A Vertical Starfish Garland DIY

Don’t be too sad, but I hate to say it…. This is my last Christmas present post! Yes, February is halfway over and I’m still chatting about Christmas!

This was a gift for my mom who loves everything beach inspired. And who reads the blog, so I couldn’t write about it before Christmas!

I saw this picture of the vertical starfish garland in Coastal Living in the December issue and pulled the ‘ole, ‘I can make that!’ I immediately tore the page out so I wouldn’t forget. And yes, I do subscribe to Coastal Living. On accident! It was also a present for my mom last year, but I accidentally got my mom and myself an issue. Instead of canceling, I’ve really enjoyed it! Now to decide if I resubscribe??? I already have some more DIY ideas for the beach house (or my mom…).

So off to work I went in my little Christmas workshop! I had the rope left over from our pirate party and some starfish still left over from our wedding. I had given most of them to my mom to decorate her house, so I did have to ask her to bring some back for me to make her present! HA!

Originally I was planning on using just one piece of the rope, but then realized a little more simpler approach! I measured out the length I wanted between the stars and then hot glued the one long length of rope to the back of the starfish. Then I went back around each one and wrapped the rope around the top of it. So it looks like one continuous rope, but… It’s not!

I wonder if she’ll hang it at her house or the beach house??? hmmmm….

It would be fun for an Under the Sea party, too, Huh??? Just a little something different than the typical garland!

 

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A Quilted Bulletin Board for Christmas

Yep, another Christmas present! These are going to be going on for a while, so stick with me! And yes, this is another one I made for my husband! AND…. It’s another project to mark off the To-Do List!

You’re probably thinking, this isn’t very manly and it kinda looks like it’s in a kids room, so why is it for her husband???

OK, so why would you think it’s in a kids room? Does the growth chart on the wall give it away???

If that’s what you were thinking, you’re right! It is for my son’s room. And please excuse the pictures. The lighting in our downstairs doesn’t lend itself to great photography. (at least not easily! anyway….) When we re-did our basement for more living space, the electric panel was in our son’s room and we decided to leave it there. In hindsight, I’m not sure why, but we did! And to cover it, because who wants a big ugly electrical fuse box in their room, we made this wooden frame with a cork bulletin board to cover it. I don’t have a before picture…

Probably about 6 months to a year after installing it, the cork fell off and it’s been this eyesore in the room. And my husband has been asking and asking for me to sew something to cover the cork and reinstall it. So that was about 3.5 to 4 years ago…. You’d think I’d be better at getting things done for our house, huh!

I’ve been thinking about it all these years. I promise! How to install it… What is the design going to be…. Then I became obsessed with these wonky stars. That’s when I knew the design for the bulletin board!

So my husband got the pieced fabric wrapped up under the tree! And then after Christmas, I glued cork to a piece of foam core and then wrapped the quilted piece to the foam core/cork and inserted in the panel frame!

Most of the fabrics I used were scraps left over from his bedding nad curtains with some new coordinating pieces added in. And if I don’t say so myself, it looks great with the ribbons, favorite pictures and art projects added in!

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A Christmas Curtain marked off the To Do List

ok, so this project isn’t very exciting, but it does have a kinda funny story. And it’s another thing to mark off my To Do List (which I was just reading and I can’t remember what a couple of the things are….)

For Christmas I made quite a few of my presents! And since back into blogging since the holidays, I haven’t had a chance to show them to you, so one and off over the next few weeks I’ll be sharing them with you! This project/gift was to my husband.

Curtains for our coat closet window. Why this closet even has a window is beyond me. Bad idea really…. But it’s there and it’s never had a curtain. We’ve put art in there, a stained glass window that didn’t really fit and I think there was even a piece of wood or something in there at one point. Yes, we do live in Seattle, and the sun doesn’t shine all that often, but when it does, I  don’t want it fading our coats. Also seeing them hanging in there isn’t beautiful to see from the backyard….

