Yesterday I used the larger stickers from my dollar spot container to make heart shaped cupcake toppers.  When I was finished I had a handful of the smaller stickers left over and knew I needed to do something with them!  A quick glance through the craft stash box yielded some red embroidery floss and I realized that a mini heart bunting could be really cute.

If you’d like to quickly make you own:

With my leftover stickers I was able to make over 6 feet of the bunting…which combined with the cupcake toppers is quite a bit of Valentine’s goodness for an expenditure of $1.07 (including tax)!   I’ve seen bags of rainbow foam heart stickers at my local dollar store this could be a fun birthday party decoration as well…one which your kiddos could help you assemble!

I hope each of you is having a wonderful Valentines Day!  Things have been very busy in our household this year, so I really haven’t crafted as much as normal.  However, that means I took a look back through the archives at the crafts from years past…and thought you might enjoy reviving some of these oldies but goodies as well!  Just click the link below the image to visit that tutorial.

DIY Large Matchbox Style Valentines (with template)

Click to View Tutorial

DIY Valentine Napkin Wraps (with template)

Click to View Tutorial

Flower Power Decorated Dog Collar

Click to View Tutorial

Turn Dollar Store Candy into Cute Valentines

Click to View Tutorial

It’s been way too long since I posted a fun crafty treat and I’ve really missed it (and you guys)! Today’s Semi-DIY project is a quick and cheap way to dress up a simple box of candy.  It would be great for adults and the kiddos alike.  See…cute right?

Supplies Needed:

• Boxes of Conversation Hearts Candy – I picked mine up at the local Dollar Tree
• Double Sided Tape
• Scrapbook paper
• Stickers or other decorative items

Instructions:

1. Cut your scrapbook paper to the height and circumference of your candy boxes.  For the boxes I used the dimensions of the paper should be 3.5 inches wide by 7.5 inches long.
2. Add a piece of double-sided tape to one end of the paper, and attach it to the back of your box.
   
3. Next, you will wrap the paper around the box and attach to the box with an additional piece of double-sided tape.  Do this underneath the overlaid section of the paper.
   
4. Decorate with stickers and other assorted goodies.
5. Give to someone special!

Costs:

One of the great things about this project is that in additon to be simple, it’s also quite thrifty.  If you have a stash of scrapbook paper & stickers like I do then it’s virtually free since you just need to buy the candy.  My boxes of candy were purchased from the Dollar Tree in a package of 4 for $1 and you could also pick up fun Valentines stickers there as well.

$1.07 for 4, so 26 cents each!  Can’t beat that!

Today I would like to dedicate some craftiness to one of my all-time favorite fall activities…football!  While I tend to gravitate towards college football, this craft could just as easily apply for the pros.  Regardless of what your favorite tailgate beverage might be, I can assure you it will look much more festive when sipped casually through one of these cuties.

Ready to make some of your very own?

Supplies Needed:

• Cardstock in your favorite team’s colors
• Straws, also in your favorite team’s colors
• Glue or Glue Stick
• Helmet Punch (or die cuts from your favorite machine, you will need two helmets for each straw)

Instructions:

1. Punch out your helmets.  For this version of this process I used my Silhouette to quickly cut out my helmets using some cardstock I had left over from another project.   You will need two helmets for each straw you want to make.
2. Using your glue cover the back of one helmet. I use a glue stick when I want to whip these up really quickly, but choose to use paper glue for the ones I sell in my store).



3. Carefully layer the second helmet onto the first, taking care to line up the edges all the way around. Make sure you press to seal the pieces together around the straw.



4. Repeat for the remainder of your straws

Wouldn’t these look fun for a sport themed birthday party as well?

Total Cost: $1 and up

See quick, easy…and cute! Will you decorate for your tailgate area this year? Can you guess who my team of choice is based on these colors?

War Eagle!

Like these but have no time to make your own?
Check out my shop and message me about creating a set custom for you!

One last project going on in our household this week is the labeling of my hubby’s home-brewed pumpkin ale.  However these fun labels could look fun over your favorite pumpkin brew or any other fun Halloween beverage.  This could even be fun for other fall festivities or Thanksgiving.

I printed these out on standard paper and then ran them through my Xyron machine, so these labels won’t stand-up to being iced down.  Then I setup a cut file on my Silhouette (which I’m still learning how to use) and cut them out.  The labels were quickly thrown together, but overall I’m happy with how they turned out.

Don’t have all the fun toys above?  That’s ok too!  You can easily make your own by downloading the printable PDF from below and printing it out onto full sheets of labels and then trimming around them!

Click to Download Printable PDF

Now that the pumpkin ale labels are finally all attached and ready for a Halloween party this weekend…it’s time to start thinking about fun ideas for the Holiday Ale coming up next!

