Hill Country Homebody: January 2012

Monday, January 30, 2012

Sphere Not!

Has anyone noticed the sphere madness in home decor lately?

I have and I like it! Don't you? I mean we've been filling bowls with balls for years right but these guys are more interesting and don't need a vessel. They can stand on their own.

You can go look for yourself at West Elm.

The large one is $29 and small $16. That won't break the bank but......

in true cheapskate fashion I didn't want to pay that. I would rather save my pennies and buy some other awesome stuff from there that I can't make on my own.

You wanna see how I made mine?

Teehee I love this stuff!

Enter:

4 embroidery hoops

Forgive the bad bad blurry shot but the 6 " hoops were $.99

and well you can see the 8" were $1.19

I took apart each hoop and started playing with the 4 small pieces (there are two pieces per hoop if you have never played with these guys before). I placed them inside one another and moved them around until they looked like this.

I wanted to make sure I could get them to look right before I messed with staining them.

My original thought was that after I stained them I would just attempt to hot glue them together.

I decided I would line up and interlock the two tightening thingies to hold them together fairly well and then glue them together.

Then I slapped on some gray wood stain with a sponge brush(this is really porous and thin wood so it soaks it up quick). I wanted a little rustic look so I literally slapped it on. Then I ended up moving them around from place to place in the house and the garage for two weeks until I found time to play again but seriously this is a super quick project if your not me;)

Since I had two weeks to think about how I wanted to keep these balls together I decided to steer clear of the hot glue idea and tack them together instead. Literally!

Seriously this wood is so soft that the thumb tacks went in really easy. No they don't go all the way through two layers of hoop but they do hold it together just fine! Woohoo...no messy stringy hot glue!

I originally thought I would buy these and take off the tightening thingies but I don't mind how they look with them(I stained over the metal too so they don't stand out as much). I think if you have ever stuck with me enough to read any of my posts you know by now that I am a sloppy, messy, or even a half *** crafter. You will find no attempt at perfection in any project at this house. We are just typically excited to get r done!

Don't laugh at me...I did move these to three different places to photograph them;) I never feel like I can get a pretty shot in this rent house because often the back drop includes apple wallpaper, peeling linoleum or 80's shutters;)

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So there ya have it! Mine aren't as large as the ones linked to above but I like them just as much and for about 6 bucks (we already had the stain and brush) I actually LOVE them!

linking to the fabulous parties at:
Beneath My Heart
The Shabby Nest
Remodelaholic
Chic on A Shoestring
Uncommon Designs
Thrifty Decor Chick
Tatertots and Jello
The Shabby Nest
Stuff and Nonsense
House of Hepworths

Christina's Adventures

The Shabby Chic Cottage

Somewhat Simple

Fireflies and Jellybeans
A Turtles Life for Me
Blue Cricket Design
Hope Studios
DIY by Design
Todays Creative Blog
Savvy Southern Style
Home Stories A to Z
Tip Junkie
Between Naps on The Porch
C.R.A.F.T
Under The Table and Dreaming
Flamingo Toes
Stuff and Nonsense
At the Picket Fence
Be Different Act Normal
Funky Junk Interiors
I Heart Naptime
Designer Garden

Birthday Fit for a Fairy

A special and goofy little girl in our house turned 4 recently! It's hard to believe.....

This sweet little character of ours can be all girl and yet act like a WWF wrestler when it comes to taking down her big brother but when it comes to parties she is as girly as it gets!

When asked what kind of party she wanted to have this year she quickly shouted "Tinker Bell"!

I hate to admit this but character parties bug me(which is funny because for our first childs birthday I did a whole Nemo thing just because I found some Nemo plates on clearance?? funny how much I change in a few years). Anyway, I should just get over it because that is what kids like right? I have tried to avoid going all "charactery" with the last two parties at our casa. Little dude had a super hero party party and we were able to pull it off so I figured I could throw a Pixie/Fairy party with a little Tinker sprinkled in and she would love it!

I had spotted a pretty ruffle cake on pinterest a while back that I thought I would try to make but but it was a big fail! Why? Have you tried to make fondant before? I found a recipe for marshmallow fondant and could just picture these pretty pastel blue ruffles with a surprise of pink strawberry cake on the inside. Thankfully I attempted the fondant early in the week and so I had it all made and sitting there waiting on me but when I plopped it out and tried to roll it out it was like a an old piece of gum, or rubber or just something that wasn't gonna roll out all nice and pretty. It was also way lumpy(are you supposed to sift the powdered sugar or something?) . I don't know but I will have to try again sometime just for fun because it makes such a pretty cake. Thankfully as backup I had some cans of cream cheese icing and was able to throw this baby together literally 45 min. before the little faeries arrived! Oh and that star above tinker is a sparkler! It was fun and stayed lit for the whole birthday song!

I couldn't help myself and had to decorate the mantle to make it a little festive too.

All the bigger butterflies you see in this post were in the spring section that is already up and 30% off at Hobby Lobby!

As usual (for me) there was no rhyme or reason for most of what came together for the party. Even though weeks before I had started looking for ideas for a fairy party and decided on colors and bought a couple of table cloths...I hadn't really sat down and decided where I wanted to put things so the last couple of hours before the party we were running around like crazy;) Hubs was a good sport and put this sweet little streamer tent together for the girls.

The blanket is from little dudes bed and just so happened to match. I think this was one of my favorite little spots.

Can I just stop here and say I have never relied so heavily on streamers to make a party festive but I think I am in love now! Especially for a little girls party outside. The way they float around is so dreamy no matter what your back drop (or dead backyard) looks like!

Here is the cake table inside.

Gotta love tissue paper flowers!

I had plans to make this more full but ended up running out of time so I just tied an extra butterfly and some ribbon to it and was done.

I found the frames in the dollar bin at Michaels and already had the buckets from little dudes super hero party . The wands were made from little dowels, leftover hearts from her Perfectly Pink party last year, and we already had all of the pink ribbon.

You can see here that I got a little lazy with the whole wrapping of the ribbon part:)

We intended to sprinkle a little pixie dust(aka sprinkles) on the cake before we cut into but I totally spaced and forgot. This container was 50% off at hobby lobby( I think I paid a buck for it). Cute huh?

In the back there you see a little "make a crown" sign.....

I put little butterflies with clips(found in the floral section of Hobby Lobby) on the top of the stand and a bunch of ribbon that I curled up prior to the party on the bottom. Next to the stand are gold pipe cleaners that we formed the crowns with.

Let's move outside to the food and fun!

I placed a gold tablecloth over our random 1980's ish bar out back, added some tool and streamers and set up the fairy snacks.

The tool was just attached with safety pins(I'm sure there is a better and more classy way to do this but there was no time;)

We had fairy fruit wands which were stuck into a foam block covered with green spagna moss and I just stuck some butterflies that were already wired right into the foam too.

You get the picture. The moss was hot glued on.

I found these guys in the Hobby Lobby floral section also.

We served twigs and nuts and golden crackers(cheeze itz). The tables were both sprinkled with those shiny little flat marble things that I had from a project from years ago, and sprinkled with pink kisses.

As for activities we had a scavenger hunt:

The mommas got to help search the grounds...

Our little dude was really a good sport during this super girly party. He played along well and didn't complain much;)

They found some magic feathers too. Look at this tude!

We had a nail painting station that I intended to make a sign for that would say "Pixie Hollow Salon" but again didn't get around to it(imagine that) but maybe if you are having a fairy party you will plan ahead better than me;)

After we painted nails and added a little blush the girls went to town riding around the yard and trying to protect their nails at the same time. It was comical!