Wreathes, Wreathes, and More Wreathes

Not sure why, but I have found that I love making wreathes lately.  I find them so fun, colorful, and they really let me be creative.  It probably has something to do with the fact that you can change them out so often.  Seasons, holidays, moods. . .

So with that, I made a few wreathes for other people lately.

 

My sister just had her third son. She runs a yarn business and nicknames all of her kids on-line.  The newest one, she nicknamed Tiny Lime.

When we went to visit her and her new baby, we decided to make her a wreathe to celebrate the new baby.  I found some lime green duct tape at the store and drew little limes all over the wreathe with a sharpie.  Then we found some fun, bright colored flowers to glue on, and made some ribbon loops with bright yellow ribbon to finish it off. 

 



 

My husband's cousin had a wedding shower the same weekend that we went to visit my sister, so I just kept on with the duct tape theme.  The invitations to the shower each included an occupation for each couple to be inspired by.  We were the movie theatre owners.

 

We had a gag gift, an ugly old chair,  that is now being passed around my husband's family and we used this to decorate it.  Using duct tape, we tried to follow the movie clapboard theme.  We added flowers to add a bit of color and pattern with the plaid, and since we were decorating a chair, we included the Best Seat in the House title. 



Our third wreathe was for my parents.  They live close to the ocean in Washington in a beautiful yellow and blue house.

We started by wrapping the wreathe in this beautiful blue yarn.  Then tried to make it somewhat reminiscent of the beach.

 





We used these big white poppies and yellow flowers to add a punch of color and texture and added seashells.  I love how it turned out.  So simple and pretty!

Finally, I made this patriotic wreathe for the upcoming holiday!

 





I found a thin plastic tubing and taped the ends together.  I painted the clothespins red, white and blue.  Then painted on some stars on the blue clothespins.  I really like how fun this is, and it reminds me of fireworks exploding.  :)

 



Lights, Camera, Action!

My husband and I love to go to the movies and we always save the movie tickets and then they just kick around the house until they get lost, crumpled, or thrown away.  So, we decided to make a movie box.

 

 

I found this cute suitcase at our local craft store a few months ago and decided to make it look like a movie clapboard.

 

 

I taped off the lines and the squares on the front, and painted the rest black.

 

 

Now we have a cute place to store all of our tickets and memorabilia!

Spring. . . Finally!

In Idaho, Spring has seemed to take a very long time to come, so when the sun started to peek out and the snow started melting, I got in the crafting mood.  This wreathe started out when I found this adorable green burlap ribbon.  I felt like twine was the perfect thing to accompany it.  As I was doing a search for twine, my husband and I came upon this raspberry raffia in the clearance section, an obvious buy.  I wrapped the wreathe in twine and wrapped the raffia loosely to add some color all around.  I found this cute blue button and painted the bird and flower to match. 

I think we've run out of places to hang crafts, so I've turned to doing wreathes because we have plenty of doors to hang them on. . . This one was very fun to make.  I used the same burlap ribbon, but found this beautiful flower made out of wood at the craft store.  I couldn't decide what else to do, and my husband suggested the tulle flowers.  I'm very happy how this turned out.

I love to walk around craft stores, and luckily for me, I have an amazing husband who indulges me. . . I found this cute milk bottles at our local craft store for about $2 and had to have them.  I hot glued some lace around the bottom part and. . . voila!

Some purple and white flowers completed this fun project for me.

Valentine's Day Crafts!

As Valentine's Day approached, I realized I have no Valentine's decorations!  So, of course, I made some.  I found this wreath on Pinterest, and absolutely loved how cute it is!  I wrapped a Styrofoam wreath with a gray yarn, cut out hearts out of felt, and then crissed-crossed some yarn over top to give it the adorable argyle look.  I love it!

Another Pinterest idea I found. . . These hearts are just cardboard and then painted with ribbon glued to attach them.  It was a fun project a co-worker and I worked on together.  Very fun, colorful, and reminds me of conversation hearts we used to eat as kids.

This was super simple but I love the idea of the alphabet being used in a fun way. 

Christmas Crafts!

Christmas is definately one of my favorite holidays!  I love most everything about it, especially all the fun crafts I get to do!  Thank goodness I have a very patient and understanding husband who puts up with all my craftiness, the need to watch extremely corny Christmas movies, and of course, turning up Christmas music very loud and singing along.

 

 

One of my crafts this year was my Christmas wreathe.  The weather has been pretty wet and windy so we hung it up inside so it wouldn't get ruined.  

Last year, after Christmas, I went to JoAnns and scored on all the marked down Christmas decorations.  A giant green bow, a garland of greenery, some sparkly holly berries, and some cute dark green, light green, and red polka dot ribbon.  This is the result!

At one of my favorite craft stores, I found these vases for super cheap.  I added half a strand of red garland in each vase, some leftover red polka dot ribbon from another project, and a flameless candle from the dollar store.  Super cheap and festive!

In the Fall, I used these jars and filled them partially full of unpopped popcorn kernels.  Then I tied some cream, brown, and gold ribbon around the top for a very Autumn decoration.

I saw the idea for these vases online somewhere.  I know the picture isn't great, but they're just plain dollar store vases and then I took an old sweater, cut off the sleeves, and glued the bottom so they wouldn't fray.  Then just used some dollar store ornaments to finish them off.

This was a super easy and inexpensive wreathe.  I bought three, six pack sets of snowflake from the dollar store.  Then I laid eight out in a circle and took another eight and hot glued them on top, between each of the bottom snowflakes.  Tie on some ribbon and that was it.  Easy, cute, and sparkly. :)

This isn't really a Christmas craft, but I made this fairly recently.  I found a clearance frame and put some scrapbook paper on the pack with little strips of paper sectioning it off.  Then some sticker letters were added and a bow made.  I found I was always too tired from work to try to figure out what to make for dinner, but if we have it planned out, I can get dinner made much more easily.  So we just try to plan out our dinners for the week, do our grocery shopping, and we're not eating out nearly as much.  I love the way it turned out and it makes life so much simpler for me.

Easy as 1, 2, 3

 I found this project idea on pinterest.  It's so easy.  Take some canvas and draw on it with glue making a thick line to create whatever design you want.

Let the glue dry.  When it's dried, paint over the canvas and glue, all in one color.  You're left with a very monochromatic work of art.  



Mark the Date

One of the projects I did was a calendar.  I had a cheap white board one, but I could never get anything to erase from it.  So, I was out shopping and found this large, square, metal sheet in a frame that was meant to be a white board.  On clearance for cheap, I bought it even though it didn't match my style.  I found at one of my craft stores, a clear, plastic write on calendar.  Using paper I covered the metal and then glued the calendar on top. 

I also made some magnets to match from some extra paper and glass.  After finishing this, I went to find my whiteboard markers and realized how many I have.  So, I made a bag out of some left over fabric.  And here's the end product!