valentines for our preschooler

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Mer Mag came up with this awesome Valentine last year and I've been thinking about it ever since and am excited to be able to have our 3 year old pass them out at preschool this year. I started making them in stages a few weeks ago since I have much more limited time now with an 3 yo and a newborn. I still need to sew on the heart eye patches and candy (need to buy the candy first though!)

I'm keeping all the pieces in this jar because a certain 3 yo likes to play with them!

photos taken my my phone, hence the poor(er than usual) quality

heart garland

Heart garland for Valentine's Day

This is a gift for a friend of mine who's birthday is in January.

 It is made from pre-strung pearl beads with felt hearts hot glued on each side of the beaded string. Simple and fun to make and it makes quite a colorful statement. I added a loop on each end for ease of hanging (which you can see below).

And YES, our baby is here! He was born last week and is such a wonderful addition to our family! Love him!!!

Re-do of fox wreath for Valentine's Day



One last post before I head off to meet our son for the first time. I'm having a c-section early tomorrow morning. I had to get this Valentine's Day wreath done before the big day though since who knows what life will have in store for me once I have 2 little boys to care for. eeks!

 I made a little heart pillow for Mr. Fox to hold as well. It fit just perfectly in his little paws so I did not have to pin or glue it on so that for the next holiday (St. Patty's Day?) the wreath can transform once again.

I had to take the photo with the door open at night because when I went to turn on our porch light I discovered it was burned out and of course when I had time to finish it and take a photo of it, it was dark. Of course.

Anyhow, I ran around today doing errands because I knew I would not be up to leaving the house for a while and when I got home I plunked down for a few minutes and redid my fox Thanksgiving turned Christmas, now turned Valentine's Day wreath. I first saw it one pinterest which led me to this site, which did not have a source linked to it.

What clever person made this (below)?

I want to know.

little love birds on a wire

This is a Christmas gift I made for my brother and sister in law commemorating their anniversary. I made it from cutting out little pieces of paper in the shapes of birds and their winter wear and a piece of embroidery floss for the telephone wire.

I hope they liked it. It was find to make.

Merry CHRISTmas!

This is a letter our 3 year old son "wrote" to Santa at preschool. (Note about the green bananas: We bought a few days before and apparently they were taking too long to turn yellow so he could eat them.)

Play nativity from last year.

Our pup.

Wishing you and your family a

VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Our Savior is born!

little felt reindeer

I first saw this little reindeer on the Martha Stewart Crafts Department blog and thought it was so cute. When I went to Cynthia Treen's esty shop and saw she was selling the pattern for $2.00 I quickly placed my order. (It is now $5)

I must admit, this was not the easiest project I have done, but it is worth it, as this little guy will be given shelter in a very special person's home (who will not be named here in case she sees it!).

I had to start over after I had cut out all the felt pieces and started stitching them together because I did not realize I needed to cut out tan legs as well as the white legs (if you look at the pattern you'll see what I mean). This was my fault, as it is obvious you need two sides of each of the 4 legs! I was out of tan felt so when I went to Michael's on my lunch break they only had patterned tan felt. I realized though that it may make the reindeer have even more personality, so I went with it. Glad I did! I like the way he turned out.

I substituted some colors and used ric-rac instead of pinked edges of felt because I had it and it looked cleaner. I like the little tassels on the saddles. I would have never thought to add those!

My son says he needs eyes, but I decided to stick with the pattern and not add them. Still not confident in that decision, but I need to get it wrapped!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Christmas fox wreath -redone

I recycled our Thanksgiving wreath into a Christmas wreath.

 It just took just a few simple steps: Add snow flake ornaments (from the Dollar store last year 50% off), burnt edge flowers, and of course a blue bow. Of and I can't forget, a little burlap Santa hat for the little fox (which is the only permanent fixture besides the burlap around the wreath).

Simple and perfect for this year!

book page tree topper

This is our tree topper this year. We have never had luck with store bought tree toppers. They never seem to have a good way of perching on top. When I saw this at BHG, I thought I'd give it a try and tore up my old Webster's Dictionary.

 I hot glued an antique broach to the middle of a cardboard piece of paper that I covered with a book page and fine glitter. Then I hot glued silver stars to the rim of the circle.

I added some random bits of Elmer's glue on some of the pages and sprinkled more glitter on them.

I made sure that the definitions were appropriate to some extent. (for instance I decided "vomit" was not a cool word for a Christmas decoration).

I added some twisty ties to the back and my husband wrapped it around the top branch.

Our dog got in on the photo action. He gets left out of a lot of my photos now that there's a kid around!  Do you think he misses being my main photography subject?

cowboy party ~ tent

Yes, I know, I've been very tardy getting the cowboy party -from October- up on the ol' blog. Here is the the tent I made for our 3 year old from CAKIES tutorial. So far he is loving it and I think he will continue to love it as it gets older. He can retreat in there to read and hide from his little brother once he comes along to terrorize him!

I stenciled the moon and stars on the sheet probably 10 plus years ago when I was single and thought it would be cool to make a duvet cover out of it---yeah not so much. Good thing I saved it thought because this was a much more fitting application.

The tent was pretty easy to make...once my husband came out to the garage and saw me struggling with the drill which I am usually adept with...I had it on reverse! Once again pregnancy brain! Ugh!

thanksgiving fox door wreath

 I can't have a holiday pass me by without a wreath or some kind of door decor. I've been using a puny little Thanksgiving wreath for many years now that looks ridiculous on our larger door and figured it was time for a good sized wreath to celebrate fall and Thanksgiving.

I had burlap left over from our son's cowboy party (which I still need to post more about), so I cut some of it into strips and wrapped it around a straw wreath. Warning: straw wreaths are messy to work with! I thought I would embellish it a little more with burlap, (like this) but I liked how it looked plain. Then when a friend and I were at Michael's the other day, she showed me this adorable fox ornament and I knew that had to be a part of my wreath. 

I added a burnt edge flower in bright orange.

And added some more flowers made out of this brown fabric (which does not fray much) and some rhinestone buttons I've had for many years.

With a wide satin ribbon to finish it off, I was ready to hang it on the front door. Now I see I should have ironed the ribbon first, but oh well! It's more natural, right?

I stuck everything on with T-pins except for the fox, which I hot glued on so that I can change it into a Christmas wreath when December rolls around. I love being able to re-use stuff!