Spring Monogram "Wreath"

Last weekend I finally took down my Christmas wreath. Since it was red I figured it worked for Valentine's Day too, right? But not so much March or April.

Made by hot gluing fake berries on a M painted silver

So I finally got around to making a spring themed monogram. I have seen a few "wreaths" on Pinterest that are used with a frame. Well of course I have a large collection of frames from garage sales. I had a great solid wood antique frame which was perfect since it was already backless and glass-less. I went to Michael's and bought a wooden letter, some flowers, and ribbon. I spent $12 and the frame I already had was $1.

I pulled the flowers off of the stem and then hot glued them to the letter. I only used half the flowers so I put the rest in a vase inside.

I looped the ribbon around the frame and then hot glued it to the back of the letter. You can see how I looped it in the picture below. If I did this again, I would just staple the ribbon to the frame instead of looping it around like that. The problem with how I did it is that the letter hangs kind of crookedly in the frame. Its not bothering me too much right  now but I may fix it later. 

I then just tied my big ribbon around the top. I tried looking up different fancy bows but ended up just sticking with a basic bow...And then hung the frame by the bow on my wreath hook. I love that ribbon and have a lot left so I can't wait to use it somewhere else. 

Now I just need one for the summer! Already thinking of some ideas...maybe something with sand or shells?

DIY Christmas Ornaments

This year for Christmas I decided to make ornaments for our friends and family. My mom always made ornaments with us growing up. We had a Christmas party at our house so I used them as party favors and then gifts on Christmas. 

I made one of these Santa ornaments last year and I had a bunch of jar lids so I decided to make these wreaths and these snowmen as well. 

For the Santa ornaments I bought a pack of small glass balls (with a 50% off coupon of course) and some red confetti. I figured that was easier than cutting up small pieces of paper and I have a ton leftover. When I made the one last year I used paint but I ended up just using sharpies. I tried a paint pen as well but the sharpie looked pretty much the same and was easier.

The wreaths took a bit longer. Tying the string on was tricky and I had to mess around with it for a while first. I didn't use glue or anything, just tied it tight. I bought the bells and string at Michael's and used the lids that I had. 

The snowmen took the longest. I used all supplies that I already had. I did a couple of coats of the white paint. If you wanted full coverage quicker I would use spray paint. Once the paint dried Pascal drilled holes in the lids for the string. We should have done this before painting because it took off some of the paint. For the faces I used a black and orange sharpie which was so easy. I like the snowmen a lot and you could do many different things to customize them, like adding buttons. I even made a police officer snowman for my uncle. 

I was really happy with the results and I thought they made nice presents. I think I will definitely make the snowmen again. I forgot to save one for our tree!

Happy 4th day of Christmas!

Homemade Happy Birthday Banner

Last week I wanted to get a banner for my coworker Sarah's birthday. I decided that I could probably just make one on my own instead of getting one at the dollar store. I picked out a bunch of scrapbook pages that I already had and then decided to glue it to cardboard for added stability. 

I used an Ikea and Snapfish box for the cardboard and a brochure as a template. Conclusion: Snapfish has higher quality cardboard than Ikea. 

Once I had cut out all of my cardboard squares, I cut out the scrapbook paper about an inch bigger on each side. I added slits at the corners to make it easier to wrap around the cardboard. I glued the front on and then wrapped the paper around to glue it on the back as well. 

Once everything was cut out it went pretty quickly. I just used a brown sharpie to freehand the letters and I used a gold sharpie to add some accents. I think if I did this again I would just use white paper for the base and then cut the letters out of scrapbook paper and glue them on. 

I used a hole punch to make the holes and then put the letters on the ribbon. I didn't knot the ribbon on either side of the letters. The ribbon was thick enough so the letters did not slide around. 

And finished! I really like how it turned out. I made the letters really big so I did two banners instead of one. Cost of this project: free. 

My New Favorite Thing: Making Tutus

My friend and coworker Jenna tricked me into signing up for a Halloween 5K. She promised that I would get a t-shirt and that we could dress up. Of course I also had to run...We decided that we had to wear tutus and we could also use them for our Halloween costumes. For the race we just wore the tutus but then for actual Halloween we were a butterfly and a witch.

