Four Leaf Clover

Remember in this post when I said that I had a project using the glass that was taken out of the frame? Well, here it is!

I love how it turned out! I just took my glass and Mod Podged a piece of paper to the back (make sure you clean your glass first). You have to work fast on this so that the Mod Podge doesn't dry up on you. Once that was good and dry I just hot glued gem stones (like you can find at the dollar store for vase filler) into the shape of a clover and then one in each corner. I did cheat on this a little by printing out a clover image and placing it under my glass as a guide. I also hot glued ribbon to the back to hang it from.

Think of all the possibilities! You could do just about any shape for any holiday. I'll definitely be making more of these in the future!

Diaper Basket

It's like a diaper cake...only it looks like a basket instead! I made this for my friend's diaper shower last weekend. It was so fast to put together...I did it in less than an hour! For the basket part, I used the same method as making one tier of a diaper cake and then for the handle, I shaped a hanger into a U shape and wrapped diapers around it.

It looked empty, so I added a little teddy bear with matching bow tie.

And here it is all wrapped up and ready for delivery!

Rack for Pots & Pans

Not my pots & pans...the little one's. To go along with her play kitchen that I made her for Christmas, she got a set of play cookware. To go with all of that she is getting a huge lot of toy food for her birthday. While adding the drawer to the oven was a good idea, in hindsight I should have added two! So to help keep things under control I made a little rack for her pots & pans to hang from. 

A little cardboard, some paint, paper, peel & stick hooks (which I got from the dollar store) and a couple of binder clips and of course Mod Podge and voila! A place for her cookware.

Now if only I can get her to keep them up there for more than two minutes...

Soda Can Clock

1 empty soda can + $2 clock from Goodwill = awesomeness

One lucky member of my family is going to be getting this for his/her birthday. hehehe

I took pictures along that way, so let me know if you're interested in a tutorial and I'll put one together.

Oh, and I hope you all like the soda can projects because there are going to be several throughout the year...and even if you don't, I'm still going to do them. :D

Initial Bow Holder

How stinkin' cute is this initial bow holder? I made if for my niece for her upcoming birthday. Although I need to add another loop of ribbon above the tail of the J (does that make sense?) so that it hangs straight. It's pink, has jewels & the paper is sparkley...she's going to LOVE it!

And you can purchase one of your own from my shop: here.

Coat/Swimsuit Rack

I was tired of the pile of coats that sat on top of the changing table/dresser in the little one's room, so I made decorated a little coat rack (in the summertime I plan to hang her swimsuits there). The wood was already cut and sanded in the garage, from a project of my dad's. Thanks dad for letting me steal some wood.

I'm thinking about redoing the bow on it, but I haven't decided what I would do. And it is kind of hard to tell unless you click on the picture to make it bigger but there are screw hooks in the center of each butterfly.
I thought I had a picture of it with coats on it, but apparently I don't.

Framed Hearts

I have these pink plastic things that I think are supposed to be like rocks. There were used as filler in a vase full of sock flowers from my baby shower. They mostly just sit in their little plastic baggy...that is, unless, my little one finds them. She thinks they are super fun to dump all over the floor. I decided to do something with them (I'm trying really hard to use up things that I have so that my craft corner stays just that - a corner!). Here is what I whipped up last night, I think it turned out super cute.

I took a frame from the dollar store & painted it white, cut a piece of scrapbook paper to fit, glued the rocks into hearts shapes and then embellished the side of the frame a little.My hearts aren't perfect but that's because I was too lazy to print out heart shapes and just eyeballed it.

Check back after Valentine's for a fun St. Patrick's Day craft using the glass from out of the frame. I'm super excited for that one!

Diaper Cake

I wanted a creative way to give the bibs at that baby shower, so I decided to make a diaper cake (with diapers I had on hand that no longer fit my little one). I had never made one before but I think it turned out pretty cute. I was pleased with it. I saw on some blog (which I didn't bookmark and now for the life of me I can't find) where she made a diaper cake that didn't require rolling each diaper up and wrapping in a rubber band. I was totally on board since the one thing I hated about the diaper cake my sis-in-law gave me when I was pregnant was unwrapping and unrolling all those diapers! Sorry that I can't tell you whose idea I stole! I know it looks a little crooked in the picture, but it wasn't in real life (at least I don't think it was!).

And the best part? The instructions called for an empty toilet paper roll to put in the middle of the bottom tier, but since my family has a thing for gifting cans of Tab (more Tab creations here)...

Yep, I stuck a Tab in the middle of the bottom. It was awesome because the mommy-to-be totally didn't expect it!
Totally easy and super cute. I think I'll be making these in the future!

Shoe Revamp

Inspired by this post from Make It & Love It, I decided to Mod Podge my shoes! That's right, I took this pair of shoes (that I got on sale at Target for under $5!)...

(I know there is only one shoe in this pic, but I had already started on the other shoe before I thought to take the picture.)

...and turned them into this!

