Foolproof Wreath

I love making wreaths. I think they are so cute and they don't have to be hard to make. Sometimes the cutest wreaths are very simple.

One of the easiest ways to make a wreath is to find a garland of something that you like and hook it to a wreath... I found these little berry garlands a couple years ago at Tai Pan and kinda went crazy with them. I have them in my decor, I use a few strands of them on my Christmas Tree, and then I decided to make a wreath out of them. 

So I bought a grapevine wreath (looks like sticks) at Hobby Lobby with a 50% off coupon. 

*Always check online for coupons before you go shopping to a store like Roberts, Hobby Lobby, Joann, Michaels, etc! Saves you big bucks!*

Then get about 3 or 4 garlands, depending on how full and how long the garlands are. 

At first I tried wrapping the garland around the wreath but it was getting to be too bulky and I was running out of garland fast so I decided to bend the garland to make a circle on the face of the wreath. Every couple inches I would take one of the little individual berry strands and wrap it around a part of the wreath to secure it. No gluing involved and technically if I wanted, I could take the garlands off the wreath and use them for something else since they aren't glued to it. 

If your garland isn't wired then you could get some florist wire and use little pieces of that to secure your wreath to the branches of the wreath. 

Easy Peasy!

Endless possibilities!

A little Chilean flair

My husband served a mission for our church in Santiago, Chile before we got married. In Chile they take buses everywhere they go. He started saving his bus tickets with plans to do something cool with them once he got home. 

After we had been married for a few months he told me that he wanted me to get crafty and figure out a way to put the bus tickets on his acoustic guitar... I love a challenge so I got thinking of all the possibilities to make this guitar look super sweet!
I finally decided on this-

(keep in mind that I did this project 5 years ago so it has had some wear and tear since then and doesn't look brand new... One the other hand- this just shows you that Modgepodge does wonders- the tickets have never fallen off or gotten loose even 5 years and countless hours of being played later! :)

I wanted to leave a little of the natural wood showing through so I came up with the idea to do a star in the corner with all the yellows and oranges, then leave a border of the wood, and finishing the rest of the guitar with the other colors. It was a lot of work to sort through the hundreds of little tickets- lots of cutting with scissors, and an exacto knife plus TONS of modgepodge to glue them on... but  it turned out really cool...no one else has a guitar like this in the world... and my husband loved it!  

I am not a huge fan of displaying souvenirs in my decor especially when they are llamas, Chilean handicrafts, etc, so this was the perfect compromise to show a little Chilean flair but not clutter up my shelves with knick-knacks. I love the way it turned out and I love that my husband is so proud of his "Chilean" guitar. :)

Mini Floral Arrangement

I needed a little somethin-somethin on my shelf and decided to make a smaller version of my floral arrangement and this is how it turned out... I just wanted something simple. It was super fast to make and cost less than $10 bucks total thanks to a sale at Hobby Lobby.  Gotta love sales!

Mellow Yellow Dress

This dress happened totally by accident. Or by me making a mistake I should say. I had envisioned making a version of the dress I made last week but with light and breezy seer sucker fabric that would be nice and summery. So I got all my stuff to make it... $9 shirt from target, $3 yard of fabric (after the 50% off coupon) from Joann's, leftover dyed yellow elastic from last weeks dress and set out to make a pattern to cut out the skirt.

 It was late when I started this project, (10:30pm- which is usually when I start crafting each night)  so I was a little tired. I figured out that I wanted the skirt to be a little fuller than my last dress... So I decided that I would make it 20 inches at the top and 25 inches at the bottom. A slight flair to begin with and then after sewing it to the elastic to make it gather it would be a nice and bouncy skirt I figured. So I folded my fabric in half and proceeded to cut my pattern (or a lack thereof... just a measurement and a straightedge to cut against) on the fold and opened it up to realized that I only had the back of my skirt cut out and in doing so I had cut right in the middle of the fabric and there wasn't going to be anyway that I could fit and cut the front of the skirt on the fabric in one piece. So I had a dilemma on my hands! So I got looking and I realized that my fabric had this fabulous yellow finished edge on it  and if I used the scraps from cutting the back I could maneuver them to make a front somehow and have a cute decorative finished edge that looked cool and was super easy since it was already finished for me. So I lined up the leftovers and sewed them to the back side of the skirt but I was still short about 3 inches of fabric in the very middle of my skirt in the front. That is kinda an important part! ha ha So I only had about 5 inches of the entire width of the very bottom of the fabric left but the stripes were going in the opposite direction of the rest of my skirt. Another Dilemma! So I decided that I would just make it work and have the stripes go the opposite direction as the rest of the skirt...

