What Craft Season Are You In?

Crafting wise, I'm always way ahead of what the actual holiday/season/event is currently.  For example, I started thinking about Fourth of July the other day!  I'm already way over Easter craft wise - so much so that the other day I realized I actually needed to make some Easter plans and get the kids some clothes and stuff.   Not good!!

I got really excited yesterday when Expressions Vinyl had a coupon code for 30% off so that I could order some stuff to make 4th of July t-shirts.  I got some of the flocked t-shirt vinyl.  I can't wait to try it out! 

I love Expressions Vinyl.  I placed an order for some vinyl through them a couple of weeks ago and was blown away by how fast they had my order in the mail to me after I ordered.  No difference in the order I placed yesterday.  It's already on it's way to me!  I'd better figure out what my t-shirts are going to look like!

I also got some dry erase vinyl.  I think I'm going to use it to make chore charts for my kids.  They've been begging for me to make them some but I just have a mental block when I go to get started.  I'm going to have to do some Pinterest research on that one. 


Any good chore chart ideas?  How far ahead do you craft?

Felt Ruffle Spring Wreath

Do you love spring?  I have a love hate relationship with spring.  I love the weather. I love the Easter (and even Lent) season and the services it brings at church.  I hate hate hate the allergies spring brings.  It's a miserable time of year health wise for me.  Spring also means summer is coming.  While I love the lazy summer days and the time I get to spend with my kids...I live in Texas so it's just unbearably hot and all spring I can't help but have that feeling of dread that the HEAT and BATHING SUITS are so very close.

Now, one thing I've noticed about spring (and summer) is that it doesn't inspired me to decorate my home in any special way.  September 1st hits and I'm pulling out the fall decorations and going to town crafting and prettying up the house and this lasts through winter.  But once spring hits, the house just gets boring and stays boring until September!  So with my new love of drafting, I'm trying to pretty up the house for spring.

I knew just what I wanted for the door.  I had so much fun doing my felt ruffle wreath for Valentine's Day and knew I wanted to do it again for spring.  I went out and bought tons of pretty colors of felt.  I made this wreath just like I did when I made my Valentine's Day Wreath post.

I also found and an "M" and knew that needed to be on the wreath. I had some pretty spring fabric so I Mod Podged the fabric onto the initial and added that to the middle.

 I love, love, love the way this wreath turned out! I've been so excited to share it on the Spring Link Party!!

I'm linking up at the Spring Fling Link Party as well as all the parties you see in my sidebar!!

Jazzercise and Party Planning

I went to Jazzercise tonight for the first time in a while.  Between Spring Break, sick kids, meetings and well, just life, it's been a while since I've gotten to go.  Jazzercise is the ONLY exercise I've ever liked doing.  It's very hard to fit in to my life, despite the many class times they offer, so I try to go when I can and enjoy it.  It relieves all of my stress and it clears my mind.  So tonight while I was dancing, I was thinking about my blog and had an *aha* moment - remember Oprah's aha moments?  It hasn't been that long since she's been gone.

Anyway, I realized that all I blog about is my crafting.  Which is the main reason for this blog, but, there are other things in my life!!

For example, I find myself all of a sudden in the role of party planner.  I'm planning a First Communion party for my daughter which is coming up in May.  This will be a BIG deal and I want it to be very special and memorable for her.  I've been scouring Pinterest for ideas on decorations and food. I'm going to make my own version of this to be the backdrop to the food table.

Source: positivelysplendid.com via Stevie on Pinterest

Uh oh...back to crafting again. Oh well - can't escape it. Isn't it gorgeous though?  Mine is going to be yellow.  And I'm not doing the chalkboard part of it.  But I am doing the flowers.

Anyway, since I'm making a lot of cute stuff for that party, when the opportunity came up to help out with throwing a popcorn and candy party in the teacher's lounge for Teacher Appreciation Week in late April, I decided to sign up for it since I could use some of the same stuff and get more use out of it. Check this fun idea out!

