Feather Heart Wreath: a Tutorial

Okay, if you follow me on Instagram you have already seen this one. I first saw this boa heart idea last year when a friend of mine made one for a secret gift exchange we had at work. At the time I had never seen anything like it. It is so fun and fluffy and girly, just perfect for Valentine's Day. I asked her how she made it and it seemed pretty easy so a few weeks ago I thought I would finally give it a try. Seriously people, this will take no more than 30 minutes!

Supplies:
Cardboard
Utility knife
Feather boa - use a coopin if you can, this was way more expensive then I thought it would be.
Hot glue gun - with plenty of glue sticks
Ribbon
Scissors

Directions: 
1. Draw a heart on your cardboard and then draw another one about 1 1/2 inches bigger around the first one. I used a shoe box I had from a pair of boots I bought a couple months back but you can really use anything.

2. Cut out the heart shape. The thinner the cardboard is, like my shoe box or a cereal box, the easier it will be to cut out.

3. Glue the feather boa down to the cardboard heart using your hot glue gun. My heart was small enough for my boa to go around twice so it's nice and full. Depending on the size of your heart you may need more then one boa. I purchased 2 just in case.

4. Cut ribbon to length & hang. You can hot glue the ribbon to the back but because I wasn't hanging my wreath on a door hanger I wrapped my ribbon around the top of the heart, tied a knot at the end and taped it to my back door.

So what do you think? Do you want to make a Big Bird heart too? I giggle every time I see it.
Leave a comment if you do!

Happy Valentine's Day!!

Valentine's Day Wreath: a Tutorial

I love Valentine's decorations they are so pretty! I have 2 heart wreaths and I love them both, they make me happy and my home looks so much more cheerful for Valentine's Day!

The first wreath I will show you how to make is a beautiful felt heart wreath, I absolutely LOVE it! I would keep it up all year round I love it so much! I had wanted to make this ever sense I saw it on eighteen25 in 2011. I tried to make one then but I couldn't for the life of me get a hold of a heart wreath form, they had been sold out the entire month of January and February at my local craft store and online. So I put it on the back burner until the summer when I knew there would be plenty of heart wreath forms to purchase. The Idea Room has a great tutorial that I followed to make my wreath. So I will just give you a quick run down of how I made mine.

Supplies:
Styrofoam heart wreath form
1 yard red felt
2 inch paper circle pattern
Fabric scissors - to cut felt
Package of straight pins
Ribbon - for hanging

Directions: 
1. Cut out a 2 inch circle. I traced a mason jar lid onto a piece of scrap paper and cut it out to use as my pattern. I figured it would be about the correct size I needed.
2. Then cut out a bajillion circles from the red felt using the pattern you just made. Do whatever is easiest for you. I traced a bunch of circles with a pen on the felt and then cut them all out, it went pretty fast after they were all traced. We called these pizza squares at my house.

3. Fold a pizza square in half and then in half again to create a point an the end.

4. Insert pin into the point of the folded pizza square and push into wreath form.
Repeat steps 3 & 4 until your entire heart is covered in pizza squares on 3 sides. Leave the back empty so it will hang flat.
5. Cut ribbon to length and pin to the back. You could also hot glue it if you wish.

6. Hang and admire your beautiful work!! I love how velvety and rich it is.

If you make this or have made a wreath like this I would love to see it,  post a link in the comments!

I'll be back a little later today to show you how I made my feather heart wreath! It's super easy and can be done in less then a 1/2 hour. I hope you join me!

My Planner

 Last year I made a goal to be more organized. Typically before when there was something scheduled or something I wanted to remember I just made an appointment in my phone for it and set a reminder to go off. But there is something wonderful about using a planner and I am loving it! It's very convenient to write things down and see everything on one page in one glance. Smart phones are very helpful and I still use my phone for appointments that I need to remember so the alarm will go off and remind me that I need to be someplace in a half hour. But things like birthdays or other things that I want to remember or need to plan for, I love having my planner and looking ahead and constantly see that so and so's birthday is coming up and I need to get something for them.

I purchased this notebook last year and glued my calendar and to-blog lists inside. I was planning on posting pictures of it last year and I am actually so glad that I never got around to it. :) Really!

It worked so well for me last year and I'm happy that now I can share with you what I love and what I would change.

First of all, I cut out the calendars and lists and glued them into the notebook. I started with the month on the first page and on the next page added the to-do list. I decided to glue the calendar over on the left side so I would have plenty of room to write notes and things on the 2nd half. This has been extremely helpful! I'm so glad that I did this and also love all the space on the 2nd page next to the to-do list.

