Happy 2010

Since some of you know I don't set foot in the kitchen (thanks to my wonderful husband) you'll have to imagine this is what my "work room" looks like. Especially with all of the awesome orders that came my way this holiday season. Those of you who know me really well, realize this is actually how I work except the apron is covered with paint and scissors are usually hanging out of the pockets. David, ever the skeptic, usually stands behind me just dying to jump in and organize my creative mess.

I look forward to 2010 (however you want to say it, two-thousand-ten or twenty-ten) with a new creative eye to the future and all the crafty fun just waiting to be created and shared with my two wonderful sisters.

new bling

I'm obsessed with these flowers! I want to wear them on everything! Headbands, clips, coats, rings, scarves, hats, jackets, bracelets, purses, shoes..... well you get the idea- I am crazy for these hot items of flair! Here is my latest Christmas project, necklace flowers. My honorary sista Brittany makes the most amazing flowers you've ever seen. Check out her site here. I adhere the flower to the necklace using hotglue and felt or add an alligator clip so it's adjustable! These flowers are so amazing they make sweat pants turn couture!

Get your scarf on!

I'm loving screen printing! Well, my version of screen printing anyway. I have my sis Renee print a vinyl image and reverse weed it so it becomes my stencil. Then I use Tulip brand fabric paint and brush it on with a foam brush. Let it dry a few hours and apply another coat. When I peel off the vinyl I'm amazed at how there is little to no bleeding of the paint. My favorite thing and gift to make are these jersey scarves. I buy tons of jersey fabric, around 2 & 1/2 yards and can make approx. 4 scarves from it. Around 15'' wide, 90'' or so long, depending on your preference. So are you ready to get your scarf on?

Cider with Flair

Last minute gifts always stress me out and this year I’ve really tried to do my part to reduce, re-use, and recycle. This year, we finally have a fantastic bus driver, and I really wanted to show my appreciation. Luckily I remember seeing this blog with felted sweaters used for decorating and since I’d just felted some sweaters and already had sparkling cider chilling in the fridge I knew it would make the perfect last minute gift. Within 3 minutes it was ready to go and I even had time to snap a picture before meeting the little boys at the bus stop. I think I’ll call this “Cider with Flair.”

Updated Chandelier

Lest my two little sisters have all the flair fun I decided to get in on the crafty action. One, because I have a couple of days off over Thanksgiving break and two, because David’s out of town and we all know it’s easier to ask forgiveness than permission.

When we bought our house we found this plain old chandelier up in the attic. It wasn’t our favorite chandelier but we really wanted to replace the builder grade light fixture in our main dining room and the price was certainly right….free. ­Lately the boring color has really bothered me and after repainting the kitchen on a whim to my favorite color gray I decided the room needed a little flair. With a little help from my 15 year old son we successfully took the light down without getting electrocuted. 15 minutes and one $4 can of spray paint later it went from boring to beautiful!

I can’t wait to see the look on my husbands face we gets home Monday night to see the changes.

Orange you glad it's Thanksgiving!

I've been DYING to paint my dining room ceiling orange and with 20 guests coming for the big thanks day- we finally got it done! OK- lied about the WE. Just my hubs painted it, which makes me love it more, because I didn't have to do it! Its kind of like the food tastes better when you don't make it. Same goes for painting. I LOVE it!(make sure you sing word LOVE when its in caps, dontcha know) Wish I could get a better overall pic of the room, but this will give you the general idea. Its amazing! I also made my fake canvas' as well. Too cheap to have my pics made into canvas' so I blow up a pic at COSTCO (sing that word as well) and mount it onto canvas using Provo Crafts super tacky tape. That stuff is practically my best friend. oila! A cheap canvas for 8 bucks. $2.99 for the 12x12 pic and $5 for the canvas. Gotta love that!

Happy Birthday NAY NAY!

When I think of sisters with flair, this jacket on my sister is what I visualize. It's taking the boring daily chores of life and doing them wearing a funky apron, a fabric flower broach, a funky ring and maybe some high heel zebra shoes. Well, maybe without the ring, you don't want to be a flair whore! This is my sister Renee, she makes AMAZING things and then humbly DOESN'T show them off. She usually wears understated clothes so she doesn't draw too much attention to herself. (hmmmm, does this sound like a complete opposite of someone else?) She just oozes talent! She's an amazing photographer, seamstress, quilter, vinyl board maker, college student, mother of 4 and entrepreneur! So when she told me she found this funky red leather jacket at a resale shop I was SHOCKED when she bought it! Understated Renee? Not anymore- this is FABULOUS Renee! Happy 28th birthday (again) Renee!

This is the final countdown!

Here is my advent calendar that I have been working on for the last couple weeks! I am so excited it's almost finished that I just had to post now! One drawback to living in a small town is that I can't find these little boxes in large quantities:) Hopefully next time I go to the big city I'll be able to find some. My friend had given me these magnet board for my birthday last year, so this was so easy. Just painted the sides, mod podged on the paper, glued magnets on the back, and put vinyl numbers on top! Love it!!! And when we have more kids, there'll be plenty of room for extra candy!

All the leaves are brown...

I was inspired by a pillow that I found online, sorry, can't remember where. I cut these leaves out about a month ago and I decided to make a wall decoration instead of a pillow. I'm not sure my husband's ready for a pink pillow in the living room. But my craft room is looking rather boring. So here it is. I just used iron-on webbing for the appliques and sewed on a border. Then I stapled it to a canvas board that I didn't like anymore- voila! Not perfect, but it was a fun little project!