So this is what it looked like for the last little while. oh, and it’s not insulated, another bad design decision the designers had back in the day when the closet was added. for months I thought my husband had hung one of my son’s sheets in the window. Then when I took it down I realized it was actual yardage of the fabric that his sheets were made from! Not cheap fabric…. ergh!

My husband has only been asking for a curtain for this window for years. Not kidding. Years. And I’ve had the fabric for years. Seriously. The curtain took me an hour or so to make, but years to actually do it. WHY??? I used the same process that I showed you in the Curtains are so Easy Tutorial. The funny thing is, I bought the fabric years ago when I saw it at the store and realized it matched our picnic table umbrella PERFECTLY! The stripes are a bit different, but the colors were exact. Notice I said WERE…. Here they are together now….

And the curtain installed! The picture isn’t great (at all, I couldn’t get a good angle without reflections of the bright pink slide in the backyard), but doesn’t it look nicer??

Needless to say, my husband was happy! If I hadn’t bought the fabric a few years back, I would have done the proportions of the fabrics a little bit different. Coulda Sholda Woulda. But it’s done and we’re all happy!

Christmas in a Jar!

Alright. Alright… I said I wasn’t going to make new Christmas decoration this year, but I can’t seem to stop….

Last year, I got these jars for Christmas. Or was it two years ago??? At first I was like, what am I going to do with them?? I put away a few pictures from the shelf, added some sand and sea shells and called it cute! Then this Halloween, I realized that they were just sitting there waiting to become a part of our holiday decorating.

I had the glitter paper, the deer and my collection of cone trees. My first idea was to do each jar totally different, but then decided to go with the two deer jars. And then a little something different for the middle one.

The middle one was originally going to be a papercut of the Abominable Snow Monster.  Remember my Christmas paper cut art piece last year? Well, I realized I hadn’t done one in a year. And wanted to do another, but not a whole piece so I thought it would be perfect to do a little one for the jars. But then we came across these little candy figures of Santa and the elves at the Dollar store and the Snow Monster was out and Santa’s village was in!

And the papercut is miniature! But I love it. My husband just shook his head and smiled when he saw me cutting out each little window….

I used this pretty thick glitter paper, so it was kinda hard to get the perfect cone shape for the trees. Oh, well…. of course, it doesn’t help that it’s kinda like a Carnival Hall of Mirrors trying to photograph these trees in the jars! And the Epsom salt makes for a perfect snow theme.

I had a great time coming up with the little designs for the jars!

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Halloween Decorating!

I love fall! It means Halloween is coming. It means Christmas is coming. I really miss the sun and the no rain days. The grey kinda gets to me here in the Pacific Northwest. And maybe that’s why I love transforming the house from the norm to Halloween and then Christmas. I know, Thanksgiving is in the middle, but I don’t usually do a lot of decor for that holiday…

I’ve gotten all the decorations up and we’ve had fun making some new ones! A lot of the decorations are the same as last year, just moved around a bit. I do love my new owl! A fun Marshall’s find. And then the bats have now been named. This one here, ‘not the super big one, just the kinda big one’ is called Sandy. Not sure why and why the kiddo has become attached to this one bat out of the 100′s hanging in our house….

Another new little decor is our spooky apothecary Halloween jars! Rats and eye balls thanks to the dollar store. The spiders were last years hand outs, instead of candy, that didn’t get handed out.

And then we made some new projects… Of course, I already showed you our TuTu Monster Wreaths.

But this year we also made some ghosts! I’ve been wanting to make starch ghosts for YEARS. And every year, I pull out the starch and the fabric and then I put it away and pack away the fabric with the rest of the Halloween decorations to do next year. Not this year! We made them, finally. I say we, but it was really just me. My son wanted to help, until he got his hands dirty. Every time he got starch on them he ran to the bathroom to wash it off…

But when it came to decorating his ghost! He was in permanent marker heaven! His first face on the ghost was so cute. Then he kept adding and adding and adding and… Well, there is a face in there somewhere. I have to step back and remind myself to give the kid the freedom to make his own art.

