Showing posts with label Crafts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Crafts. Show all posts

Friday, November 30, 2012

A meaningful Christmas

Hi Folks.  It's Friday and that is a good day around here.  I am off on Fridays now which allows me to have some one on one time with our shortest short person!


We are attempting to get into the Christmas spirit in the midst of not knowing if we are moving anytime soon or not and having most of our decor in unreachable places in the garage.

This year we decided to change it up since we won't be getting all of our Christmas decorations out.  We donated our artificial tree a while back because different sections of lights were out, we had had it for about 8 years and it was taking up precious garage space.
So in instead of buying a real one that we may have to decorate, undecorate, and move we opted for this precious guy.


Not the kid..the Tree. Although that kid is pretty precious too.
It's our Charlie Brown Christmas Tree!
 We decided to get a potted tree that we can plant at the new house when the holiday season in all over.
I'll admit that our son cried when he first realized that this was THE TREE we would have.  "It isn't a Christmas tree" he said.  Then we attempted to convince him that this was a special tree and we would have it forever (if we don't kill it that is).  He now loves it and can't wait to see it when he gets home from school.

You may notice it's missing ornaments?
We also decided to make it more special by only putting meaningful decorations on it.

I was blessed enough to get to go to a "Meaningful Christmas" party last night.
Have you heard of this?  
Two moms Carrie and Brittney decided to write a small book to help families walk through a 24 day advent devotional.  There is a scripture for each day and quick little devotional for your family to do together. Just to make it even better there is a special ornament devoted to that scripture!  How awesome is that?

One of my girlfriends decided to organize a party where 24 of us got together and made an ornament that we thought represented the scripture that we were given.

This was my interpretation of my scripture.
Can you guess which scripture it was?



John 8:12
When Jesus spoke again to the people he said, "I am the light of the world.  Whoever follows me will never walk in the darkness, but will have the light of life."

I googled the heck out of "meaningful Christmas light of the world ornament" and didn't come up with much so I had to get creative(or got to;)!

I had a crafting fail when I attempted to make a "world" with a clear glass ornament and some craft paint.


In this pick my world was still looking awesome but I added a little water to spread everything around better and it still hasn't dried...Days later.  My intention was to somehow attach these little battery operated lights to the top so the fake flame would light up the world but I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to make it happen.  I tried a couple of different glues but just didn't get it right.  I think it could be really cool but I just didn't have time to do all of this with 24+ ornaments.


I also attempted to use the tops of the glass ornaments I bought as a "crown" per say on the "candle".
I thought it looked cool but I didn't want to have a bunch of glass ornaments without their tops and when I found packages of just the tops at Michaels they were all different sizes.  This could still be a great option for someone as you can easily puncture a whole in the middle of the metal top and then glue it upside down over the flame.


Anywho it was back to the drawing board and Hobby Lobby for me.

Thankfully I spied these little glass nativity scenes for 50% off of $1.99.


 I purchased some glittery silver ribbon, attached it to each candle

then I ended up just hot gluing the it all together.

HELPFUL HINT:  These babies ain't gonna hold up!  I didn't have time to do it but I'm thinking model glue may be better for this.   It just has a 2 hour drying time:(.  I would also try to buy electric candles that are flat or smooth on top as mine had a ridge that caused an issue with every variation of this ornament I attempted;)  I mean really it wouldn't be a craft without a couple of craft fails in the process would it?

So I warned all the lovely ladies that these may very well fall apart but at least it wouldn't be the glass that falls;)  They are all prepared to attempt to glue it back together if this happens!  





So what do you think?  Isn't this a fun party to kick of the season.  Our kids are so excited about these ornaments and I'm so excited to have a special tree that only has these very special ornaments on it!



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Sunday, March 25, 2012

Even Eggs are Trendy;)

 This is no eggstraodinary post!  (I couldn't help myself;)  I have had these little paper mache eggs laying around for weeks and had different plans for them...Probably a better plan really but I don't know that I will get around to it.  So in an effort to not let them go untouched before Easter I broke out the paints!  



These paper eggs were 40% off of 8.00.




There were 12 in the bag.


I honestly wasn't sure what I wanted to do with them after I got them all painted up and I was trying to figure out how I would let them dry without rolling all over the place but as I was digging around and ran across these in my messy crafting cabinet.



They are wood spool things(obviously I'm not sure what they are for) left from a project that I didn't get around to at  Christmas;)  You see how my ideas are shot down by lack of hours in the day?;)  Oh well, maybe next Christmas!

This would not only help me have a place to dry them but I just paint these guys up too and make a simple display for the eggs.


For some reason I can't get "into" lots of bunnies and fluff for Easter.  That may change someday and actually maybe it should now because I'm sure the kids would love it!  But...for now simple little hints of Easter are the way things are going around here.  


 Here are some close ups of what else but some Ombre, Chevron, and Ombre mixed with Chevron uncrackable, never gonna rot Easter Eggs!


So there you go...



It's a trendy piece of mantle art!
Except I can't remember to get a pic in good lighting on the mantle;)

Oh but wait!  I didn't leave the kids out....

Here is there version

Bitty baby's on the left, little man, then miss ballerina's on the right.

Love them!

linking to the parties at:
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Monday, February 13, 2012

Last Minute? Me?

