money cuff

I was trying very hard to come up with a birthday idea for my niece who was turning 13 years old this month. The best thing I could come up with?

Money. Cold hard cash.

What 13 year old does not want money?

But money seems so impersonal, so I wanted something more. Then I remembered a tutorial for a money cuff and I knew that was it! This way she can take her lunch money with her to school, or like I used to do, take a lunch and buy ice cream after school at our favorite ice cream parlour!

I did not follow the tutorial because, well, it looked too darn complicated, so I made it up on my own. Much easier (for me at least)! If you want to see that tutorial and have more patience than I do to follow directions (not to say these are not great directions, they are! I think the zipper just threw me. Anything to avoid a zipper!) you can go to Lemon Squeezy Home and check it out! It is a wonderful blog! (I especially liked the idea of using glue stick to hold the zipper in place! Genius! If I ever attempt a zipper I hope to remember that cool tip.)

I made it from the same geometric fabric I made print I made the sandwich and snack wraps from. I used velcro for the whole thing-sides and opening-and I turned the opening toward the arm-not facing outward.  Just looked cleaner to me and that way I could decorate it with a little fish. I've gotten a lot of mileage out of an old fish anklet that broke years ago. I think I am down to 2 now! I chose the fish because my awesome niece is a strong Christian and I wanted to represent that. I am very proud of her!

 Please try to ignore my terrible nails..that's what you get when you create a lot and do not take care of your hands!  

This is the best photo I have of our niece with her money cuff. Oops there is no money cuff in that shot..just money...and the little card and tp roll holder I made to wrap it.

Thanks to a little photographer who took this photo! Great job! You got in really close up!

I forgot to take photos of the card and the "cuff holder," but basically, I cut a tp roll down a little, wrapped it in happy birthday scrapbook paper and glued ribbon on the sides. Then the little cuff could slide right over it--pretending to be a wrist.

Hope you like it Jaz!

spider web halloween wreath

Well it's that time of year again--the kick off to the best time of the year when the temperature finally gives us a reprieve, we get to wear sweaters and jeans and boots, we get to decorate for several wonderful holidays, we get to turn on the oven regularly again and bake, we get to snuggle into down comforters...i could go on and on.

This kick off of course is Halloween. Although it is rarely cold here in California on Halloween, at least we get a taste of what's to come and there is the scent of autumn in the air...aaaahhhhhhhhhh!

I had a dinky little wreath I made years ago on my tall front door but did not know what to replace it with. Enter Crafts & Sutch's spider wreath. Brilliant! The best part? It cost only about $7. It's a little more than Erin made hers for, but my dollar store only had 2 little bags of moss left so I had to go to Michael's and cough up $3 for a large bag (still not too bad. I actually have one of the small dollar store bags left over, so technically it cost $6, but now I have to do something with another bag of moss :)

Here is the end result, although I am still debating if I should add a big black satin bow to the top and have the end dangle behind the wreath and sign...

Here you can see our embarrassing door that we still have not painted from when we got a new lock set almost 2 years ago...super embarrassing!

And here it is with our "other" son thinking about making a get away!

I followed all of Erin's directions except I did not have black glitter, but I did have silver spray glitter, so I used that on the black spiders (and also some flies). I used regular silver glitter on the green spiders to soften the neon-ness of them. I also used some wood I had on hand which was not large enough for "Happy Halloween" so I used two and painted little bats (or birds, I guess) on them.  I used stickers for the letters and Mod Podged over the whole thing. I sprayed more glitter on the wreath, but it did not show up in the pics.

A much better fit for our large door.

I wish it was still light outside so I could take a picture with my "retro camera" app on my phone. That would look totally awesome! Maybe tomorrow I will remember to do that.

I worked on a few other lovely projects this weekend getting ready for our son's 2nd birthday next month! Really excited about them!!! Can't wait to show you!

This was the messiest project of the weekend--so it outside!



tonic living

Alright, I have to tell you that I just found the BEST most AWESOME fabric store on the web (and if you know different, please let me know)! I can spend hours looking at fabrics online but don't buy anything. In fact I have never purchased any fabric online because I can't feel it--I need to feel it--literally and figuratively.