I would suggest for anyone that does the same thing is to use Rubber Cement. I didn't even think of this last year. Do not use a glue stick, I thought it would be easier and smoother then regular glue, which it is, but it also pealed up all the time and I would have to keep re-gluing every. single. page. So annoying! So don't forget about your old elementary school friend and go with Rubber Cement, you will be so happy you did!

Reinforce your binding on the outside. I just used electrical tape because it's what I had on hand and it is black, I didn't want it to stick out. I've never used washi tape but if you have cute washi tape try it, I'm sure it will work just fine. I was planning on covering the front with decorative scrapbook paper but I never got around to that ether. The plain cover has grown on me and I like it so I probably wont change it anytime soon. 

Don't tear paper out. It is nice to have the notebook paper and write a note to pass to someone or to spit your gum in or whatever else you might use it for but this type of notebook looses it's integrity when paper is removed. The pages are bound together with string and when paper is ripped out it can put stress on that string and when several pages are ripped out it will loosen all the others and your book can fall apart. If you must tear a page out do so without ripping it from the center of the page, it may not be perfectly straight but if you try ripping on that little pink line it will keep your book intact and your binding safe.

(I wanted to show you the same pages I took pictures of last year so you can see how much use I got out of this planner. It got a little worn, a lot thicker and rough around the edges throughout the year.)

During the year you pick up little trinkets or papers and you may just throw them out because you don't have a place for them. I'm sort of a pack-rat in that regard and I hold on to a lot of things because "maybe one day I'll want to look back on that day and having this will be fun to remember it." I love pictures and they are an awesome way to remember days and to reminisce about fun times but still having that concert or movie ticket is special for me. Sometimes I forget when I'm in the moment to take a picture but it's pretty cool to hold that original ticket. I have an entire jar filled with movie and concert tickets but if you're not quite as crazy as I am you could staple or tape them into your planner. My favorite things I taped into my book last year were the Valentines I received from my niece and nephew and our wrist bands from the Kids Day Carnival. I love looking back at those things!

(I'll explain all about Kids Day and what we did last year, this July when we are closer to Kids Day 2013 - 07/06/13!)

One thing I didn't think about last year when I started this project is that this notebook is huge! Way more then 24 pages :) so it will last me longer then one year. I didn't use too many extra pages, if I wrote anything down in here I mostly stayed to the month I was in. So because of that the first part of the book is very well used but the entire back two thirds of my notebook are pretty much untouched. I have dedicated the middle 3rd to this year and I have added the calendars and lists for 2013, this time using rubber cement.

The great thing about this planner is that it's not a full size notebook so it fits in whatever purse I may be using. The tabs and flags stay at home or at the office but the planner is very handy to have with me all the time, so I rarely leave it at home and I always keep a pen and pencil in my purse.  I just toss it in my purse every morning and take it to work with me and carry it with me all day.

I love that I can still go back and see what we did last year and I am excited to fill this baby up with things I accumulate this year! I love that this keeps me on track and I can have a schedule. And speaking of schedules, I've already added blog posts to my calendar! It is one of my goals this year to post on this ol bloggy every other week. (February is an exception, that month will be 3 weeks on, 2 weeks off. I gotta get all my V-day stuff in before V-day ya know!) But things are pretty well planned out and I'm going to try to stick to that plan. So stay with me and look for a lot more fun ideas/crafts/recipes/projects from me this year!

I hope this was helpful for anyone that is trying to be organized. How do you stay organized? Do you use a planner too? I'd love to hear about what you do!

2013 FREE PRINTABLE!

I've waited all year for this!! It's The Tomkat Studio's 2013 calendar!!!

Isn't it just beautiful! I didn't think she could top last years because I really loved that one but this is so pretty and so fresh! I'm loving it! And just like last year I need a to-do/to-blog list to go with it. So here it is if you would like it too:

These were made to print at 5x7 size page. Just cut them out and use as needed! I'm going to put mine in my little planner I made last year along with my calender. I will show that on the ol bloggy a little later.
HAPPY 2013!! Enjoy your New Year's Eve celebrations!!

to download the calendar go HERE!
to download the to-blog list go HERE!
to download the to-do list go HERE!

ps: If you download these leave me a comment or send me a link, I'd love to see how you use them!

Happy Christmas!

