Valentine's and a Shout out to Pinterest

Amy and I have been off the grid for a couple of weeks.  New jobs, waiting for babies to arrive (Amy is also doula), surgeries, and illnesses have kept us away from feeding our creative inner beasts.  

I could easily say that the past month has been monumentally hard on me.  It will be one of those that my husband and I will look back on and say: "Remember the winter of 2012?" Amidst all of the sickness and recovery we have also been tremendously blessed.

So, when the official day of love came around we were overcome with gratitude for all of the love we have in our lives.

 So thanks to a good friend I like to call , I was able to find last minute ideas for some cute Valentines.

I found the idea here.

  My oldest opted for a non sweet treat this year.

Idea found here.

I attached a little conversation bubble to the back with her little Valentine's Day message.

 Here is the candy bouquet I made for my hubby.  He is a self proclaimed sugar-chocaholic.  So, I thought that would be perfect for the man I love.  To go with the bouquet I created a candy bar letter that went a little like this:  "I have Good & Plenty Riesen's why I love you.  It's not just because you are one Hot Tamale.  We have 4 little Runts together...."  You get the idea. It was really fun creating and my husband loved it!  Now he has a year supply of candy just sitting on his desk.

 My husband sensing my stress over the past couple of weeks got me a massage and facial at our local spa.  He is quite a catch I tell ya--he knew just what I needed!

I hope you all had a wonderful Valentine's Day full of love! 

-Julia

Twisty "Lollipop" Flower

 I have made many many many headbands.  This is one of my girls favorites.  They call them lollipop flowers. They add such a fun pop of color to any outfit.  I thought I would show you how to make them today.

 Supplies:  Strip of fabric-mine was 1/2 an inch, felt, glue, and scissors.

   

First you want to make a knot at the end of your strip of fabric.  You can make it as thick or thin as you want.  The thicker the strip of fabric the fuller your flower will look.  Next hot glue the know to the center of your felt circle.  Next you will want to twist your fabric like shown above.  Twist around the center knot adding a drop of glue to secure the fabric.

 Continue twisting and winding the strip of fabric until you reach the desired size for your your flower.  Make sure the end is glued securely to the felt.  Then trim off any excess felt so that there isn't any felt exposed.

Then hot glue it to a headband, clip, elastic like demonstrated on Amy's previous post.  You could even use these on a broach or pin. 

Aren't these cute?

I made this one out of tulle to match my daughter's Sunday dress.  I would recommend experimenting with different textures and types of fabric.   You might be surprised how beautiful they turn out.

 -Julia

Friday Flower

There are a million and one flower tutorials out there, but I want to share this one with you, because I have never seen it anywhere.  It is one that will stand out in the crowd.  I came up with it one night, after I cut off all my hair. I wanted a flower that would lay flat against my head if I wore it on a headband.  I love that there is no sewing involved.  

All you need is some felt (wool felt is my favorite, but I've said that before), scissors and a glue gun.

 Cut out one circle, about three or four inches wide (depending on how big you want your flower), and a strip of fabric that is about 2 feet long and two to three inches wide.

Using your glue gun, fold the strip in half, gluing along the entire end.

Use your scissors and cut a fringe on the strip, cutting every 1/4 inch or so.  Be careful not to cut all the way through (seems like I always end up doing that).

Glue the fringe all the way around the edge of the circle, trimming the fringe when it meets the other end.

Glue another section of fringe on the inside of the circle.

Glue another section inside that circle.  You can do one more row, or add your center at this point.

Cut a spiral out of the a smaller circle (about 2 inches across), and use the tutorial found in this post to make a rosette.

Glue the rosette into the center of the flower.

Cut another circle from the felt, roughly the same size as the circle on the back of the flower.  Cut two small slits in it, about 3/4 inch apart.

Glue it onto the back of the flower, only putting glue around the edge of the circle.  This will allow you to attach your flower to a clip, headband or pin.  You can slip whatever you want through the notches.

My favorite is a headband.  With my hair so short, a clip doesn't really stay in place.

Have I mentioned that mustard yellow is my favorite color right now?  I'd wear it every day if I could.