In comes Tonic Living!!!! Again, simply awesome fabric

AND

You can buy swatches of many of the fabrics for one buckaroo! Yup, 1 dollar! I just bought 8 swatches ($10 total with shipping). I have no idea the size of the swatch, but let me tell you- I am super excited. Can you tell?

Here are a few that I will receive soon:

Plus 4 others....Who knows what I will do with them or if I want to buy yardage to make a project? I just could not resist getting the swatches to become inspired.

Have I convinced you to check them out yet?

Tonic Living

I'm kicking myself that I already placed my order because I am finding more that I want swatches of now. Dang!

servant of God banner

At church we'rein the middle of "The Year of Servanthood" --helping us to become better servants in our community, church and the world. I need a reminder for myself, while at work especially, that I am a servant to those I work with, so I made myself a banner. A pretty big reminder,to hang over my desk.

I used an old package (we're talking $.35 old) of iron-on bias tape, which I had never used before, as the hanging mechanism. It worked okay, but it needed some glue gun supplementation in a few spots.

Let's hope this banner will remind me daily to be a servant of God at work, at home and in the world.

Do you think I need to find another backdrop? Yeah, me too.

easy frame project

This is probably the easiest, simplest, fastest project I've ever done.

I wanted to turn this old $3 frame from the thrift store into another mirror for my mirror wall. So I spray painted it flat black and then went to Lowe's to get it outfitted with a mirror. The cheapest / smallest mirror that you can get cut is over $10, so I said "No thank you" and went home. I decided that I could make something else with it. I cleaned off the glass and was going to make a "white" board to write messages on, but I decided against that since I didn't want a white board pen hanging next to it.

So I decided to break out the scrap book paper and found some fall-ish designs: black and white leaves clouds. I added brown ribbon between the papers, free handed the letters

l-o-v-e and cut them out of the leaf designed paper and I stuck the glass back in.  Less than 20 minutes, not counting the spray painting of the frame, and Voila-Done!. Easy-peasy. I can even change it out according to the season and holidays...if I remember :)

Man, our house looks really traditional from this angle. One day I'll fix that!

shirt for our pastor

This is from a few months ago, but I never got around to posting it. Our son was dedicated to God in church and his shirt matched his name and our pastor commented on it and said he needed a shirt with a big lance going across it--can you guess his name?

Yup, Lance.

Our whole family was there at the dedication and afterwards at our house Papa said I should make Lance a lance shirt.

So I did. I made two.

One freezer paper stenciled.

The other was appliqued with his name freezer paper stenciled on as well.

With the note I sent to Pastor Lance, I suggested he use them as pj shirts since I'm not sure he'd want to be seen in public with them on :)

burnt edge flowers

These may be my favorite flowers to make yet!  The very talented Emily of Jones Design Company made these as corsages for her adorable family. (She must be extra talented to get her boys and hubby to wear matching flowers!) I fell in love and got right on to making a bunch...and I have a feeling they will show up in many more creations!

I started with a corsage which I turned into a headband. I did not take a photo, but I used regular pin backs and slid the closed pin over an existing plastic headband so that I can choose the color of headband I want to use, but still have the pin to use as a corsage. You can barely see the headband in the photo below, but I promise it's there!

Then I made one for a hat for a sweet baby girl.

And a more permanent headband. I first sewed it onto the headband.

Then hot glued a piece of felt over the sewn part to make it comfy on the head,

 and tada!

Fun! Make sure to check out Emily's tutorial and make your own! I'd love to see what you do with your burnt edge flowers!

squirrel mobile

Okay hold on to your hats people...I'm breaking out of the feathered friends habit (here, here, here, and here) and into the mammals!

I only got one good photo of Mr. Squirrel before he was off to the craft fair. And before he left I decided he needed googly eyes instead of embroidered ones...I think it was the right choice. :) Too bad I forgot to take a picture.

I used the same "ring method" to hang it as I did on the love birds. It's workin' for me.