Americana Decor

I absolutely LOVE Americana Décor! The 4th of July is my favorite Holiday and time of year. There is nothing more cheerful than red, white, and blue! Here was my mantle this year:

 My friend, Ami, and I found these wooden "Proud To Be an American" craft sets at a place called Wood Connection. It is a super fun store! We got together and made them and I am in LOVE with it! We mod-podged the different scrapbook papers onto the letters and the stained the sides of each with a dark stain and added some fun textured ribbons. LOVE!

 My daughter, Cali, really wanted to make something too so I got her this set of flip-flops and she painted them all by herself! The tutu flowers with jewels turned out adorable!

I love Summer! Hope everyone had a chance to enjoy theirs as much as we did!

Manly Father's Day Plaque

For Father's Day this year, I wanted to make something special and I came up with this. I love this saying and really wanted to use it in a piece of décor that was somewhat manly. I found a tutorial on printing on burlap at domestically-speaking.com and got real excited about this! I ironed freezer paper onto my burlap and cut it into an 8 1/2 x 11 piece. It fit perfectly into my printer and printed great on it! I did have to push the paper through a little myself to get it started, but it worked! I was so excited until the top frayed a little more than I had wanted it to :( I just stained a piece of wood and hammered these cute brads onto it to hold it all together!

We hope you had a great Father's Day, Dad, and were so excited to be able to spend it with you this year! We love you!

Family Christmas Card

This is our Family Christmas Card I designed for this year! I made it in Polaroid My Memories Suite

We hope you all have a Very Merry Christmas from our family to yours!!

Christmas Blocks

My sister bought these wooden blocks and left me a set in the Spring and I couldn't decide what to do with them until I realized there are 9 letters in Christmas! Yay!

 The blocks are 1 1/2 inches square and I started by spray painting them red. I mod podged some cute glittery Christmas paper onto them and used my cricut to cut out the letters onto black vinyl. I finished it off by using glitter spray paint to mist some sparkles onto it. Nice finishing touch, if you ask me :)

 What I love most about these blocks is you can arrange them so manu different ways! You can spread them out, or stack them up depending on how much space you have to work with!

 This arrangement happens to be my favorite! Love them!



Our Christmas

This is what our home looks like this Christmas. I love the classic red and gold in my Christmas decorating. I love how the gold just glows with the lights on my tree

 I also love how my bulb wreath I made last year brings it all together so nicely

Have a very Merry Christmas!

4th of July Burlap Pillow

So, 2 things I have wanted to make from Pinterest for the 4th were the Burlap Wreath, my last post, and this pillow that wasn't supposed to be burlap, but I wanted it to match my wreath. I used the same burlap from my wreath and cut it into strips, used a basting stitch to gather them together, then sewed the strips onto a piece of fabric the size of my pillow form, which was 12 x 16. Then, put right sides together and stitched around the edges and left a few inches at the bottom for turning. Finish your opening on the bottom and you're done! Find the tutorial on thislittleproject.com.

4th of July Wreath

As I have previously mentioned, I LOVE the 4th of July! My friend and I got together to make these wreaths out of red and cream burlap and a blue fabric with stars on it. I hve seen it with denim and it is really cute, but I fell in love with the stars :). You can find a tutorial on thescrapshoppeblog.com. We used the big straw kind of wreath beacuse it was thicker, and covered it with a red ribbon, because you will see inside through the burlap. We cut our fabric and burlap into strips and ran a basting stitch through it to gather it up. The tutorial lady did it by hand, but why take the time, right? It feels like you have to be super careful gathering the burlap wen you start, but soon realize it is pretty tough and wont fall apart as easy as you think and you can whip through the rest pretty quickly. Then you just hot glue it on starting and ending in the back since you will see though the burlap, and ta da! A beautiful one-of-a-kind 4th of july wreath. If you hang it on your door, beware it fades quickly, but the faded look is kinda charming to me :)

Good luck and let me know if you try it!

4th of July Pinwheels

I love the 4th of July! It is probably my most favorite holidays! So, when my friend wanted to make some of these pinwheels in 4th of July Fabrics, I was ALL IN! We first picked out 6 inches of 6 different, but coordinating fabrics. We also got a yard of double sided fusable interfacing, wooden dowells, and buttons. You cut 6 inch squares from each of the fabrics and the interfacing and iron a coordinating fabric onto each side. Trim with pinking shears, or leave straight, or do a combo of the two, which is what we did. Mark you center and cut from each corner in about an inch from the center. Make some holes, one in the center, and one on each corner making sure you cut all on the left or all on the right on each corner so they are all the same. We used a scrapbook setter to make the holes. Fold in each of your "holed" corners to the center and secure with a brad. Glue a button onto your brad and a wooden dowell onto your back and you're done! Super easy!

