Halloween Banner

Well I survived the first of my fall boutiques with a bit of my sanity left and my hubby didn't ask for a divorce so that in itself is a success!  I wanted to not only share a bit of what I was up

to the last little while but also give a huge thanks to everyone who came out this year!  THANK YOU!!!

Candace and I love Halloween so it's not hard to work on Halloween crafts.

Here's a little peek at one of the banners I made this year.

Candace and I headed into Michael's for our inspiration and K&Company never fails to impress!

We found some of the cutest papers and stickers for this banner.

                              

I cut each of the banner pieces from 1/8" thick MDF and Mod Podged all the fun papers on.  

The pennants are all about 4 x 6" in size.

I love the banners made from wood because they are much more durable to store

and use year after year than just the paper.  

I found all my fun fonts on www.dafont.com for all the letters.

Now I have a fun banner for my fireplace!
Stay tuned for more fun creations this week~
now to drag out all the Halloween decorations.......we're decorating tonight!

Valentine Pennant Banner

There's nothing like a trip to the craft store to get our Valentine creative juices flowing.

We took a stroll through the scrapbook department at Craft Warehouse and fell in love with a line of Valentine paper by My Mind's Eye.  It's called "Love Me". 

Once we saw the whimsical valentine pennant print, we knew we had to have one in "real life" size.

  We really don't need another pennant banner, ah...but the papers are so fun!

To make the banner, we picked up 3 x 2 1/2  inch chipboard pennants and chipboard hearts.

For the other pennant sizes, we used the paper cutter to slice squares, rectangles, 

 and a couple of larger pennants.

  

We used Mod Podge to glue the papers to the chipboard.

Then we used a small hole punch to make holes for the string. 

 It takes some muscle to punch through chipboard and a layer of paper!

It's so easy to make!

We might have to head back to the store to stock up on this cute paper before it's gone!

A Halloween Birthday Party

This weekend Candace and I whipped together a few things

for a very, very, very, last moment birthday party for my daughter.

We decided to have a Witch themed party and we

were able to put all of our latest projects to use!

First I found these cute witchy invitations on

Etsy by Say It In Style.

Jenn emailed me the pdf and I printed them up at Walgreens.

Nice!

We had a lot of fun searching for the perfect treats

to fill our witch shoe party favors.

Each of the girls got to fill their own shoe to take home.

The template for these can be found over at Skip To My Lou

Candace found these great Treat Tags over at Martha of course!

Can you find where we used the remnants of the witch socks....?

My favorite prop has been my big black cauldron.

My hubby picked up some dry ice that we added

to some kool aid and presto~you have a  magic bubbling brew!

Our cake stand was put to good use too!

We whipped up some cupcakes and used a fantastic new find~~

frosting in a can ready to apply!

Seriously, can it get any easier?

We found this fun balloon pumpkin game on Pinterest!

Yes, we gave in and bought a balloon pump.

Just the thought of blowing up 35 balloons gives me a headache.:)

Each balloon was filled with treats, stickers and confetti,

so it was a fun suprise to pop!

We found some great creepy candy Halloween necklace kits for the kids

 to put together from Wilton,

and colored some witch masks from Hobby Lobby.

We loved our Beware banner so much we hurried and put together a

fun spooky birthday banner too!

It's official, I'm out of black and white paper scraps!

It was a fun day!

I had a house full of giggling girls and 3 little boy cousins who were outnumbered.

The highlight for me was Candace's 4 year old kept coming and telling us

that the girls were screaming back in the bedroom....

he didn't quite understand that not all screams from little girls are bad.....:)

Not bad for last moment huh?

Tonight we are dipping pretzel rods in white chocolate with sprinkles

for tomorrow's school party.

I never get tired of these, I wonder how many will actually make it to the party!

Happy Halloween!



Pennant Banners

  

Thanks for all the sweet comments about Nicole's squirrels.  My sister has one of the biggest hearts I know.  Gracie the squirrel is something else, you would have to see her to understand.  She responds to Nicole's voice, climbs on her shoulder as she works, and even hangs upside down on trees trying to get her attention when she's distracted talking to visitors in her driveway. It's unbelievable how aware that squirrel is.  I see a joy brought to my sister watching her feed and care for the baby squirrel Izzie, it is so sweet to see.

