Message Board - Wreath Inspired

I gave the Tea Wreath that I made to the coworker that I made it for.  She was very pleased with it.  One of my other coworkers saw it and thought it was really cute and said "Hey, it would be good for holding notes and stuff too."  She's not a tea drinker so I offered to make her one.

I used the same technique as I did with making the tea wreath but added a round cork board that I found at Micheal's yesterday (2 for $1) and hot glued it to the center of the wreath, used a few less clothes pins and braided some fabric as I didn't have any ribbon to match the paper for the hanger.

I hope she likes it!

I learned to sew!

I am so excited that I learned to sew by hand this weekend.  I've made things before that required very little sewing due to the fact I didn't know how to and when I tried to make due I hated the outcome.  I still have a lot to learn and my 1st 2 pieces are no where near perfect, but I'm proud of myself for making them.  

1st we have Aaron's new pair of pants!

These were made out of an old t-shirt of mine.  I didn't cut the top long enough and they don't leave much slack for his bulky diaper.  I learned a lot from this little pair of pants.  I'm still proud of how they turned out.  Sorry no pics of them on him, he wore them today but is in his pjs and asleep right now.  It was a rough/busy weekend for the lil man.

2nd is a skirt for a friends daughter

After I learned what I did on the pair of pants I realized that the fabric I had already cut for this skirt wouldn't make for an appropriate length skirt for a little girl.  So, I added the black fabric to the top which makes for a nice band around the waist.  However, now I think it's an awkward length now.  I was also hoping for a poofy skirt, but I didn't have enough fabric for that.  This was just an old shirt my sis-in-law gave me that I couldn't wear anymore.  I'm still happy with how this turned out over all but will definitely need to see it on her and maybe make some adjustments to the length.  I'll keep you posted on the outcome of that.

I also got started on the gifts for Aaron, my nephews, and my cousin for Easter.  Their branded shirts!

 

 Not my original plan but I wasn't prepared to pay $6 for 3 sheets of iron on printer paper.  Maybe I wasn't looking in the right place for it at Walmart but I was in a bit of a hurry with a fussy child while looking.  So, I just grabbed the letter stencils (which I'll be reusing on MULTIPLE projects), fabric paint, and those spongy paint brushes.  The shirts are from the Dollar Tree.  Aaron's may be a bit big on him as the smallest they had was a 2T (he's wearing 9-12months now), but that's ok.

Tea Wreath

 THE INSPIRATION

For tutorial visit KOJO Designs!  She's awesome!

MY CREATION

 I bought a box of these tea bags thinking they were the individually wrapped tea bags, but I was wrong.  I'm not a big tea fan, but this wreath is for a dear friend that LOVES tea.  I'll be purchasing the correct tea bags tomorrow during my shopping spree with my dear mother.

This project was SUPER fun and SUPER simple.  I hope to make another one of these really soon.

Don't forget to share your Easter crafts on my very 1st blog party!  Please, help me make it a success!

Easter Crafts - Link Party

I have plans to be away from my computer all day tomorrow so I wanted to go ahead and "Get This Party Started" early.  

Recipes, decor, crafts, anything that you created.

Here's my Easter craft!

Now, this wasn't my idea.  eighteen25 has a free download.  I could've just downloaded theirs, which is totally cute!  But I wanted to make my own since that's right up Custom PIY Design's ally.  These will be gifts for my coworkers this year.

A couple of rules before we begin:
Easter Crafts Only Please
Link to your specific post, and not to the main page of your blog

I don't have a party button created yet, but I would love love love it if you would share this party with your friends.  You can grab my main button if you'd like. 

Help me make my 1st link party a success!

Butterfly Spring Banner

Note to self, work on photography!

These pictures do not benefit this item AT ALL!  The only place I had to hang this was in my bathroom and the light was way too bright.  I will be taking some new pictures soon but I couldn't wait to share this.

Please, forgive the coloring of these pictures.  The lighting was so bad I attempted to edit the pictures in Microsoft Office Picture Manager and this is what I got.  I promise an update (soon) with much better quality pictures.  But you get the point.  Little butterflies in blue and green with a "typewriter" font spelling out Spring.  I also did some of my pop up flowers to add to the ends but I don't like how they are hanging.  I'm thinking of removing them.  I attempted to bundle them together, which looks great alone, but on the string they hang facing down.

Finally... My Easter Wreath

Alright, my patience ran short after 3 and half eggs being wrapped in "twine".  I just don't think I could've done enough eggs for an entire wreath, at least not by Easter.  I wanted to complete this wreath for my grandmother.  I had bigger plans for it but I'm still happy with the way it turned out.