I like them. I'm not sure I LOVE them...but I definitely like them. I think I would love them if the Mod Podge hadn't darkened my fabric quite so much. They were supposed to be a nice milk chocolate brown but once I put the Mod Podge on, they turned more of a brownish-black. Oh well! Also, I think if I were to ever do this again I would use more of a cottony fabric instead of a satin-ish one. But it still gets the thumbs up!

Ruffled Bed Skirt

Yep, this is the one that I lost part of my finger over.
As I said before I saw a tutorial for this that I super liked. I found it on Burlap + Blue. She calls it the $4, 45 minute bed skirt. Well mine was neither $4 nor 45 minutes. But she used the cheapest fabric she could find and only covered part of her bed (which must be a smaller size than mine because she had 75 inches to cover and I had 220!).
I used a sheet that I cut into strips to make mine. I got the sheet set in June right after we moved (at Ross for $25) and used the flat sheet to make curtains. I had always intended on using the rest of it to make a bed skirt, since we got bed risers which made our old bed skirt 6 inches too short. I am really pleased with how it turned out. And I super love that when I walk into my room I don't see a preview of the piles of stuff that reside under my bed!

Do you like my matching curtains? :)

*please excuse the mess that is my crafting area*

After I finished it and we got the mattress back on the box spring and made up all pretty, Zach looked at me and asked "So was it worth losing part of your finger for?"

And this was too cute not to post...while I was pinning the fabric to the "base" of the bed skirt, the mattress was leaned up against one of the walls in the hall. It became quite the fun zone. :)

*If you want pictures of my finger you can click here*

Initial Bib

My cousin and his wife are expecting their first child and the baby shower is this weekend. They are having a boy. I found that I had a hard time coming up with an idea (since I only have a daughter) but once I came up with something the creative juices started flowing. So now I'm hoping that my older sister (who is also expecting) has a boy this time so that I can try out my fun new "boy ideas".
Here is what I came up with for little baby J.

 I took a little help from Target and purchased the bibs, but then added the Js and stars. It was so much fun and I LOVE how they turned out!

Hot Chocolate On A "Stick"

When I saw the idea of making hot chocolate on a stick on Giver's Log I just had to try it! My only complaint was that the sticks used were too...umm, shall we say, plain? I immediately knew just how I wanted to do mine. 


Introducing...flavored hot chocolate on a stick!


Flavor Number 1 - Cinnamon Hot Chocolate
I followed the instructions given except I used a cinnamon stick in place of the craft/popsicle stick and sprinkled a little bit of cinnamon onto the chocolate that I dipped the cubes into. 

Flavor Number Two - Peppermint Hot Chocolate
How stinkin' cute are these! I super love them! They are so cute I almost had a hard time putting one into my heated milk...almost. It was divine! It had just the right amount of peppermint for me. And the nice thing about using the candy cane as the stick is that if someone prefers a stronger mint flavor they can just stir more of the candy cane in. 
My variation - use candy cane (cut off the crook part of it) for the stick, dip hot chocolate cube into melted white chocolate and then dip in crushed candy cane. 

I also tried making a Peanut Butter Hot Chocolate. I had never seen this before and yet in every other type of dessert is seems that chocolate and peanut butter get paired together, so why not hot chocolate? I'm still tweaking this version. It had WAY too much peanut butter in it, but it wasn't bad if mixed with a plain hot chocolate cube. 


Here are a few suggestions if you plan to make these on your own: 1. place your ice cube tray into very shallow hot water for a few seconds to loosen the cubes once they are set up. Don't get the water onto your chocolate cubes. I had a hard time trying to get mine out at first (I actually broke one of the candy cane sticks) and this helped a ton! 2. The recipe says to use 8 servings of prepackaged hot chocolate mix in case you don't want to make them from scratch. I don't know if my hot chocolate packs were larger than most or what, but I found that to be WAY too much. For my second batch I measured out 3/4 C of hot chocolate mix and had much better results. 

Candy Cake

You know, like a diaper cake but with candy! I was inspired by this post from Cheap Chic Home. As soon as I saw that I thought of my dad and decided to make him one for his birthday. All of my candy was about equally sized and so I didn't have any small candy to fill in the gaps. My solution? Curling ribbon!

I contemplated covering the styrofoam in paper before gluing on the chocolates but decided that that was too much effort. However, I think that if I were to do this again I would cover the styrofoam first.

Art Table

I got this table from Ikea for the little one for Christmas this year.

I had seen a similar one at a friend's house and thought it would be perfect. It is just the right size for her and the table top and chair seats are dry erase board! But it was ugly boring, so I spray painted it. This was my first experience with spray paint and I wasn't that impressed. It felt like it took forever. Sand, paint, dry, sand again, paint again...you get the picture. Maybe I should have used a primer or maybe it was the cheap Ikea wood but the paint didn't want to stick in some places. I even ended up using acrylic paint with a coat of Mod Podge over it in a few places. Oh well, it turned out cute. 

Close up of butterfly detail on chairs.

Cardboard Box Oven...FINALLY!

So I know that I promised pictures of this several days ago...but it was a holiday week, cut me some slack. No more waiting, here it is! Drum roll please....

