Independence Day Decor

Well it's about that time! Time for parades, BBQ's, and FiReWoRkS! Yes, it's almost the 4th of July! So I thought I would write this post before the actual holiday, so you can make these crafts for this year. I am cutting it kind of close, but hey, it's better than most of my other posts where I show you what and how I made my decorations after the fact. So here you go.

First up is my tulle wreath. Click HERE for the link on where I found the idea. I love this wreath so I just copied it rather than doing something different.

You'll need tulle (I purchased 2 yds. of blue and 3 yds. each of red and white), a foam wreath, scissors, ribbon (that matches), wooden stars, mod podge, glitter, a sponge brush, and hot glue gun.

First, cut strips and strips and more strips of your tulle. This is my least favorite part but necessary. Then I grabbed 3 strips of one color and put them together then fold in half. This is the tricky part, not because it's hard to do but just hard to describe. So just follow the directions from the link above. I used the same tying technique. It's like a loop knot where you put the tulle around the wreath and slip the loose ends of the tulle through the middle of the tulle loop and pull tight. Here's what it looks like.

I like the look of this loop knot better than just a regular knot. Anyway, I did a quarter of the wreath in all blue tulle. Then I did the rest in red and white stripes (I did three red, then three white and repeated until I hit the other side of the blue tulle).

When you're done with the tulle it's time for the stars. Paint your wooden stars white.

After the paint dries, put a layer of mod podge on the star and then place in the glitter, coating the whole star. Let dry.

Next, start hot gluing the stars to your wreath. I glued them to the blue tulle and started by gluing one in the middle and then one on each side.

Then I glued the ribbon on (I should have done it like the one I linked to, by gluing the ribbon first and then tying the tulle around it to cover it up). I just folded the ribbon in half, glued the two ends together, and then glued the ends to the wreath where the blue and red tulle meet.

Note: I ended up pulling the ribbon back and cutting some off because when you looked at it face on, you could see the ribbon coming around from underneath and I didn't like the way it looked. So just glue in the middle of the wreath rather than gluing it all the way to the front again. I hope that makes sense. But to avoid this issue, just glue the ribbon on first before you add the tulle.

Trim the tulle all the way around the wreath so they're all the same length, and tada!

Okay, my second craft. Super easy. Buy wooden letters from the craft store. I bought a "U", "S", and "A" well, because it's the 4th of July.

So you'll need wooden letters, red and blue paint, mod podge, and sponge brushes. I painted the "U" red (I know, for us BYU fans, this is an abomination but I didn't even realize what I'd done until after I painted it and my husband pointed it out). I painted the "A" blue and then after a few coats and the letters were dry, I mod podge the two letters to make them shine and seal the paint. I left the "S" white, how it came, and you're done.

And my last craft, are the fire crackers! Click HERE for my inspiration.

You'll need tubes (I used a paper towel roll, Pringles containers, and a baby cracker container), patriotic paper, stickers (letters, stars, etc.), ribbon, silver pipe cleaners, and tape (double sided is the best so you can't see all the tape but I ran out so I just used regular). Tubes with lids are easier too because then you have somewhere to stick the pipe cleaners.

So first, you'll wrap the tubes with paper and then tape closed. Replace lid.

Then using stickers and ribbon, decorate each tube to your heart's content.

Last, I wrapped the pipe cleaners around my fingers to curl them and then pulled the curl out, so it's not too tight. Then I poked a hole in each lid and put 3 pipe cleaners in each lid. For the paper towel roll, I just taped the pipe cleaners to the inside of the roll.

And voila. Your very own fire crackers!

And here is my finished mantle.

The banner and circle fans I bought at Dollar Tree. Click HERE for my subway art. I printed one off for each holiday.

Happy Independence Day and GOD BLESS AMERICA!!

Teacher Appreciation Gifts 2014

This week* has been Teacher Appreciation Week in our school district.  As such, I wanted to make something fun for my kids teachers, and I wanted to actually make it.  I think that homemade gifts are so much fun and a little more meaningful.  And considering that I really slacked off the last two years (two years ago we were preparing to move and last year I was in the midst of morning sickness), I really wanted to make them.  However, as previously mentioned (see this post), I don't have a lot of time.  So, I went to good ol' Pinterest to get some great ideas.  I found two that I really liked, so I let my daughters decide which ones they wanted.  Of course, they each picked a different one.  But that was okay with me because I really did want to make them both, and they were both such easy things that it wasn't going to be a hassle.  Here they are:

Dum Dum Bouquet

My second daughter wanted me to make Dum Dum Bouquets for her teachers (her real teacher is out on maternity leave, so she has a long term sub; we made one for each of them).  They were easy to make and only used a few items.  You can the inspiration for them here.

