Ribbon Trees

These tree are pretty easy they are just a little time consuming.  This is a sit in-front of the TV and watch a good show kinda project.  They make a great center piece at Christmas dinner.   I would normal make these red and green, but I made them for my mom and these are her colors.

Buy 3 different sized foam cones

A few different sizes, colors, textures of ribbon.  About 5 or 10 different ribbons.

A box of 3/4 of an inch to 1 inch needles.

Cut the ribbon into 3 inch pieces.   Start at the bottom of the cone folding your ribbon in half and pinning it to the cone.  Work your way up alternating the ribbons in a pattern.

Create a bow at the top by twisting and pinning one of the ribbons.  Done!

$2 Standing Chalk Board

I have been wanting a chalk board for outside my house to write different fun things on.  Like those chalk boards you see outside of restaurants with the daily specials.  I looked them up online and they cost around $189 buck-a-roos! Crazy! I recently discovered a place called Re-Store in Orem, Ut.  It is for Habitat for Humanity.  You can drop off old cabinets, doors, paint, any building materials.  They use some of it and the public can come in to buy it too.  It’s like a thrift store for building materials.  I love it.

I bought these two lovely old cabinet doors there.

I painted them two different colors, to get more use out of them.

I tapped of the inside and painted on some chalk board paint.

After that was dry, I turned them over and screwed in some regular door hinges to the tops.

I probably should have painted the backs too, but I am too lazy.

These are the top of the cabinets now attached together. (turned sideways)

Done! Easy as pumpkin pie!  Took me only a few hours, mostly waiting for paint to dry, but was fast and easy!

And, because I had the hinges and the paint it only cost me the $2 dollars for the doors.  Sweet!  I LOVE projects like these!

Now I can use it all the time

Pottery Barn Inspired Thanksgiving Advent

Two years ago and few girl friends and I set out to re-create a Pottery Barn advent calendar that we all liked.  Actually, to be honest,  it turned into about 20 or so church lady friends.  It was a blast, a lot of work, but fun.  I liked seeing how everyone’s turned out.

We loved how ours turned out.  Now I am sharing it with you

Here are some pictures of mine and one of my girl friends.   All the dimensions, supplies, and patterns are below the pictures.  Enjoy!

These pictures are from my friends calendar.  I like how she used the same color and font for all her numbers.  She also made her pockets bigger than mine.  I will be giving the dimensions for her pockets, because they work better bigger.

Her husband has a b-day in November so she added some candles to on of the days, very cute.

And maybe my favorite thing on hers is the  cooked TURKEY.  I love her turkey, I wish I put that on mine.  I don’t have it in the directions, so you will have to figure that one out by looking at the picture. It’s on the 21st, a little hard to see sorry.

I also love her apple basket on 1 and fence on 18

Her and my top is different.  There were two different Pottery Barn calendars, she chose the more classic one and I did the more funky mis-matched one.

Here is mine-

I so added room at the bottom of mine for our last name.  The directions include space for that.

You will need:

Two pairs of scissors- regular and a small sharp pair for intricate cutting

embroidery needles with a medium sized hole

embroidery thread

felt- lots of felt!

mini pom-pom balls

tweezers

Paper cutter with wavy blade or pinking shears

felt glue or tacky glue that dries clear

A piece of ribbon 1 1/4 yards long-to hang from dowel

Ribbon or Rick Rack for the sides

Dowel with end caps

Optional- a electronic cutting machine.  I used my Cricut to cut the letters and numbers out of felt.

Directions and Dimensions-

Cut One piece of felt 39″ long by27.5″ wide

Cut the inner piece of felt (the off-white on ours) 39″long by 23.5″ wide

Lay the smaller piece down on top of the wider piece and sew down both sides.  2 inches should be showing of the bottom piece on both sides.  Can sew ribbon or rick rack down the side on the inner piece of felt.

Create a space for the dowel at the top by folding back the top 1-1 1/2 inches- depending on the size of the dowel you buy.  Sew across top.

Optional, but looks nice. Fold bottom back about 1/2inch and sew across the bottom.  You could also glue all of these if you aren’t into sewing.

We cut our squares 4″ wide by 3″ tall.  We cut them with a paper cutter that had a wavy blade.  You could also get that edge with pinking shears.  We then did a running stitch around the sqaures.  This does take a while, watch a moive while you do this part.

The squares are in rows of 5.  About 2.5 inches from the edge and 4-5 inches from the top.  They are 1/2 inch apart from side to side.  And, the rows are about 1 inch down for each other.  You will want to lay it all out before you start gluing them down.  Make sure to leave room at the bottom for your name and a turkey if you want that.

To cut felt on your Cricut there are a few steps.

First, just like cutting fabric you will need to iron on some heat and bond on the back.  This helps it to stay in place while cutting.  Next make sure you use a deep cut blade, this is different then the blade that it comes with.  Cut as deep as you can and slowly.  I used blue painters tape to help hold the felt around the edges. It was a process, but if you are doing it just for your self and a friend or two it will be great.  I did all the numbers and letter for about 20 women.  It took me three days to cut the felt!  With the help of my mom.  I went into labor a week later lol  Good times. 😉

Patterns

Click below for the pattern for the little pieces on the squares.  This link will take you to Box.net where you can print out the pattern.  And, sorry they are not the most well organized patterns, but they get the job done.