Source: parents.com via Stevie on Pinterest

How fun will that be in the teacher's lounge? Mine won't be quite that big but still fun!

Oh yeah, and I'm planning a party in June for my dad that about 700 people are invited to - YES, 700!!  Not that many will come - but that is how many are invited.  Luckily there is a limit to how many people we can have in the facility where we're holding this event so there won't be 700...but there could be as many as 300.  My dad is an ordained deacon in the Catholic Church and this June is the 25th anniversary of his ordination so it's a BIG celebration!

So with all of that going on you can see why I get a little stressed and need to go to Jazzercise once in a while!  I probably need to go a lot more often than once in a while!  We do what we can right??

So now I'm off to get the kids to bed and crawl into my own bed to watch Dancing With the Stars.  My favs are Melissa Gilbert - because who could not love Laura Ingalls - and Max and Cheryl Burke because she's the spokesperson for Jazzercise and it doesn't hurt that her partner this season, William Levy, is mighty easy on the eyes!!  Maybe I'll do a post soon on my favorite television shows.  You might be surprised at some of the things I watch - especially what I watch on a nightly basis to help me go to sleep!  You'll know what a dork I am for sure then!

Spring Planters and Peeps Crafts

I was sick yesterday :(  Head hurt, throat hurt, runny nose - general allergy yuckiness.  On top of that, I had, well, girl stuff going on.  Not a good combo.  So I didn't do this post which I wanted to have done early so I could try to link up to the Spring Craft Link Party.  Boo hoo!  As I start this post, there are already 269 people linked up!!  Oh well - the show must go on!

I wanted show how I did the two crafts I made for my spring mantel.  First up is the  Peeps Planter.  I bought the green planter at Hobby Lobby for 50% off!  I wanted something on the front to dress it up and I quickly thought of the metallic contact paper that my mom found in a bunch of stuff she was going through from my grandmother's house (she passed away last year).  I had been holding on to it until the perfect time. 

So I got out my bestest best friend Cameo and cut out an "M" for our last name.

And put it on!  I still have tons more and am waiting for something really cool to do with it!

Now, it looks pretty shiny in this picture because of the flash from the camera - but I was kind of disappointed because in real life, just on a shelf, it doesn't show up that great.  Oh well, I'll change it one of these days when I order some pretty vinyl from Expressions Vinyl. 

I bought some plastic grass from Hobby Lobby - actually, I bought it for something else but it ended up not working for that project and working perfectly for this one!  Don't you love it when that happens?

So I put in some green Styrofoam and started sticking the grass in there.  Then I bought some peeps - they are SO cute - and stuck them on dowel rods and into the foam they went! 

Then I took some fabric and made a flower with my bestest best friend Cameo and the fabric interfacing I just got! 

I just love the way it turned out!

I also made the egg shaped topiaries.  I found the styrofoam eggs at Michael's for half off one day a while ago and grabbed them.  I wrapped them in some pretty pink yarn and stuck them on dowel rods.  Then I TRIED to do this Elmer's glue crackle paint trick that I ran across for the flower pots...but it didn't really work well for me.  I think the reason it didn't work is because I only used one color.  That is the only thing I can come up with - especially after I watched this video yesterday.  It reconfirmed that I think I needed to do two colors to make the effect really come across.  Because...well, mine really don't look crackled at all. 

But I love the yellow and pink.  A little girl that I teach was wearing yellow and pink the other day and I thought to myself how much I wanted to make something yellow and pink.  Strange where you can find inspiration!  I decided to use some green yarn for the grass and just laid it on top of the Styrofoam! 

Well, that's it for now!  I can't wait to share my spring wreath next week!  The link party is up to 275 now so I'd better hit publish and get it posted!!  Go visit there - TONS of great ideas!!

Spring Mantel

I wanted to join in with the Spring Decorating Link Party and show off my spring mantel!  I'm going to show pictures today and then link up on Thursday for the Spring Crafts with more details on how I made a couple of the things I have displayed on the mantel.

