A Pretty Yellow Wreath

FINALLY! I made this. Simple, sweet and a lovely mustard yellow. I've got a lot going on so this is just a big of a braggy ISN'T MY WREATH CUTE?!?! I JUST LOVE IT! post. hahaha! Have a great weekend everyone!!

The 12 Days of Christmas: Games, Crafts and Food To Do Together

There is something really fun and slightly nostalgic about the 12 days of Christmas. One of my early Christmas memories involves going to the Great American Melodrama with my family and, after seeing their famous Christmas Carol and Vaudeville Review, laughing my butt off with my family in the car as we drove home imitating the hilarious movements the cast put to The Twelve Days of Christmas.

Little Secret: We STILL do that! And it's still funny :)

Another fun memory involving the song: My mother found a vintage set of the cookie cutters and, being the sculpture she is, made clay ornaments with them. She made a set for each of us to paint and you could definitely tell who had painted what. My youngest brother wasn't quite old enough to keep his paint inside  the lines, so his ornaments were rather tie died whereas my other younger brother had an affinity for the odd at very young age so his ornaments were quite eclectic. The maid a milking had a green and purple cow, if i remember correctly :) Nothing was a realistic color. Mine, were done entirely in primary colors and green. Mom loved them all, like mom's do.

So it's not the biggest tradition in my family, but I'd like to somehow make another addition to it, keep the tradition going myself. I saw this post by The Craft Patch on Pinterest and I felt inspired to come up with something similar. Her idea is fun but I wanted to come up with something that maybe matched the song more (like doing the Ring Pop's on day five for FIIIIVE GOOOOLDEN RIIIINGS). And so that is what I set out to do!

I didn't quite understand how the rings worked on this as a kid and made them blue instead, oops!

The Twelve Days of Christmas

(a little background)

Now for some real factoids about the day, what little there are. Snopes has a really extensive article on the whole matter of whether or not the song was originally a code for Christians or a way to memorize Biblical information (sorry folks but it wasn't, its ok I was kinda bummed too since I was rather hoping for more details to supply me with ideas!). It was most likely a secular Christmas song.  

"What we do know is that the twelve days of Christmas in the song are the twelve days between the birth of Christ (Dec. 25th) and the coming of the Magi (Epiphany, Jan. 6)"

I'd put more but the site doesn't let me copy and paste :( and I am really tired so I am not in the mood to just type that entire paragraph while switching between tabs. justsayin. 

It's quite similar to the carol "The New Dial", which is rather obviously religious. I have the feeling the concept of this song got mixed in with the Twelve Days somewhere along the way. Have a peek:

What are they that are but one?
We have one God alone
In heaven above sits on His throne.

What are they which are but two?
Two testaments, the old and new,
We do acknowledge to be true.

What are they which are but three?
Three persons in the Trinity
Which make one God in unity.

What are they which are but four
Four sweet Evangelists there are,
Christ's birth, life, death which do declare.

What are they which are but five?
Five senses, like five kings, maintain
In every man a several reign.

What are they which are but six?
Six days to labor is not wrong,
For God himself did work so long.

What are they which are but seven?
Seven liberal arts hath God sent down
With divine skill man's soul to crown.

What are they which are but eight?
Eight Beatitudes are there given
Use them right and go to heaven.

What are they which are but nine?
Nine Muses, like the heaven's nine spheres,
With sacred tunes entice our ears.

What are they which are but ten?
Ten statutes God to Moses gave
Which, kept or broke, do spill or save.

What are they which are but eleven?
Eleven thousand virgins did partake
And suffered death for Jesus' sake.

What are they which are but twelve?
Twelve are attending on God's son;
Twelve make our creed. The Dial's done.

From this song, another counting song may have come. It's called Green Grow the Rushes, O. This link will take you to the lyrics, as well as some nifty commentary on what the lyrics may be referring to. Who knew this would be such a slippery slope into counting songs huh? So at least that was something to go off of!

The Brainstorming Stage!

Mainly, I like the idea of making the joy of Christmas last just a little bit longer than the big day, don't you? So I decided to use that in my grand plan. 

I also liked the concept of the counting games, minus the annoying repetition maybe. What if on each day we do something rather Sesame Street and come up with things that relate to that number. It could be a good learning tool game :) AND you can incorporate the religious aspects if you like, without suggesting that this is what they actually stand for in the song's lyrics, but that they did stand for that in other similar songs. I have always liked the idea of teaching my kids historical tidbits about holidays because how a holiday is now is not how it always has been. Things change and that's ok sometimes. 

