Flower Headpiece

Me:  Mallory let's practice your spelling words.  What's one of the words?

Mallory:  Contrasity

Me:  Contrasity?  What's contrasity?

Mallory:  MOMMA! You teach FIFTH Grade!!! You know-like two petes can fit in a quart.  How much something holds.  Its actually a pint.  Not a peent.

Me: What's the big "C" word again?

Mallory: Contrasity. It actually starts with an "A".

Me: You sure its not capacity?

Mallory: OHH! It's compacity.

(The headpiece was inspired by Miss Ruby Sue on etsy.com.  Check her out-she's awesome! I made a wired ribbon flower and two fabric flowers to make this one.)

New edition:  You can't see much of it, but I worked just as hard on the "backdrop" of this picture, as I did on the headpiece.  It is an old bed (and some flower pillows) that has been in my attic for as long as I have had an attic.  Not even sure why I had it.  Wish I had taken a before pic, but I am sure you can imagine the yellowish white that happens to things that have been in an attic for years.

And here it is now.  In case you like this color as much as I do, it is called Grand Day Green from the Disney collection from Behr paint at Lowe's or Home Depot-I can't remember which.  (And no, it is not more expensive just because it says Disney on it.  I know-shocker!)

I am linking up to the party at Miss Mustard Seed!  Check her out!

Easter Apothecary

Do you see what I see???

I found all of this in one trip to Goodwill-3 ugly candlesticks, 2 real pewter cordial cups, and a milk glass vase. (Plus one 50 year old Standard rubber stamp holder with no rust!-not pictured) Score! That ugly orangish brown candlestick is like plastic.  The other two are ceramic.  Look what I made with them:

Recognize those candlesticks?  No?  That's cause I spraypainted 'em.  Just a little trick I learned from my blog buddies: here.  I guess it is hard to tell from the pictures, but there are glass hurricanes on top of the candlesticks.  Inside are cards that spell out "HOP" (only three-letter Easter word I could think of-not cause I love the movie-haven't even seen it) and some crinkled up vintage dictionary paper. 

More to come...

**editor's note (he-he that's me!):  Sorry-you caught me-I forgot to say the letters were not stickers.  At least not until I ran them through my Xyron sticker maker.  I cut them out with my Making Memories Slice machine.  The cardstock is also Making Memories-Passport collection (it is printed with postcards, but I liked the color scheme for Easter.)  I already had the little feather boa.  I think it came from Dollar Tree.

Coaster scrapbook

Was it really 90 degrees two days ago?  Doesn't feel like March today.  I don't want to get out of the chair cause I finally got warm under the blanket.  So much for outdoor photo shoots...
Mallory and I had to get out in the 45 degree weather today, though.  I had a dentist appointment.  She wanted Chick-fil-A when we got out, but I insisted on Burger King.  Why?  I don't know.  First, they gave me fries instead of onion rings (happens EVERY time.)  Then, when I got them they were cold.  When I was finally able to pull out of the parking lot into traffic,  I realize I never got my drink.  Go around the world and come back, wait in line, blah blah blah. 

Mallory: (in an I told you so tone of voice) "This wouldn't have happened at Chick-Fil-A."

Top O' the morning to ya!

 Around here, St. Patrick's Day means Crazy Hat Day at school.  A trip to Dollar Tree resulted in this creation.  Paper napkin flower with a shamrock in the middle.  Learned how to make these here.  Can't really tell it's a shamrock?  Well, that's because I glued it on the way out the door this morning with the hot glue gun that was left on all night.  Yep, all night.  Bad thing is, it's not the first time that I was just waiting on it to heat up and forgot about it.  (This is part of why I don't enjoy cooking, btw.  I tend to forget about hot things while they are getting hot.) Last time sparks were involved.  

This is probably why I am walking around with naturally frizzy hair lately.  I abused my flat iron one too many times. Good thing the world needs perfectly imperfect parents!

Polka Dot Birthday Party

Inspiration:

Inspiration always comes from something.  I found these invitations on clearance and bought them with no idea what I was going to do with them.  Love the long green envelopes.  Love the color scheme.  I went with it.  I've said this before-once my mind settles on an idea everything seems to show up in stores.  

I found these little felt Easter baskets at Target that were perfect. The invitations were from Target, also, but they were at least a year earlier. (Yes, I had the invitations for over a year. Like I said, they were on clearance.)

Then, my mom used her Cricut machine to make flowers with scrapbook paper that I already had and glued them to bamboo skewers. I believe we put crinkle shredded paper in the bottom of the basket.

I found these goodie bags at a teacher store, filled them with purple tissue and of course, tied a cute ribbon.  We used the Cricut again to make the monogram letters.  To make them stickers, we ran them through the Xyron sticker maker.  I love this idea for personalizing your child's birthday.

The piece de resistence!  The cake! This was the cutest cake ever!  Three tiers of cuteness!  And this wasn't the hardest to decorate because it was buttercream icing-not fondant which is hard to work with.  I bought a styrofoam M for the topper and stuck brads in it to look like polka dots.

We made the birthday banner with scrapbook paper, vellum, and the Cricut to cut the letters.  (Wish I had close-up pics, but this was before the DSLR camera.)

Diaper Cradle and Cake

My mom and sister made these for a friend's baby shower.  The one on the left is a diaper cradle and the one on the right is a cake.  These make cute and useful shower decorations.  Or just a cute way to wrap a practical gift.

How to make a diaper cradle:
I am re-posting this because so many have asked how to make the diaper cradle.  Stand up three rows of diapers and secure  with string or yarn.  Then wrap the pretty material around it and hot glue it. Roll up diapers and put it towards the back where the head part or canopy would be. Open another diaper up and put it on top of the rolled up ones.  Wrap pretty material around that part.  For the skirt, take the material and put a needle in and out and in and out and then pull it tight and  make it ruffle up.  Then  tie it around the bottom and cover the seam with a ribbon and hot glue it. The purpose of the diaper arrangements is to be able to use the arrangements so we tried not to ruin the diapers themselves and get multiple sizes for the different pieces. Wrap the ribbon from Michael's and put the bows somewhere pretty.

Hope this helps! I would love to hear from you if you tried it out!

Paper Flower

I noticed today that the flowering trees are starting to bloom.  Yay!  Makes me want to make flowers. 

I love it when the "wrapping" is just as good as the gift.  I made this tag with a flower for my sister for Easter last year.  They make great gifts for teachers, too.  These paper flowers are so easy and can be made with scraps.  I cut several sizes of circles with my Slice machine in two different types of blue paper:  vellum and lightweight cardstock.  Simply crumple up each piece and crinkle.  Flatten back out and distress the edges with a distressing tool (I use Heidi Swapp) that sort of tatters the edges.  (I like that word-tatters-I think I will use that more often.)  The glittery green leaves are from KI Memories, but could be cut easily from green cardstock.  The purple polka dot fabric covered brad is perfect for the center and to hold all of the circles together. I placed the circles a little off center.  It reminds me of Mary Engelbreit that way.
The scallop tag was cut with my Slice machine, also.

And where there are flowers there are butterflies.  Also, cut with the Slice machine.  Have to add some bling to the center and a cute ribbon.  Always a cute ribbon.