*Please disregard the kitty in the oven. We got her some pots and pans today so hopefully no more "exotic" foods :)*

LOVE IT!!!! Not just me, the little one loves it too! Would you like a few close ups of the awesomeness that is my creation (I know, I can't take full credit for it...but mine is cooler!).

Notice how the handle for the door sticks out??? That is a hanger that I manged to wiggle through two holes. What good is a handle if you can't hang a towel from it?! I didn't think I had enough paint and wanted an easy solution I wanted to add some variety with cute scrapbook paper, so I Mod Podged some to the sides...and drawer...and top where the knobs go 

Before bedtime, she managed to pull the "burners" off (nice work hot glue...you're fired). So I plan on painting silver circles where they would go and then adding the black spirals for the burner. Try ripping that off, missy!

More Mod Podge to create "contact paper"

Since I've never seen an oven with a brown inside, I painted hers silver.

Like the cooling oven rack. This is where I spent a whole $1 for the entire thing. Everything else I already had on hand.

Oh, and the knobs turn.

White Elephant Gifts

Last year at one of the white elephant exchanges we attended, we ended up with these ugly ties.

My older sister and I came up with an idea to make them even better! What did I do to them? Made them 3D!

Yep, those are golf tees and pompoms glued to the ties. :)

.

My family has an obsession with Tab soda. We (my family) often include cans of Tab in with gifts we give each other, as a gag gift. Recently, some members of the family have started making Tab creations. For example, my older sister made a pound cake that she covered with a Tab flavored glaze. Zach came up with this idea for our white elephant exchange this year.

 It is a Tab cooler (with original Tab soda can on top, to give you an idea of how large it is). He took sheets of styrofoam and cut them into circles (about 10" in diameter) and glued them together with a hole in the middle to store the Tab. I had the privilege of painting this giant styrofoam creation to look like a can of Tab. We were quite pleased with how it turned out and the family really seemed to enjoy it.

Christmas Crafts

Here are the crafts that I made as gifts for people this year. To start us off is this framed wreath I made for my sister. I was inspired by this idea from The Happy Homebody. I was originally planning on making a wreath from terra cotta pots and using the little styrofoam apples as accents but the more I worked on it the less I liked it and then I came up with this idea. It matches the decor of her kitchen (red & apples). I loved it and so did she!

Then, for my in-laws I decorated these flameless candles. She loves candles and he blows them out so I thought this would be a good compromise. The images are threaded onto the ribbon so they can slide off the candles if they want to leave them up throughout the year. The nice thing about this idea? It's the gift that I can keep on giving! What am I talking about? I happened to write down the size of the candles so I can make more sleeves for them for other holidays to give as gifts.

Next up...Jewelry! I made three bracelet/necklace sets this year to give to my husband's sisters. I didn't get a picture of the one I made for the littlest sister but it is made of pink paper beads. I'll try to get a pic later. For the other sisters I made these.

I also decorated a journal for one of my brothers-in-law. He is preparing to go on a mission so this is what I came up with. Yep, it is a suit coat, except it had two buttons when I was all finished. My sis-in-law helped me with it. She gathered scriptures and quotes about missionary work and we lined the inside and back covers with them.

And for the last of my siblings-in-law...a goodie package. Pictures of that in a different post.

It's beginnig to TASTE a lot like Christmas!

For Christmas, my sis-in-law and I got together and made some goodies to send to my bro-in-law. Here is what he received.

This is what the kitchen table looked like the morning we sent the goodies, before they were packaged.

The spread included peanut butter brownies, chocolate toffee popcorn, snowman shaped peppermint bark, chocolate covered pretzels, these cute rice krispie trees

 and this cherry-limeade popcorn. I love Our Best Bites!

Paper Beads

I saw this idea on a blog (which I didn't bookmark at the time and now I have no clue which one it came from). I used these instructions from Family Fun. It was pretty simple, except I made my paper triangles longer and skinner than listed. I also just used regular old scrapbook paper that I coated in Mod Podge (before cutting the triangles...trust me on this one!) since I have a ton of it and used the Mod Podge to glue it because I couldn't find my glue stick. It was messy and time consuming but it turned out super cute. I made a bracelet and matching necklace as a gift for someone who shall remain nameless and of course forgot to take a picture before wrapping it up. But the beads look somewhat like this (and I'll get a pic after Christmas)

Thanks Thrifty Fun for the photo!

Tons of crafts coming soon!

First, let me just brag and say that I've been featured on another blog!!! I was kind of surprised at how excited I got about it. Check out the link over to the right :)

Now on to the original reason for this post...I have lots of cute crafts that I've made recently that I am dying to post...but I can't. Why??? Because they are Christmas gifts for people who might stumble across this blog of mine (since I know they read my other blog). So for now you'll have to survive on pics of last year's projects:

Personalized bookends for the sister that loves to read (had I known that she would get married 5 months later I wouldn't have matched them to her bedroom!)

Picture frame wreath

FAMILY picture wall hanging (yep...I stole this idea from Joann.com)

And the ever popular and super easy personalized comp-book-turned-journal. There will be another of these this year for a different family member and I super love how it turned out!