-Amy

Inspiration from 1965

I think I'm pretty late to the game when it comes to Pinterest.  I finally set up my account just a couple of weeks ago, and I have to admit that it can be pretty fun to look at so many beautiful images.  On my first day, I encountered the above picture, and couldn't believe what I was seeing.  I have always admired my mother-in-law's handmade ornaments that currently belong to my sister-in-law.  I had heard that she made them right around the time that my husband was born from a pattern she found in some magazine.  Not only was I looking at a picture from the original magazine, but there was a link attached to give me a little more information.  I was able to find out exactly which magazine the ornament patterns were in, and, best of all, I found the magazine for sale on ebay and purchased it for less than $2!

I couldn't wait for it to arrive, and when it did, I spent a good hour going through every picture and description.  It is a Family Circle publication, titled Christmas Helps 1965.  The pictures throughout look like they come straight out of an episode of Mad Men.

The article that goes along with the above picture is all about how a hostess should act, and etiquette for party goers.  Doesn't she look like Joan?

I love this pine cone tree, and after making my little wreath, I can't imagine the time that went into creating a full-size tree!

When I showed my mother-in-law the magazine, she was especially enamored by the stockings.  Can you imagine having such a variety?

This partridge-in-a-pear-tree is probably my second favorite idea from my vintage magazine!

As much as I love all of the new ideas I see floating around on the Internet, I have to admit my favorite things are always vintage.  I'm already looking forward to Christmas crafting.

-Amy

A Couple of Gift Ideas

 So I have been working on finishing homemade gifts like a mad woman.  All of our family lives far away so I have to get everything ready in time to be shipped to their separate destinations.  I wanted to share a couple of the gifts that I have working on as of late.


 The simple Nativity: I wanted to make a simple Nativity this year to give to our family and friends.  I saw this a while back on Pinterest somewhere long before I had my own account set up.  So when I went to go find the same project again it was no where to be found.  So I improvised with what I remembered of someone else's inspiration.  I know that there is someone out there I should be crediting for this simple yet perfect Nativity but, unfortunately I can't find them.

 I wanted to make something that we could put down low for our children to touch and admire with their little fingers and not have to worry about the fragility of a fancier Nativity. I love the simplicity of it but, unmistakably you know who and what it represents.  I attached a quote from this year's Christmas Devotional:

“Of course, we do not need a Christmas holiday or Christmas traditions to remember Jesus Christ, the Savior. … May each Christmas season remind us to lift up our voices and fill our hearts with joy and gratitude that Christ the King has come! Christ lives! He is real. He is our Redeemer at Christmas and always.”

-President Dieter F. Uchtdorf

 I love personalizing gifts.  So, on the side of each Nativity I put the families name of whom we will be giving it to with the year.   I am so happy with how it turned out.  We already have ours displayed down low for our girls to look at.

Would you like to make your own?  This is what you will need:

*6"-2x2 (I did not sand them down before painting. I wanted a rough unfinished look)
*5"-2x2
*1/2" square dowel cut 3" in length
*2x 1-1/2" ball knob (for Mary)

*3x1-1/2" ball knob (for Joseph)
*1x 1/2" furniture button (for baby Jesus)
*desired acrylic paint, gorilla glue, and some twine

I cut the 2x2s for Joseph, and for Mary. I did not sand them down before painting. I wanted a rough unfinished look. I painted them and distressed them topping each with a flesh colored 2and3x-1/2" ball knob and attaching it with Gorilla glue.
For the baby I did the same steps as above.  The only difference being that in order for the ball to attach to the flat piece of wood you have to let the glue dry while it's lying down in order for it to adhere together.

I glued all of the figures together.  I didn't want any of the pieces to get lost so I figured gluing it all together would be a good option.  You definitely don't have to glue them together.  You could just bind them with the twine or leave it loose. 

Scrabble Necklace:  Talking about personalizing gifts I decided to make my girls and their friends Scrabble necklaces.  I sorted through one of 3 Scrabble games and pulled out various pieces to match the initials of their friends.  Little did they know I made one for them too.  I am going to give it to them on Christmas.  I liked them so much I even made one for myself.

