Twine-Wrapped Vases

Happy Black Friday!

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving with your families and friends-
We had a delicious, fun Thanksgiving with my family and afterwards played Just Dance 2 on the Wii. Oh, my goodness, that was SO much fun!

I've been trying to make the most lately of the storage capacity of our bedroom, which takes some creativity.
The room is long and skinny (it used to be the back porch)  and it fits a dresser, bed, desk and that's about it. It's really cozy and there's a window looking out to the cow field which I love!

My sewing table is right in front of the window so I can take peeks at the cows grazing lazily around in the field while I sew away.
We have kind of made the windowsill into a bookshelf/storage for art supplies/whatever else ends up there and we had paintbrushes and some other things stuck into mason jars and it looked kind of mumble-jumble.

I wanted to prettify the space, so I took some twine we got at the thrift store and wrapped it around the jars. I may have a fetish for twine. I love it!! My mom gave me the huge roll of twine, and the smaller one is from the thrift store.

Viola!!

Cute, rustic decorative jars to hold all of our odds and ends. And lavender.

It looks SO much better.

I didn't even hot glue the twine, I just tied it around the top, then wrapped the twine around tightly, working down to the bottom of the jar, then used elmer's glue to hold the other end down.
So if you have some mismatched containers holding stuff that you'd like to make look prettier, get some twine and get wrappin!

A Fun Fall Craft: Leaf Creatures!

 A few days ago I was browsing Pinterest and saw an idea that I just knew the kids would love:

Leaf Creatures!!

The website linked to Pinterest was just a photo, but these are so easy to make you don't need instructions. I'm going to give them to you anyway. ;)

1.) Gather some leaves.

2.) Find some googly eyes. Varying sizes are best.

3.) Glue or stick the googly eyes to the leaves and then use either popsicle sticks or, if you don't have any of those, regular sticks to make a little handle for your kiddos to parade the leaf creatures around. I didn't want to wait for the glue to dry on the sticks, so I just used some twine to tie the sticks to the stem of the leaf.

Bam.
Done!

They are SO cute!
You could even go crazy and make them have mouths, but we didn't have the supplies for that. I like them with just eyes.


So go find some fall leaves and have fun!!!
 :)

Pinterest Inspired Twine Experiement

Hi!
Sorry the blog has been quiet this week- I've been trying to cut back on my time online and spend it with the kids which has translated into less blogging.
Hopefully I'll get organized here in the next week or so and write out a bunch of posts on Sunday night, then schedule them throughout the week. (that works so much better!)

Anyway.
I mentioned that I got some great deals at the thrift store on 4th of July.
Everything was 1/2 off in the entire store, and I was able to get a nice, lightweight white blanket for a dollar, three or four shirts for myself for a few dollars each and a cool knit orange and white and brown throw blanket straight out of the 70's that made me excited for cool fall nights to curl up under it. :)

Finally, to the point of today...

You know those really cool twine globe lights/hanging decorations that are all over Pinterest?
 These ones.

Source

Or these...

Source

I got it into my head that a couple of them would look GORGEOUS above our bed.
With our pallet headboard and hanging globes of natural twine; the natural-ness of both would just play off of each other and it would look so pretty.

Don't ya think that it would look nice with pretty globes over this?? I do. :)

So I got out my glue and mixed it with water, got my twine,

blew up a balloon,

and got to work.

It was really a messy job!


I let it dry overnight....

This morning I popped the balloon...

and this is what happened.

Oops! Obviously I didn't use enough glue? I think?  Maybe I didn't wrap enough twine around the balloon?I'm just glad I only made one instead of a bunch! I'd have been so disappointed!

So.
Advice?
Have you done this before and had it work?
What did you do differently?
I still want gorgeous twine creations above my bed.
I may try this again with more glue.
Or, maybe I"ll try the doily one, like this:

Source

Help!
:)

Knitting Needle Holder

Here's a fun fact about me:
I recently started teaching myself to knit!
Honestly, it's easier than I thought it was going to be.
For some reason I always thought it would be hard because all the ladies I know who knit are super smart and seem to be more of the "Type A" personality, so I thought I'd have trouble with it since I am most definitely not a logical thinker.

