framed verse!

i'm sure lots of people have seen this image on pinterest of a standard thermostat box surrounded by a pretty white frame. since we rearranged our semi-playroom furniture, our thermostat has kind of been unintentionally emphasized, & i thought it would be really fun to do something similar.

i had already printed out a fun bible verse printable with it in mind for a playroom, & was just trying to settle on a fun place to hang it. i painted an very cheap, very old frame bright yellow & added a little ribbon & got this:
[grr. clearly some tiny fingers have gotten a hold of my camera lens.]

i love it! since we are renters right now, it's a fun way to hang more art & color without yet another hole in the wall & the whole thing is easy-peasy to switch out or take down if we tire of it later. for now, i'm loving the extra playful kiddo colors & having a little more of God's word permeating our home!
framed anything fun recently?

january crafts.

if you're like me, all you can think about when it comes to january/winter/post-christmas crafting is snowflakes. blue snowflakes, to be exact! & maybe some snowmen for good measure. when my good friend ebeth asked me to make some hairbows for her girls, i of course suggested snowflakes & snowmen. they were super easy & turned out adorable!

first, gather some supplies. polka dot ribbon, white buttons in 2 sizes, & some clearance mini ornament glitter snowflakes, all easy found at the local walmart. [& the mini ornaments were 50% off after christmas! yay!]
i made the bow using this tutorial with about a yard of ribbon per bow. it's real easy, but i find that each bow turns out just a little different each time.
assemble your button snowman. i used half of a mini craft stick [popsicle stick] as a base & then covered it in back with a little scrap of the ribbon:
& cut a little strip of felt for his scarf. cut a tiny fringe on each end to make it more scarf-y & secure with hot glue.
eee! so cute!

attach the assembled snowman to the front with hot glue & a bow clippie [also from walmart] to the back.
the snowflake is even easier... make bow. glue snowflake to front. glue clippie to back. presto.
these turned out so cute i think my big K needs some for her bow arsenal!

sidenote: i may or may not also be inadvertently be dressing my children like fluffy little blue & white snowbanks. i just can't help it.

for next year.

also, can i just live in a west elm christmas? look at these unbelievable pictures. i want to buy/make/and yeah... just basically live in. seriously.
felty white snowflakes & natural tree/bark/woodsy stuff... massive inspiration for next year! note taken.

a diy target christmas.

i swear there must be somebody at target headquarters that reads all the handmade blogs. ok, probably lots of somebodies. in the design department. every year, loads of their ornaments have quite a handmade feel to them... which means, rather than blowing my [non-existent] budget in the 50% off rack on the day after christmas sales, cheap diy-ers like myself will instead file the ideas away in our mental i could make that files.

[i guess i should get a clue when one of the collections of ornaments was unabashedly called "contemporary craft" right?]

i mean, look how easy! sorry for the terrible photos, i was using my cellphone & hoping the store staff didn't call security on me. & because i like things extra lazy easy, click the words themselves for links to supplies & tutorials to make something similar!

salt dough + cookie cutter + white paint + glitter
[similar tutorial]:

paper mache star + wool roving
[similar tutorial]:

styrofoam ball + yarn:

toilet paper roll + silver paint + glitter spray
[this one was metal, but i think you could make something very similar with a little time & this tutorial for the basic idea! maybe a similar metal one could me made with a coke can & tin snips?]

felt circles + yarn/twine/a pipe cleaner
[similar tutorial]:

& lastly, the one i actually almost made this year as stocking mongrams or gift tie-ons, because they reminded me so much of the ornaments from anthropologie i liked so much 2 years ago!
these i think would be super simple... cut a letter out of cardboard [like a cereal box], hot glue a sweater scrap across the front & around the edges, & back it in felt:
maybe i need to make these now in order to actually have them finished by next year? i think so.

handmade christmas gifts!

i guess since it's the day after christmas it's safe to share the gifts i made this year without ruining any surprises! i swear every year i'm going to start christmas crafting in october... now with 2 kids, if i want to make handmade gifts as well, it might be more like august!