It is REALLY hard to get a good picture of my mantel because of the mirror that reflects the fan.  That is not a great look.  So every picture I take of my mantel straight on has not only the reflection of the mirror but my big fan in the mirror which doesn't look so great!  So I can take the best pictures of it from the side which isn't really the best either.

Here is a better shot of some of the individual parts of the mantel.

Who doesn't love PEEPS?  Well, I don't like to eat them <BUT> I love to decorate with them!  They are so cute!  I will go into a lot more detail on how I made the planter with the PEEPS as well as the egg shaped topiaries on Thursday.

This beautiful basket is my latest addition to my hobnail milk glass collection (if you can call 4 pieces a collection...you have to start somewhere!).  It is my souvenir from my trip to Branson last week that I wrote about here.  I wrapped two Styrofoam balls with spring colored yarns and added them to the dish to dress it up a little bit.

I hope you'll come back on Thursday and see how I made the other two crafts!!  I also have a beautiful wreath for next week!  Happy Spring!

30 Miles Closer

Our family went on vacation to Branson, MO last week.  This is NOT the first, second, third or even 1000 place I ever would have chosen to go on vacation!  However, my in-laws have a timeshare through Wyndham and that was the only place left when my mother-in-law went to try to find a place for use to take a trip.  At first, my husband and I were like, Branson?  The place with all the cheesy shows?  BUT…when I sat down one day and started Googling things to do in Branson, I was actually blown away by how many fun things there were to do there – things the kids would love!  I started showing my husband and he quickly got on board as well.  Add in the fact that we’d be staying in a condo that was furnished with everything we’d need to make a lot of our meals, thus saving quite a bit of money, and the fact that we wouldn’t have to even pay for said place to stay – we decided to go for it.

I can honestly say, I am SO glad we did!  It was an amazingly fun place to go for a family.  Yes, there is some cheesiness to it but there is so much to do and the people are all so friendly.  We never went anywhere that the employees didn’t ask us where we were from and how we were enjoying our trip.  We went on a tour of a cave, a butterfly museum, an antique/craft mall, a neat open mall call Branson’s Landing, and a 50’s diner where the waiters and waitresses sing to you.  In fact, our waiter was in the top 20 of American Idol a few years ago – Jason Yeager.  He sang a Journey song and the whole restaurant was signing and clapping with him.  

The only real bad part of the trip was the drive.  With stops for bathroom and lunch it was about 8 hours – a long time for me much less my 3 kids who are 8, 6, and 4.  Leading up to the trip, I knew I’d better be prepared for this long time of imprisonment.  I wanted to share one really neat idea I found online.  It was supposed to be a cure to the dreaded question – are we there yet?  How long do we have?  Are we almost there?  What state are we in now?  Okay – dreaded questions.  Basically, you give the kids enough tickets for every 30 miles of the trip.  Every 30 miles or so you tell them to hand you a ticket.  The theory is that they can visually see the trip ticking down as their bag of tickets becomes depleted.  I’ll tell you how I made the tickets and then tell you how it worked.

I got out my bestest best friend, Cameo, and using the tickets shape I got at Valentine’s day, I added the text “30 Miles Closer to Branson”.  I looked up the mileage and figured they’d need to give me about 15 tickets.  Using the Print and Cut feature I cut the tickets out.  Here’s what they looked like.

I put each set in a baggie for the kids.

Okay - so how did it work?  Actually really well - although the question changed to "Is it ticket time yet".  And honestly, there were still a lot of those other questions as well but I think it probably cut them down a bit.  It did make our trip more fun though.  The kids were able to see their tickets going away and knew that meant Branson was getting closer and closer.  And since it seemed like 30 miles seemed to come so often it made the trip go by faster for me as well.  

Besides that, I made each kid their own pretty clipboard.  I just decoupaged scrapbook paper onto the clipboards.  My kids are all color coded - one likes green, one likes pink or purple and one likes blue (it makes life so much easier) - so the middle color told them whose was whose.