Guess what?
It's not too hard to learn to knit. You just have to keep track of the stitches, and the tension of the yarn in your hand.
I just went to Wal-Mart and bought a "teach yourself how to knit" kit,
some fat needles 
(the kit comes with needles but I wanted big fat ones to start since it's easier to knit with those ones)
 and of course, some yarn.


Then, I practiced and practiced and got frustrated and tried again and practiced some more.
I am by NO means "good" at knitting yet, but I'm much better than I was a few weeks ago!


Anyway, since I have all of these knitting accessories, I need somewhere to keep them.


Where did I look for inspiration?

Pinterest, of  course!


I found this:

Source

Perfect.

I tried my hand at making my own, although I didn't follow the directions on the original site completely.
I just winged it, and it (amazingly) worked out.

I found some cute fabric I've had lying around for literally 5 years and measured a big enough square to fit inside my 12" embroidery hoop;

 then sewed a pocket onto it, then simply sewed lines down the pocket (marking where to sew with pins)

and then ta-da!

My version of the knitting needle holder.

I want to make like a thousand of these and hang them everywhere.
Okay, maybe not a thousand, but they are really cute, and I'll probably make a few more for holding stuff in my craft room.
 I love that I can hang this up on the wall and  1.) free up shelving space  but more importantly, 2.) keep my knitting needles out of the kid's reach. Because I know two little munchkins who would love to have a sword fight with a few of them. ;)

Guest Post at Adventures in Dinner!

Hi, all!

Jane at Adventures in Dinner is the most awesome cook and I've loved following her blog for about a year now.
She's so sweet, she asked me to do a guest post on her blog-
So I made up a crafting project just to share!

Easy Fabric Covered Frames.

Go on over and visit her and check it out!

KCWC Day One- George The Rooster

It's day one of the Kid's Clothes Week Challenge!

(don't know what that is? Go here.)

Chickens on the Brain...


I spent most of the day actually working on building our chicken coop because our chicks are quickly outgrowing their current box; however at Ethan's prompting, I set down the hammer and paintbrush and picked up scissors and then sat down at the sewing machine to whip up George the Rooster.


Since we have chicks now and some of them are probably roosters, Ethan is enamored with them and asked me to make him a stuffed animal rooster.
Thankfully, a rooster isn't too hard to draw free-hand (even when you have only 8-year old drawing skills like I do) so I managed to just draw and cut out the fabric without a pattern.

Here, my friends, is George the Rooster:

George "roosting" in our half-finished chicken coop :)

Ethan picked out the fabric as well, because there was a picture of a rooster with almost exactly the same fabric on the bag of batting we used to stuff George's body with. I tried to convince him to use some non-flowered fabric, but because his rooster needed to look like the one on the bag, flowered fabric it was! I told him George is a country rooster because he looks like he should be on a shelf in some old lady's house. ;)
I think he turned out alright, for a no-pattern, on a whim stuffed animal!
Ethan loves him.
He took him to the chiropractor with him tonight so George could get his neck adjusted.
Now I have to make Eliana one too..

resting in the grass

his combed head

his feet

I'm thinking tomorrow I may start on making the kids' cowboy vests- we'll see how that turns out! Hopefully well. :)
Have you ever made a stuffed animal for your kids before?
I'd love to hear about what you've made!

Homemade Handicraft Fun

Does anyone want to have a bit of fun, and receive a free Handmade gift from me??

My friend Jane over at Adventures in Dinner found a fun idea a couple days ago from another blog, and I decided to participate.

Here's what it is:

 the first three people to comment on this post will recieve something handmade from me this year.

the only rules are that they then:

do a similar blog post (or facebook status update if you don't have a blog) 

and make something special for those first 3 commenters

and send me something handmade in return as well.

Sounds like fun, right?