I had letters with cute circle borders all printed out that would spell out "He Is Risen" but it wouldn't fit on my wreath.  I was very disappointed in that.  But I think I may have another quick craft to do with those letters, I'll have to do some more thinking.

I cut my wreath form from a piece of cardboard I salvaged from work.  I still have enough left to do my tea wreath as well from this same piece of cardboard.  I wrapped it in pretty blue yarn, hot glued my 3 eggs and fancied them up with the Easter grass.  This part did get messy!

Remember the Pop Flower Gift Tags"?  I edited the flower to be blue and made these.  I think I may add some glitter to spice these up a bit.  Still debating.  What do you think?  The leaves are cut from a book page and I crinkled them up and "distressed" them with a green sharpie marker.  This was my first experience with distressing.

Final touch, my poor, pitiful bow.  LOL!  I saved this ribbon from a gorgeous diaper cake that I received at my baby shower and finally found a use for it and I feel like it was a bit of a waste.  I'll have to get some some cheap ribbon from somewhere and work on my bow making.  Anyway, I tried to make a "puffy bow" from some not so good tutorial online and this is what I got.

Overall, this project holds a lot of "firsts" for me.  I'm so happy that I did it, it was a stress reliever for me tonight to wrap this thing in yarn... that may sound crazy but it really was.  I have been sorta inactive lately due to busy job and busy life in general.  I'm happy with where my life is going though and I'm, overall, happy with this project.  I look forward to making many more wreaths.  Next one, Tea Wreath!

Spring Has Sprung - Not so fast...

We had 2 gorgeous days of sunshine and warm weather... as of right now those days are out of site.  We've had rain and colder weather since then and I'm a little bit  very disappointed!  I'm ready for all that spring brings!

I don't have a new project to show off because this week has been pretty busy and a bit stressful.  I love my job most days but there are some days I begin to wonder if it's really worth it.  I should be thankful to have a job.  Hubby and I discussed that last night... about being thankful for more than I am and I started to tear up a bit because I felt so ashamed for not being thankful for more.  I'm in one of those moods I guess and I've got to snap out of it.  Do you ever get in those moods?

I'm hoping to work on and possibly complete 2 projects by this weekend.  We'll see how it goes because I'm needing some supplies and I'm not sure if I'll be able to get to the craft supplies store to get it.

Materials needed:

Mod Podge

Scrapbook paper

As you can see there's not much I need.  I have a ton of glue on hand but I don't think it will serve the purpose properly like Mod Podge would (covering plastic easter eggs with paper).  If you have an alternative to Mod Podge please, leave a comment, I'd love to hear it.

I'm also working on a couple of new items for my shop that I'm excited about.  I need to also take some actual pictures of the products that I have already listed that just have screen shot images.

Busy weekend, again!  What's your plans?

Bird House Wind Chime

The inspiration:

I found this one over at A Very Country Christmas by Veronica.  She's got a lot of great creations and it's not just Christmas stuff.  Check her out!

My creation:

It all began with "Dollar Alley" at the Gwinnett Place Mall with the unfinished round wood bird house for $4.00.  A bit over priced in my opinion for a dollar store, but I loved the bird house!  The next day I made a visit to the Dollar Tree (the BIG one on the west side of town) and found this gorgeous wind chime, the acrylic paints (just like Veronica used), and the butterfly wall stickers.  I already had one of the hooks and screwed it into the bottom to hang the chime.  I was very impressed with how it turned out.  I only wish the colors on the house matched the colors of the butterfly chime a bit more.  I may still do some touch ups to it in the future to make it more like I'd like.

Pop Flower Gift Tags

2 page item

4 tags on 1 page

4 flowers on 1 page

Print and cut tags on cardstock

Instructions:

Print tags and cut out

Print page with circles and cut out

Cut along the dotted lines on the circles to make the petals

Curl the edges to make the flower pop

Glue the layers on top of one another to make the flower

Glue completed flowers to the gift tags

*I added glitter glue to the edges of my flowers*

This printable item will be listed in MY SHOP today!

Brown Paper Embellishments

I have never scrapbooked much.  Always wanted to but never had the money to invest in all the supplies necessary.  I created my very first embellishment.  This is a all in one print out.  You just cut and past it all together.  I even created a cute little button (4 holes in the middle have colors that match the circle that it's placed on top of).  Of course you can add some thing to it for more effect.  I happened to have some left over ribbon/netting/mesh stuff that was from a gift basket at Christmas.  So, when I was testing this print out I added that to it for a cute effect.  If you had buttons on hand, you won't have to use the one on the page.  I have some, but none that will match this design.