We bought our tulle at Walmart. Most of it was only 97 cents a yard. We looked at a couple of pins on Pinterest and the general recommendation was 8 yards of tulle for an adult sized tutu. I bought 7 yards in purple and then a half yard each of 4 different things to add on and some ribbon. I spent $23 at Walmart.

My supplies 

Jenna's supplies

I already had a bunch of purple ribbon (leftover from my wedding) so we decided to just use that instead of elastic for the waist. I think I might try it with elastic next time. The ribbon is fine though and is adjustable. I just knotted it in the back and it did not come undone even while running.

The entire tutu making process took about 2 hours. The longest part was cutting all of the strips of tulle. We just measured how long we wanted the tutu to be, added a couple of inches for the knot, and doubled it. I think my strips ended up being 30 inches long and then 4 inches wide. Once the pieces were cut it was pretty easy to knot the tulle on the ribbon. I wanted my tutu to be poofy so I pushed all of the knots close together. 

My tulle looks blue in the pictures but it is purple!

Besides the regular tulle I also added sparkly tulle, velvet, ribbon, and lace. Jenna did a couple of different colors and added ribbon and spiders. She used spider rings and just slid them on and they stayed by themselves.

Finished Product

Not too bad for $20 and two hours. I already have gotten to wear it twice and I am sure I will wear it again. Now I want to make a tutu for every holiday and occasion!

The tutu got a little beat up on the 5K from getting stuck between my legs and in bushes/branches but it survived and so did I...I even got 3rd place in the race in my age group. Out of 3 people...I only made it because of Jenna encouraging me!

Pre-Race

Post-Race

For work, we wore our full costumes as witch and butterfly. 

Mission Tutu = Successful

Pumpkin Painting Again

I got a second chance to decorate a pumpkin at work yesterday. We had a fall party and pumpkin decorating. The party was a big success with lots of yummy food and although not everyone participated in the pumpkin decorating it was a nice afternoon de-stresser.

I found two recipes I wanted to try on Pinterest and made pumpkin bars for our party and smores bars for my friend Kim's birthday. They both turned out really well. Although I did learn what the broiler feature on my oven is and that it can burn things quickly with my marshmallows.

As with my other pumpkin, I had a hard time deciding what to make with this one. But then I decided to do an owl which seemed like the obvious choice because, um, I have owl stuff everywhere (sweaters, lunchbox, pillow, cookie jar, statues, picture, vases...). I also thought the pumpkin that I had was a good shape for an owl. 

I googled different pictures of owls and then drew a rough sketch of what I wanted mine to look like. 

I thought about using different browns and blacks for my owl but picked some Halloweeny colors to make it more fun. 

I got a huge set of these paints from Home Depot on Black Friday last year for $10!

I drew my owl with a pencil first on my pumpkin and then painted it. It took a while to do all of the different parts and I needed two coats of paint. So about an hour for the whole thing. I like the end result and it was a lot of fun!

Pumpkin Decorating with Paint

Pumpkin carving intimidates me. I don't think I have ever really done it. Maybe I am just not good at cutting things? I am really bad at cutting up my own food at dinner...

But the good news is that a lot of people paint their pumpkins now instead of carving. Here are our pumpkins that we made in 2012. Mine is the one on the left and Pascal's is on the right. Pascal is more of the artist so can free hand whatever but I tend to stick to basic shapes. I don't think we even had pumpkins our first year in the house, 2011. Terrible.

So I was excited to get started on our pumpkins this year. We have had them for almost two weeks sitting outside but just got around to painting them yesterday. The good news is though that they're not Halloween specific so we can keep them out through Thanksgiving. The other thing about painting pumpkins instead of carving is that they will last longer, till Thanksgiving, un-carved. 

I looked at a lot of pumpkins on Pinterest but there were so many choices and I couldn't decide what I wanted to do. So I ended up just picking some fall colors that I liked out of my craft paint collection and messed around with it till I was done. 

 

Pascal decided he wanted to paint a mustache. They have been the cool thing for a while now and they don't seem to be going away. Since he is an artist he was able to just free hand one without tracing anything. He used a sharpie at first and then a paint marker. He did stubble first just for fun and and then filled it in.

 

And that was it. Nice quick afternoon project while watching the Redskins win!

Now I have to think of another idea for a pumpkin decorating contest at work...