Crop/Eat/Craft/Talk/Create/Laugh Afternoon

The title of this post is the same as the title for the event that Carrie and I are hosting this afternoon at my house. We are SO excited to spend the afternoon with ELEVEN of our crafting friends that we know from our time spent working at Recollections scrapbook store a few years ago.

{Carrie's photo}

Carrie and I have been finding so much inspiration from a blog called AshleyAnnPhotography. A couple of weeks ago Carrie featured Ashley's idea for a craft jar in her Friday Favorites and I loved the idea. A week later I saw this post on Design Aglow (which was Ashley's design) and I loved that too. {Phew! That was a lot of links!}

Last weekend Carrie and I did some thrift store shopping and wound up with some basic jars for cheap. The duty of washing and drying and making them pretty fell on me {it's great to be the mom}, but filling them up and making them really pretty was for both of us! :o)

We also made a trip to our local craft store and bought a few goodies from the dollar bin, as well as a couple of bags of Valentine embellishments to split amongst the jars...

...and some buttons, a few punched shapes, and some chocolate.

I wanted red, Carrie wanted pink so we met in the middle and did half of them my color and half of them hers. {sigh. Always compromising...}

Add a tag that doubles as a Valentine greeting and we have some sweet party favors/table decorations for our guests.

Carrie and I were so giddy and happy putting these
craft jars together for our dear friends ~ these ladies
that we love so much.
.I hope you're having a great weekend.
I'll be cropping, eating, crafting, talking,
creating, and laughing with my friends.
~ loves ~
♥

I made this with my mom.

Not a fancy set up, but very functional if I must say so myself.

♥

My mom was in town last weekend and it seemed like the perfect excuse to have a little crafting session. The day also included my SIL {Liz}, niece {Savannah}, and My Girl C. Awesome combo. :o)

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We made some of these cool snowflakes. They are fun and easy to make!

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And we made garland.

~sigh~ I love garland.

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My mom's garland was so cute ~ traditional red, green, and white.

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T.R.O.U.B.L.E.

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And such a sweet surprise the morning after...

All the girls left little notes for me, written on the craft paper that I used to cover our workspace. What a sweet surprise to find these the next day. Aw!!! I loved it!!! {Thanks, girls! xo xo xo xo}

♥

I'm so glad I made some time for crafting last weekend!

Are you finding time for craft projects?

Candle making with Carrie.

Carrie featured this idea on her blog's "Friday Favorites" a while back for making candles in teacups. I found these cute little red cups at our local thrift store and they were perfect for Christmas candles! This was the first time either of us had played with wax, so we also threw in a few empty baby food jars just for practice.

Me, in Carrie's cute blue kitchen.
{No photos of Carrie from this day because she wasn't feeling photo worthy.}

♥

We melted the wax in an empty coffee can sat into a pan of hot water.

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Of course, Marcus was underfoot during the entire process.
{He is such a good dog. Love him!}
Wrapped up and ready to give.
:o)

Making candles was fun because it was time spent with Carrie, but I doubt either one of us will make it a regular hobby. One thing we learned is that once the wax cools it shrinks a bit. I need to melt some more wax and add a little to the tops of each of the candles we made last week. {Sorry, Corri D! We didn't realize that until after we gave you the candle!}

*****

Next project: Crafting with my mom while she's in town this weekend! :o) ♥

Eek! A {bead} spider!!!

Carrie found this really cool tutorial for a spider made of
beads and we thought it would be the perfect project
for our Monday night craft.
♥

I have a decent amount of beading supplies left over from my beading phase {about 5 to 10 years ago I was crazy into jewelry making until I got totally burned out...} so I brought the spider supplies and she made a yummy corn chowder for dinner. It was a great trade!!!

It's been a while since I've worked with beads and wire. Turns out that my eyesight has faded quite a bit since the last time I tried stringing tiny little seed beads onto wire. I was frustrated and had to start over early in the game. :o\

Carrie found great satisfaction having her spider form done and two legs of beads strung before I even had my form together. She finally got tired of hearing me complain about not being able to see and brought out an extra lamp for me.

That's what I needed!

Each of us ended up making two of these little gems. So much for my high hopes of making six or seven of them to give as little tokens to some of my local friends. They weren't really difficult to make, just very tedious work with such small beads.

♦ ♥ ♦

In my beading supplies I found an old magazine article I'd clipped out that showed how to make "bead buddies" ~ funny little people made with wire and random beads. When I showed it to Carrie and suggested that if we had time we could make some of those too, she rolled her eyes and said, "Mother. I'm not five." I answered, "You'll always be five in my mind and in my heart!"

We talked about how we used to craft together when she was little, always choosing projects that could be completed in one sitting. And we talked about how we'd gotten away from that once she got older, choosing projects that were more involved and usually ended up never being completed. I love that we have our Monday nights to craft together and that we are back to selecting projects to be done in one evening's time. And we agreed last night that I'll continue to provide the crafting supplies, and she'll provide dinner on Monday nights. Works for me!

:o} xo

My pumpkin patch

Monday night football consumes our house, per Doug. Monday night football also cuts into my desire to watch Dancing with the Stars {unless I watch it back in our bedroom which means I fall asleep half way through and miss my favorite dancers...never fails!}. So, the past few weeks I've headed over to Carrie's house on Monday nights. We have take-out Chinese food and watch DWTS together while Doug is at home doing his guy-thing.

Last night we decided to craft together while our show was on and it was so much fun, although in the process we forgot to really watch the dancers. We became so wrapped up on making these little pumpkins that DWTS was nothing more than background noise.

Ugh! Gotta' watch out for wild animals
during a photo shoot in my craft room!

Carrie found the tutorial for these cute little guys here. I changed it up a little and used bows on top instead of stems.

~sigh~
Don't you just love a good pumpkin?
♥