Disney Countdown....it's on!

Our trip is officially booked, along with our airfare.  Now....we wait, ugh!  I went through our calendar and wrote all the days left till the trip on each day and when I realized it was 200+, I knew for sure I was losing it.  But, then inspiration struck.  Why just look at a boring calendar each day, when you can look at something like this?

I won the Mickey block on the top (and the Minnie block as you will later see below) on an online auction at Crafty Moms 'R' Us.  I bid on them when the trip was in the works, but, not officially planned.  I had no clue what I was going to do with them.  But low and behold, I won them, and then it hit me....I can turn them into little countdowns by painting over the Mickey and Minnie heads with chalkboard paint.  "Brilliant, Tricia", I thought to myself.  But then I decided that was not enough.  So I went to the maker of the mouse block, Around the Block, and asked if I could buy unfinished blocks from them.  They said they never had anyone ask (go figure) but were willing to do it for me.  Score!  So I got four unfinished blocks in the mail and painted them with black paint.

 

For the "Days Til" block, I glued black cardstock to the block and then using my Cricut and the Mickey Font cartridge, cut out the letters and glued them on with glue dots.

 

For the "Disney" block, I glued scrapbook paper to the block and then used my Cricut and the Mickey Font cartridge to cut out the word and layered and glued to the scrapbook paper.

 

And then that was it.  I have two sets of block...one for us and then one that I'll be giving to my parents as a surprise this Thursday when they come to visit.  L loves to point at the blocks and say "Did-ney"....wonder if he knows what is in store for him!!!

 



St. Patrick's Day

I'm pretty sure I am one of the rare ones that actually decorates for St. Patrick's Day.  This month, with Easter being just 2 weeks after, I am finding myself quite busy with getting decor made and displayed, just to take it down.  But, at least it'll be ready for next year!!

First up was some festive table toppers.  This seems to be a recurring event as each holiday nears.  I have big toppers made for pretty much all the major holidays for my kitchen table, so now I'm tasked with making smaller ones for the living room.  I'm also trying to be a little more creative with the patterns, so for these, I found a quilt that I liked and just made a small portion of it to make it end table sized.

Next, was the mantel.  Ever since last month, I've been obsessed with making a fabulous mantel display.  I have to admit, most of the St. Patty's Day decorations out there are pretty hideous (like the ginormous green shamrock below), but, I think my selections worked.

I made the banner across the front with fabric and my Cricut machine.  I cut 7 triangles out of fabric and then spaced, pinned, and sewed them into a piece of 2" fabric folded in half.  I then used my Cricut to cut out the letters and shamrock from cardstock, and adhered them to the fabric with Mod Podge.  For winging this one, I am quite pleased with the outcome and I'm sure you'll be seeing many more banners following this pattern in the future ;-)

Finally, I made the cute little danglies like I did last month, for the playroom.  Again, I hit up the paint section, took a bunch of green paint swatches, and used my Cricut to cut out the shamrock shapes.  I placed them back to back and stuck them together with glue dots.  Then, fed them through the string I used previously and voila, instant decor.

So that's it!  We are ready for St. Patrick's Day!  Hope you have fun celebrating this fun, Irish holiday.  And just know that next Sunday, it's ok to have your favorite beer or Irish Coffee for breakfast!!

Valentine's Day Mantel Banner

This mantel was my inspiration for Valentine's Day. Honestly, I wish I could just somehow magically get all those things to appear on mine.  But, I know that's not possible so I am trying my darndest to recreate them.  My next attempt was the cute banner across the front of the mantel.  I love the chevron and lace.  So...I headed out shopping and didn't think to reference the photo before picking up supplies.  I mean, I have to make this project my own, right?!?!

Basic supplies included fabric (found on etsy), scrapbook paper, cardstock, yarn, glue dots, and dollar store doilies.

Using my Cricut, I found this fun font that had dots all through it.  So, I cut out my letters and stitched white yarn through the holes.

And then took a second pass through the holes because I didn't like the gaps.  I also took grey yarn and stitched it though the pink cardstock to create a framed border.