You will need:

• Flower Pot
• Styrofoam Ball (I used a 5 in)
• 1 1/2 1-lb Bags of Dum Dums (the original instructions called for one bag, but I found that 1 1-lb bag wasn't enough; I used about half a bag to finish it.  Since I made two bouquets, three bags was the perfect amount. leaving a few for my kids to eat)

Here is everything you need:

1. Place your Styrofoam ball in the flower pot.

2. Starting on the top, stab the sucker sticks into the Styrofoam.  Tip: Make sure you place them going straight down so that the sticks don't block each other later on.

3.  Working from the center, keep adding the suckers close together so you don't see the green (Don't try to do each side at a time; I tried this and it caused the ball and suckers to fall over from the weight).

4.  You will eventually run out of space and then it will look like a cute bouquet.

5. Now you need a cute saying to go with your bouquet.  I used Paint.net and made 2.5-in circles with read "Thank you for helping me GROW this year, so I won't be a DUM-DUM."

6. Cut your note out, attach it to cutesy scrapbook paper and a craft stick, and then push it into your bouquet.  Voila!  You have a fun and easy teacher appreciation git.

Gift Cups

My oldest daughter wanted to make the gift cups for her teachers (she has her regular teacher, plus her advanced math teacher) and my second daughter wanted to make one for her speech teacher, so we made three of these.  They are even easier than the Dum Dum Bouquets.  You can see the post that I stole the idea from here.

You will need:

• Reusable lidded cup w/straw
• Individual serving size drink mix packages
• Ribbon
• Printed Quotes (from linked website)

Everything you need:

1.  Place the drink mix packets in the cup.

2.  This is the hard part: screw the lid back on.

3.  Use the ribbon to tie the printed tag around the cup....Annnnnnnddddd you're done!

These were two simple and cute gifts that we did out our house this year to show our teachers how much we appreciate them.

*This post was started last week, but once again life got in the way and I'm only now finishing it.  Sorry if your Teacher Appreciation Week has already come and gone.  You can always pin this to use next year!

Easter, Easter I've Been Thinking

The Monday before Easter, we decorated eggs. We went a different route this year and I think it will be a few years before we try this again because it is a little messy especially with a 3 year old. You will need hard boiled eggs (obviously), glitter, glue dots, and a permanent marker.

First stick a glue dot onto an egg.

Then place the egg/glue dot into glitter.

Then using more glue dots, glitter, and a marker, create awesome looking eggs.

Can you tell she had fun?

Next, I decided to make baskets for my girls this year and I love how these turned out. I call them tutu baskets.

You will need: baskets (I got mine at Dollar Tree), scissors, and tulle (I bought 2 yards each of 6 different colors). And really that amount came out perfectly. I actually went back and bought more thinking I wasn't going to have enough but now I'm stuck with a lot of tulle that can't be returned. Oh well, I'm sure I can find some other project I can use the tulle for.

So first things first. I folded the tulle in half so that I could cut more strips at a time. And now you cut strips and strips of tulle. Mine were about an inch thick though it doesn't matter if they are all cut the same size because you can't tell. All that tulle hides lots of mistakes, which is nice. Anyway, the cutting was my least favorite part, but probably because I cut it on my carpet so I had a hard time seeing all the layers to make sure I cut through them all. Oh and I only used 3 colors per basket, so I had a purple basket and a pink basket at the end.

So as you know, all material including tulle comes folded in half already. So once you have your strips cut you're going to want to cut along the fold so that each strip now becomes 2 strips.

Then find the middle of the strip and fold in half and thread the fold through the basket but don't pull it all the way through.

Open the strip in the middle creating a hole and pull the two ends of the strip through the hole, essentially creating a knot.

Pull until the tulle lays flat around the basket's edge.

Keep doing this all around the basket alternating your 3 different colors.

And now you're done and you can enjoy your new baskets.  Go find some eggs!

Next up are my place settings for Easter dinner. I took on the feast this year so my aunt could have a break. She does dinner every Sunday/holiday so I think she really deserved it. Anyway, I wanted to make it look fun so I made a craft. You will need: mini flower pots, moss, mini eggs, and a glue gun. The eggs and pots I found at Dollar Tree.  The moss is at any craft store.

