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Monday, January 14, 2013

Jayden's school projects

Our Jayden is in pre-k and he has come home so far this year with three different "family projects" to do. The latest one was a snow-man. Living in central Florida, Jayden has never seen snow let alone a snow man but we had a blast with this project anyhow. The fun part is always to see who can get the most creative. Our goal (and successfully so far) has been to use only items on hand or found in nature.

I had rolls of tulle so we bunched it up to cover the snowman. We put acorn caps as his buttons, sticks for his arms, a stick wrapped in part of the orange wrap off a Ramen Noodle box for the nose, those little plastic ceramic tree bulbs I had from my Christmas Tree Crafts for his mouth. For his hat, I cut the bottom off a plastic container and cut the lid from the same container to glue together forming his hat. Then we spray painted it black and hot glued it to the board. Some snowflakes cut from scrap paper and some star stickers left from my preschool teaching days and voila, Jayden has the coolest snowman in town! Oh yes, the eyes are recycled vintage eyes that I salvaged a few years back from an old stuffed animal.

Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Christmas Tree Craft #2

I haven't felt up to par today: this makes flu bug number 3 already this season. So I kept busy today with some light crafting. I managed to finish another of my trees.
I found all these pegs at a yard sale for $3.00! About 5lbs in a small tub. My Aunt Tony used to make ceramic Christmas trees that lit up, and these were same kind of pegs she used in the ceramic trees. I don't make ceramic trees, but I knew I would find a great use for them. I had ordered some Styrofoam cones for a different project, but decided to change direction.
I started at the bottom, hot gluing the pegs around the cone evenly.

I glued each layer...

...until the cone was full. I filled in the tiny open spots with the smallest pegs in the batch.
I am very pleased with how they turned out!

I think I like the larger one better. I am working on the third one now and should have it finished by the end of the day. I still have lots of the plastic bulbs left so I invite any suggestions on possible crafts to use them up on.


*****
~May your blessings be many and your troubles be few!

*****
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Monday, January 7, 2013

Christmas Tree Craft

About a year ago I bought a big box of assorted sizes and styles of those little plastic bulbs that go into ceramic Christmas trees. I paid only $3.00 for the whole lot but never really knew what I was going to do with them. While sorting and organizing my craft room, I came across these plastic pieces and some styrofoam tree forms and voila, I came up with the idea to create a decorated tree for Christmas.


This is my finished product! I really like it a lot. I'm thinking of creating two more similar; a larger one and a smaller one so there will be a set of three. 

Update: I did make a larger one and you can see it along with a little how-to HERE!

Until next time!
May your blessings be many and your troubles be few!

Sunday, August 26, 2012

Life is a Precious Gift

I haven't blogged in a week because my husband's youngest sister passed away and our family has been in a limbotic chaos. I went into my studio today hoping to craft and that too was a bust. My mind was just too unorganized. The worry overpowers any creative thoughts in my head. I worry so about my darling husband Howard, I worry about my beautiful mother-in-law and also my husband's surviving siblings.

Although in the past week I have witnessed Howard's family pull their love and strength together, I have witnessed hearts being broken in a way that hurts to the core of my being. I am exhausted physically from the lack of sleep and mentally for what should be obvious, and for every bit of my exhaustion, I know that my husband, his mother and his siblings must have exhausted hearts and bodies so much more so than mine.

At times like this we tend to focus more intently on how precious the gift of life is. I have always let it be known that, under God, my family is what I live for; But I just can't seem to think of any thing else right now. How fortunate am I to have been blessed with such a wonderful man to share this journey of life with me, and to have been blessed with children and grandchildren that bring us joy to no end.

Thank you dear Heavenly Father for all the blessings you have bestowed upon me and thank you to my dear family who stands at my side and share this journey of precious life! And thank you also to my friends who have been here for us in each their own beautiful way! Until tomorrow.

Sunday, August 19, 2012

Rainy Day Craft

Today is one of those days when I just want to curl up with a good book and get lost in someone elses drama. It is raining and thundering, Jake and Ashley have taken Jayden to a birthday party at Chuck E Cheese and Howard is watching movies. I don't have a good book on hand so I whipped up a little mail center for my outgoing/incoming mail. It coordinates with the ribbon board and other items I've recently created.


 The above photo is the frame as I found it at a yard sale: fifty cents!
The picture above is the finished product: I cut a piece of heavy cardboard to fit the back, covered it with coordinating fabrics. The top two layers form pockets for my mail.


Saturday, August 18, 2012

Finishing what I started.

About 9 months to a year ago, my bff Lisa and I started several different crafts with the idea that we were going to make tons of money recycling or upcycling a bunch of junk. We really did do great work but we didn't make a bunch of money. One of the things we made were bird feeders and bird baths from all kinds of vintage and assorted glass. They turned out absolutely gorgeous (I'll post pics when I find the right camera chip) Another item we thought was just so cool was the chairs made from tin cans. We thought we'd make pin cushions from these. Well, Lisa formed a few of these chairs and she even got them spray painted but they've since been sitting on a shelf in my craft room waiting for the pin cushion part to be added. Guess what? I finally added the cushions! They turned out as cute a we thought they would.

Aren't these just the cutest little pin cushions?