TOOT MY OWN HORN

I'm kinda new to the Craft Blogging world, so I can't even express how honored I am that one of my projects was featured on someone else's blog.

Thank You Stephanie Lynn! You made my day.

COULD I OR COULDN'T I... THAT IS THE QUESTION

So the question is... my oldest is due for his 3 Year Old portraits, and I'm thinking about trying to do it myself. I practiced a little this morning while we were outside getting some fresh air, and then did some editing with Picnik. My favorites are the first one and the fourth one. What do you think? Should I give it a try?

Love the Eyes

So Serious!!

Pouting because his tricycle keeps rolling backward.

Nice Smirk!

This one's a little blurry, but I love the expression.

Total Luke.

SUPER CUTE... SUPER EASY!!!

Check out these TOALLY cute bracelets I made last night in about 30 minutes. I found the inspiration for them here. If you can sew a straight line and tie a knot, you can make these Fun Chunky Bracelets.

From all the purses I've been making for my Etsy Shop, I have quite a bit of scrap fabric. For this project, you need a strip of fabric that's about 4" x 30". I honestly don't know what size strips I used for these three... I didn't measure them out, but when I was done with the brown and blue ones there was still about 7-8" I cut off. You also need 4-7 1" wood beads. The green and blue bracelets have 6 beads each. The brown one has 5 beads - the fabric must have been a little thicker, so the knots between the beads were bigger.

(wow, my hands are looking old!

shout out to my hubs... that's the ring he bought me

for our 5yr. Anniversary)

I'm also on a mission to find something less expensive then the 1" wood beads. For a pack of 19 it was $3.49 (I think) at Joann's. I'm wondering if I can find a big pack of rubber bouncy balls at a party supply store. They would work just as well, and will hopefully be cheaper.

So if your feeling crafty this weekend, give these a try. Go to my inspiration for the full tutorial.

I'm linking up here. Go there to check out all the other awesome ideas.

HALLOWEEN INSPIRATION

After two weeks of being completely and totally inspired by all that I've seen on the blogs that I follow, I headed out this morning with a distinct mission... find items (on the cheap via Family Dollar and Dollar General) to decorate for Halloween. I've never really decorated for Halloween before now, except to sit out a few cheezy things that I've collected over the years. But now that I have children, I figure I have a couple more people in the house who will appreciate what I've done... well as much as a 1 year old and 3 year old can.

The other MAJOR dilemma is that I literally have NO surfaces... no tabletops for decorating upon. Well except one, so I went all out on this small 36" space.

The "sub"mission within my main mission this morning, was to find spiders. How hard would it be to find spiders? Well, I didn't find spiders, but I did find THIS... and so the inspiration begins. Isn't he cute?

At Dollar General, I found these cute little skeletons. It's actually a garland of twine with 4 skeletons... for $1. Can you believe that? A dollar!!

At Family Dollar I found a "Shroud" (mesh netting). It's 30" x 96"... again for $1. I cut off a part of it to use as a backing for my "Boo"sign.

I already had the frame so all I did was take out the glass and matt, but left in the cardboard backing, which I hung the shroud over. I used my Cricut to cut out the letters and the little spiders (since I didn't find any to buy).

Yesterday, while out in the yard collecting acorns with the boys, I found this really cool branch. I think that's really where my inspiration began.

I really hit the Jackpot at Dollar General. Along with the skeleton garlands, I also got 3 rats ($1 each) and 3 little tombstones (also $1 each).

One of the garlands, I took apart so I could sit the skeletons around the vignette.

I already had the 2 raffia pumpkins, pumpkin bucket and candy corn dish. I covered my "famous" cake stand with brown craft paper, and then used the remainder of the shroud to drape over it and the table.

The container for my Candy Corn Tree was a square glass vase that I already owned. I just wrapped it with a torn and wrinkled piece of brown craft paper and cut out "EeK" on my Cricut.

I'm not sure that rat is going to share his candy corn.

I saw the Candy Corn Tree here last week, and I knew the minute I saw it I would be attempting to re-create it. So easy, and nearly free... bag of candy corn - $1 / branch from yard - free. The bats in the light are something I got from Martha Stewart Living probably about 9 years ago. I believe at the time, there was a pattern in the magazine you could trace or cut out for tracing. So, 9 years ago, I cut all those little bats out by hand - out of black construction paper. These are still those same bats. You should see how faded they are... not really black anymore. Anyway - I digress. They are taped to the inside of the lamp shade.

I have to say, I LOVE my little "Ode" to Halloween. I know there's a lot going on in this small space, but you gotta work with what you got. Also, what do you think of my crow on top of the frame? I know, it doesn't even come close to looking like a crow, but it was the only "bird" shape I had for my Cricut. I thought cutting it out on black paper would help with the illusion... not so much.

So for $9.00 (plus the five $1 bags of candy corn)... I mean - for $14.00... VOILA, Halloween Inspiration.

Hope you're inspired. Happy Haunting!!

I'm linking up here - go check it out and see all the other fabulous ideas.

This post has been Featured Here...