I found the colored ball chains and the square bail plates at Hobby Lobby.  I used my E-6000 industrial strength adhesive.  Just a little dab will do on the back of the Scrabble piece to adhere it to the bail plate.  That was it!  Super simple.  It only took about 10 minutes for it to dry completely. 

I found my metal stamps a while back at Harbor Freight Tools for super cheap.  I just saw that Hobby Lobby sells metal stamps also--they even have different fonts.  I  have been a stamping fool lately. 

Well I hope that this gives you a couple gift ideas.  I will post more of my handmade gifts later on this week.

  

-Julia

Deck the Halls

Since Julia took the time to share some of her holiday adornments, I thought I might do the same thing.  It's been a busy, busy season for me.  I just finished up a graduate class I'm taking to renew my counseling license, which didn't leave me much free time to do all the crafting that I like to do.  Now that it is pretty much over, though, I have kicked things into high gear and have been accomplishing things right and left! The wreath, pictured above, is one such thing I finished over the weekend.  If you can stick through the end of this post, I will show you how to make your own.

This corsage was a day of distraction.  A friend asked me to help her make this for her son's date to the Winter Dance.  The challenge was to use things that we already had or could buy in our very, very small town.  Although it was a challenge (I have never made such flowers before), I was able to pull it off.  My friend made a ribbon that slipped through the back that was tied around the girl's wrist.  The nice thing about this corsage is that it can be re-used as a hair piece or a pin.  I would love to make more of these.

While procrastinating working on my final project for my class, I painstakingly made this pinecone wreath for our front door.  The pinecones all came from my grandmother, who is pinecone hunter and collector.  When I asked her if she had any small pinecones she could give me for this project, she went out back and found a 30 pound gunnysack of pinecones.  I was thrilled!  After the holiday, I plan to give this to my grandma to hang year-round if she wants.  The poinsettia is removeable.  Bonus: inside the gunnysack I found some beautiful lime colored moss that I was able to tuck into the cracks.

One of my favorite things to collect is vintage ornaments.  I'm lucky because the thrift store in town often gets boxes and boxes in from estates.  Last year I think I bought 20 boxes of ornaments for 50 cents each, hoping to make a glass ball wreath.  I think I'm too chicken to make one, because surely it will fall and all of my ornaments will break.  Instead, I like to display them in glass containers throughout the house.  I even was brave and put a couple on the tree.

Speaking of my favorite thrift store, I picked up a large frame there this weekend for 10 cents.  I had wanted to make a coffee filter wreath this year (totally unbreakable and totally cheap), gluing the filters onto a large embroidery hoop I thought I had in the closet.  Unfortunately, I could never find the hoop, so I thought I'd try a frame instead.  I can't take any credit for the frame idea, as my friend did it first, on a smaller scale.  If you'd like to make one too, you will need some sort of frame or hoop, a glue gun and an entire package of small, round coffee filters, which cost about a dollar.

 

Flatten your coffee filter and fold it in half, then fold it in half again.

Put a dab of glue on the outside edge of your frame and put your folded filter on it, with the folded edge of the filter pointing down.

Continue to glue on filters, each one about a 1/2 inch down from the next, until you go all the way around your frame.

Next, go around the top, front part of your frame, pointing the filters in the opposite direction.  Remember to keep the folded edge of your filter towards the bottom.

Finally, go around the inside edge of the frame, again in the opposite direction.  Make sure that the your filters go up and not towards the back.  Otherwise, they won't sit flush against the wall.  When it is done, spend a little time fluffing your filters.

I hung mine on my hallway closet door.  If you look closely, you can see that I attached a little sign that says "Happy New Year!"  Remember when I said that I like to leave decorations up as long as possible?  This project was cheap and simple.  If I had any advice, I would say to separate, flatten and fold all of your filters before you want to start your project.  That was the most time consuming part, and if I would have thought of doing it ahead of time, I could have just done it all while watching a movie or something.

I think I've done enough decorating projects.  It's time to start cracking on my gift making.  Next time I post, I'll share with you some simple gift ideas to give your friends and family.

-Amy