School Stuff

My house doesn't have a lot of wall space or closets for hanging backpacks. So I did this.  Ethan is now in Kindergarten and Dane is in Preschool, and they both almost always bring home a work of art from church every week. So with all these things coming home i needed a place to display all their stuff.  so here is the "look at what I made!" spot.  It is just the side of my cupboards, and they each have a spot for their backpack and two clipboards for any works of art they bring home!  It's working great!  A little vinyl to make it cute, a few knobs for hooks and four mod podged clipboards.

So Long Easter Decorations...

The maine reason for posting this is so I can remember how I decorated for next year... I have to say my spring decor was rather boring before this year, with all my new crafts I like it much better. It's sad to think that I made over half of this stuff this year... My decor before must have been really sad...

 

Living Room Change #3

So this was before...

I didn't do a whole lot this year. I basically painted the green stripe dark red...

 Found this material at Joann's and made some pillow covers...

 Re-painted my canvas.

 And made some removable covers for these lamps. I'll post a tutorial for the lamps soon.  The original lampshades are so cute... so I didn't want to ruin them... so these fabric covers are just double stick taped on! I'm sure next year I'll be redecorating anyway, so i gotta make everything easy to re-do...

Spring Cleaning

Apparently my definition of spring cleaning is redecorating...   i've lived in my house for two years and every spring i've redecorated... 
this is when we first moved in...

 1st spring I changed to this...

 2nd spring I changed to this...

3rd spring or this year???...  Yes. that is what i'm working on this week!!!  stay tuned for all my finished projects...   I'll just say the green is gone...
update:  my bedroom... branch is done... still looking for the perfect bedding though...

In the middle of a mess...

So when I saw this vinyl branch I knew I wanted to do that in my master bedroom...  I thought oh, I have a vinyl machine, what an easy decoration... but for some reason my husband has put a limit on vinyl... he said we have too much... so this is crazy but I decided I would paint...

1. So I first painted the top half of the room a steel gray/blue color... it's called greyhound from walmart, and i love it!!!

 2. Using a pencil I sketched out the branch.

3. Using a 1inch brush I lightly painted over the pencil...  To make the edges crisp I used a 1inch foam brush and went over all the edges...

Over the past week I've added leaves.... yes it's taken a week... Each day I've added a few more...

 STAY TUNED for the big reveal... Hopefully it will include a new bed spread... thank you Tax return!

Trio Spring Blocks

So we also did these blocks at my sister retreat. My husband cut all th blocks... so thanks to him...  again I was the only one that did black paint, but I'm into it right now... I'm sure next year I'll be painting everything white..  anyway, so spring on one side, USA on the other...

Again if you'd like to order the vinyl for this let me know! I'd love to help...

Easy Art

This probably isn't blog post worthy, but I don't know what i'm doing here, so whatever right?!  So I use this square frame to switch out season decor. I did the glass pebbles for st. Patricks Day

and valentines.

So i thought i'd switch it up a bit. I'm not a super scrapbooker so here is what i did...  So simple. just cut a flower out then to add some dimension or actually i just wasnted some of my orange paper in, i cut some sprig/things, and then just a simple green circle for the center...   done. 

I've been using the same paper for all my spring crafts so hopefully the black paint and the paper gives it some sort of a theme... i'll post more pictures when it's all done!

1ST GUEST POST!!!

So today I am over at guest posting!!!   this is my first ever guest post! so I'm excited. Lindsey, the creator of inspiring creations, is so talented, I was floored when she asked me to guest post. She has incredible recipes and some of the best holiday decor, and great tutorials!
Here are a few that I love.     Go check her stuff out.

Today I am showing you how to make these hobby lobby inspired eggs!

again GO CHECK IT OUT! Inspiring Creations

Thank YOU Lindsey for letting me, a newbie blogger, post on your incredible blog. I feel very honored!

I am also linking up to

. I love lil'luna too!

Spring Wreaths

Another thing at my sister/mom retreat were wreaths. I love how everyone has their own style...  I acutally love how my moms turned out.. She made her own wreath form out of poster board!  I'm probably going to make one for a 4th of july wreath...

Tulip Topiary

I had a craft night/girls night out and my talented friend cut these out for us. Mine are just a little bit different. Most girls painted theirs in different colors, which i was so tempted to do, and had basic 2x4 bases but I had seen these flower pots at craft goodies. and I knew I wanted to incorporate them, I love how they turned out. My bases are different than craft goodies. i needed my tulips and pots to be finished on all sides cause they are on my table. So i did paper on both sides of the tulips. For the bases I did a 4x4 block then for the border did paint sticks cut to size. Added some moss and ribbon. Done.

 

I'm sharing this idea over at

Spring Banners

So I was so lucky to be able to get away for a few days. My sweet husband took time off to watch the boys so I could go spend some time with my sisters and mom. It was so much fun. For one of our activities we made banners. Everyone's turned out so cute I'll post all of them.  Such an easy way to add some color and holiday decor.

YW Broadcast Handout Printable

Ok, so here is our wards attempt to encourage all the YW and their mothers to watch the YW Broadcast.
We are delivering these cute handouts Saturday morning...
I just carefully cut the top of the popcorn bag, slid in the koolaid.

