Burlap Stars

I saw this idea on Someday Crafts several months ago and knew it was perfect for my mom for a Christmas present. 

I mod podged the burlap onto some metal star shapes and used about 50+ clothespins to keep the burplap in place around the edges while it dried.  I wish I had been able to find different sized stars so there was one big and one little, but I think they still look great.

I hope she re-ties the bows cause I'm horrible at them and she is a bow-pro!

Project Fail...don't spray paint styrofoam

I wanted to make a wreath for Christmas and spent a long time getting it ready . . . then I ruined it.  I spent forever gluing the styrofoam balls to a wreath form.  I wanted red, but only had yellow on hand, so I went at it thinking I would spray paint it red - awesome idea right?  Nope - here's what it looked like yellow . . . (just image that as red and hanging with a pretty ribbon and some felt/fabric flower embelishments.)

And here's what happend when I spray painted it. . . 

Spray paint melts styrofoam!!! It didn't melt the wreath form, but it was a different kind of styrofoam.  Next time, I'll spray paint the wreath form red, and then use red styrofoam balls.

Some Winter Decorating

I really wanted to decorate for Valentine's Day, but I decided to do a little Winter for a couple weeks.  I realized that my table needed nice, pretty placemats.  I only have yellow and red that aren't holiday ones.  So neither of those colors worked for Winter.  I decided that since I have a black table, white placemats would look crisp and go with the rest of the decor for winter.  And luckily, my mom had thrifted some of her fabric stash to me and one of those was white canvas.  I'll probably regret having white placemats, but hey, I can bleach them and if they get stained, I didn't lose any money since it was free fabric.

I used 2 pieces of 19"x13" (finished size was 18"x12" since my seam allowance was 1/4 inch).  Then turned them right side out and ironed them.  And I topstitched 3 rows around the outside edge.  I love how they turned out.  The are kindof plain, but I may try to embelish them later.

I also had this hurricane vase on the table for Christmas with green, red, white, and silver little ornaments and bells.  So I took out the red and green and that left me with a wintry mix.

My mom also gave me a couple packages of these giant foam snowflakes (I've seen similar ones if not these same ones at the dollar store if anyone wanted to know where to find them).  So I took a needle and thread and stitched them to the edge of the curtain.  I have 5 hanging in the window in the dining room.  No matter how many times of day or how many angles I used, I couldn't get a great shot of them.  They look way cooler in person.  I also hung some from the corners of mirrors and the mantle.

And lastly, I dug through my plate stash and found a powder blue one that was perfect for winter.  I cut out the words and snowflakes on my cricut and adhered the vinyl to the plate.

freezer paper stenciling

It's always hard to think of something to do that's crafty for a guy. . . but I was able to come up with a couple freezer paper stencil ideas for my father-in-law and my brother-in-law.

This one was for my father-in-law's 60th birthday . . . I drew an abacus and cut it with my cricut on freezer paper.  The orange paint looks quite neon in the picture but I promise it wasn't that bright.

This one I made for my brother-in-law for Christmas.  It was tricky to draw a cassette tape and then try and make it not flat and boring.  I'm impatient, so instead of waiting for the paint to dry so I could do the next color, I used my blow dryer to speed up the dry time (worked great!!)

Add a word to the list!!

So, remember the seasonal word blocks that I made back in September . . . the 7 block set that spelt out 16 different sayings to use throughout the year?  Well, make that 17 now!

I found out they also spell "Be Mine" for Valentine's Day - thanks Courtney!!  The previous list didn't have a word for that time of the year.

Here's the new list:

• Welcome
• Friends
• Easter
• Dream
• Harvest
• Faith
• Mother
• Monster
• Spooky
• Family
• Freedom
• Winter
• Hope
• Home
• Snow
• Blessed
• Be Mine

Name Bean Bags

My daughter and 2 of my nephews were all born within about a 3 week time period of eachother, so that means 3 birthday presents to figure out all at the same time.  I made these for my son a while back, and thought it would be fun for the 1 year olds. 