i like to mix handmade things with store bought accessories to put together a unique gift. for my dad's wife who loves tea & is very cold natured, i saw this tea infuser at the grocery store & knew it would be perfect! i added some organic mint tea & then made these sweet little rice handwarmers to go with them. they are basically a beanbag with rice inside [super easy to make! 2 squares of cotton with a scoop of rice inside.] i used a mix of cotton and a sweater scrap left over from a pillow i made to make them look a little more special.
i made little 'handmade by' tags for everything, & for the handwarmers i added a little note explaining that if you microwave them for 30 seconds, you have a cozy little warmer to slip in your pockets or put on an ache or pain.
the little girls in our family are some of the cutest in the world, i swear. i decided they all [including K] needed some matching hairbows! it was the perfect excuse to try out some felt giftwrap type bows & a little ribbon christmas tree.
with simple packaging on a paint swatch card, also stamped with the 'handmade by' stamp. [the smaller one on the left is for my baby niece due in may! whoo hoo!]
i love how the little ribbon loop trees turned out!

the ones i'm most excited about are these photo wall art frame thingys! i saw the idea thanks to the shanty to chic ladies, & knew it would be perfect for several people on my list! it's a really lovely personalized gift but inexpensive enough that you could make dozens of them.

i followed their tutorial pretty exactly, but here are some details: the wood was one 1x10 from home depot & i had it cut into 2 lengths, a 42" length to fit my sister in law's last name, & a shorter 18" i made into say "joy" in christmas colors! there's a short little square-ish piece left over that could make a cute single-letter monogram. home depot makes the first 2 cuts of your board for free, so for about $8 the one board made 3 gifts!
the picture frames are from the dollar tree, and the red frames are spray painted rustoleum's colonial red, a deep rich perfect christmas red. you can print any letters you'd like from this generous flickr site, and the beautiful "joy" photos are a free download from craftily ever after!
i added some picture hangers on the back, and ta-da! easy, gorgeous christmas gift. i'm so thrilled to give this one away!

i am still dreaming of someday making all the presents one christmas... but we'll see if that ever happens!

i did it.

i finished the stockings on time.
they were a near tragedy the first year i started them. then last year, big pregnant with my little boy, i stayed up almost all night to finish every body but the baby's.
this year, they're done. the whole family. and it feels so good. & i didn't even have to sit in a cold basement sewing them. i seriously had a little moment seeing them all in a row, thinking about how much our family has grown in 7 little years.
we are so blessed.

merry christmas!

[ps- this last little stocking was loosely inspired by alicia paulson's monogrammed stocking. i just loved that little classic toe & heel detail!]

no-budget christmas decor: popsicle sticks!

popsicle stick crafts bring to mind kindergarten camp crafts, don't they? but i think they get a bad rap. they're pretty ingenious & versatile little things. case in point: this adorable little winter sled ornament that my husband made in sunday school in... wait for it... 1986.
[i love that someone thought to write the year on it- he was 5, i would be 3.]

cute right? and has clearly endured the test of time despite being made out of literally nothing more than popsicle sticks & what looks like some hot glue.

there's actually a lot to like about popsicle sticks: their woodenness. their paint-ibility. their wood stain-ibility. the fact that they come in every size from tiny almost-appetizer-mini-stick to giant tongue depressors. and most of all? they are dirt cheap. and so they definitely are on my list this year of no-budget christmas crafts.

i'm going to church them up & start calling them crafts sticks so i can stop picturing the sticky, slobbery mess that is a popsicle stick after my 3 year old eating a popsicle.
so i picked up a pack of large ones [ for $2.50 at wal-mart], medium sized ones [150 for $1 at the dollar tree, & i had some mini ones on hand from a nativity project last year. ]
i saw so many of the cutest ideas on pinterest... little christmas trees, angels, snowmen, & mangers for the nativity. i settled on making some little angels as ornaments/gift toppers for the angel-loving ladies in my life. they turned out so cute i made an extra one for myself & one to hang on my neighbor's door with a snowflake cookie!
i used one of my daughter's toy tinkerbells to trace the wing shape onto cardboard [a fruit snacks box] & then used a glue stick to cover it with book pages & hymn music pages. then i painted the sticks to use for her dress, cut her arms & legs to size [half a mini stick] & hot glued it all together! i used a little 1" flat wooden circle for her head, & a little squirt of glitter glue for her halo.
the first one turned out a little big, so i ended up cutting the large sticks in half to make shorter, fatter angels! the stars are from a pack of glitter foam stickers that i found at walmart with the craft sticks, although if i make these again i'd use a wooden shape.
i love these because there's so many ways you could do them! they're like little paper dolls when you're putting them together. the little ballet-flat feet are totally my favorite part:

other no-budget christmas decor ideas:

paper star tree topper

framed letters

paper snowflakes

candy canes

jute & ruffle wreath