 Then made this tag, printed, cut, folded in half and stapled it to the bag to seal it up again. On the back of the tag it also has other ways to access the broadcast if TV is not an option.

You can print it (hopefully) here. This is my first time uploading PDF's and sharing them... SO, I hope it works...

Spring Topiary

So I found these iron-on felt transfers at the dollar tree.   Since I had just got done doing my Clover Topiaries I thought they were perfect for some spring topiaries.

So you need 1.5x1.5 blocks, dowels, the iron on transfers, paper and ribbon.

 1. Paint your blocks and dowels.
2. Mod Podge your paper to the blocks... you wouldn't have to do this...

3. Cut your dowels to the sizes you want.

4. Drill holes in the blocks and glue dowels in the blocks.

 5. Glue the transfers to the dowels. I used two so that these could be used both sides.  I used E-6000. Wait until dry.

 6. add your ribbon. Done!

I'm linking up to

Spring/Summer Blocks

I needed something to get me out of this gloomy sadness. With the whole Japan earthquake, my dad's "one year" since he passed away and Utah's crappy weather, I made these blocks to remind myself that spring and summer are around the corner.  Just a little mod podge, cute paper and vinyl. It did the trick. I'm much happier.

Luck Banner

So i've seen so many cute banners around. Mine isn't nearly as cute. Scrapbooking is one area I could use some help in...  It's been awhile since I bought scrapbook paper, but has cardstock gone up? I went to by a 12x12 and it was like 60cents a sheet... what is that?!   so being the cheap person I am, I just went to the dollar store and bought a huge piece of poster board for 50cents... I know i'm cheap, but I wasn't about to pay 3 dollars for a stupid cardstock for a paper banner... anyway, I just traced a shamrock shape and cut it out... then using a black and white damask print scrapbook paper I did hearts to fill in the leafs. A simple circle with a white shamrock in the middle and then the letters are just cardstock. I hot glued the ribbon on the back... done... For 50 cents I'll take it!

Ruffle Skirt

So when I saw this Cute Ruffle SkirtI knew I had to make one...  To make it more my style I found this cute fabric for the perfect price at walmart of all places... they are doing a fashion fabric road show. all the fabric is $5.00 for 5 yards!!!  so you have to buy the whole bolt(5yards), but i was fine with that. cause I tend to make mistakes.... so go check out your walmart.  I love this fabric, it's like a satin but much heavier. it says it has some polyester in it to... so it's slightly stretchy... perfect...

Ok, so I pretty much followed the tutorial from ruffles and stuff.   If i had a t-shirt I would have totally done the t-shirt waist band... best idea ever.. but I didn't so here's what i did.

1. cut out your main skirt... you are basically making a trapazoid. I hope that's the right shape... I can't remember...   anyway. take the measurment of your waist, divide by two cause you will have a front and back, then add at least an inch for seam allowance. then decide how flared you want your skirt, i did a 45in bottom, again divide by two and add an inch. then mark a "middle" that's where you'll center your measurements.... make appropriate measurments and mark. waist, length and bottom.  then cut off the excess... i hope that makes sense..

2. for my waist band I did an elastic, but I didn't do the elastic until the very end, but I did sew the casing for the elastic. So i just folded about 1 inch down and sewed the very bottom edge, (I did leave about a 2inch opening so I could feed the elastic at the end). 

 3. Cut your ruffle strips. I did (6) 5" strips. Hem one edge...

 4. Ruffle the unfinished edge. if your fabric frays, use fray check, that glue stuff...

 5. for your first ruffle I had the top of my ruffle fabric touch the stitch from the waistband.  pinned it, pinning is essential cause you can see if your ruffle is too tight and make adjustments to fit the skirt...   then sew along the ruffled seam. 

 6. I always start and end a few inches from the edge so I can sew the ruffles together before finishing. So once you get here stop.
I flip only my ruffle inside out so the right sides are face together. 
Then sew the edges together. 
 Flip your ruffle back. and finish sewing to the skirt, the nice thing about ruffles is that if you have excess your just ruffle it up and sew it in...

 Ruffle 1 done...
7. So my ruffles were anywhere from 3.5 to 4 inches by the time i did the hem and sewed to the skirt. so in order to cover the stitching of the next ruffle I measured 3inches from the ruffle down, and pinned, then sewed.  Repeat for however many ruffles you do.

 8. For the belt. I just took some ribbon, lined it up with that same waistband stitch and sewed both edges of the ribbon. It's great cause it hid that top ruffle.
 9. when the ribbons meet I just do a fancy triangle type fold and sewed it down.

 It makes it look like ties.. but don't worry I cover it up...
 10. so cut several circles. I did 10. all different sizes. you could use a template, I just eyeball it, cause when they get burned you can't tell if they are uneven.

 burn the edges...

 then rather than stacking neatly on top of each other I stagger mine.

 Looks like this...

 Then hand sew to the skirt, while doing this I added a few beads in the center...

I forgot to get pictures of this part, but after i had everything on I fed my elastic through my casing and finished the edge....

 All DONE!!!!  can't wait to wear it! please forget my tube socks...

I linked up to Tatertots and Jello, this is huge link up party, so go check it out...

and

and entered Crystal's Craft Challenge