Friday, August 27, 2010

Flower/Bow holder

Here is another Super Saturday idea :-)  We are making hair bows and flowers as one of our classes and I thought it would be fun to also  make a holder to put them on.  I loved this one at Ucreate and so I patterned mine below after that one. 
It was really easy to make.  I had an old picture frame that I was not using anymore and I mod podged cute scrapbook paper onto the back board (Is that what it is called?).  I happened to already have chicken wire due to the fact that we got Chickens this year and I had some wire left over from making their coop.  I cut the wire a little bigger then the frame so I could have some control of how tight the wire needed to be.  I ran the ribbon down through the frame because I was going to have the ribbon hanging down out the bottom to give more space for bows and flowers to clip onto, but I did not have enough ribbon to do that, but I thought it still looked cute inside the frame anyway so I kept it there and it also provided a clever way to attach my top hangy ribbon part so I would not have to staple the ribbon onto the back of the frame.  I had a little piece of ribbon left over so I made a loop and attached it at the bottom to hold head bands.  I found the best way to insert the back board and chicken wire into the frame was to mold the wire onto the back board first and then I pushed it down into the frame.  I clipped the extra wire off and taped duct tape around the back of the frame to ensure the back was nice and tight and it covered up any sharp wire edges that might still be left over that wanted to scratch the paint on the wall. 
As always I forgot to take a picture of the process, but hopfully it made sense how I explained it.  It probably only took me about 45 min. to an hour to make it. 
 Here is another shot of it showing my small supply of hair flowers (I can't wait to make a bunch more at our Super Saturday) and head bands at the bottom.

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Dressing up a dollar store kitchen towel!

So this is what I have been up to lately!
 I was thinking of what I could do this year for some inexpensive, cute, practical gift ideas for Christmas.  When I  saw these cute Kitchen towels at the dollar store the other day knew exactly what I could do with them :-)  I found some pretty vintage pear and apple embroidery patterns online to stitch onto the towels (I have noticed Vintage embroidery is big right now).  I am almost done with the pear towel and this is how it looks so far. I also plan to sew some red ric rac across the bottom.  I want to stitch the apple pattern on the other towel and  I want to make a matching pot holder, trivit and dish towel apron and make it a whole set! I will post how I am doing those once I get them finished :-)
 I am also on the R. S. meeting committee in my ward and we are going to do the towels and aprons for our Super Saturday coming up, but we might be doing flour sack towels instead.
p.s. My Chickens have started laying eggs finally! Yay!

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Finally something cute with burlap!

 I know I will get struck by lightning by the crafting world Gods for admiting this, but I guess I just have not understood all the hype about burlap over the last year.  Especially some of the wreaths I've seen that look like someone just took circles of burlap and left them sitting on top of a  wreath form and forgot finish the project.  I think thereis nothing cute about them! Sorry to everyone who likes those wreaths it is just my personal opinion :-)
Then I saw this one this morning posted at Craftaholics Anonymous. It looks so classy! And for fall I think it is so adorable !

Monday, August 23, 2010

A couple more projects - finished!

It feels so good to finally finish a project, especially when it's been sitting in my stash for a while or if I've been working on it for a while. I've been in 'gitter done' mode lately and I'm so glad. Here are a couple of other things I finished recently.



The rod in this picture had been hanging in my dining room for over a year now with absolutely nothing hanging from it. Random! It was a leftover from the previous owners of the house. I should've just taken it down probably, but then I would've had to fill in the holes and touch up the paint, so I decided to just hang something from it. It used be a goldish/whitish color, so I took it down and sprayed it an oil rubbed bronze color, as well as the little flower/star things.



I got the wreaths from Dollar Tree, just like the wreaths hanging on my front door in my previous post. I bought some beans (red and lima) from the store, got out my glue gun and plenty of glue sticks, and went to town! Each bean was glued on individually. This project took a while to finish up since the wreaths took a while to do, but I love how they turned out. Once again, I sat in bed in the evening (after the kids were in bed, usually) or whenever I had time, put on a good tv show, and glued beans. It was a little addicting actually, and was hard to stop when I had other things to do.





The ribbon and the flowers/stars came from Michaels and the idea came from another blog, but I can't remember which one. They actually glued acorns, which were soooo awesome looking, but I didn't have any on hand and it was the wrong time of year to find any at the park and I didn't want to pay an arm and a leg at the store to buy any, sooo beans it was! If you happen to remember seeing the idea on a blog and remember which one it was, please let me know so I can give them credit. Thanks!

This next project idea came from here. I changed it up because I didn't want to mess with cutting the wood and drilling holes, eventhough I love how it looks. I wasn't sure I was going to like my version, but when I finished it up I was pleasantly surprised.



I got the wood and the flowerpots at Michaels. The scrapbook paper came from my sweet friend (she let me dig through her stash) and she helped me with the vinyl lettering as well. She is lucky enough to have a cricut expression, which I want so badly! I guess I need to put it on my Santa list. :) Anway, we started our kids on the new chore system this weekend and so far so good. I always think the beginning of the school year is a great time to reestablish the house rules, change things that don't seem to be working, and introduce new ideas. Hopefully we can keep it all going through the school year and have a great year!

I'm working on another project now that I'm hoping to finish today. It's a 'before and after' project. I'll post pics soon.

Thursday, August 19, 2010

Look what I've been up to...

I've been able to do a little crafting lately and thought I would share the end results with you.



This is something we made for Relief Society, but I wasn't able to go, so I made mine at home. I LOVE how it turned out. This is the St. George temple, where I got to marry my favorite guy! It is placed prominently in the family room, where my kids can see it all the time. You know, a little subliminal message! The idea came from here.



This is my latest door wreath. I love it! I bought a couple of styrofoam wreaths from the dollar store, poked holes in them with a wooden skewer, squoze (is that a word??) hot glue in one hole at a time, immediately followed by an individual hydrangea blossom. Then just repeat, repeat, repeat. It's a little time consuming and tedious, but I like to sit down in front of a great movie do it. The hydrangea blossoms came from Michaels (don't forget your 40% off coupon!). You'll need about 2 to 2 1/2 hydrangea blossom heads (I don't know what else to call them) per wreath.

I have a couple more things I just finished, but I'm going to save those for another post. So stay tuned!!!

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

August bug a boo book pick!

"The Outsiders" by S.E. Hinton.
You can find my thoughts about this months book pick at my reading blog "Michelles daily reading fix"
Happy Reading!