 

We had a really busy week! We were so busy creating for boutiques and craft groups that we didn't snap many pictures. Nicole made so many cute things, I'll have to get her to make some more so we can picture them.

I "assisted" her on a couple of pennant banners.  I'm not so good at mass producing.  Nicole has been running her business for a couple of years now and is highly efficient.  I'm as slow as molasses! :)

We made each pennant with wood.  Nicole chopped thin mdf and drilled holes for the ribbon.

I picked up this very cute pack of papers from Michaels to paper our pennants.  I think I completely adore each paper in this pack.  Hmmmm, what else can I use this on?

We made some candy corn pennants.  I have seen several of these around blog land and they are too cute.  The triangle shape is just crying out to be made into a candy corn.

We glued on some of the stringy spider web yarn.  We love using this stuff on all of our Halloween projects!  I first saw this on a craft project my friend Angela did for our craft group and knew as soon as I saw this on the blog Urban Comfort in one of Suzonne Sterling's Halloween creations that it was a must have for our banner! :) 

How cute is the yarn with the spider paper?

We'll be back to share some more tomorrow!

A Birthday Wish....

I wish I could take credit for every great craft I've ever seen and re-created...

The wish letters are one of my favorite creations I've made.

Last year one of my great clients/friends told me about a cute idea she had seen and wondered

if I could duplicate something similar to it. 

The font used is a popular font I knew of right away!

  You see I have a thing for fonts....

When most of my little business is cutting out Custom Names for people,

you could say I stare at a lot of fonts.....all of the time......

The font used for wish is called storybook, and the cupcake was perfect for this!

Our friend Angela from Secrets of A Super Mommy

ordered some of these fun letters from me and decorated them up herself.  She added clips to hold very cute pictures of her kids and birthday memorabilia.  Love them!

She did a really cute spotlight over at her blog- so make sure to drop by and visit!
 She also did a fun highlight of the Birthday Banners we sisters prepped and sewed together for their craft group!  Angela made the banner oh so cute!

 She has great ideas and traditions to share!  Make sure to head over and check Angela's blog out!

Now that we Crafty Sisters are "out there" in blogland, sharing the fun stuff~ we are lucky to get to do together, it makes us all the more aware of giving credit to all the great people who have inspired us and hoping that we are shown the same courtesy.

So to give credit where it is due, thank you to this unknown wonderful person,

who's creativity inspired us and all of you!

Thanks to Angela's great post we've had a great response for these letters,

if you are interested in some you can contact us directly through our email

or visit Nicole's Sweet Pickle Design Shop on Etsy.

Tufted Bench~Before and After

My fingers are raw, but it's done!  After I made the mirror a few weeks ago, I headed back to the thrift store for a bench.

I found this little table for ten dollars with cute legs.

Here's the mirror.

  I needed the bench to fit nicely against the wall, and the table was a little bit wide for the space.  

It's in the entryway.

The table was pretty gross.  Anyone want any gum? 

I first traced the bottom of the table on to the back of the top of the table.

I cut with the jigsaw around the traced line. I was a little worried about just chopping into the table...

Ahhh, much better.  It's beginning to look more like a bench.

I primed and painted.  

Next I used the bread cutter, btw..awesome tool  for cutting foam!! 

Drilled holes. Batted the foam, and now for the hard part...buttons and tufting.

I have searched and searched all over the internet for an understandable tutorial of how to tuft buttons. I have always been fascinated by it and this "how-to" seemed to explain it well.  Go here.  It's step-by-step, and explains it much better than I do.  Half-way into it I lost some confidence and didn't take the best pictures. My stapler is old and malfunctioning, and I had short needles.  Both of these made tufting buttons very difficult.  The right tools make a huge difference. Long needles, good buttons, and a good stapler are very important!

I glued the trim onto the wood instead of the fabric.  I thought I could get a straighter line. 

I think it fits the style of the mirror, and it's a nice place to sit and put your shoes on. 

The folds are not perfect and I struggled with several areas, but not bad for a first time.

Here is a little Before and After picture.  The best part is, I used fabric, batting, foam, and cording all from past projects.  Total cost-10 dollars, and I tried something new. 

Linking to
Trash To Treasure at Reinvented

A Soft Place To Land, DIY Day
Make Your Monday at Twice Remembered
Metamorphosis Monday at Between Naps on the Porch