Then, I glue dotted a doilie to the fabric to serve as a background...

...and layered my cardstock and letter on top.

To make sure everything lined up, I placed the next piece of fabric on top and lined up the edges.

I hole punched holes in each end of the fabric at the top and ran twine through the holes to make the banner.  In the end, I decided I didn't like the doilies, so I took them off.  I also wish I would have done more of a contrast, so the BE MINE popped out.  But, it's done and it looks good (in my opinion).  Ah, another project down.  I still have to start that second topiary.  That might be done in time for Valentine's Day 2014 :-)

Valentine's Day Wreath

I tried to make this wreath.  And while it was not a complete failure, it only looks somewhat like the picture. 

I started out with a heart shaped foam wreath form and wrapped it with some grey yarn.  To get around some of the trickier curves, I just used some sewing pins to keep the yarn in place.  So far, super easy.

Then, I took some sheets of felt and heart shaped cookie cutters, traced the shapes onto the felt, and cut them out.  So far, so good.

Then, I did the same thing with some poly-fill batting to make the hearts poofy.  Still good.

I quickly realized the hearts weren't going to be as poofy as I liked, so I trimmed a little bit off the edges so the batting fit inside the felt and then just curled up the excess to make a little poof.  And this is where I start to improvise!

Things start to take a turn for the worse here.  First, sewing yard through felt is a challenge in and of itself because of the thickness of the yarn.  But I got it through somehow and felt like it needed something at the end.  So I started to tint the white yarn pink with a marker.  Big mistake.  This just made the hearts look awful.  I only did this because I used that same pink marker to trace the heart shapes on the felt and I think the sweat from my hands trying to get the white yarn through the felt caused the pink to bleed onto the yarn a bit.

I then pinned some pink ribbon to the back of the wreath form to act as a hanger.

And here's the finished version.  G was not a fan of the dangly hearts (which are suspended from the wreath form by a piece of yarn and a sewing pin.

So, I just took off the dangly hearts and now this wreath lives on my laundry room door :-)

Topiary Trees

I saw this tutorial on Pinterest and immediately fell in love (as usual).  And (as usual) it was a project that took waaaaayyyyy longer than I ever expected.  Who knew that I'd be rolling up streamers for a good eight hours?!?!  Thank goodness I have the awesomest kiddo in the world who did not require a whole lot of attention (I can roll and play choo-choos like the best of them!) and took an awesome nap.

So first I took my terra cotta flower pots and painted them white.

This was after coat #2....another coat was required.  Depending on the paint you get, you may be able to get away with two coats.  And don't you just love the pinkness in the background?  That's going to be the center of my Valentine's Day mantle.  I took a foam board, cut it down into a 17" square, took a half yard of pink chevron fabric and thumb tacked it to the board on the backside.  Then I took the cute, heart, hangy thing (I want to call it a wreath but that is clearly not correct) and thumb tacked it too.  So stinkin easy and adorably cute.  Ok back to the trees...

Then I started constructing the topiaries.  I took 6" styrofoam balls and inserted a wooden dowel into them.  I painted the dowel a brownish color so it sort of resembled a tree trunk.  I stuffed floral foam in the bottom of the pots to hold the dowels in place.

Then it was time to start cutting the streamers.  I went through about 200 yards of streamers for just one topiary.  Ugh.  I still have to make the second topiary because I ran out of streamers and glue gun sticks.  Hopefully I get it done by Valentine's Day!  I cut each streamer to one yard in length.

Then, you fold the streamer in half longways and start rolling, glue the end, then glue it to the styrofoam ball...and repeat like a bagillion times. 

It looks really cute when it's full!

Adding some pearls just screams Valentine's Day and the Spanish Moss works so well in the bottom.  Had I had a little more patience, I would have put a pearl on each bud because the sporadicness is driving me nuts since they are not perfectly spaced!!

But, I'm glad I got one down and now it's on to the second one.  I'm on a mission to have it done in the next 15 days :-)