So the front of the skirt ended up having a little more of a design than I had planned- but overall it turned out really cute! :) It was a mistake turned out for the better.... So all in all this dress cost less than 15 dollars to make... I got the necklace on clearance at Old Navy for less than $4 and the cute little sweater at Target to finish off my look for $17 (more than my whole dress cost, but I totally justified it since I know I can work it into lots of other outfits too) So there you have it... A dress of my own design. I think I will call it my Mellow Yellow Dress! 

I am jumping on the embroidery hoop bandwagon!

Has anyone noticed that embroidery hoops are becoming a popular item for decorating lately? It seems like every blog I look at is doing this... I love it! I got some hoops at Hobby Lobby and spent $9 on all of them together and used some fabric I had at home (including one of my shirts I stained dying fabric, an old baby blanket, and two old onsies that my girls had grown out of)... As I browse through fabric at the stores I may change out some of these fabrics for ones I love better, but for now this will do... Gotta love using things you have laying around the house and putting them to better use!

Anyone else want to jump onto the embroidery hoop bandwagon?? :)

P.S. This picture frame has a picture of my girls in it that I blacked out... Since my craft blog is public I don't want just anyone looking them- never can be too careful these days- Hope you understand!

Lamp Redo

My little girl's room is pink and aqua blue. I love the color combination... The blue balances out the pink so it's girly but not over the top. Finding a lamp to match with both colors in it was pretty much impossible (at least on my budget) so I decided to make one myself- or I should say make over one. I found the lamp base and shade at Walmart (one of my favorite stores- don't judge me! ha ha) and I definitely thought they had potential. The base was rubbed oil bronze and the lamp shade was a khaki-ish canvas. Not quite the colors I was hoping for, but I bought a bottle of pink spray paint for the base... enlisted my husband to spray paint it for me (I was prego at the time) and I got some cute fabric I liked and covered the shade with spray adhesive and put the fabric on.... It used to look like this...

It was cute, but as I was walking through World Market (another of my favorite stores) the other day, I saw some wrapping paper that was the exact look I was hoping for in the first place...

So I bought a couple rolls- came home and pulled the fabric off and gave it another make over. I think it is a funner lamp now- More of an eye catcher! I love the gold in the wrapping paper- the sun catches it and makes it shine! Ooh La La! ;)

Making over a lamp is so easy and super inexpensive (two thumbs up!)... It's a great way to add a little umph to your room...you could use wrapping paper, news paper, fabric- pretty much anything! Throw in some spray paint and you are golden! 

Polka Dots

I decided to make myself a dress.... I had to teach a lesson in relief society today (first time ever teaching in RS- a little nerve-racking) and I wanted something new to wear. I figured I would attempt to make my own!

I was looking at the Elle Apparel blog and found a tutorial that I thought looked fun and made it... it didn't turn out quite like I hoped (the fit wasn't right) so I had to improvise a little and added some elastic and this is how it turned out....

To make the dress it is just a t shirt cut off with a little elastic and some fabric for the skirt. It was fairly simple and now that I know how to make this dress it just might be my go to dress... You can make it your own with different t-shirts (patterned or plain) and then fabric. I think if your shirt is patterned then the skirt looks better plain and visa versa... But it could turn out really cool to have both patterned fabrics if you had the right combination... The sky is the limit... The tutorial is here. 

Once I was done with my dress I didn't want to waste the bottom of a perfectly good t-shirt so I turned the leftovers into a skirt for my daughter. So we were twiners today at church:)