Pinspiration Sunday: Yarn Ball Wreath

So I found this awesome Wreath on Pinterest and I fell in love with it instantly.

I wanted to make one exactly like it. However, I found this amazing red yarn and decided that I had to use it in this wreath. To make this wreath I headed to AC Moore. I went during moonlight madness so anything that wasn’t already on sale that week would be 25% at that time…so EVERYTHING I bought was on sale. This project ended up costing me a little more that I had plan, but that’s mostly because I chose a more expensive yarn. So here is a list of what you need:

Wreath form
Foam balls of various sizes (I paid about $7)
Yarn in various colors ($15)
Hot glue and gun (you need A LOT of glue, so I bought a new bag $3)

Additional items that can be used:
Christmas ornaments ($7)
Twine

First you cover your wreath form. I bought a wire wreath form because it was the cheapest ($2.99) and covered mine with dark brown felt. The one from Pinterest used burlap. I chose felt for two reasons: 1) my front door is dark brown and 2) I had brown felt on hand. I was sure to wrap it tightly and secured it with hot glue. Then came the tedious task of wrapping yarn around the foam balls. For the red and dark gray balls, I actually painted them first and allowed them to dry. That way I could get away with leaving some very small areas not covered by yarn and it wouldn’t be noticeable and I would save the yarn…cause again…I paid too much…LOL (Honestly it really wasn’t that bad, but I’m a thrift store shopper…I like bargains!) Anyways…I didn’t buy as many foam balls as I should have because, once again, I’m cheap and believe or not FOAM IS NOT. So...to make more balls, I improvised. I used crumpled up paper and plastic ornaments. I wrapped the yarn around, well, whatever, and made assorted sizes and colored balls. I already owned red and silver ornaments but I purchased a box of multiple sized and finishes of smaller red and silver ornaments from Wal-Mart for $3.50 per box. Then I just started gluing then to the wreath form. I liked the idea of the snowflakes from the original inspirational wreath but I didn’t find any I liked. I looked at AC Moore for the wood ones that had dark edges but couldn’t find them. But that can always be added later. This is my final project:

Pinspiration Sunday: Snowman Muffin Tin

So I found the above snowman tin on Pinterest. It looks so adorable and easy to make. I headed out to the thrift stores to find some old muffin tins. One weekend I only spotted a mini muffin pan. So I scooped that up for 50 cents. Then the following weekend I found two regular sized muffin tins for 75 cents each! What a steal!!!!! They were silver like this.

I bought blue spray paint from Wal-Mart which was less than $4. And I had a bronze spray paint already at home. (The mini pan was already a dark brown color and I liked it the way it was) I sprayed the two larger pans. And let them dry.

Next I started painting the muffin projections using a sponge brush and dabbing the color on. At first I only painted the top. I used white craft smart paint from Michael’s (which I already had) on the blue tin and vanilla on the brown.

But upon revisiting my Pinterest board I realized the whole muffin projection was painted. I then splattered the entire thing and hand painted in some snowflakes.

Unlike the original Pin, I couldn’t find the cute wooden hearts used for the noses
(I looked at both Michael’s and A.C. Moore) so I just painted them on.

Once I was completely done I sprayed them with an acrylic sealer. After I sprayed them and they dried I noticed the paint on the snowmen faces looked splotchy. So I covered them with a few more coats of paint, reapplied the faces and then sprayed acrylic sealer on them again. Added some ribbon to hang them by.

These will make great gifts! I actually just went on the original site which was an Etsy shop. This shop was selling them for $20! I made 3 total at a cost of < $6. With a profit like that, I may have to sell mine too ;^P

Pinspiration Sunday: DIY Pacifier Clips

I found a tutorial on Pinterest to make your own pacifier clips. Before I get into how I made them, please keep in mind that I DO NOT know my way around a sewing machine. My sewing machine was given to me for free from my husband’s grandmother and is from the 70’s...So in this tutorial it talked about having a serger. I had no idea what it was so I had to look it up and to be honest I’m still not really sure…haha! Anyway, pacifier clips are AMAZING! No worries about that binky falling on the floor when you’re out and about. But these little straps are about $4+ a piece and they come in some crazy colors which means they don’t exactly go with the little one’s outfit. So now I can make my own, however I want it. I also want to say that I will not be able to describe how I made this very well. I STRONGLY suggest you visit Sew, Mama, Sew! for the original post for guidance. So here is what I did. First I went to JoAnn’s with a handful of coupons. I got suspender clips, interfacing and found fabric on sale. I bought quarter yard of all the fabrics I liked. I bought some girly fabrics too. I’m planning on making a bunch and they can be future baby shower gifts. I’ve also found a few other DIY baby items on Pinterest that I may make and do matching gift sets. But that’s for another day… So back to the pacifier clips…life with a 10 month old pretty much means all my projects get done in stages. And this one wasn’t any different. First I cut all my fabrics to size. She had 14 inches X 2 1/2 in. for the fabric. 14 X 1 1/8 in for the interfacing. After I made the first one I really didn’t like the length of it so my second one I made, I cut the length to 10 inches. After all my pieces were cut, and a few days later, I actually started to make them. First I ironed the edges in. I didn’t measure how far just kind of went for it.

Then I cut the end edges at an angle.

Next, I folded it in half length wise and ironed it.I placed the interfacing inside. Then I pinned it to stay in place.