Then I printed out tons of coloring pages, word searches, dot to dots and such according to age and preferences.  For Big Bear I found a map that she could color each state as we saw that state's license plate on the road.  The biggest hit was a road trip scavenger hunt.  The printable is here.  It had pictures so even my 4 year old could be included - although, honestly, he just colored in every box whether he had seen the thing or not.  

I used my amazing laminator that I love, love, love to laminate them so they could use them on the way there and back. Here's the laminator I use:

I also laminated some of the dot to dot pages so they could do them over and over. 

I also got them each their own pencil case and used some letter stickers to personalize them.   

I put all of this stuff plus their own handheld devices - DS or Leapster or whatever in their own car bag.


The trip was still long and the kids still asked a lot of questions but all in all, it was a great trip and my husband and I were blown away at how well our kids did in the car.  We had an amazing time together all week -  much needed quality and down time.  I'm so glad we went and would HIGHLY recommend Branson for any family vacation.

Crafting Withdrawal

I had MAJOR crafting withdrawal while on vacation last week.  It was pretty bad - there may have been shakes, headaches, anxiety, irritability...okay, not that bad.  But I did miss it.  That is be rectified RIGHT NOW!!

If you're wondering why I have a Christmas tablecloth...and ugly one at that...it's an old vinyl one that I haven't used in forever that is now my crafting table cover.  It protects my dining room table cloth from paint and stuff and when it's on the table, the family KNOWS what I'm up to!!

I am finishing an order for some of my spring wood blocks which I put up in my Etsy store but I am just realizing that I never blogged about them!  So here they are - I love how they turned out.

I love how they turned out!  A gal I know from church ordered 5 sets of the Alleluia ones!  I know I'll see her tomorrow and really want to get them to her.  I also need to finish up my mother-in-law's birthday present (her bday was Friday but we were out of town).  And I have another project that I want to start which hopefully you'll be seeing one of these days! 

I have tons of posts to work on for this week as well.  And grocery shopping.  And laundry since school starts back tomorrow.  And mass to go to!

Yikes - vacation relaxation feeling = GONE!!  Back to REAL life!  Oh well!

I'm Still Here...

Sort of!  We're actually on vacation this week!  We're in Branson, MO for spring break and having a BLAST!!!  I have so much to share about our trip and about some super fun spring crafts I've been working on lately.  But...the internet connection at this hotel is HORRIBLE which is why I've been MIA the past few days...well, that and because we're having a BLAST!!

So, look for me soon!  I hope to get some posts up next week and am definitely going to try to link up to a mantel show off party I saw somewhere.

Hope you're having as great a week as we are having!! 

Creative Memories Display Board for Spring

What a week it's been around here.  My oldest daughter, blog name Big Bear, is sick.  Here she is - still beautiful despite feeling so bad for a week!

She started running fever on Saturday and I took her to the doctor on Monday.  They swabbed her for strep and it came back negative.  They said it was a virus.  So we went home and she continued to get sicker and sicker.  On Tuesday night she started complaining of her throat hurting so we went back yesterday and boom - now she does have strep.  What the heck?  She could have felt better so much sooner and been back to school earlier.  So frustrating!

Anyway, not much blogging or crafting or really anything going on this week with one sick and trying to get organized for a spring break trip next week.  So this morning I woke up itching to craft!  So here's what I've got!

Several weeks ago Big Bear brought home some amazing drawings of flowers that she made in art class.  I was really impressed with them and have been saving them to display them somehow.  I have this beautiful Creative Memories Magnetic Display Board (let me know if you need a consultant and I'll get you in touch with my wonderful friend) hanging in between my kitchen and family room.  Sadly, this is how it has looked for the past several months.

 Shameful - I know!

It was time to do something about this!  I put all of Big Bear's flower drawings on a 12x12 piece of white scrapbook paper. 

 Then I got out my bestest best friend, Cameo, and got to cutting! 

Here's how the whole thing looks!

Much better!  So fun and springy!  What have you been up to?