Spiderweb Frame: a Tutorial

Yesterday I showed you my Halloween decorations and today I'm going to show you how I created the Spider Web Frame.
When I pulled out my Halloween decorations from last year I decided I didn't like the frame I had my Along Came a Spider print in. So I found a plain one I had in my craft supplies at home and transformed it.

It's a pretty color but I needed a BLACK frame to match my Halloween decorations. So it got a fresh coat of paint with black craft paint. (The before is the back because I forgot to take a picture of the front pre-paint.)

Then I put the print inside the frame so I could continue the spider web from it onto my frame. I just used a pencil and a ruler to extend the web lines and free handed the curved lines.

The pencil web matches up really nicely. I glittered the frame in sections. Using regular Elmer's Glue I traced the pencil web, then over a sheet of scrap paper I dumped white glitter on to of the glue. I let it dry for a second then pressed it lightly into the glue to adhere better. After letting it dry for about 15-20 minutes (I glittered on commercial breaks) I tapped off the excess glitter onto the paper then used the paper as a funnel to pour the glitter back into the container. Repeat for all 4 corners of the frame and it was done!

This was a quick project,  it took about 30-45 minutes while I watched TV.

When I added the glue and the glitter it made my web fatter so I really should fix it so it looks a bit better because some of the lines that went off the frame looked good in pencil but don't look as good with the glitter.

This was a fun and easy project and I think it makes my mantle look so much more Halloweenie!

Next I'll show you how I made my wreath!

Linking up at:
 

Halloween Decorating 2012

I loooooooove Halloween! It is one of my most favorite holidays and I love to decorate for it!
I have 2 shelves in my living room above our TV, the top one is used for books and right now is displaying a few chalkboards. And the bottom one I use as a mantle. It's been fun to switch things out on this shelf through out the year. Here it is all decked out for Halloween!

My husband and I are doing the Halloween countdown from Kiki & Company, you can see it there on the right. It is so much fun and each day we open a window and do a fun Halloween activity. We are loving it! The countdown can be downloaded for free from the link above. She has also created a kit you can purchase to go along with it, also at the link above. The kit includes lots of printables and this is where the EEK banner came from.
Here are a few more shots as the sun was going down:

It looks very pretty at night all light up, not that you could tell from the photo, but it is very pretty in real life!

I really love the two glitter pumpkins I found at Walmart for cheep. I made the chalkboard with Oct. 31 on it along with the other 3 on the shelf above. It's All About the Candy block came from a local decor shop. The tall BOO jar with the candle in it and the squaty one below that is empty I got our first Halloween we were married.

The black metal pumpkin was cut out of this shot but you can see it in the full view above. I found it last year at Tai Pan. The pretty green spider was made by my mom along with the purple one sitting on top of the Candy block on the other side but it's a little hard to see in the photos. And I made the spider web frame to hold Along Came A Spider from last year.

To the right of my TV is a small spot I like to decorate. Right now I've got my grapevine pumpkin all light up and inside the big frame, if you can't tell from the photo says Keep Calm and Scare On. I really do need to fill that little squaty jar, I was thinking green gum balls or something.

Day 8 of the countdown we had to find old Halloween pictures and display them. This is from 3 years ago, the first Halloween we were married. Danny was Rambo and I was some army girl. I surprised him and brought home a Nerf gun for his costume. He loved it!

Day 9 was to make a wall of bats. This is what I have so far, I really should cut out some more, but I kind of like it the way it is and it's still fun and festive.

On the opposite side of the room is this cute Trick or Treat banner which also came from Kiki & Company as well as the "Have Yourself a Spooky Little Halloween" print on the mantle. These are from her Halloween Pack she created last year. I did have a framed collage of my engagement photos I made there where the banner is but it fell down months ago and I have been too lazy to rehang it. I love the banner and it looks perfect here above the couch.

Beside the front door I have a spot to hold keys and this year I finally decided to decorate it for Halloween. Day 11 was to have a Halloween coloring contest, this is Danny's which I deemed the winner and put it in a frame to congratulate him. Day 10 was pick out your perfect pumpkin day so I've displayed them up here too. I totally can't wait to carve that little peanut shaped pumpkin!

And the last decoration I have to show you is my spooky BOO wreath I made last year. It is hanging on the door leading to the hall/bedroom. It's just too cute to put outside where no one will see it. It makes me smile every time I walk through there!

So far that's all my Halloween decorations! I love everything about Halloween and this year has been so much fun! I can't wait for tonight, it's a Blindfolded candy eating contest. Should be yummy!

What are you doing to celebrate Halloween? I would love to hear about your traditions.