Taking expensive ideas & turning them into my own ideas!
I’m SUPER excited.. My painted pumpkins are on Country Livings Pinterest page and I need you all to go and LIKE my pumpkins! If I get the most likes I win a $500 gift card to Michaels!! Thanks so much for your support 😉
{ Fotini Roman Etna, Ohio }
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Can I just say, I love crafting!! I love when I have a fab idea, or come across something I can’t wait to make! I love making things for my kids to wear.. I’m already a super proud Momma, but I love to see my kids wearing things I’ve made 🙂
This week, I came across a wonderfully- detailed tutorial for making felt flower headbands on, shad and lizzie blog! I literally couldn’t wait to head to Jo Ann’s and get the supplies! This really couldn’t be simpler! Here’s what you’re going to need:
Jo Ann’s offers pre-cut felt in the craft section, in a variety of colors, and only .34 cents a sheet. One sheet is enough for two headbands! I chose silver grey and tan. In the same section of the store, they have pre-cut elastic ribbon as well. I ended up getting my elastic ribbon from the fabric isle and cut at the counter because I wanted a thinner, white elastic. For this project I only got one yard. That was also enough for two headbands!
Once you’re home, grab a sheet of paper and trace a simple flower design and cut out. This will be your stencil. Trace your stencil with marker five times onto your felt. Cut out each flower. Grab your, already heated glue gun and place a dot in the center of your flower, fold over and press down. Repeat this step for FOUR of your flowers. Save one flower for the end.
Take one folded flower piece and put a dot of glue on the folded edge and place another folded flower in the opposite direction. Alternate for the remaining two flowers. So it will look like this (below).
Grab your last flower and put a glue dot in the middle of the flower and twist the center. This will be the center of your flower. Hold in place until glue has dried and glue to the center of previous flower pieces. Lightly pull felt for desired “look”. You’re almost done!
Grab your elastic ribbon and measure to 12.5 inches for newborn to 3 months and 13 inches for 3 months and older. Put a small dot of glue on one end and overlap about 1/4 of an inch, press down. Cut a circle with the remaining felt from earlier. Place your flower on the front side of the elastic over the seam and glue into place. Glue your circle of felt on the back of the elastic seam.
You’re finished!! I hope that wasn’t too confusing for you to understand! I can’t wait to make more of these 🙂 I will be making these as gifts too.. Soo stinkin’ cute 🙂
I have been taking it slow hanging things on the wall at our new house. As for Isabella’s room, the only thing she has hanging on her wall right now is her bow holder! I had a super cute name banner from her first birthday party, hanging above her crib and some how she ripped it down and tore it to shreds (ha!).
We were at Hobby Lobby yesterday and they had their two pack canvases for $5.99. I didn’t know exactly what I was going to do with them but I knew I could do something fun! I bought two packs of scrap booking pearls in large and small. These are already sticky so it would cut out a step for sticking to the canvas! At this point, I had decided I wanted to write her initials with the pearls. Each pack was $2.99.
Once we were home, I wanted to spray paint the canvas pink. I already had Krylon’s Ballerina Slipper in Gloss. I made several even coats on the canvas, and let dry. I played around with so many different designs for this project. I used a beautiful stencil and tried to align the small pearls for the letter, it looked awful… I made a simple “I”, felt too plain… I added a small piece of burlap and added an “I”, didn’t like it… I don’t know what was coming over me, haha! I finally decided to embellish two of the sides with a short and long row of peals and paint her initials, which are ” IRV”. I had a sample of Valspar paint in a beige color. I started with the “R” in the middle of the canvas. I painted right over the stencil, and repeat for the remaining two letters. Once dry, I smudged a little bit of silver paint on the letters to give them a worn look. I put two small pearls between each letter, to act as a period for the initials.
I was happy with the end result, and it only took about an hour to complete!
For our wedding back in October 2010, I purchased two partical board initial “R” ‘s (similar to the ones sold at Hobby Lobby here for under $3!) I spray painted them a satin knickle finish at the time of our wedding. Well, anyways, I still use one with my living room decor and the silver just wasn’t cuttin’ it for me anymore… I want it to be the accent color I plan on using which is a burnt yellow. I headed to walmart and bought a color I thought would look good, it was Krylon’s glossy Bauhaus Gold. Came home, sprayed it and quickly realized it was too gold (hence the name!)
I had some metallic decor-art finish, so I grabbed a small brush and started dabbing the letter with the silver paint. It looked rediculous, but I still had some sanding to do, so I knew it wouldn’t look like this forever! Once the paint was dry, I began sanding with a low grain sandpaper. Most of the silver I had just painted on ended up coming right off, but it gave it some definition, and the silver that I had on it previously started peeking through! I’m really happy with the final product, looks old and rustic, yet it’s sentimental to our family!
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| My son added a ‘cars’ sticker around the time of our wedding, I won’t take it off because I know it’ll make me smile when he’s older! |
I think I might be a little late at getting my veggie planters started, but hey, better late than never! Since I’m a newbie, I decided to start out with just a few to make sure I can get them to grow (and keep them alive!).