Thanks Natalie for the idea and fun times!

Easter Ideas

Check out these cuuute Easter Egg Candle holders! They aren't too hard either! Just some spray painted wood pieces, eggs, and glue! I love them! Find the instructions on thecsiproject.com!

Here are some super cute bunny pops made from rice krispy treats, dipped in chocolate! Yum! Can't get any better than that! See recipe on lhj.com!

Sick of giving your kids so much candy at Easter? Here are some great ideas of things to substitute for all that candy! See the full list at familyvolley.blogspot.com

Here's a fun Easter Decoration! Love these cute little birdies! Find your free tutorial at blog.birdsparty.com! Love these! Good luck!

These Peep cookies are super cute and there are full directions on sweetsugarbelle.com. I am a HUGE peep fan! These are so fun to get the kids excited for Easter!

I found this yummy treat at kidscooking.com. Super easy and fun for the kids! You just make Rice Crispy Treats in a muffin tin and top with green coconut and jelly beans or chocolate eggs! Yum!

You can take your kids to go egging people's houses! Not like you think! You hide eggs in their yard and see if they can find them all! See full details on sunscholars.blogspot.com

Hope you and your family have a great Easter! I know I have plenty of ideas here to get me going! Good luck to you!

Valentine's Table Runner

So, I made my Valentine's banner and it turned out really cute, but I still needed something else to tie in the colors. I had plenty of fabric left over from my banner, so I decided to make a matching table runner to go with it! I LOVE it!

 I didn't have a pattern, and really didn't like any that I saw, so I decided to make one up on my own. I took this heart from a picture of a quilt I liked and sorta copied the style as far as the pieced background and the shape of the heart, but I added my own touch to it. I finished it off with a large red ric-rac around the edges to make the heart pop and add a Valentines-y look to it

 The "X&O" I got from another picture I saw of a pillow with similar Xs & Os on it. I am hoping it will fray at some point, but don't want to rush that step right now. I finished it off with more red ric-rac around it to add a little dimention. As far as I'm concerned, Valentines is a holiday where you can get away with over-doing something. Like when you make a home-made valentine for someone, the more frills you add, the more pretty or fun it becomes! Bring on the bright colors, lace, ric-rac, stickers, and glitter!!

 Once I finished the banner and the tablerunner, I decided to accessorize with a free printable I found on Pinterest. I loved this one because of the 3 different colors as well as the different directions the words are in

 Here is my family room with all my Valnetine's decorations up and on display. I definately needed these extra fun decorations to get my family excited for the holiday!

Thank you friends and Pinterest for helping me along the way!

Holiday Banner

With Valentine's Day quickly approaching I thought I better quickly get a banner made and up before it's too late! Here is how my banner turned out!

I made it 2-sided so I can just flip it over for St Patrick's Day, but you'll have to wait until after Valentine's Day is over to see the other side ;)

Here is a closer look. I just bought 1/3 yd of 4 different fabrics and then used a template to make the triangles, but you can just make up your own template with a carstock or cardboard of some sort. Then I fused them to a heavy interfacing (remember I did it 2-sided, so I had to fuse both sides), used pinking shears around the edges, and then sewed a straight stitch about 1/4 inch from the edges. Then, I attatched them all to a piece of binding tape and da da da done! Took me all but one day to complete, plus I now have a new decoration for St Patrick's Day as well!

Love is in The Air

I don't have very many Valentines decorations, so I really wanted to make something new this year. My friend Amy found a burlap wreath on Pinterest and decided to make it. Her round wreath turned out so cute we decided to get together to try making one into a heart shape. This is how it turned out!

We started with a wire hanger and shaped it into a heart. We bought 1 yard of red burlap for each of us and cut 2 1/2 inch strips. I chose to use the frayed end because I think it adds alot of character. Burlap is great becuase it already has the holes in it and you just start to thread it onto the hanger while alternating sides each time. I just didn't think about it too much and just threw it all together quickly and I think that is the way it turns out best. I think after a 40% off coupon at Hobby Lobby, the fabric ended up being about $2.50 per person. Super cheap and easy for anyone to make! Thanks Amy and Natalie for another successful craft day!