These guys were supposed to be outside decorations… I guess I should mention that that starch I bought for this project… I’ve had for years and never opened… And I think I’ve mentioned that I live in the rainy Pacific Northwest… It’s a bit moist here, most of the year… DO you see where I’m going with this? So we had our stiff little starch ghosts and I put them outside. Left them there over night. The next morning they were no longer standing up. The moisture got to them. Luckily I found them in time and still had my forms so we were able to salvage them. Lesson learned= Moisture and Starch don’t mix!

And I couldn’t stop… A ghost garland!

The art is the same as last year, but the bats decided to spread out further into the house!  We did add a few family portraits! How do we look?? Thanks to Ooh Moon for the illustrations!

TuTu Monster Wreaths

I love blogging, but there’s one problem with it… The holidays bring everyone making holiday inspired crafts… So first off, I see things that other bloggers are making and I’m like, OH, I need to make that too…. And there’s the whole, I love being crafty so I want to make something new….

So… Here I am… It’s not like I am sitting around looking for something to do. I have a full to-do list, for sure… And I don’t need another Halloween wreath… But then the other day I saw this Tulle Wreath by She’s Crafty.

I thought it was really cute, just the way she made it, but… I also saw a monster… I saw her wreath taken in a little different direction and turned into a monster! I had to make one. Or two.

I thought it would be a fun project to do with the kiddo, but it was a little much for him. He helped with the color selection and the design of the monster faces. The red and orange was his idea! But he wasn’t really into helping tie on the zillion pieces of tulle! But he didn’t mind trying it on… So not only can it be a TuTu Monster Wreath, but it can be a tutu crown! Or a tutu, too!

We got the foam wreaths and the tulle. The 10″ wreath took 3 yards of tulle and the 12″ wreath needed 4 yards. I cut the tulle into 2″ x 10″, or so, strips. The set about tying each piece around the wreath. It’s kind like making a yarn wreath. It looks simple and quick, but it’s simple, yes, quick, no. Once that was FINALLY done, we embellished the wreaths with felt teeth, pipe cleaner antennas and eyeballs.

We were originally going to make our eyeballs, but then we found these eyeballs at the dollar store for another project and decided to use them.

As I was making this my husband said, ‘That’s not looking very scary, ya know.’ Yep… I wasn’t going for scary on this one…. So they’re monsters, but they look kinda like tutu’s too, huh?

What projects have you seen online that you decided to make?? Any good ones I need to add to my list??

 

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Overcoming My Fear of Cake Decorating!

I do consider myself a pretty good baker! My red velvet cake gets rave reviews… But not so much the icing or decorating… Until yesterday!

Hopefully my mom is sitting down when she reads this, because she’s going to go into shock! I made my own cream cheese icing yesterday! I bake from scratch, but I’ve always bought my icing… I know, the icing is super easy. I’ve watched my mom and I’ve seen the recipes. easy. But for some reason, after I bake, I’m not ready to make icing, too…

Here’s the thing. My son’s pre-school auction was last night and they have a dessert dash. each table raises money for the desserts and the table with the most money raised gets the first choice. So of course I volunteered to bake a cake. Then the organizer told us that they need to be pretty. I FROZE! Pretty? I can do tasty, but pretty????? AHHHHHH!!!!

(You’ll notice that you don’t really see many pictures of my son’s Dr. Seuss party cake…. And the one that I did show, shows you exactly what I’m talking about…)

So, I had pinned this easy tutorial from Annie’s Eats, and wahla….

I got a cake decorating kit for Christmas and now I’m excited, rather than intimiated, to try it out! I know I’m not Bakerella or anything, but I’m on my way!

Happy Weekend everyone! I’m about to take my sewing machine outside and sew outside today! It’s too beautiful here to sit inside and sew, but I need to get some sewing done…

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Bunting? Garland? Bunting? Garland? Both!

Remember yesterday how I said I had been punching A LOT??? I wasn’t kidding! I think I punched more hearts than anyone needs, including myself… But I made a garland for our Valentine tree and a little bunting for our little heart-shaped cakes.