NEW OFFICE

A few weeks ago, my husband and I came to the sudden conclusion that our two small children needed to share a room so that my husband could have a designated office. Before he acquired this much needed room of his own, he shared the loft with me, which is my crafting space. Just so you know, my husband is almost 6' tall and the loft, which has a vaulted ceiling, is only about 5.5' at it's highest point. Needless to say, he bumped his head A LOT. Hence, the need for his own (with proper ceiling height) work space.

So after moving our baby into our toddler's room (while the toddler was at pre-school... you should have seen the look on his face when he came home that day), we set about re-decorating the space to make it Marc's office... or as Luke calls it, "dada's oddice".

This first picture is of the one and only small little decorative moment that occurs in the room.

The nursery for our baby was originally a sky blue and orange. We kept the orange, but changed the blue to a soft grey called Rhino by Behr. All the furniture we already had combining some of the nursery furniture with a desk and floating shelves we already had from Ikea.

And here it is...

Notice in this next picture my small decorative moment on the dresser and my husband's beer koozie collection on the bottom shelf, that he INSISTED needed to be there.

This cedar armoire is now my closet. It's hard to believe that once upon a time, in a different time and life, my clothes could fill an entire walk-in closet...

So there it is, and it is working out GREAT!! My husband loves it. He can go in there, lock the door and get a lot of important work accomplished.

YUP... I'M "THAT" MOM

As most of you know, last weekend was my oldest son's birthday... he turned 3!! On the Friday before his birthday, they were going to do something a little special for him at school, so of course I offered to bring treats for his classmates.

I was so looking forward to putting something together that I just knew would be a little over the top, because for those of you who know me personally, that's just what I do. I was about to become "That" Mom... you know, the one who overdoes it on simple things and makes the other Moms look bad... now that I have kids... that's totally me. But please know, I don't do it to make other people look bad, I do it because I LOVE doing those sorts of things, and because I LOVE my children!!!

So on Wednesday night, I worked late into the wee hours of the morning creating the "Decorative" side of the treats. Thank You Dad for that Xyron Personal Printer you got me a few months ago. It really came in handy for this project.

Then on Thursday, I did a few trial runs to see if I could pull it all together. The "Smores" Pops were a HUGE hit with my two little testers, so I knew they would go over great the following day with Luke's classmates.

Then, sadly, my poor little Luke developed quite a high fever during the night, so going to school the next day was totally out of the question. No school meant no "Smores" Pops. I know you're thinking that I'm sounding like I was more upset about not making my debut as "That" Mom, than I was over the fact that my little Birthday Boy was sick... so not true.

Luke's next scheduled day of school was this past Wednesday, but unfortunately, he was still not feeling well... still no "Smores" Pops.

Then this morning, the day dawned Bright, Sunny, and Fever Free... YEAH!!!! Luke was feeling better and gets to go back to school, and I get to make the "Smores" Pops.

I'm not sure where exactly I originally got this idea... I do know it was one of three places: 1). Somewhat Simple's Strut your Stuff Thursdays, 2). Tatertos & Jello's Weekend Wrap-up, or 3). Under the Table and Dreaming's Sunday Showcase. These are three blogs I follow regularly who host weekly Link Parties. I always take the time to browse through all the links for inspiration. When I saw the "Smores" Pops a couple of weeks ago, I knew they would be perfect for Luke's Preschool Birthday Celebration.

These are so very simple and so very Yummy. I think from now on, I will always have Marshmallows, chocolate chips and Graham crackers in the pantry, so that whenever my sweet tooth is a callin', I can answer the call quickly with this little treat. These are on a stick, but they can also just be Popped in your mouth... mmmm, "Smores" Poppers anyone??

You need, Large Marshmallows, Chocolate Bark or Chips for melting, Crushed Graham Crackers, and sucker sticks. Melt the chocolate per packaging instructions. Stick Marshmallow on end of sucker stick. Dip Marshmallow in melted chocolate. Roll in Crushed Graham Crackers... VOILA... "Smores" Pops!!!!

My "Over the Top"-ness was with the little Birthday Banners and the Orange candy liner cups. Totally not necessary, but TOTALLY Cute!! Sorry other Moms.

I'm linking up here...

NOT JUST YOUR ORDINARY BIRTHDAY CAKE

Today, my oldest son turned 3. We didn't really have a whole lot planned because he had been sick, but I knew I would definitely be making him a cake... chocolate on chocolate of course. Not sure if that's his favorite, but it's mine.

You might remember this cake stand from earlier posts here and here...

so I wanted to use it for Luke's cake, but it's just a little too girly as is. So I wrapped it in Reynolds Wrap...

definitely not as girly, but pretty boring, so I got out my Cricut machine and cut a Birthday Hat border.

I think that jazzed it up just enough.

Then came the cake... simple chocolate cake with chocolate icing, but I didn't want it to be that simple, so I added M&Ms (Luke's favorite).

I like how the "M"s look like "3"s... well sort of. Come on people, use your imagination.

I think my Now 3yr. old liked it well enough!!!

I'm linking up here: