A Blast From Valentine's Past!

If you peek through our history, you can see that we really love crafting for Valentine's day. 

Maybe too much?

  I see it as an excuse to create with girly pinks and reds in my world of boys!

So, while we're busy trying to figure out how to make the many Valentine projects swirling around in our heads, take a look at some our favorites we created last year!

Felted Wool Heart Pillow

"Love" Sacks

Red Felt Heart

Ribbon Heart Wreath

Quilted Heart Pillows

Peppermint Wreath

I love the peppermint decor this year.  I was strolling through Home Depot and found Martha Stewart's candy cane line.  I picked up a box of over sized candy canes and thought they would make a fun wreath. 

I used a fresh wreath from Costco, MS candy canes, peppermint picks and berries from Hobby Lobby. For the ornaments, sadly...I plucked them off of my "broken" ornament wreath from last year.  I loved that thing...darn it! I didn't put it in a safe spot, and it was smashed to the ground. At least I salvaged some ornaments from it? 

I wired all the candy canes and ornament balls on- to hold up in the cold weather- and hot glued all the picks.

It makes me happy! :)

I wanted to make it fun for the kids outside.  My boys don't get too excited over all the fancy Christmas decorations...

Sharing with,

&

Thrifty Decor Chick's Festive Outdoors Before and After Party

It's Christmas Mantel Time!

FRESH vs. FAKE
I couldn't decide which to use so I used both!
They make my home smell great and I was able to use a cheap lit-up garland I had on hand with a fresh cedar garland and I was very happy with the results!
(Eddie Ross gave this great tip of mixing greenery here)
The fake garland makes a great backdrop filler for the fresh garland.

You gotta love those Costco wreaths! 
Not only are they pretty inexpensive but they are gorgeous!
I added some glitter and paint to the pine cones and berries and wove in a few fake boxwood sprigs here and there around the silver glass candlesticks and ornaments from Target.
 **Note to self...do not use glass ornaments next time.  The fireplace is not shatterproof!**
 Running short of the fresh greenery...I grabbed some from my backyard...there's a bunch and it's free!

Remember all those mismatched frames from the Model Home furnishing sale?

  Can you believe this was in the unwanted/almost free section!? 

I don't think anyone could get past the urn pictures. 

After a quick trip to a glass shop I now have a new mirror. 

I was really happy with how it turned out plus it was much less than buying a new mirror of that size. 

Hanging that mirror was so hard!  It is definitely a two person job.
  I hope my husband doesn't peek behind there and see a dozen holes in the wall....oops!:)
I gotta keep moving on....I still have to put the tree up!
Nicole and I have a couple of fun Christmas projects to share soon...yay the two of us!
If only there were more hours in the day!

Sharing the mantel over at The Lettered Cottage....better late than never! :)

"Plump" Fall Wreath

Yes, I did make another wreath.  I cleaned out my scary closet under the stairs and found oodles of leaves, pine cones, and berries.  The leaves were 88 cent bunches that I bought at Wal-mart when I made my first fall wreath ever six years ago. I had never glued them into the wreath and found them tucked away in a bag.  

Yep, don't be afraid of an ugly old wreath from the thrift store. You can find so many tossed aside wreaths and crafts gone wrong. (I just donated a few I found under the stairs! :)  Just give it a good vacuuming!

Last Christmas I saw many bloggers double up their fake pine wreaths and it made it look so much thicker and fuller.  I found a smaller grapevine to wire into the middle.

I used brown wire to put them together, pulling tightly.

There were a few gaps, so I added some leftover branches that come on the grapevine garlands.

I wired those to the doubled grapevines. The pine cones helped fill in the rest.

The person that owned the large grapevine had wired on a coat hanger.  It actually works really well and blends too. 

I took the brown wire and cut into little pieces to tie the berries onto the wreaths.  I glued the pine cones on after that and tucked the leaves in.  If you want it more permanent, I'm sure you could use wire or picks to add the pine cones and berries. 

I love it on my door...so big...warm and welcoming!

Eyeball Halloween Wreath

Oh, we had a lot of fun with this one.  Making something so creepy...yet pretty! I was heading out to the store the other day and my kids asked me what I needed to get.  "I need to pick up some eyeballs."  What?  I have seen tons of eyeball decor in the stores.  At Target you can get bags of eyeballs and even eyeball lights. 

The Target eyeball were a little small for our wreath, so Nicole and I thought of another idea. 

Ping pong balls! We found several packages at the Dollar Store.

They are just the right size for a wreath, although the eyeball lights would be fun too. A couple of years ago, the little boy next door told me that I have "green eyes"...like a witch.  What does that mean......huh? :)  He also told me that my red gardening clogs look like the ruby red shoes the witch wears in The Wizard of Oz.  Maybe he's been watching too much T.V.?  I sure hope so. Anyway, we painted our eyeballs with green paint and glitter...like witch's eyes.