OK, yes, here’s another Valentine’s story that goes all the way back to Christmas! Our Valentine’s day tree is, yes, you probably guessed it, a Christmas tree! I got it on super clearance after Christmas with the intention of using it for Valentine’s day. Added a few pink and white sequins, plus a hand-made heart garland and wahla, it’s a Valentine’s day decoration!

And what’s more perfect for Valentine’s Day than a mini red velvet heart-shaped cake with cream cheese icing and a cute little bunting!

The uses for paper heart shaped punches is endless!!!

 

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Yarn Hearts- 2 Projects!

I started this project with the intention of doing my Valentine wreath, but in the process another project came to light! So today we have a Valentine Wreath and a cute favor or lunch bag, both transformed with a little yarn heart!

The first one is the cute little bag with the hearts! Just punch some holes in the kiddos lunch bag, add a ribbon, a yarn heart and some love and send them off for a special Valentine’s Day lunch. They’re bound to be the envy of the other kids with their plain brown bag lunches….

And Project Number 2…. This project might look a little familiar to ya! This is the second time I’ve redone this wreath… And… You might think I’m a little looney… Yes, until today we’ve still had our Christmas wreath up on the front door! OK, hear me out… It’s still green. It’s not dropping needles (well, until I started removing the Christmas decorations anyway). It’s still pretty from the outside and inside (the plus of having a french door for a front door, you can see it from the front and back). And it still smells good! I know, I can’t belive it either, but it’s all true!!!

If you remember, this was a Costco wreath that we got for Christmas and I added a few elements to make it not look like we just brought it home from the store and stuck in on the door.

For re-do Number 2, I changed out the bow. My mom is going to be so proud when she reads this! She makes all my bows for me, but since she lives about 3,000 miles away, I had to venture out on a limb and try it myself. At Christmas she tried to teach, but I said, ‘No, you do a great job and you’re always here when I need bows.’  Hmmm… I don’t think I did it the way she does it, but I think it turned out pretty well! And secondly, I added the yarn hearts. I bet you’re wondering how I made such cute yarn hearts! Well, no worries… I’ll show ya!

Step 1: Gather ALL 3 of the materials….

Yarn

Scissors

And heart-shaped bracelets party favors from Dollar Tree!

Step 2: Tie a knot in the yarn on the heart.

Step 3: Wrap the bracelet in the yarn.

Step 4: Tie another knot in the yarn to finish it off. For some reason my white knot was tight enough to the bracelet, but it still works. The red knot worked great!

Step 5: Wah-la! Cute Little Yarn Hearts!

And two projects!

These hearts could be used on all sorts of things. What would you use them on??

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and this one

A Mini Yarn Wreath

Yes, I’m actaully still making Christmas presents. There were some projects on my mind that I just didn’t quite get to. I still want to, so why not keep going? Everyone likes getting presents even if they are late, right???

My wedding was a beach wedding over 5 years ago. We bought a bunch of shells for the decorations, including a bunch of tiny red starfish…. Lately I’ve been trying to figure out what to do with these left over shells and starfish. I’ve given away a bunch of the shells, sand dollars and the large starfish, but keep finding them here and there around the house! But even with the ones I’ve given away, I’ve still got a bunch. What to do with the little red starfish???

And as you know, I love a good yarn wreath!

Pretty simple!

Step 1: Materials:

Yarn

Small Stryofoam Wreath

Starfish

Hot Glue Gun and Glue

Ribbon

Step 2: Wrap the yarn around the wreath form.

Step 3: Layout the starfish design.

Step 4: Rotate the wreath and glue the starfish down as close to the original design as possible. Then go back and add a few more!

Step 5: Pick your ribbon. I couldn’t decide… brown?? cream??? The husband had to make the final call for the cream!

That’s it, easy easy easy! And why couldn’t I get this done before Christmas??? hmmmmm….

Are you still making Christmas presents??? Or have you moved on, like most people?

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