Homemade invites!

For my daughter's upcoming Paris themed birthday party I decided to make the invitations myself.  With the help of Hobby Lobby I got some stamps, ink and some pretty cool paper.

I just cut the paper into quarters with fancy scissors and then used the stamps.  I made all of them different, so they each had a unique touch to them.

After talking to some friends, I decided to add a bit of bling to them too.  I wanted to add little bows, but none of my ribbon was small enough…plus I'm not very good at making bows!  I also didn't have any rhinestones, but I did have some raised foam glitter stickers that I was able to use.

I must say, I think they came out pretty good!  Jaidan really liked them, and that's the important thing!

Riley's Valentine's

I know I did these same Valentine's for Jaidan last year, but they are so cute, and I thought they were perfect for Riley's preschool class so we did them again!

You can see my original post about making the crayons here, and you can see my original post on the actual Valentine's here.

I did do a few things a bit different this year.  Instead of cutting the crayons on the cutting board with a knife, I used a hammer and a bag.  Both ways are time consuming and I don't think either one is really any better then the other LOL.  Ok, well maybe I only did 1 thing different!  On to the pictures!

All ready to start!

Ready for the oven

Liquidy crayon goodness!

Heart crayons!

The finished Valentine!  Riley wrote his name on the back.

Did you do any DIY Valentines this year?  I would love to see them/read about them!

My 1st Project!

I recently decided to re-learn how to crochet.  I say re-learn, because back in elementary school my mom taught me how...tho other then a failed attempt at a scarf (which I turned into a cassette tape holder, yes I know I just aged myself LOL), I didn't really do much with it.

My daughter Jaidan also wanted to learn how to crotchet too, so we are learning together.  We have mastered the chain stitch, and single crotchet, and have also learned the importance of counting your stitches (even when not using a pattern!).

For our first projects we are both making scarves.  I am making a green one for Riley, since green is his (and my!) favorite color.  She is making a scarf for herself with some very pretty colors.

I will do another post when we are both done with our projects!  We are both making some good progress on them.  It helps that we are on our 3rd snow day of the week too!

Our 1st chains

Learning Single Crotchet

The start of a scarf

Slowly taking shape

Working on her scarf

Where we were at this morning

Do you have any projects you are working on?  Crotchet, or otherwise?

My Fall Wreath!

After seeing how easy it was to make the Deco Mesh wreath I made for UT, I decided to try my hand at a fall wreath too.  Except, I decided to try to do it using burlap!  What screams fall more then burlap does?

I bought a couple of different things (and collected some pinecones from outside) because I wasn't sure exactly what I was going to put on it, or how I was going to do it.

I basically did it JUST like the Deco Mesh wreath, except I had to use a whole pipe cleaner, not one cut in half, because the burlap was just too thick.  I was a bit worried I wasn't going to have enough of the burlap, because it comes with less on the roll, but I had about 1.5 feet left over when I was done, talk about relieved!  I also wound up using most of the orange accent burlap too!  But I have plenty of the fall leaves burlap ribbon left over.

I painted a burgundy C, it was small and curvy and very pretty, but it just blended way to much with the leaves on the ribbon.  I also painted a bigger C a pretty burnt orange and then put gold polka dots on it, and I really liked how it looked, but it did blend in a little bit.

I posted that one on Facebook and one of my friends recommended a Navy Blue C, since blue and orange are complementary colors (I did not know this, being as I am not very artistic, but she is and told me this LOL).  Luckily I don't permanently attach my letters!  I bought some Navy Blue paint and painted a new C, and attached it today.

So there it is, my finished fall wreath!  I really like the pop of color the blue C adds!  Now I just need to make my halloween wreath!

Deco Mesh Wreath

I made my very own University of Tennessee deco mesh wreath about 2 weeks ago.  It was SO, SO easy (even easier then the tulle one I had originally planned!).  I absolutely love it and can't wait to make more for other seasons/times of the year!