So, if you want to join in, leave a comment! Then you'll get something handmade from me (most likely some kind of bag or purse. Or you can request something in particular) within the next year. (most likely WAY before a year's time) hehe.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Gingerbread Houses - A New Tradition!

Hi and Merry Christmas Eve!
I hope you all are having a wonderful time relaxing with family, eating yummy food and hopefully remembering the reason we celebrate-  it's Jesus' birth!

Today we began a new tradition for our family- the first one that we've started that didn't come from either of our families, I think.
We made gingerbread houses.

Actually, they are graham cracker houses, since I didn't think about how much work it would be to make all of the real gingerbread and cut it into the right shapes. I also didn't want to buy a pre-made kit, so we decided to do graham cracker houses.

Let me tell you, it's a lot more work that I thought it would be! But it was so worth it. :)
I put the kid's houses together,

then once the icing had hardened a bit (after about 5-10 min.) they got to decorate them with whatever candy they wanted to. We had sixlets, chocolate covered raisins, peach gummy rings, sweet tarts, peppermints and sprinkles.

Eliana had lots of fun sprinkling the sprinkles...everywhere except onto her house. :)

They had SO much fun.
We all did!
It's gonna be fun to see how the gingerbread houses turn out every year- I'm already looking forward to taking pictures of next year's houses.

Tim working on his house

My house

More sprinkles

The kid's houses- Eliana's is in the foreground, Ethan's in the background

The finished products!

How cute is she??

Yep, pretty cute.

Love that smile!

After we were all done, our living room floor was completely covered in graham cracker crumbs, sprinkles and icing, along with the other candy that we had. Totally worth it. :) Messiness is always worth it when fun is involved!

Ethan helped out by mopping the floor after I swept everything up.

What a great start to Christmas!!
I hope you all have a very merry Christmas, see you next week!

DIY Natvity Scene

" And the angel said to them (the shepherds),
 'Fear not!!  For behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign to you: you will find the baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger."
Luke 2:10,11


This morning the kids and I made our own Nativity Scene.
We've been talking with them a lot over the past week or so about baby Jesus being born in a stable which is like a barn where animals sleep, and when I asked Ethan if he wanted to make a Nativity, he was more than willing to help. Both of the kids are very interested in baby Jesus being born, and I think having an actual picture of something helps them understand a lot better. Not that our little Nativity Scene has anything on the real story.  ;)
But where to begin??

Christmas: Jesus, Sewing and Decorating

Happy Saturday!

Have you been doing anything special for Christmas yet this season?

 I know December has just begun, but I'm already thinking about it!

Our family has been trying to have family worship every day and read scripture about Jesus' birth, and I've been singing Christmas songs to the kids at nap time.  Ellie especially loves "Away in a Manger". She says, "Mommy winging 'bout beebee Deedus. " (singing about baby Jesus) :)
We want them to know the real reason for Christmas, that it IS about celebrating Jesus' birth and how without him being born and later dying on the cross for our sins and rising again, we couldn't have the relationship with God that we now have.
It's been cool, because in teaching our kids about Christmas, we've been learning and re-visiting the real reason too. It's so easy to get caught up in the other stuff and miss out on the true joy of Christmas- Jesus!

source

Of course, I still love to decorate and make our house pretty to celebrate Jesus' birth!
I did some decorating for Christmas today with the kids. It was a fun family activity, and I love the result!

But first; we're going to talk about those bird ornaments that I said I was going to make.
I actually had trouble with the ornaments at first. It took WAY longer than I thought it would to make the first one and I contemplated not even trying to do the other eleven I'd already cut out. But I really wanted to at least try a bit harder, so I kept on and the rest of them ended up going much faster. (Hallelujah!)


With the first several birds, I sewed the fabric  together wrong side out, leaving a hole at the bottom. Then I  turned them right side out, stuffed batting from an old pillow into them, and sewed wings and eyes and a string to hang them up on their backs. This was kind of hard though, because the darn ornaments were so stinkin small, my fingers couldn't really stuff the stuffing in very well. I had to use a pen to get to the tail, and then still it looked a little weird on a few.