Little dude has his Preschool valentine party tomorrow and guess when we got his valentines all wrapped up.  Tonight of course!  If it were any other way I wouldn't feel like myself.

Last week I decided to start "pinning away" to get some ideas for something that we could make together.
These were a few of my faves:

These are awesome but would have taken some planning and some time.  Both of which I am not good at nor have a lot of  since oh about 2006.  If you want to be ready for next year she does sell the fish bowls in her Etsy shop I believe!


These are so cute and and all over the place but seemed like too much work.  I mean I would actually have to go pick up prints and heaven forbid I add one more thing "to do" to the list;)



These are adorable but of course I would have needed to plan ahead and find the mazes.  And...the printer is out of ink.


 I thought we might do this but of course we are out of ink and I couldn't find a decent deal on 18 bouncy balls.

This one could get pricey considering how many valentines we needed.  Those are packages of rollo's in the sticks.

These are ALL over Pinterest and rightfully so but I swore I would never play with melted crayons since I made race car crayons for little dudes 4th birthday.  Granted these would be easier since there is no pouring of hot staining wax into a mold.


These are just smart and fun!


This one is a little kooky and different which I like!


Super cute!


And BINGO!
There it is.  This looked simple enough and we could improvise since we were out of ink.  Now if only I could find Pop Rocks.

 Via:

I had searched high and low for them recently for another project to no avail but got lucky this time at the Dollar Tree while looking for bouncy balls.  Obviously I didn't didn't find the balls but it all worked out!  The pop rocks came in packages of 3 for $1.


You know what the best part about this one was? Little dude could do them almost all by himself!  Don't get me wrong I wanted this to be something we worked on together but I didn't want it to be my project.  I cut out the strips of paper that we already had with the "fun scissors" that we already had and made a few examples of what we were doing and then he ran with it.  I did most of the cutting so we had some consistency there.


Here is our pile of Pop Rocks.  Of course part of the project was eating some together too.  Who knew candy could be so entertaining but there is something hilarious about the whole popping in the mouth thing!

I think they turned out pretty charming.  Nothing fancy or perfect about these guys.  Just some precious 5 year old handwriting and a memory with mom!




Oh Wait.......
what is a valentines post without something yummy for your tummy?  These lovelies caught my eyes this week too.  Unfortunately I will be at work on Valentines morning and can't do a whole heart themed breakfast but I will have to keep these up my sleeve for someday!



Yes these could be for breakfast too.  Don't you worry.  I have been known to down a couple of pieces of cake or a bowl of ice cream over my regular fruit and yogurt a time or two.  These could start my day off just right as well!



Hope you and yours have a sweet and memorable Valentine's day!

Thanks for stopping by!  I love to be "liked"!  Who doesn't? 
Jess




Monday, February 6, 2012

Frame Wreath Thingy Majig

Good monday morning fellow DIY fanatics and Pinaholics!  I have been really overwhelmed with all the sweet comments about my Sphere Knockoff project and wanted to take a minute to say THANK YOU for taking the time to say hello and letting me know you liked it!  Seriously it isn't until a week like that that I assume just my mom and a few close friends might be checking in to see what kind of trouble I'm getting myself into on the home front.  By "trouble" of course it's all self imposed "I can't seem to keep up with paying the bills, working, doing laundry, cleaning the house oh and raising three energetic kiddos cause I like to do projects" kind of trouble.  Thankfully I know that I'm not alone! Right?

Anywho....I have at least a couple of posts lined up to feature a few details that went into a baby shower that a few good friends and I threw for our sweet friend that is expecting her first girl!  We are talking...the hey I've had two boys and I'll probably have a third but "WHAT it's a girl?" kind of girl!

Can you tell I'm excited for her!
Well what is a party without an entrance?  An oh so simple entrance I might add.  Actually I was at Michaels the night before the shower picking up some last minute things and I saw these frame thingymajigs!

Pin It


I couldn't help myself!  We didn't have anything for the front door so for 6.99 I had to get it!  Of course then I had to get a little paint and a little ball hangy thing(I'm so bad with words..so if thingy and majig make you want to puke you should probably just look at the pictures;)
Pin It


Look at her!  Isn't she cute? Sorry about the blurry pics..not sure what is going on with that?  Seriously the flower ball "thingy' was 40% off and well you know little bottles of craft paint are like .89.  Can you imagine if I would have actually had my 40% off coupon too.  What a simple wreath for a little money.  I already had the pink  ribbon( I have two girls ya know;)!

So here is the extensive tutorial:

I took this


Painted it with this:
Folk Art acrylic paint in Aqua



and you know what?  I didn't event have to get into all those nooks and crannies because the wood is burnt a little while being laser cut so the edges don't scream out "paint me too or else I'll look half done".



Tacked on the flower ball thingy




Tied on the pink ribbon and used a safety pin to attach the curly ribbon(didn't want to wait on the hot glue gun;)


And Viola!


Minutes I tell ya!

You know what one of the great things about this project it?  Before I bought this I was thinking I could use this in the girls room in the new house.  I have already bought a few good deals for their room so I know the colors we are going for and even as I shopped for things for the Fairy Party I kept in mind what I could reuse for their room.  It makes buying things for parties that come and go a little more bearable because we know we can reuse most of it!



Linking to:






Tip Junkie handmade projectsPhotobucket