I had been wanting to make one for a while, and had planned making one with a foam wreath form and tulle.  Then my SIL Michelle started talking about making one and I made up my mind and went down to Hobby Lobby to buy the stuff to make it.  As I walked in I saw that fall deco mesh colors were on sale 40% off, and of course Orange is a fall color.

I have seen the deco mesh wreaths before, and had always been interested in learning how to make one, but had absolutely no clue what I was doing LOL.  They had a 21" and 5" across size, figuring I was making a wreath, I grabbed the 5" size (makes sense, right?).  Walked around the store so I could find white (which I also got in the 5" size) and saw the metal wreath forms next to a book that taught you how to make the wreaths with 14 designs included.  No way was I buying the book, but I figured those would be the right forms to use since they were by the book LOL.

I got home and sat down at the computer and fired up YouTube.  Come to find out...most people use the 21" for making wreaths!  But I found a super easy tutorial that used both the 21" and the 5", so I exchanged my Orange 5" for the 21".  I also found out I needed pipe cleaners...which btw, for those un savvy crafty people, like me, pipe cleaners are also referred to as Chenille Stems (so I picked those up when I did the exchange).

I was able to make the entire wreath, on my own, without the tutorial after I had watched it the 1 time.  Here's a link to the Youtube video I watched Deco Mesh Wreath Tutorial.  See how easy that is?  Here are the pictures I took of my wreath!

 Painted my T orange

 Added some white polka dots

 My supplies

 Doing the first ring

 End of 1st ring, starting the 2nd ring

 After the 2nd ring

 After the 3rd ring, which is the accent color

My finished wreath on my door!!!

I can't wait to make more!  Debating if I should do a fall one...or a halloween one next!

Valentine's Day Crafts

Jaidan made her own Valentine's this year for her class and I sat down today with Riley and Aislinn and helped them each make something different for Daddy for Valentine's Day.



First up, Jaidan and I made some heart shaped crayons, which I posted about here.  Then, we used the print out provided by this blog.  We didn't have card stock, so we used white construction paper.  We had to cut half an inch off the sides so the paper would fit into our printer.  Here's a picture of the finished product!

Next up is Riley's craft for Daddy!  We had to use 4 pieces of paper, because he did his own writing and he was trying to write too big.  But, he finally did all the writing!!  Then Mommy drew a heart and put a little bit of glue on it at a time and Riley stuck the pasta to the glue!  Here's his finished product!

Finally we have Aislinn's craft!  Mommy did the most of the work, Aislinn just sat there and looked pretty LOL.  I painted Aislinn's feet, 1 at a time with finger paint, then I had her stand up and I placed her feet on the paper.  She made Daddy a heart using her feet!

The paint dried a bit lighter then I would have liked, but it still came out super cute!!!

Did you do any special crafts for Valentine's Day?

Craft Time

Over the last few weeks I've done a couple of crafts with the kids that I found on Pinterest (seriously, if you are not on this site, you are missing out!)  Both these activities have been pinned onto my 'Pinned it, Tried it' board (if you're not following me yet, just click the link on the top right of my blog to follow me on Pinterest!)

The first thing I did was make heart shaped crayons with Jaidan.  This was a trial run, to see how well it worked and how they turned out.  We'll be doing some more for Jaidan to use as Valentine's this year at school.

We had a zip lock baggy with old broken crayons in it that we used (I gave Riley and Aislinn each an old wipes container and put brand new crayons in each container for them, this way they each had their own crayon's and there was no more fighting over crayons!).  First we had to cut up all the old crayons, this was very time consuming...I also should have probably used my wooden or plastic cutting board, not my porous poly cutting boards (lesson learned!)

Once we had enough cut up, we had to fill the trays.  I bought some silicone heart shaped trays at Target in their dollar bins for $3.

Then, we popped them in the oven.  The pin said 230* for 15 mins, but I had to leave them in for 30 mins.

I did stir them with a toothpick at the 15 min mark.  I stirred them again with the toothpick when I took them out.  I put them on a rack to cool (I used my slow cooker's rack).