Party like its your Birthday!

K is ONE! I just had to do something for his birthday. I mean, its amazing these little babies survive their adoring older siblings hugs and kisses and walking around holding them like they do their dolls! We've avoided choking on barbie shoes and falling down stairs (well only a few stairs). And I can't forget electricution, this baby is obsessed with outlets and plugs! I can't quite decide what to get him for his birthday, a garbage can filled with empty waterbottles and pop cans, a toilet with fresh water or outlets. He just loves them all, what should I do? So here's to my baby, not just turning one, but avoiding 911 and the ER for one whole year! "Mother of the year award? Oh, you're too kind!"

Party supplies brought to you by my sista's with flair. Cupcake toppers by Renee. Clothespins with vinyl for each month & Bib provided by mandycakes.

Surprise Party

M is 8!! I had so much fun throwing her a surprise American Girl Formal Dinner Party. We all dressed up in our fanciest clothes and everyone brought their favorite doll. I made pretend food for the dolls out of colored foam squares and made M's favorite dinner (China Food) as she refers to it. We had orange chicken and rice, with some side dishes and sparkling cider with goblets. We had a fashion show with the dolls and they got to walk the runway, then off to a photo shoot with their dolls. Then we made a craft, I had already made flower clips out of organza for the girls and their dolls so we made a tile with ribbon to hang their clips from. The party was a success because at the end of the night I heard M tell her little sister that "it was the best day of my whole entire life!" The best part about it was that for the first time EVER I had as much fun at the party as the girls did! 8 year old parties are WAY more fun than 5 year old parties!

Tie up my heart

So I just LOVE to dress up my little guy for church on Sunday, but the typical "church" clothes for boys is just so bor-ing! I just found the perfect solution to his lack-luster outfits- homemade ties! Hopefully he likes it a little better come Sunday morning than he did when I tried it on him yesterday. It took me just about an hour to make and I have several more fabrics ready to go for his next ties! You can add flair to a little boy's outfit without a husband's complaint! Hope you enjoy!

I'm here!

Alright, so I can't let Andrea show the rest of us up, I'm crafty too! So, our laundry room has always bugged me- when we moved in it was that over-done Martha Stewart sage green. So, as our last room in this house to paint, I decided I would follow my heart and paint it jade blue. It's a great color- in small doses. So, back to the paint store and I quickly chose a light turquoise- I love turquoise, how could I go wrong? Somehow, I did go wrong. Back for another gallon of paint, which turned out looking like some very strange skin color. Hmm, what to do, what to do? I grabbed the neutral "Sphinx" brown that is in our living room and halls- perfect! I knew I loved that color... and it only took 10 hours of painting to get to it! Ha! I had already picked out this fabric before I even started painting and I love it! These curtains just make me so happy every time I walk by them. I love making curtains this way- using those little handy clips is the way to go! I think all the curtains in my house are held up with those clips!

Here's the window!

I guess I have a little more painting to do behind the washer in dryer, my hand is still sore from painting! More pics of the laundry room to come!

Applique- It's the new Bling

You know how most people veg all night after trick-or-treating? Maybe pop some popcorn and watch a movie, then fall asleep. Well, who can sleep with all this sugar and chocolate?!!! I can't stop dreaming of shirts to bedazzle with fabric, my little fingers can't cut fast enough! My little baby is having his first b-day party and I just had to make shirts for his little girl-friend and his buddy. I embroidered shirts for all the guests at the girls first b-days and just had to do something for my 3rd. (Because he TOTALLY cares. yeah, right.) Thank you mom for teaching me to applique! I'm pretty awful at the sewing part, but that's what LOUD fabric is for, right? I better go and finish the lime colored playdough! I'm feeling a sugar low coming on, gonna have to dig into the bowl for another snickers. The top of the fridge is not high enough to keep me away from you- my sugary goodness! I think I'm about to have myself another delicious moment.

A very Griswald Halloween

This is our 4th Halloween in good ol Texas and in never stops to amaze me the fortune people spend on this (holiday). I use the word holiday loosly. We have trunk or treats, costume parades, Booing neighbors, picking out pumpkins, carving pumpkins, making treats for all you neighbors, spending $50 on candy to give away, and then there's the lawn decor. You have never seen so many lawn ornaments in all your life! The pretend cemetaries, skulls hanging from tree branches, witches stuck in the ground, orange flashing lights hung from the roof, and don't even get me started on the blowup headless horsemen! It's unbelievable! I'm all for celebrating eating chocolate, but really people- do I have to see grown men in tights and wigs? Its just disturbing! I can't let my children be the ONLY kids in school show up without a Halloween shirt, so this was my last minute improvise. I took these shirts and spookedified them. (real word I'm sure) I cut up an old orange t-shirt and used dmc floss to stitch it onto the t-shirt. And what girl can go to school without a matching hair clip. Mine sure can't! (They also can't come home with them either! Morgan lost hers in first 20 minutes of school and had to borrow Taylor's for the picture) So here is my version of a cheap halloween shirt. It cost $4.50 at walmart and only 90min of time each. You better love them girls!

Seriously, it's been a year?

My baby is ONE! I decided on his birthday to do a little photoshoot. Because, let's be honest, what kind of mother would I be if I didn't wake my kid up from a peaceful nap, wrestle him to wear clothes, then make him look like he always sits in a field with cute props? Motherhood is all about documenting your child's smile and showing them these pictures when they are punk teenagers to basically prove to them "see dangit, you were happy, and I did crap for you!" Happy BIRTHDAY K!