Oh, and lets avoid giving candy everyday... crafts are good too. Or baking/cooking something neat. And story time sounded fun, love the idea of reading with the kiddos!

The Final Plan

So now that you know everything I took into consideration for this, what did I finally decide on? I thought I would come up with an idea (maybe more than one) that can be incorporated into the evening/day. But as far as the historical/storytime part? That, I feel, should be a personal household thing. So do whatever you like with that :) Watch a movie, read a book, etc. and then unwrap a "gift" with one of these fun activities inside like:

Day 1: A Partridge in a Pear Tree: Play "Pin the Partridge on the Pear Tree", Make a recipe with pears (we liked poached pears but they aren't kid friendly :P)


Day 2: Two Turtle Doves: Make/bake a "turtle" recipe together (like Chocolate Turtle Brownie Sundaes)


Day 3: Three French Hens: Make Brinner! Breakfast for dinner. (eggs is the connection here, that and my husband is a fan of brinner so he wanted that in there)


Day 4: Four Calling Birds: Call four people you care about and tell them you love them.


Day 5: Five Golden Rings: Have Ring Pops for treats, play a ring toss game, make a golden ring of caramel pull apart bread (YUM! great idea Where Its Green!)


Day 6: Six Geese a Laying: No Bake Peanut Butter Nests with oatmeal can be gluten free :)


Day 7: Seven Swans a Swimming: Make your own recipe for a tasty soup with seven ingredients.


Day 8: Eight Maids a Milking: Make your favorite milk shakes!


Day 9: Nine Ladies Dancing: Get down with your bad self! Pick nine songs together and do some dancing (to at least a few)


Day 10: Ten Lords a Leaping: Play some Leap Frog! Or have a contest to see who can jump the longest (my little brother would have loved this when we were kids!)


Day 11: Eleven Pipers Piping: Bust out the construction paper/cardboard tubes and make a flute (or upcycle some bottles to blow on)


Day 12: Twelve Drummers Drumming: Craft time again! Craft drums out of pots and pans, old cardboard containers, etc., make some Bread Sticks (drumstick inspired) for a snack.


What do you think? These are just ideas to get your creativity flowing and make for some more family time. If you're wondering why I am doing this post now and not after Christmas during the proper time frame, its because I like to be a little prepared for my holidays and this is a lot of shit to get together! Excuse my french (hen! hahahaha). And we will be traveling soon so I am trying to get ahead.

I am also thinking I don't have kids yet ;-) so for now I could have some adult beverages if I so desired. I saw a few ideas out there whilst googling ideas for this post. I want to try this one for sure, pretty creative.

A Partridge in a Pear Tree 

Ingredients: Absolut Pear, lemon juice, caramel syrup, apple juice and thyme

The Uber Teacup Cake Stand

I am donating this to our library, which does a tea party every year as a community thing :) Isn't it fun?? It was a pain in the you-know-what to make, i can tell you that! So many pieces....and then the glue wouldn't harden! ack! Anyway, it went from this:

Pretty fun! And with appliances spray paint you don't have to worry so much about how washable it is or food safety. win. I saw something like it on pinterest, they said it was an anthro thing (here's the link) and I am sure anthro is way better but this was fun to attempt at any rate :)

Linked to www.thethriftyhome.com

Entry Door Make-Over

Hello All! My in-laws came to see the play we were in and before they got here I realized that I had a few things left to do make our little basement apartment complete.  One of them was the entry way door. 

The window of the door looks right into the hall way, which has the entry of the bathroom just to the right there and our bedroom at the end. The other wonderful thing is that the Front door is just at the top of the stairs so anyone coming in could potentially see me running naked from the bathroom to the bedroom because i forgot...i dunno...something...make it up i don't care! Ok maybe it would never happen but you get the point! It could and so...it's awkward. I have been using a scarf, did hte trick of covering the window but didn't look very good at all. 

The sign I wanted to keep there because my cousin gave it to me as a housewarming gift and it's got a very sweet saying.

A while back though, I found a big ol' piece of burlap that just begged to be used for something like this. 

In retrospect, I would have spent more time measuring and planning but with it being the week of the play and dress rehearsals, i was really anxious and short on time.  Sooooo i winged it and just started drawing the letters.

Like that yellow nail polish? for the play lol

 Of course, it was off center so i added a little something at the beginning to even it out...

 Which, it turned out, didn't even matter because this is how the door framed it anyway:

 I should probably iron it.... but it looks better than the scarf! yay!

Plastic bags have eaten me whole!!!

