couple coats of spray paint. Very easy and inexpensive just the way I like my projects!

Being me and yes I am thankful!

I had no intention of taking that long of a break...but once I stopped blogging, I couldn't get myself to start again. I couldn't decide if I had anything interesting enough to write about. I worried if my crafts, decorating, writing was good enough, cute enough etc. But in the end, I decided that I write this blog- simply for myself. If anyone else reads it, great! In fact I would love lots of people to read it. But I'm not going to put the pressure on myself to be the best. I'm just going to be me. And I'm not making any promises when I'll be back to update...I don't want to be a liar! Let's just say, I'm going to try.
Holiday decorating is one of my most favorite things!! As I put one season's decor up, I am already planning what to do for the next one. So fun!
This is how I fall-i-fied my house.










This magnet board is one of my kids' favorite holiday decorations. We have Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas magnets. They love to put the date up. Actually they love to fight about whose day it is to put it the magnet up.


Every year after we have finished Thanksgiving dinner, we all write what we are thankful for in this little book. It's so fun to look back and read what we all have written.
I love this time of year! I love taking stalk of all of my blessings! A few of the the things I am grateful for are my familiy-for putting up with me, my friends- again for putting up with me, my testimony, mothers day out (what pre-school is called here in the south), diet moutain dew, DVR and cool weather! Happy fall everyone!