I simply printed 1 page on regular printer paper and 1 page on cardstock (for the button).

Then I wadded the page (regular printer paper) up to give some texture to each circle. (see my Easter Banner in the background? hehe)

Cut the circles out and hot glued them together.

VOILA, you've got a cute little embellishment. 

I was going to add these to my Happy Easter Banner but was happy with it just the way it was.  Once I decide what I'm going to do with these I'll update you.  Like I said, I don't do scrapbooks.  I might give these away with the FREE file to print some off.  We'll just have to see.

Check my store for this listing by Monday!

  
also on The Girl Creative

Happy Easter Banner

I've been seeing banners all over the place in crafty blog land and I was inspired to create a new item for my shop.  I've never done a banner in my home before and thought, why not start now!

I love how this one turned out.  I only wish I had a prettier place to display it for my photos.  I think I'll take a trip to a relatives house that has a gorgeous fireplace/mantel and have my own little photo shoot.  I might even leave my completed project there as a gift since I'm slowly but surely packing up my apartment.  

Anyway, enough rambling.  Here's the banner!

I hope you like it.  I'll have this item listed in my shop by Monday.

Weekend Plans 3/12/10 - 3/14/10

I was really hoping for a warm & sunny weekend but it doesn't look like mother nature is going to allow that.  It will be raining all day today and most of the day tomorrow.  Sunday will be pretty though, so that's good.  I have been planning to get 2 free tickets to The World of Coke for David and I to go and check out.  We've never been, but have talked about going quite often.  I got the tickets after entering lots of codes in on MyCokeRewards.com.  I don't drink a lot of coke, but my co-workers do and they don't use the points.  I also won a lot of codes on Listia.  

 

Tonight we'll be taking Aaron to my mother's house to spend the evening.  She will be taking him to visit my grandparents as well since they haven't seen him very much lately.  He'll have lots of fun there. 

Saturday after we get done enjoying our rainy day together at the World of Coke we'll probably grab a bite to eat somewhere that we've never been.  We'll get Aaron back that evening.

Sunday is church and afterwards we'll probably head over to David's mom and dad's to visit with them and let them have some time with Aaron.  

At some point in between these plans I'd like to get a couple of creative things started (and possibly finished).  I still have my 1st Dollar Store Craft that needs to be completed.  I also wanted to make a St. Patty's Day shirt for a friend's daughter but I don't have the materials for it.  I really want to get this done by Sunday so I can give it to her.  I may go to Walmart tonight to get what I need... if they have it.  If they don't, I may not be successful with this project or I'll have to change my idea for the project.  I also want to make an Easter wreath with lots of cute plastic eggs.  I also have a box that I am doing the finishing touches on the design that I want to get listed in MY SHOP.

What are your plans this weekend?

Whatever they are I hope you have a happy one!

Oh! St. Patrick was a gentleman

Who came of decent people;
He built a church in Dublin town,
And on it put a steeple.
~Henry Bennett

Good morning!  I thought I'd share a cute little Irish saying with you before sharing my completed project.

I am excited to present to you... 

These were so fun to make, and very simple.  If you didn't see my post here, you should check it out for the link to step by step instructions.

WIP Clover Pins

All 9 complete!

I can't wait to give these out.

Listed at Someday Crafts

St. Patty's Day Gift Idea

My boss is a pincher on St. Patrick's Day.  I know because I got pinched pretty hard last year as I didn't have a single thing to wear green.  So, I wanted to make a cute, affordable, and wearable gift for my co-workers on this holiday.

I went in search this afternoon to find the perfect thing, and well, leave it Martha to have a great idea.  Find the tutorial HERE!

I'll post a picture of mine once I complete them.

St. Patrick's Day Crafts

Here are just a few of the adorable St. Patrick's Day crafts that I have found.  Do you have a craft?  Share your links in the comments so everyone can check 'em out!

 

Heather at My Frugal Family made this cool wall hanging.  I love that she used affordable materials.  This craft was also featured on Dollar Store Crafs

 

Jennifer at The Felt Mouse created this fun wreath made out of fringe and ribbon.  Check out here other accessories that go along with this project.  Very cute!

 

Redhead at Redheads Craft More Fun created this Good Luck piece of work.  I love simple crafts that make a big statement!