You know, you can only put so many bags aside to use as mini-trash bags liners. Even with my resolve to bring reusable bags to the store, I seem to have an abundance of these things around! They are taking up valuable space, getting in my way, look trashy, etc. Why? Because I used these things for packing up items for storage, and as I unpack two years worth of squirreling, I find myself utterly over run! Except for the occasional biodegradable bag which shatters at the slightest touch... they weren't kidding about that biodegradable part.

/sigh

What's a girl to do? Well, if she's this girl, she can look around and find out some new uses for bags that will give her hope that hanging onto the darn things will be worth it!

Fused Plastic Gift Bags-with tutorial! Found this awesome little tutorial on craftster.org. It's by Lillianpearl and she says it's her first tutorial but I think it looks pretty good! Way to go, lady :) My mom always saves gift bags too (who doesn't) so these things would get used over and over, it's the ultimate new life for ugly plastic bags.

I also thought this was a nice diversion from the more abundant tutorial of making a reusable shopping bag. Not sure how to fuse bags? Etsy's got you covered here.

While you're wrapping, you could use up some more plastic bags making pom-poms to decorate other packages, just like they do over at c.r.a.f.t. (i thought they were pretty cute, not to mention easy to make, always a win.)

I really enjoyed the look of these clutches over at Crafted by Us. These would make cute gifts too, not to mention they're a great way to use up cute bits and pieces of fabric or ribbon etc. that you just can't bear to get rid of because there's enough to do something it's just not a very big something. 

Not that I ever do that.

Quick! Look at the clutch!

And have you seen the tutorials on making iron-on's our of plastic bags? I wanna try this one, I could see this being really, really fun in a collage kinda way! Not to mention it's so personalized.

These get honorable mention for being cool and creative, but lets be honest, I don't have kids. And the light decor idea doesn't fit my needs...because I'm tall and live in a basement. I'd put my eye out. 

• Lampshade Made From Plastic Bags 

• Fused Plastic Bib 

• Fused Plastic Rain Coat

Valentine's Day Cards: A lesson in composition

/ˌkɒmpəˈzɪʃən/ Show Spelledcom·po·si·tion [kom-puh-zish-uhn] –noun

Fine Arts . the organization or grouping of the different parts of a work of art so as to achieve a unified whole.

It's about a month away from the holiday so I figure it's time to talk about the big V day.  I wish I had a better tutorial for this, however, when I made these last year I wasn't doing a blog or tracking how iImade things. I'm just glad I was proud enough of my little cards to take some pictures! I still wanted to write about it though, so I hope this at least inspires you to get creative with your cards. 

If you've never done collage work, it can be very mentally cleansing.  At least I think it is. I get in a zone of meandering through magazines with new eyes, clipping out the random snippets of wonder I come across in pages full of generally negative projections. This is the main part of my love for collage, transformation from something ugly (like ads that promote a poor perception of beauty) to something positive and uplifting. 

**IDEA ALERT! Collage can be really fun with friends! Have a get together, invite everyone to bring a stack of magazines and some scissors, provide some snacks, throw on some background music and make a social night of it. Super fun times. ALSO you can use this same idea for some really cute and unique invitations, though I'd keep it to a small party since collaging a lot of cards could get overwhelming... END ALERT**

Things You'll Need:

1. Cardstock
2. Something for the "backdrop"
3. Some magazines to cut into
4. Mod Podge (or your favorite adhesive for collage/scrapbooking)
5. Accents

1* Last year, I came across a pack pre-cut heart shaped cards at Michael's and made them my canvas. I had so much fun with it because it was a mix of the traditional "building" of a valentine but used less doilies. Not that I don't love a good doily project but sometimes you just have to bust out of the norm, you know? 

2* I had origami paper left over from one of those 365 day calenders. You were supposed to do a project everyday, but I didn't like every project so I had a lot of cool paper to use for whatever else I wanted. You, of course, can use scrapbooking paper, wrapping paper, fabric, felt, big photo, etc. for a good backdrop to the scraps you add. 

A larger magazine photo can make for a good backdrop.

3* Grab the magazines and look for whatever inspires you, cut it out to use. Just because it's V-day doesn't mean you have to get mushy. You can give a card to family, your kids, your neighbor, your friends....and with collage you can make it personal ( the recipients favorite color, theme, etc.).

A friend of mine bought this one for her son, a big John Lennon fan.

4* Before going nuts with the glue, arrange your selected cut outs into the desired affect. You don't have to cover the entire heart in words or images, though that could look really awesome too. Composition can play a significant role.  The easiest way to think of composition, for me, is in terms of music. Think of an orchestra, several completely different instruments (elements) playing one song (the piece). Or maybe a dance with several dancers doing different things at once to one song and yet it all flows together in one poetic, united, display of movement. 