I bought two cheap medium sized planters, garden potting soil, and a packet of oregano, leaf lettuce, tomatoes, and bell peppers. I really hope they turn out, because I would totally love picking fresh veggies right out of my backyard! I like the idea of using the planters because they’re easier to maintain and you can place them anywhere!
Now, I needed something cute to display the names of each vegetable… I was looking around the house for large Popsicle sticks, but couldn’t find any. Then, I remembered I had a stash of wine corks.. I grabbed those and wooden skewers. I wrote, with permanent maker, each veggie, pushed the cork onto the skewer and stuck it into the soil. It looks cute, gives it character and was free (from stuff I already had at home!). Once my plants are in bloom, they will look adorable peeking through!
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| Supplies |
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| Hubby doing the dirty work, while I take pictures 😉 |
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| Cute!! |
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| Hey, my lettuce is growing!! |
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I’ve been craving meatloaf, but it’s not something I enjoy making because it’s messy and takes awhile to bake in the oven. But, the other day I came across this pin on Pinterest (originally from Rachel Ray on food network), that made them in a muffin pan. Genius! So this evening for dinner, I tried it out, and it was delicious!! My husband kept telling me how good it was 🙂
Here’s what you’ll need:
For glaze simply mix desired amount of ketchup with 2 tablespoons brown sugar and mix well, set aside.
I always start by chopping my vegetables and add them to large mixing bowl. Top with desired amounts of salt, pepper and garlic powder. Add your uncooked meat, egg and breadcrumbs. Mash everything together really well. Push meat mixture into each muffin space to the top, and bake at 350 for 25 minutes. Pour a teaspoon full, of ketchup glaze over the top and bake for an additional 10 minutes.
These are the perfect size for kids, great for parties and really tasty!
My son is turning SIX this year, and I wanted to make his party special for him and his friends! I let him choose the theme each year and this year he chose a carnival theme. I was really excited about the possibilities! Lots of colors, fun foods and great games!!
For his invitations, I had free photo cards from Shutterfly, so I used those for his invitations and only paid for shipping, which was under $5! (Steal!!) The pictures I used were taken at our family shoot back in September and were perfect! With each invitation, I included a raffle ticket for each child invited! At the party, a name would be chosen and that kid would win a prize!
Now that our theme was chosen, I headed to the dollar store to see what they had. I was excited to find, they had plastic popcorn containers, large and small. I bought several of each to use as serving dishes. I also bought all the candy for the candy bar. Double bubble gum balls, cotton candy and twizzlers.
The kids had a blast playing all the different games! We had pong, bag toss and potato sack races!! After the games, there was a prizes table where the kids could chose small prizes and fun photo props! We had different felt mustaches, clown nose and two pairs of silly glasses. It was so fun watching the kids laugh and play with them!!
I made the cake and cup cakes this year! I was a little nervous to see how they would turn out, because I’m not much of a baker, but I was really excited!! I made a three- shade ombre cake. One of the main colors we used was a teal/ turquoise blue, so that’s what the layers consisted of, with vanilla icing. It was yummy, if I do say so myself 😉
For the kids “thank you” bags, I used brown paper sacks from the dollar store, $1 for 40, and printed “THANK YOU” on them. They included puzzles, bubbles, ring pops and whatever candy from the candy bar they wanted!
Happy Sixth Birthday to my little man! The light of my life 🙂
  
I can still remember spelling out Christian’s name on the wall of his nursery when I was pregnant with him, back in 2006. So, I wasn’t exactly willing to part with those little white block letters just yet!
The current style of Christian’s room is a clean- line, retro style. I have been crazy about chevron lately, so I searched google for a navy chevron pattern. When I found the right one, I saved the image to my computer and made 9 copies. (Christian has 9 letters in his name) In case you were wondering, lol!
Here’s what supplies you’re going to need for this project:
First step, turn your paper pattern-side down, grab a letter, turn it backwards and trace it. Continue this step for each letter. Next, cut out each letter. Don’t worry about being perfect, you will go back later with the exacto knife! Once you’ve got them all cut out, begin brushing on the decoupage onto the letter and place the paper on top, smooth out, set aside and continue for the remaining letters. Let these dry for at least 15 minutes. Now, it’s time to make these letters perfect! Grab a magazine and your exacto knife. Flip the letter backwards and trim as close as possible. Using the magazine will allow you to push as hard as needed without scrapping your surface. Plus, just rip each page out when needed! For finishing touches, place your letters on newspaper and brush on generous amounts of decoupage, repeat as desired. I did this step three times. It seals any bubbles or frayed ends and gives it a shine!
Super simple DIY recipe for decoupage! I was doing my usual browsing of Pinterest and came across this great website and recipe! Here’s where I found it, Do It Yourself Divas . Less than $2 and you will be able to use it many times!!
Here’s what you’ll need:
It’s that simple people! Each ingredient should be 50/50, and then shake, shake, shake. You can make as little, or as much as you’d like! Have fun 🙂