I hope each of you has a safe & spooky weekend, Happy Halloween Y’all!!

So yesterday you saw our first re-purposed item coaster attempt, today I”ll show you the latest additions and how they came about.

Back in June, the boy and I celebrated one glorious year of marriage with a fun little trip to Asheville, NC.  We took a couple days off from work, and the hubs planned out the where/when/how and kept it as a surprise destination until the morning we left.  He chose Asheville because 1)I had never been 2) it offered plenty of outdoor activities (which we both enjoy) 3) it offered nice lodging & dining options and 4) being at a high elevation that Atlanta it would be a nice relief from the oppressive heat that has plagued the Atlanta area this summer.

All I can say about reason #4 is HA!   Mother Nature definitely didn’t get that memo, and instead it was a sweltering mess of high temperatures mixed with humidity from the depths of places known for fiery torture.  Any of your familiar with Weddingbee might remember that Mrs. Snow was getting married in Asheville in June…yes, it was the same weekend and she blogged about the crazy weather swing as well.  So, we rearranged several of the things the boy had in his plans so we didn’t melt away in the oppressive heat…and in the midst of wandering around we realized that weekend was also the River District Artists Studio Stroll.

So we drove over and wandered around through several of the studio’s, not really looking for anything in particular.  Then right before turning around to make our way back to the car (and out of the heat) we walked into Michael Hofman’s Studio.  Michael makes beautiful pieces of porcelain pottery using antique lace to make impressions into his pieces.  Some of the lace he uses is centuries old, from things like christening gowns & wedding dresses.  It was quite interesting to meet him, and see part of his process in action.  He was even telling us about someone who brought in their grandmothers wedding dress to use to create their wedding china (incidentally the dress was not harmed in the process).  So we looked around thinking we might pick up a serving platter, but then the boy picked up these small square plates and said “hum? think they could be coasters?”

So, we picked up two of the square tapas plates.  Once home, we again brought out some felt pads from the local dollar store (the thinner of the selection this time) and added one to each corner of the plate.

Instant coasters, that once again provide a useful reminder of our anniversary trip!  Look at the lace details up close…aren’t they stunning?  Those lace details also provide a place for beverage sweat to pool, gotta love it when something is both beautiful and useful.

Can you tell we tend to purchase only mementos that have an actual use around our house?  We tend to buy art or handmade pieces to commemorate special trips or events…that and I buy magnets (which I still need to figure out what to do with since I’ve picked up magnets from my travels my entire life).  What do you pick up as mementos of special occasions or trips?

We don’t like coasters.   There…I’ve said it out loud.  That’s not to say that we prefer to place our sweating beverage glasses or bottles directly onto surfaces, I’m just saying  we haven’t found any that we BOTH found aesthetically pleasing.  Then something happened…we stopped shopping for them and instead focused on things we could make into them.  This is the story about how we used these little guys from the local dollar store to solve our coaster dilemmas.

Last year while on a bit of a family vacation with the boy’s family we noticed this fun piece of flattened pottery on a deck side table in the house we were staying in.  It was the perfect size for a couple of glasses and still appealed to both our senses of design.  Interestingly enough we already owned a bowl in a similar pattern from the same pottery studio that the boy uses on his bedside table to store the contents of his pockets each night.  Do you see where I’m going with this?  Yep, we looked around the shops that weekend in search of a plate to use as a coaster on our living room end table. We ended up choosing the small triangular plate from The Good Earth Pottery, their stuff is great in not only is it appealing to the eye, it is also dishwasher and oven safe as well.

Then to keep our fun new find from scratching up our tables we just added one of the little felt pads to each corner.

Instant extra large coaster!  What’s really nice is when I am lazy and fill up a Nalgene bottle with water…it fits on the coaster with no worries as well.  As do ice cream bowls, large coffee mugs…you get the picture. You can see in the next photo how the colors in the plate match our rug, but sadly what you can’t tell is how nice it looks on our end table.

Overall, I’m really pleased with how our initial attempts to use something not originally intended as a coaster worked out.  The benefit we never considered when we initially picked this piece was how any sweat from glasses placed on top would pool in the small groves of the pattern , this means the bottom of the glass stays drier than if the piece were a completely flat surface.  Plus, the coaster also serves as a very useful reminder of our trip to Highlands, NC. 

Come back tomorrow and I’ll show you round 2 of our coaster experiment!

How have you re-purposed items to create the “thing” that seemed to elude you otherwise?  Was it a success?

