Heart Garland

Here's another quick project that I did.

I just took some scrapbook paper and glued two sheets together so that I had a pattern on both sides of my heart. (If I had been willing to make a trip to the craft store, I could have bought a single sheet of double sided paper.)

Anyway, I made this using my newly formed double sided paper and it only took one 12 X 12 sheet to make all of those hearts. I just cut the paper into strips about an inch wide. I didn't do any kind of exact measuring.

Then I folded the strips in half to make the point on the heart.

After that I just folded them in towards the center and glued the two sides together in the middle to make the heart shape. 

Once they had all dried I hot glued them together and just used my string to hang them on either side and across the middle. Here's a close-up:

I like the way it turned out, but I think there needs to be more stuff up there to keep them company.  Don't you?

Quick Crafting

I just love things that come together quickly and are easy to make. Don't you? It's like instant gratification and that's often hard to find in the crafting world. At least in my crafting world anyway. lol


Anyway, I made this over the weekend.

 Okay, it wasn't over the WHOLE weekend.

It was over about 5 minutes of the weekend.

And most of that time was spent trying to find where I put the scrabble letters. LOL

But I think my little cross stitch bunny is happy with it. :0)

Family Tree

....well sort of a family tree.


I made this awhile back for my brother and sister-in-law. They celebrated their 25th anniversary in October. I wanted to give them something personal, but didn't want it to have the '25th Anniversary' on it because I knew they would get plenty of that.

So here's what I came up with.

I stitched their daughters' names on the leaves.

 I left it in the hoop to hang as is, but I put fabric on the back to cover my stitching.

I hope they like it. (I forgot to take it with us when we went to their party. They were also at our house to celebrate Christmas and I forgot to give it to them then too. Think I need to put it in the mail? lol)


I'm hoping to get a family tree made for myself too. Although, I have something different in mind for mine.

T-Shirts

I recently completed an order for three t-shirts with the names on them.

One of them was for a little girl which is what I usually do so no big deal. I could use the loopy cursive letters which flow easily from one to the next.

But the other two were for little boys. So this time I decided to use letters that were more blocked and hopefully a little more masculine looking.

I also opted for fabric with bugs on it (even if they are happy, colorful, little bugs.)

Here's a closer look....

I thought it turned out pretty cute. I hope they like them too.

School Projects

The last several evening have been consumed with projects for the kids' Texas History classes.

They had a list of people that they could make some type of project that related to that person or a landmark.

Here's what they came up with. I'll add here that we've been through a WHOLE lot of clay at our house in the last week.

Wyatt made the Alamo.

 It was made with clay that was rolled out to about 1/4" thickness. A dishcloth was used to get the texture. He used a toothpick to make lines for the different bricks (he forgot to on this front piece because he was too worried about the windows.) The clay curved a bit on the front piece and when he was dry brushing the color on (try explaining dry brushing to a 13 year old boy.....OY!) the bottom broke. I cut out a piece of cardboard and glued the front piece onto it. Thankfully he said it held long enough for him to turn his project in. lol

Kirsten did a sculpture of the Angel of Goliad.

 I baked the clay for about an hour - even though it's air dry clay - but it was getting late and she needed to paint it. It will probably take at least a week for it to really be dry. lol When she was painting it she remembered that she had wanted to make wings and a halo. Crap!! So I looked around and remembered we had a bag of feathers and were able to find two white ones that were close in size. I pulled the halo off of one of my Christmas decorations. lol

Addison made Davey Crockett's fiddle (at least I think that's who's it is.) She cut it out of styrofoam. Boy does that make a mess!! Anyway, the top and sides are just wood grain scrapbook paper. And she used thumb tacks to hold the strings in place.

Abigail used a piece of the paper that I had tea stained for an earlier project they did. She made the quill pen and ink jar out of clay. I forgot who's items these were. She actually looked up letters that her person had written and wrote the first sentence or two on the paper.

Overall I think they did a pretty good job. They said that theirs looked better than most of the projects that they had seen at that point. Wyatt was very upset with his Alamo because of where it broke until he got to school and saw some of the others. He said that his was way better than what he saw already turned in. I hope they get good grades because they really did work hard on them.

Maybe now I can get back to things that I actually think are fun. lol

Holiday Baking......

Every year I make a ton of cookies that get delivered to some of our regular clients that we work with monthly throughout the year.


This year was now exception.


The kids look forward to it each year because they get to sample the trial runs on all of the recipes that I pick out and then narrow down.


This year I made a wide variety (as usual) but these are the only ones I took a picture of:

They are Rolo Turtles and the recipe can be found on this blog.

I also made:

 Girl Scout Samoa Bar Cookies

Sugar Cookies that stay soft and are frosted

Grandma's Old Fashioned Tea Cakes

Gooey Butter Cookies (I can't for the life of me find the blog I followed the recipe from.

There were Cherry Bombs which is a recipe that came from 'The Sugar  Cookie Murders' book (I think.) Have you read any of those books? They are murder mysteries but the lady that helps figure them out owns a cookie shop so there is much mention of food and recipes scattered throughout. It's a kick!

And last but not least, I took a tube of sugar cookie dough and rolled it out between two sheets of wax paper, and did the same with a tube of gingerbread cookie dough. Then I laid one on top to the other (without the was paper, duh) and rolled that into a tube -- rolling from the long side towards the opposite long side (hope that makes sense.) Then you slice them and bake and have pinwheel-like cookies.

They were all pretty good and much appreciated by the clients.

For us at home I also made these Crack-tastic Crackers. If you haven't made them, go do it now!! They are delicious and more than a little addicting. Everyone that tasted them like them and kept going back for more. I think I may make some more tonight since there won't be as many people at my house......then I won't have to share as many. LOL

The nails have it.....

Last summer while the kids were staying with my parents, their Grandma took them for pedicures.


They haven't been the same since!! lol


They were able to get their toes done with a cute design and now they thing that's the only way to go. They are always trying to do their fingers too.


During Christmas break from school, Abigail did sock monkey Santas on her thumbs.

I thought they turned out pretty cute. Currently she has pink nails with black paw prints and Kirsten is sporting little penguins on her nails.


I've been really impressed with the work they've done. I can't manage to do a decent job just painting my nails much less trying to make a pattern. lol

Welcome 2012

It's a new year, and with that comes a flood of new ideas and new commitments that many of us make to ourselves. Since I'm usually terrible at keeping new year's resolutions, I've really enjoyed the trend of just picking a word that describes where you would like to focus your attention for the year. Last year I chose 'thrift' as that word (as it applied to my crafting mostly.) I think I did pretty well with using things that I already had on hand instead of always buying a whole bunch of new stuff every time I wanted to try something.

For my goal in other personal interests and activities last year, I chose

I've decided to stick with that word again, but this time across the board. I found that it really does release me from a lot of the stress that past resolutions have caused. I mean, think about it....how hard is it really to do at least one thing better during the year? I don't narrow it down any more than that because the possibilities on ways to improve are endless, I tell ya.

Last year, I did better about keeping the house cleaner (although at the moment it looks like a bomb went off, but that will get back in shape now that the kids are back in school.) Dax & I worked out last year and completed the whole Insanity program, I lost the 10 pounds I had hoped to, I got into the habit of flossing my teeth daily (no more fibbing to the dentist that I was really consistent about it) I made more and more foods at home instead of buying them pre-made, and I did some de-cluttering (and have miles and miles to go my friend.)

Just look at all the things that I did 'better' at last year!! How in the world could I end the year disappointed with myself about my resolutions? My hopes are that this year the continued improvements and building on the things that I did last year will show a noticeable difference.

How about you? What did you decide?