With my son's, I had upper case on one side and lower case on the other, but since I was doing 18 bean bags at once, I opted for just one side with a letter on it.  (Didn't want to get burnt out since the birthdays are only a few weeks before Christmas time as well).

And a fun part was that my 2 year old son was able to help fill them up with the beans.  He love that part!

They are about a 5 inches square, and I used my cricut to cut the letters out on freezer paper to be able to paint them on.  The hardest part for me was picking out the order for the fabric to go in.  And as you can see, 4 of the 6 letters in my daughters name are "E," so I guess it didn't really matter what order I tried to put the colors in since they will get mixed up anyway. 

This is a great way to use up fabric scraps - and all the beans in your pantry!

Plastic Bag Holder

One of the homemade Christmas presents I made for family was a plastic bag holder for my mother-in-law.  The paisley fabric just screamed her name - and I knew she needed one of these.

The tutorial I used was from Make it and Love it.  It was really easy to make and turned out perfect!

Angry Birds Part 2 and 3

Obsessively Stitching posted the tutorial and patterns for the green pig and the blue bird.  Here's my blue bird. . . 

I didn't have any green fleece, so I opted to make my own pattern/design for the black bomb bird.  I think he turned out good.  Though I may end up moving the black dot in the middle of his eyes, he looks more surprised than angry.  The black bird is bigger than the red one in the game, so hopefully I made him bigger.  (The red one is wrapped up for Christmas already so I can't compare it.)

Here's the red one I made a while back.

2x4 Snowman

My new favorite blog is Under My Umbrella.  My "to-do" craft list pretty much doubled.  :)

Once I saw this 2x4 snowman, I knew it was destined to make it to the top of my list.  I don't have MDF for the hats like she used in the tutorial, but I have an awesome friend from church who gave me their leftover scrap wood.  So I was able to make the hats out of 2x2's and other scrap pieces.  I had the same polka dot paper she used for the hat, so that was cool.

I had enough 2x4's to make 2 of them, but then I realized I could cut them in half (so they weren't as deep) and end up with 4.  Now the tough part is deciding which one I want to keep and who to give the other 3 to.

But 4 sets of snowmen means lots of blocks to sand and paint.  And when you have a 2 year-old, they aren't snowmen  . . . they're blocks for a wall or tower to build and destroy.

Knee High Socks turned Arm Warmers

My hands are always cold, and these have been great while driving or just wearing around the house.  I've seen this idea floating around for the last couple years, but I did it a little different than I've seen them so far.  It's hard to take a picture of your own arm :)

I took an old pair of knee high socks that I've had for about 12-13 years - they got too tight after highschool/college but I couldn't part with them.  And I made this pair right before Halloween, so the colors went great for my wardrobe choice.  I cut off the foot part like so . . .

Most examples I've seen have the finished stretchy top of the sock as the part by your elbow, but I made that the part on my hand and used the unfinished edge as the upper arm side - much more forgiving of non-skinny arms :)

I also made a "button hole" of sorts as the thumb hole - this was tricky, and I swore I'd never do it again, but I just made 3 more sets today :).  I did two lines of tight zigzag stitches where I wanted the thumb and then a wider stitch to keep the ends together.  It's tricky sewing in a small sock opening. (you could try an actual button hole on a scrap, but my machine wouldn't make it big enough and the sock kept stretching and it didn't work that way for me.

The ones I made today had a little something extra on them.  I had plain knee high socks and felt they needed a bit more to them, so I cut up the foot part (cut off the heel and the toe pieces) and sewed them to the alternating sock (grey went to black and black went to grey) as a cuff.  Here is a picture of how I cut them.

To get the rolled edge look, stretch the edge of the sock like my little helper is and then roll it down a little.

Here they are with the new cuff (that went by the elbow.)