Pattern Page 1

Pattern Page 2

Pattern Page 3

Pattern Page 4

Pattern Page 5

I know it is a little late in November for this calendar, but start now so you can have it for next year!  😉

Yarn Turkey -Free Pattern and Supply List-

I wanted something for my table that was exciting for kids to look at.  I saw a few people wrapping yarn around styrofoam to make a turkey body last year and came up with this idea.  I love my turkey and so does my two year old.  It’s a pretty simple/fast craft after you buy all the supplies.

Here’s the supply list-  You can print it out if you click on this picture.

To get started PRINT out the pattern for feathers, beak, and gobble here. Click on pictures below to download.

Cut these out and then cut out felt.  Then do a running stitch around the 2 large pieces of the feather to hold them together(and to look cute).  DON’T GET GLUE IN THE MIDDLE OF FEATHER.  The wire hanger goes in the middle.  Glue the out side/decorative piece in the middle of the front of the feather.

After your felt is ready, now you are ready for the easy part.  You might want to get your kids and have them help you with this part.  Wrap the dark yarn around the body, gluing the first piece to the styrofoam  ball if needed.  Secure ends when covered ball.  Then wrap the egg shape with the lighter yarn.

I then figured out where I wanted my head to be placed on the body.  I stuck a four inch piece of the wire hanger in the body(about 2″ sticking out) glued it with hot glue and attached the head to that.  Sorry I didn’t take more detailed pictures.

Now you will need to make the feet.  I cut two 4 inch pieces and six 1 and 1/2 inch pieces of the dowel.  I stuck the 4 inch pieces- 1 inch into the large ball.  Prop up your bird at this point and set it on wax paper.  Then take your six 1 and 1/2 inch pieces and hot glue three to each 4 inch piece.  I just glued like crazy.  I put a huge blob of hot glue down and stuck the pieces in that.  Sorry again I don’t have a picture.  After that is all dry wrap yellow ribbon around the feet and legs.

I then cut and shaped my wire hangers into a long u-shape.  Stick both ends into the bird.  Slide feathers you make on to those.

After everything is done add your face and side wings.  Cut out your felt beak and gobble.  Stitch the fronts and backs together.  Glue both pieces on.  Add hat and eyes.

Kids Leaf Place-mats

This is a great Family Home Evening idea you can do tonight with the kids!  It requires little to no prep and is easy for all ages.   And your kids can use these at the kid table during Thanksgiving

After dinner onE night we went for a walk around the block and collected leafs.

Then we went home and laid them out on our laminating sheets.

The kids loved watching it go through the laminator.

If you don’t have a laminator just glue your leafs to a piece of paper.  Add some stickers and glitter too.  You can then take it to any Kinko’s, map store, office supply store and they will laminate it for you for a small price.

They are so happy with their work!

Get crafty with your kids…they will love it

20 Minute Pumpkin Bag- Easy Printable Pattern

If you need a pumpkin bag for tonight, here is your last minute bag pattern and tutorial.  It is soo easy!  And, no sewing required.  Just grab your scissors, hot glue gun, and felt.  Print out my pattern and go to town.  

Happy Halloween!!

Follow the pattern and cut out all your pieces.  Hot glue a 22 inch piece of ribbon on to the inside of your back piece and set it aside.

Glue the face onto the front of your front piece.

Then take the back pieces and put a thin line of hot glue all the way around the outside edge of the pumpkin DO NOT GLUE THE TOP EDGE!  That is the opening.

Lay the top piece on.  Taa Daa! 20 minute (maybe less) pumpkin bag done!

If you wanted to make it a little fancier you could sew the pieces on then sew it together.  It would look great with some fun stitching around the edges.  Get Crafty!

My kids where super happy to find these this morning.  I love Halloween

Print the patterns –  click HERE for bag and HERE for the face pieces.

Black Sticks, Skull, Boa, and Crows…Spooky!

I spray painted these black sticks, also mentioned HERE, AND I spray painted the inside of the glass jars I put them in.  I love the look of the glass jars sprayed inside only.

Here are some more pictures of my spooky mantle  The collage of pictures is from my husbands photography class in high school, I found them and thought they would be fun for Halloween decor.  And it’s fun the see his brother and friends when they were young  and being silly  

My sister in law and I made these crow/spooky garlands a few years ago.  I love it.

Here is the template for the crows if you want to make your own.

-Click here for crow template-

Spray paint something! And as always…

Spray Painting Sticks

This time of year a lot of people are trimming up their trees and have a bunch of twigs and sticks leftover.  Well, I was lucky enough to find a friend that had a huge pile!  And she was kind enough to share with me.  I grabbed some tall and short ones for two different projects I had in mind.