I love paper and I love office supplies.  There, I admitted it, so when I found a fun piece of paper in my envelope of doom I figured what better than to turn it into paper office supplies.  If you’ve followed my blog for a while you already know I love both lining envelopes and making my own envelopes, and some of my favorite tools are the templates you can purchase from Paper-Source.  I’ve more than gotten my money’s worth out of the ones I own, so when I was in the store a few weeks back taking a little class and saw the new baby sized envelope template I had to try it out.

This is the template kit I choose, the other option had pink paper selection but looking around here should explain how much I love blue and green so naturally I selected the “pool” color selection.

And this is the paper I found folded up in my envelope of doom!

Using their envelope templates is super-simple.

1. Trace around the template on the reverse side of the paper.
   
2. Cut out along the lines
   
3. Score where the inner opening of the template are (I use a scoring board from Martha & love it)
   
4. Glue the edges
   
5. Put those babies to use, these just happen to be the perfect size for a business card!
   

So basically I used contents from my “Envelope of Doom” to create “Baby Envelopes of Doom”   In keeping with the rules of the game, the items were to be gifted to someone else…and these just so happened to be included in a swap package I was sending out!  I love it when things work out like that!

** I have been in no way compensated for my options or the products referenced above.  These are purely my unsolicited options of crafty products I use and adore! **

I have this “thing” where I feel like I need to make a little something for each and every baby/bridal shower I attend.  It’s a compulsion of sorts and often I stress myself out coming up with the perfect little handmade treat to go with the gift purchased off the registry.  With 4 people around me having babies and a few weddings thrown in you can see where I might have my hands full.  However, the gift below was not only the easiest to construct and economical, it was also the easiest to come up with.

You see my friend’s husband drives a race car in one of the local circuits.  He already has big dreams of his sweet little girl being the next female racing star, so it just stood to reason that she would need the proper attire even at her young age to support her favorite race team!  Granted here in the south there is a huge supply of NASCAR baby racing gear so I could have bought something commercially, but I thought she needed something a little more “sugar & spice” to mix with “my daddy rocks”.

Materials Needed:

• Cotton Onesie
• Fabric for car & numbers (non-raveling since there will be exposed edges)
• Matching embroidery thread
• 2 Large Buttons
• Heat Tape

Supplies Needed:

• Needle
• Scissors
• Template
• Pencil or Pen
• Iron

Instructions (text below pictorial):

1. Remove all stickers and tags from onesie and press flat with iron.
2. Print out your race car and number templates.  (I used a stock image from MS Clip Art and re-sized it to fit a smaller onesie)
3. Cut out your race car shape.
4. Trace template outline onto backside of fabric (I used a regular pen, however a fabric marking pen/pencil would be a better option).
5. Use scissors to cut out along traced guidelines
6. Repeat steps 3, 4, and 5  to create race car numbers
   
7. Using embroidery thread  sew the numbers to the car.  I used a straight embroidery stitch and stitched down the center of each number.  You could also do this step with your sewing machine if you prefer.
8. To help hold the car in place while you stitch place one small piece of Heat Tape down the center of the car and press onto the onesie.
9. Now that the car is stead place the steering wheel under the edge of the car fabric and using the same method as in Step 7 sew it to the onesie.
10. Switching embroidery thread to match the body of the car, use a blanket or edge stitch and sew along the car’s edge, attaching it to the onesie.
11. Attach your button wheels to the car also with embroidery thread, careful to tie off all knots/etc. under the buttons or car to keep “itchy stitches” away from baby.

Cost Breakdown:

• Onesie – Garanimals brand from Wal-Mart – $3.81
• Embroidery Floss – Had on Hand from multipack purchase 2+ years ago
• Pink  Felt – $0.26
• White Felt – Had on Hand
• Buttons – 4 Pack from Dollar Tree/used 2 – $0.53
• Heat Tape – Had on Hand
• Grand Total:  $4.60

_________________________________________________________________________

Safety Note:   Make sure all buttons are sewn on securely.  Due to buttons, do not leave your baby unattended while wearing this garment.

_________________________________________________________________________

What about you…anyone else have my same “I must make them something compulsions”?  And if so, please share some of your favorite DIY baby gifts…

I have a friend putting together a ladies pre-Easter brunch at her church who asked me if I could put together a couple of reusable religious themed wraps.  So using MSClipArt (I’m being lazy since I’m so swamped at work) I whipped up several options that could be used not only at Easter but for other events later in the year.

Let’s start out with a pastel cross theme:

Download Template:  Pastel Cross Napkin Template

And then my friend requested a black & white option with a bible theme:

Download Religious theme template: Black & White Bible Napkin Template

All templates above use Monterey BT font which is free to download from SoFontes (see link on templates page).  New to Napkin Wraps?  No worries, visit this post for step-by-step instructions on how to use my napkin wrap templates!