I picked up this spring wreath from Walmart for 7.00 dollars and gave it a couple coats of black spray paint.  So easy!

We picked up three yards of netting and wired it on the back.  We then fluffed and pulled until it gave the wreath some body.

Here's the fur yarn we use on many of our Halloween decorations. We wrapped the wreath with yarn to add some cobwebs for the glittery spiders. We also tucked some white tulle circles in between the flowers.

What fun...it's a little creepy for my Halloween taste- but making those eyeballs was oh so fun! 

I have a black door, so I might add some lights so I can make sure to give the trick or treaters a scare......

Me too....Me too!

I had to...of course... make a wreath for my door too!

I am the little sister after all...copying the elder.

  The Easter eggs on my spring wreath weren't looking so hot anymore,

 hopefully this new wreath will get me to Fall.

 Yvonne from Stone Gable

 made the most gorgeous

 cherry blossom wreath

 using a large grapevine nest wreath.

 (The stuff she makes is darling...I about died when I saw her fondant daisy cupcakes.  Great blog!) 

 I have never been sure how to decorate the large nest wreaths.  In fact I bought one a couple of months ago and was unsure of what to do with it so I returned it.  After seeing Yvonne's wreath, I ran back to the craft store and bought it again - it's really quite simple to make! 

I found at Hobby Lobby  a wreath , one greenery garland and a couple of fern like shrubs half off.  I didn't  keep it as cheap as Nicole.  I tried! :) 

The greenery gets expensive.

I then used my brand spankin' new glue gun that Nicole gave me for my birthday.

  It's CORDLESS!!

What a great sister, it's almost as good as the set of orange toolboxes she gave me a couple of years ago.

My present to Nicole is usually a gift certificate to Home Depot for her birthday! 

We think alike! ;)

Nicole couldn't believe I was still using my

 mini glue gun

 that she also gave me 12 years ago.  

It was my first Christmas married and I was starting to get "crafty!"

Look closely....I think you can see pieces of every craft I have made over the 12 years!

Feathers, felt, moss, and fabric....

 

To make the wreath,

I clipped apart the garland and the fern so I could hot glue in each wired piece.

This glue gun is seriously much hotter than my mini! Ow! 

 

 After I had the greenery on, I added some extra flowers and pieces of lavender that I had from prior projects.

I love making wreaths..I can't get enough!

Thanks to Yvonne at Stone Gable for the inspiration!

 

A New Spring Wreath

I can honestly say that Spring time is my favorite time of year!

I was sad to take down my Cadbury Egg Wreath,

I needed something to replace it with.

I wanted something grassy,

something purple,

and something that would be able

to stay on my door till summer was through.....

or until Candace and I come up with another idea for a wreath!

I'm also pretty cheap so I wanted to make it for cheap

but I didn't want it to look cheap.

Does that make sense?

Ya see we have a ton of storage space (the land fill) stuffed with our

previous "cheap" projects that do look "cheap".

We've both gotten to a point in our lives that we don't want to "look cheap"

even though we may be.....:)

~~~So here's the breakdown~~~

Grapevine wreath (40% off coupon) $2.43

Clearance spring grass $2.49

Clearance Easter grass .15 cents!!!

Excelsior (40% off coupon from Hobby Lobby honored at Michael's) $2.43

Clearance spring bouquet $2.49

**Last minute butterflies from the dollar store added on $1.00

Grand Total.........$10.99 + Tax

So I started by mixing together my paper Easter grass and Excelsior,

fluffing it till I got what I wanted.

Then I formed it around the wreath and started hot gluing it in place.

For some extra stability I wrapped it a few times with some green thread

(a brilliant idea I got from Design Dump)

Already it was looking pretty good to me!

Then I started to completely dismantle all my spring grasses and bouquet.

Randomly I started gluing them around the wreath.

Then for some extra whimsy I curled the grasses!

Yes, I said curl!

Another fun tip I learned when I was working for Provo Craft!

By using a knife or a pair of scissors

(and being pretty careful so they don't break)

You can actually curl those plastic grasses as little or as much as you want!

After gluing all the little flowers on with my glue gun

I realized it was missing a little something.

I had picked up these butterflies at the Dollar Store but they weren't the right colors!

So using Candace's brilliant idea, I spay painted them white first.

Then just using some craft paint I got them the right color!

I "freckled" them with some green paint,

gave them some little eyes too....

ya know my little girl would notice that right off the bat

if they didn't have eyes!

And then I ran.....

Outside as fast as I could

before the light faded.....

So I could show you what I'm so happy about!

I did the butterflies each a shade lighter than the last.

You could say I'm "tickled pink"....

Well, purple that is.:)