Place some moss in the pots and then glue the eggs to the moss. Done!

Last, sticking with my egg theme from the place settings above, are my cupcakes for Easter dinner. Click HERE for my inspiration. Mine definitely did not come out as cute as my inspiration because I didn't have the right frosting tip or cute little flowers but I still like how they came out. I just used a box cake mix and made regular cupcakes. I dyed vanilla frosting brown (if you're wondering why I didn't just buy chocolate frosting, I didn't want it to be too chocolatey, you know chocolate cake with chocolate frosting is just too much for some people), frosted the cupcakes, and then placed some Cadbury Mini Eggs on top. Delicious!

 

Aye, It's St. Patty's Day!

I sure hope you read that title in an Irish accent. If not, go back and do so now. It makes it so much better. Anyway, I know I'm really late with this post but if I'm being honest, I just finished these projects yesterday. In my defense, I was gone most of March so I didn't have time for the crafts. But things have slowed down and I finally did it. But before the crafts, let's talk food.

We were traveling on actual St. Patrick's Day so I didn't do anything special other then put me and the girls in green. Love them.

But a week later when my parents came for a visit, we went all out. I made green eggs and green shamrock blueberry muffins for breakfast. The muffins are easy. I used a box mix and just followed all the directions. The only change was that I added some green food dye. Pour mix in your baking cups and now comes the cool part. Place 3 marbles around the baking cup to make a shamrock shape.

Then bake in the oven like you normally would. So easy and you're done!

That night for dinner I made Corned Beef and Cabbage for the first time and it was super easy and yummy. I found a crock pot recipe on Pinterest (where else?) and just stuck to it. Well I did make one change and that was I used baby carrots instead of large carrots. Click HERE for the link to the recipe.

And for dessert I made pudding cups. I made way too much and could never finish it but it was yummy. Here's how to make them. You'll need a box of instant vanilla pudding, a box of instant chocolate pudding, green food coloring, mint extract, Cool Whip, a Hershey's chocolate bar, and crushed Oreos (I used Mint flavored to stick with my mint theme).

Make the two puddings according to the box directions. Dye the vanilla pudding green and add the mint extract, as much or as little as you want. Split each pudding in half, so you'll have two bowls of vanilla and two bowls of chocolate. Now split the Cool Whip into thirds. Place one third in one of the chocolate bowls and mix, and one third in one of the vanilla bowls and mix. Save the last of the Cool Whip for assembly. So now you should have a dark chocolate bowl, a light chocolate bowl, a dark green bowl, and a light green bowl. Now you are ready to assemble. (In the picture below, the other two bowls are the crushed Oreos and the Cool Whip.)

It's better to use a clear cup so you can see how pretty it looks but really any cup will work. So first, place some of the crushed Oreo at the bottom. Then I layered the pudding like this: dark chocolate, dark green, light chocolate, light green. I then sprinkled some more crushed Oreos on top, placed a dollop of Cool Whip on that and then shaved some of the Hershey's chocolate bar on the very top. Voila!

As mentioned, there was way too much so I would use the small boxes of pudding mix, not the large.

So now for the crafts. I made a rag wreath. I won't go into the process making because my sister already blogged about how to make one and I just followed her instructions. See HERE. The only thing I did differently was use an actual foam wreath instead of a wire hanger. The only problem was I bought some material that were in scrap sizes so they were only 9 inches long. I was still able to tie them around the wreath but they were short. I did buy some regular sized material too that was 12 inches long so those worked fine. But I actually like how the wreathed turned out with the different sizes. I had 9 different patterns and I think I used 11 strips of each.

Last, is my LUCKY sign. It's like my Valentine's Day sign I made HERE. Just scroll to the bottom of that post.  So, I followed all the same steps. Paint your 12" x 12" canvas with black stripes.

Then cut out a shamrock shape onto green felt. I printed a shape off the computer and then traced it onto the felt. Hot glue gun the felt to the canvas.

Then start gluing the buttons onto the felt. I did it section by section but made sure that I ended on an edge so there wouldn't be any empty spaces in the middle.

Tada!

But see those big empty spaces that aren't quite big enough for another button. Well I just glued buttons on top of those empty spaces which gives it a 3-D effect. At the bottom of the canvas, I used my stickers to spell out LUCKY and you're done! I'm still trying to decide if I want to add a stem but for now, it's finished.