Apply that concept to collage. You can have sequins, glitter, fabric, ribbon, bits and bobs of whatever come together to make a whole card and send one message. Alternate sizes (large fonts with small dots of glitter), use different shades or patterns of the same color, incorporate different shapes...but make sure you orient it all to the message you want to project. You want the balance of all of these elements to accent the main image or word you want to have as the focus.

The words "Open Your Heart" lead into the key to opening it.

5* This was pretty much covered in #4 use whatever will stick to the card :) Also, don't feel like you have to use magazines to say every word, if you have a stamp or a label maker that you can use to printout the word a different way then it can be a nice addition to the composition.

This card incorporates stamping and rhinestones as well.

What are you planning to do for Valentine's Day?

Scrappy Scarf

I know, third blog of the day can you tell I have no job?! :) It's ok, I'm still productive. In fact, I have evidence of this! Despite my craft stuff all being in storage, I still managed to make something. Just goes to show you can't keep a good crafter down.

You see this? This is a bunch of scraps from a friends No Sew Blanket project. The kit she bought was wonky, one blanket was much larger than the other, and so she had to do a lot of clipping to get it to work properly. Hence, extra fluffy flannel material! I couldn't just...get rid of it. Its against a code or something, isn't it? I am sure I read this somewhere. All the pieces were about and inch wide and anywhere from an 1 1/2 to 3 inches long so I just did what you do with the blanket kit they came from: I tied them in knots. I worked from the middle, so that it came out equal on both sides and just kind of went until it was long enough to be called a scarf. It was kind of like two knot chains that joined together in the middle on occasion so it could be one big chain. I should have done a video. or taken more pictures. Still learning this whole "tutorial" thing...but it was a pretty easy concept! Anyways, once it was done it looked like this:

Cute huh!? Ok, so it was a lot cuter than I expected it to be, but i wore it today and got compliments on it. By my grandma. And you know you better not say my grandma is wrong! Yeah...you heard me.... :)

Tiered Cake Stand

So here is my first post about a craft, oh so awesome, but not exactly an original idea. My wedding was almost entirely DIY (it was a little hectic) but I had a lot of fun with it and those who do DIY projects themselves were the most appreciative of the more awesome results. One that got the most attention was the multi-tiered cake stand, which is actually a twist on this sweet idea from Design*Sponge. The basic summary is this: take a vase, take a plate, take some proper glue and put them together! Design*Sponge explains more so check that out for more.

So Step One: Check out instructions at Design*Sponge

Step Two: Go Higher
 I decided to get adventurous and make more than one tier because I had limited table space and lots of food to put out. The tricky part that i didn't really want to deal with was making the colors match. SO instead of looking for pieces that match in color, i just looked for unique shapes that fit the need. When I got home, I played around with them like puzzle pieces till they went together in a way that functioned and looked good.

Step Three: Painting
Before gluing anything, I painted all the pieces and let them dry for a few days. (Nice view, yeah? Its not mine, it's my friends)

Nice view, yeah? Its not mine, it's my friends

Step Four: Glue
I used Epoxy glue and took my time, gluing plate to vase as instructed. Once those pieces were dry i glued them to another set to make the multiple tier. I did not think ahead and take a picture. It was helpful to have a second person to stabilize as the glue dried but not necessary.  The trickiest part is making sure they lined up properly. I was going to just eye ball it but that is tricky so we measured and drew intersecting lines with a pencil on the lower part of the plate to determine the middle.

Step Five: Countertop Paint
Now if you were wondering about food safety back in Step Two here is were I address your fears. There are couple of different options. First, you can use doilies or only put lined food, like cupcakes, on the stand.  Second, you could coat the paint with a food safe sealer like these guys would do for painting a countertop. Third, you could buy countertop paint from the hardware store, like I did. It was fate that brought us together since i just kind of found it one day while hopping at Home Depot. Yay! It would serve my purpose (you can't use doilies under wet fruit, you just can't). I left it white, which wasn't ideal but i was doing so many colors it would have been more expensive to buy and color multiple cans of the stuff. And white was one of my colors so it worked out :) Here is the end result:

TA DA!!

Since the white really stood out, i tried to incorporate some design to blend it a little, like the stripes, dots etc.

 I did do one other that I got away with not painting because it was all from milk glass items:

So there you have it, those five tiers probably cost me....$30? They were a blast to make too! I got all kind of messy :) go try it out!

Oh! and i came across this awesome stand too whilst browsing and while I wasn't going rustic, I thought this was just beautiful