I just sewed along the edge all the way around.

After that it was time to attach the clip and Velcro. I placed a suspender clip through one end and sewed it in place using a Zig-Zag stitch and then took Velcro and sewed it at the other. I didn’t measure the distance between the two pieces of Velcro. I just looped the strap through a pacifier to see about where it should go. And in the end I got something like this:

Here is a picture of the clip in action (sorry it’s a little blurring, my little guy was coming at me)

It was really a simple project even for a non-sewer like me. Hopefully I will improve the more I make. We’ll see. But for now, I think they are pretty cool looking anyways.

Leftover Dough Ornament

I made my mustache ornaments and had some dough left that was not large enough to make another mustache out of.I didn't want to waste it so I just rolled it out, used a wine glass to create a circle (I don't have a round cookie cutter, obviously something I need to invest in) then dusted a stamp with cornstarch and imprinted it on the dough and made a hole for a string or ribbon. This particular ornament I didn't bake...I saw a recipe where you just leave it out for 2 days to harden so I tried that. Then I sprayed it with Tattered Angels glimmer mist in Blue Skies. Next I took a sponge with Tim Holtz distressed ink in Broken China on it and rubbed all over. After that I sprayed it with Marshmallow colored glimmer mist. Finally I sealed it with Mod Podge and put twine through the hole to hang. This is what it looks like.

This picture was with the flash to show the glimmer.

This is just another way you can decorate those homemade ornaments instead of using paint or stain. The decorating literally took me less that 5 minutes. Super easy and looks pretty cool if you ask me. :^P

Pinspiration Sunday: Homemade Ornaments

I found a really fun and easy tutorial on Pinterest for DIY ornaments. So I had pinned it awhile back thinking maybe I will make Christmas gifts someday. But then I got the awesome idea to make mustache ornaments! What a great favor for Grayson’s 1st Birthday party. Especially since his birthday is just a few weeks before Christmas. Now let me start by saying that I made one batch of these and they DID NOT turn out. The directions are simple…but here’s what I didn’t do: I didn’t knead it before rolling out. I didn’t bake on parchment paper (I used a Pampered Chef stoneware bar pan). The holes I placed in them for the string left a narrow area in the middle which is where most of them broke. And finally they didn’t seem to have completely dried out. Soooo…I decided to try again. This time I still didn’t use parchment paper but I did have wax paper so I used that on a metal cookie sheet. I bought tiny eye hooks that I inserted from the top in the middle that I could then put ribbon through to hang them. I also baked them for an hour and 20min (ten minutes longer on each side). This is how it works:

Ingredients:
1 cup baking soda
½ cup corn starch
¾ cup water

Place all ingredients into a small pot over med-low heat and stir.In the orginal directions it say this process takes a few minutes (which to me means like 5) however it takes about 10-15min.

You stir the pot until it thickens like “smooth mashed potatoes”. Then place dough into a bowl and cover with a damp cloth until cool.

Once the dough has cooled then you can roll out to ¼ inch thick and start cutting. I used Fred & Friends Munchstache cookie cutters that I bought from Amazon.
I inserted the eye hooks prior to baking. I baked them at 175 degrees for 40 min then flipped them CAREFULLY as they were still fragile in the middle. Then baked them for another 40min.

Once done, I removed them from the oven and placed them on a cooling rack overnight (just to be sure they were good to go).

Then I used some paint stain I already had (from ACMoore (it’s the same stain I use on my recipe boxes)) in the following colors: walnut, cherry, and mahogany. You can use craft paint but I wanted the detail to really stick out so I used the stain. I could have watered down the paint a bit but again I had the stain so that was easiest for me.

I then sealed them with mod podge. Finally, I added ribbon through the eye hooks. Here's how they looked:

This is the walnut:

Here is the cherry:

Here is the mahogany:

And here are all 3 together:

I plan on taking a 4 foot Christmas tree to Grayson’s party which I will have the ornaments hanging from with a note telling guest to take one home. Check back after his party to see great pictures from his big bash!

Birthday Banner

I just wanted to share a few pictures of the banner Angela and I worked on for my son’s birthday party. We struggled with what colors and pattern of papers to use. In the end we decided to go with a gray with small white polka dots for the letter flags, and gray and white chevron for the flags between words. I used the Cricut Craft Room software (FREE!) to weld the triangle from George and Basic Shapes cartridge (widen it a bit and elongated it to get the flag) then used the font from Cuttin’ Up cartridge for the words. I used the Billionaire cartridge for the mustaches. Here’s what we came up with:

Pinspiration Sunday: Color-A-Stache Coloring Book

So I came across this blog called Life According to the Street's which had a post about their Mustache Bash themed birthday party. She had made her own coloring pages for an activity. I thought this would be great too. So I decided to look up images of mustaches that could be colored in. It took some time but eventually I found a Mr. Potato Head, the Lorax, glasses, nose and mustache and finally (since his birthday is in December) I chose a picture of Santa. I used the printable scrapbook paper I bought from Honey Bunny and printed 2 pages per book as the cover with cream colored cardstock.I made a cover calling it Color-A-Stache and put a big picture of a mustache on it.

I printed the coloring pages out on regular printer paper.

Then I used my Zutter Bind-it-all to create a binding using 1/2 inch O wires.

Here’s the finished book.

It was actually a super easy creation and I think it's super cute! I hope the kids like it!