The first one was for my front porch.  I took all the longs ones and sprayed them two different shades of green and of them some silver.  The short ones are for my fire place mantel.  I sprayed those black and then added a bit of shimmer with my metallic spray paint.

FYI- The two metallic spray paints in these pictures do very different things!  The one in the top picture will give you a super shinny silver and the bottom on will be more of a light shimmer.  You will see color through the bottom one, you will not with the one in the top picture.

I laid out the sticks in my yard and sprayed them all.  I used the colors that I did, because that is what I had.  I wanted black and green.  My favorite brand of all of these is Rust-o-leum.  I don’t say that because they pay me to hahaha, I wish 😉  I say this because you don’t have to really follow all the “spray paint rules”  You can get close to your project without getting ugly drips, you can do a second coat after about 10-20 mins without something bad happening, you can spray it almost upside down and still get an even spray.  And, it is cheap!  It’s like $3.99 a can at Home Depot.  So for me…Rust-o-leum wins

I found some sparkly purple ones at Ross for 8 bucks and added them to the bunch.

I was struggling getting a good picture of them on the porch.   Here is the end result, it looks even better in person.

And here is sneak peak of the sticks I did for the mantel.  More of that coming tomorrow.

Planters and Spray Paint

After taking all those fun photos of houses around Utah.  I was on the hunt for some fun planters to set my pumpkins on.

Read more about this post HERE

I found these on KSL.  The two brown ones for 15 bucks and the set of three brass ones for 8.  I have quite the stash of spray paint, so I busted some of those out and went to town.

These colors would be prefect for Thanksgiving, but I wanted to make the colors a little bit more exciting for Halloween.

My stash… is mostly blue tones.  I decided to use a teal.

I didn’t put any color on the brass I just used Rust-o-leum  Metallic- Titanium Silver. I also put this on over the teal planters.  If you don’t spray it on thick or do multiple coats, you can still see the color underneath, but get a nice sparkle.

I think everything needs a little sparkle or glitter on Halloween

Stay tune for the rest of my spooky Halloween front door! We are just getting started

Marshmallow Fondant and Nemo Wave Cake

Marshmallow fondant is pretty stink’n easy to make.  My sister in law makes some awesome cakes with marshmallow fondant.  Over the phone, a few states away, she helped me make a sweet cake for Beck.

Here how I made my marshmallow fondant wave cake.

You will need to have:

1-2 packages of marshmallows, big or small.

2-5 tablespoons of water

About 8 cups of powdered sugar. 1-2 bags

vanilla, almond, or any kind of extract for flavoring

If you are doing all one color then go ahead and melt all your mallows in the same bowl.  If you want to do a few different colors, split them up before melting them.  Put your mallows in a microwave safe bowl and add 1-2 tablespoons of water.  Stir them around until they are all slightly wet.  Put a few drops of your extract in now.  Add more water if needed, but just a little at a time.  Place in the microwave on high for 30 seconds.  Open and stir.  Continue microwaving for 30 second until your marshmallows are melted.

My apron says “Got more time for misbehave’n, since I started microwave’n.”  Pretty sweet, I know

Once they are melted, pour 1 cup of powdered sugar into the bowl.  Mix until it thickens up.  Spread powdered sugar on the counter.  Take the fondant out of the bowl and start to knead it.  It will be very sticky!  My sister in law recommends putting shortening on your hands to help.  She also adds about 1/2 cup to her fondant, but I didn’t.  You can do it either way.

Keep kneading and adding powdered sugar until becomes a firm ball.  It will still be a little sticky when it is stretched out.  No worries.  Place ball, double wrapped, in saran wrap over night.  It will not be as sticky they next day.

When you roll it out make sure there is flour underneath to keep if from sticking to the counter.  You will not see that side of the fondant.  You might also need a little flour on the rolling pin, but if it shows on your top side just take a damp cloth and wipe it off.

I was inspired to make these waves from this picture I saw on 6th Street Design School Blog.  Check out this blog.  It has a lot of beautiful stylish ideas for your home.

I love this beautiful wave cake, but I am not yet up to this kind of cake making par.  So, I made just one tier.  I used three different fondant colors.  AND, I used a box to make my cake

After making these and letting them cool for a bit; I trim off the tops to make them flat.  I then layered them with frosting and home made raspberry jam.

This handy tip I learned from Sandra Lee.  Place some parchment paper like so on your cake stand.  This helps to keep the cake stand clean and you won’t have to try to move it once it’s iced either.  Place your bottom cake piece down and begin to layer on here.

Once you’ve completely iced the outside of your cake with a thin layer of frosting, you can place your fondant on.  Roll out your fondant (if you haven’t already) and cut it wavy like with your pizza cutter.  Start at the top of the cake and layer going down.  This can be tricky, but hopefully the little layer of frosting you put on the cake will act like glue and hold the waves on.  I also put tooth picks in the back of the cake, until the waves were secure.  Once it is ready for the party remove the parchment paper by gently pulling it out from under the cake.

You can do it!  Make a cool cake for your kid.  Then proceed to do a happy dance. You deserve it.

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