Altered Candy Box Dots Gift

I am so excited for tomorrow night! I get to go to dinner with my long time friends who I don't get to see nearly enough! We are just going to Panera, but with my friends, it might as well be Disneyland. :) I love those ladies!!
Anyway, we get together to celebrate the birthdays that happen during each month and so, there are 4 friends we are celebrating tomorrow. I don't have a lot of money to spare right now (especially since we pay for our own dinner,) but I still like to do some kind of something crafty, just because I love to do those sorts of things. I will share with you what I came up with.
Super easy... I bought 4 boxes of candy from Dollar Tree. Then I sat down with my Silhouette machine and went to town. I printed an "L" and a greeting, which I cut into strips and dovetailed the ends to make them look oh-so-chic, and cut out white circles to act as a background for the "L"s


... and yeah... That's about it! I just used my tape runner to attach them to the boxes and that was it. Super easy and hopefully they will think I am super thoughtful too. They will, right?? They know I don't have a ton of money. Just keeping it real. ;-) Happy Birthday friends!! Love you!!

"Be You Bravely" MOPS/MOMSnext Nametags

This Thursday is our first meeting for my new job as co-coordinator for our moms group. We met recently and got things settled for the upcoming year. One of the tasks that was needed was for someone to come up with a nametag for our MOPS/MOMSnext leadership ladies. I love doing these sorts of things so I gladly accepted the challenge.
Here is what I came up with. I used the Silhouette studio software that comes with the machine and made my own file. I purchased the feather from the online silhouette store and added each ladies name in separately before printing and cutting. I then added cute little feathers on each of the tags to represent how many kiddos each mom has. I bought some paracord and will be punching holes in the top and hanging them from the cording. Simple, cute, and effective. If you ask me nicely, I may share the file. ;-) Have a great week!

Stuffed Burlap and Fabric Pumpkin Trio

These are some super simple pumpkins I made for an upcoming vendor fair that I am participating in. I am so excited! I haven't done anything like this in such a long time! 

It is nice to show what I have done with my time over the last month or so. Makes me feel like I am not such a lazy butt. Sort of. I have about 27 loads of laundry piled on my couch waiting for me to fold them, and I haven't cleaned my stovetop properly since the end of June. Yeah. It's been like that. SO... I am excited for this weekend so that I can put down my stuff and breathe a little. Being crafty is hard work! ;-) 

So here is the first of several posts I will be making showcasing what I have been up to. They will serve a dual purpose. I need to have a place for people to see what is available so that I can accept special orders, and I need to keep up this blog since I committed to doing it. I don't want to let myself down! Hope you will enjoy the upcoming posts. 

Special thanks goes out to my hubby for taking all the fabulous photos in his newly established photo studio in the garage. His talents are endless... ANYWAY... Thanks for stopping by!

He is Risen Sign

I have been happily making a bunch of these He is risen signs for the last few weeks. They are so quick and easy to do! In fact, I recently shared this craft with a group of about 20 women, all part of my MOPS/MomsNext group. We got together on a Thursday evening and we all went home with a version of the cross sign. It was a total success! Even the ladies that aren't that crafty had an easy time doing this one.

I purchased the crosses at Hobby Lobby and cut the boards myself. The words were cut on my Silhouette machine and then we decoupaged the paper onto the wood pieces. Then we embellished.

I have posted a couple of my favorite examples. Really, the sky is the limit! Just find coordinating paper and a few supplies and you are ready for for action.

MOPS Leadership Nametags

With the beginning of each school year, a new year for MOPS and MomsNext begins. For those of you not familiar with these organizations, they are groups for moms of all ages- MOPS for those who are pregnant through preschool age and MomsNext is for moms of school age kids. They are great if you are in desperate need of friends or support or just an outlet for relaxation. I have benefitted so much from joining the group and am on the leadership team. I do creative activities with a couple other ladies. We are having so much fun planning for the new year! The next theme is "A Beautiful Mess" and the Bible verse that accompanies it is Ephesians 4:10- "For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago." I am so excited!! 
Anyway, we recently had our leadership planning retreat and it was decided that we needed to stand out a little, in the sea of moms. We wanted them to know that we were available if they had a question or if we could help them in any way. Thing is, we only had generic looking plastic covered boring nametags. Those wouldn't do for me. Nope. So... I volunteered to come up with a design and to create a tag for each member of the steering committee. 23 in total. This project was so fun! I just went to Hobby Lobby, invaded their ribbon section and started my collage. I ended up using my Silhouette to cut the vinyl names and my labeler to create the position titles. I had blank bottle caps and found the jewels that I put in the center in the scrapbook section. I bought the paper, feathers, and burlap flowers there too. The chevron washi tape was something that I got online somewhere. I honestly couldn't tell you where. Maybe Pick Your Plum?? Not sure. But that stuff is everywhere these days. I cut out the oval shapes with my Big Shot machine. Then I glued all the pieces together with my hot glue gun and decoupaged the whole surface with Mod Podge. Simple as that! Not a hard craft, but definitely time consuming. It took me "some" hours to finish them all. But I think they are totally worth it. I am sure we will be easy to identify with our beautifully messy tags.

Patriotic Banner

Here is another project I made to coordinate with the other patriotic decorations I made for a friend. Pretty straightforward craft. I just cut the banner "triangles," made some embellishments, punched holes in the corners and assembled. 

I found the papers at Hobby Lobby, in case you wanted to give it a shot. The project is hanging on navy blue organdy ribbon. That's it!