Normally, I link back to the blog post I followed with my pin.  But in this instance I also used google and read I think 2 different blog posts, their comments, and a forum's post with comments.  So, I kind of read what a bunch other people did and what did or didn't work for them and came up with my own method.  You can find the original pin I used tho on my pinterest board.

Next up, I decided to try the soap cloud with Riley!  Jaidan came in and watched while it was in the microwave.  I had never done this before and was able to get a 3 pack of Ivory soap for $.25, so I decided to do this....Ok, I bought the soap with the intent to do this project LOL.

It's very important that you use Ivory soap, I can't tell you why, but that is what the blog said (supposedly you get a burned mess with other brands)

This is so easy to do.  You just put the soap on some wax, or parchment paper (NOT foil, seriously folks, we don't want any fires!), turn on the microwave and watch it grow!  I set my timer for 4 mins, but we took it out at 2 mins.  It had really slowed down with the growing (couldn't even tell if it was moving anymore), so we did a big huge count down together for the last 10 seconds and took it out at the 2 min mark.

Riley thought it was super cool.....until it came out of the microwave, then he didn't want to hold it LOL.

If you want to see the original blog post you can do so here.  We still have our 'cloud' so I am thinking about letting the kids make colored soaps like she did in her blog post.

Have you done any Crafty fun things lately?

Pinned it, tried it, results!

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I was going to try some pinterest projects.  Here are the results of some of those projects!

First I did the Homemade Finger Paints.  This was pretty easy to do.  I used some empty baby food jars to store it in and then I used Wilton Cake Decorating Icing Colors to tint them.  I don't normally have food coloring on hand, but I have tons of the icing colors for my cakes.

Mixture after I put it in the jars, before I colored it all.  You can find the Wilton Icing Colors at Walmart, Michaels, and I am sure other places too.

All done!  Blue, purple, yellow, red, pink, and green.

I did paint a bit with the green, and then went and washed my hands.  It all came out easily.  I have yet to try it tho, with a kid playing in it forever and then washing it out lol.


Next I tried making the Mind Jar for Austin.  I followed the pin, and she had a great description, but she also linked back in her blog to where she first got it from.  The other lady did it slightly different (added extra glitter).  So I kind of did a little bit of both to make mine.

I used a mason jar that I bought at Michaels.  I know they seal air tight and I didn't want to take any chances!  I used just over 1.5 cups of warm water.  I added 2 tablespoons of orange glitter glue (Austin picked it out himself!).  Like she said, it did take a bit for the glue to melt, so I also stuck it in the microwave for 60 seconds.  This kept the water warm, since the glass stayed warm.  I added a touch of the wilton icing color in orange to the water, to make the water orange.  Then I added some orange glitter to it.  Note....add the glitter last, it settles on the top of the water (I learned this the hard way haha, I was still melting glue when I added the glitter!).

Here it is before you shake it up.  You can see the glitter glue part settled on the bottom (it doesn't completely melt away) .  If you look at the top you can see the extra glitter I added floating around lol.

Here it is all shook up.  I really like how it turned out, and Austin liked it too.  Hopefully it will help him some with his temper!


This next project was soooo easy.  I made the bookmarks with the paint samples.  I picked a few up at Walmart, Austin was with me so he picked out his 2, and I picked out 2 for Jaidan.  They were out of pink, so I had to get her other colors.  I bought some ribbon for $.97 (which will last me quite a while).  I bought 2 punches at walmart, but they kinda stunk, their selection wasn't very good.  When I went to Michaels they had a much better selection and I picked out 2 different ones.  They were all $.97, or $.99.  So super cheap, and re-usable not only for this, but other projects too.

All you do is use the punches to cut out the design on one side, use a hole punch on the top for the ribbon, then tie the ribbon through, super easy!.

Finished bookmarks with the supplies.  Music notes for Austin, hearts for Jaidan.  No more corner's being turned down by kids (yes Jaidan, I am looking at you!).


Well there you have it, results for things I pinned on pinterest and tried.  I do have a few other projects I am working on.  I will post those results when I am done with them.