They're not just for clothes anymore

Have you seen these ENORMOUS clothes pins? I have been fascinated with them ever since I saw them. I decided that I would like a convenient place to put recipes while I am cooking and thought that this would do the trick. It is up off the counter, thereby reducing the number of spills, and it is also up high so you don't have to squint to read the recipe. Pretty sweet, huh?

Cast of characters for this project:

1 large clothes pin (I found mine at Craft Warehouse in Vancouver WA)

Some scrapbook paper of your choice

Mod Podge (for gluing down the paper)

Black stamping ink for edges

Vinyl lettering (if you don't have access to vinyl then just print the letters on your scrapbook paper)

That's it. EASY-PEASY folks!



I have some more of the clothes pins, I think I will customize them for each of my grandchildren and display their pictures in them. OHHHH, the possibilities.

I'm joining the fun over the Funky Junk Interiors, go by and check out all of the great ideas.

I am also joining in the fun here

Block Project/Plate Project

I was inspire to make this cute little 'sassy girl' block from some blocks I had seen at It's A Sign blog. I love the pictures she decoupaged on hers but I decided not to with mine to make it more generic. I actually made one of these blocks for my granddaughters birthday next week that was more personalized (I can't post a picture of it because she might see it on her mommy's blog). I was happy with how they both turned out. Another side of it.
And yet another side.
And finally...you got it, another side, well the top and side anyway.
The Valentine plate {shown on a plate rack with another Valentine plate in my header} was super easy to make. I found this plate at Ross, it is important to find a plate with cutouts around the edge so you can weave ribbon in and out. I cut a red vinyl heart with 'be my Valentine' on it with my vinyl cutter.
A close up of the edge of the plate.
The finished plate.

Half Price Dollar Store Craft

I'm not sure if you can make a craft any cheaper...well maybe free. I found some wood word letters at the dollar store for...............................................HALF PRICE, that's .50 each. The only ones they had left were FAITH, PRINCESS, AND COUNTRY. I happened to have black spray paint and scrapbook paper scraps on hand so that didn't cost me anything.

I started off by spraying the whole thing black.

I then cut the scrapbook paper in the letter shapes (I actually layed the letters on the paper and trace them then cut them out.) I then glued the paper to the wood. Ta Da, all done, so easy!

Black and white, my current favorite color palette, who would have thought?

Awesome Baby Rag Quilt Tutorial from Kara

I was so excited to see that Kara at Creations by Kara posted a great tutorial on how to make one of these adorable quilts. Making one of these was one of the three things I listed in a previous post that I would love to learn how to make. Head on over to her blog for the complete instructions with very detailed pictures. Even I think I can make one of these with her awesome instructions.Thanks Kara, you're amazing.

Blog Award.

Wow, I just got my first blog award. A very nice gal over at Lyndsey's Craft Spot stopped by to let me know she had given me this award. HOW SWEET IS THAT?

I am passing this award on to:

Dawn at Momza's House

Lori at Life Among the Three Stooges

Alisha and Whitney at Sister's Stuff

Maria at Rainy Day Farm

Amy at Keepin' The Sunnyside

Christine at Christine's Favorite Things

Kara at Creations by Kara

Angie at The Happy Homebody

Erika at Little Miss Crafty Pants

Melissa to The Polka Dot Chair

Wendy at Make and Take

Tricia at Oh So Crafty

Now I get to choose approximately 15 bloggers to pass this award on to.

Instructions:

To accept you must post it on your blog along with the name of the person who granted you the award and link back to them.

Pass the award on to approximately 15 other bloggers that you have recently discovered and think are great.

Contact the bloggers and let them know that they have been chosen for the award.

List three things you would like to learn how to do.

1. Take photography class to learn to take better photos.
2. Learn how to how to make rag quilts.
3. Learn how to do decorative painting on glass.

Feelin' The Love

How about you, is love in the air? Here are a couple of items I made for Valentine's day.

Ingredients: wood blocks {sanded smoothe), paint, scrapbook paper, vinyl lettering, Mod Podge, and some embellishments.
LOVE, all pretty in pink.

Love, Hugs & Kisses For Sale

I am participating in the 'Strut Your Stuff Thursday" party over at Somewhat Simple.

Valentine's Day is fast approaching and I thought I would get busy with some fitting crafts. Below are two frame and a plaque I made today. Oh it feels good to be back to crafting. What really helps is starting out with some organized crafting supplies. I posted here about my organizing guru's help getting it all together.After have many inquiries asking if I sell any of my craft projects I decided to offer these three items for sale. The frame below is $10 with FREE shipping if you order by noon (Pacific time) on Thursday, January 21 in honor of my dad's birthday (he passed away almost five years age and he would have been 78). It measures 8"x8".

This frame is also $10 with FREE shipping if you order by noon, January 21st. It is hard to tell but it is a light pink scrabooking paper with light pink tulle bow and silver lettering.

A larger close up of the finished frame.

The 'LOVE' plaque is also $10 with the same offer of free shipping as the two frames. It measures 6.5"x6.5"

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OK, GAME ON!

Is your family a 'GAME PLAYING' family? Well if you are and you have never played this game (THE GAME OF THINGS) then you are in for a real treat. I actually bought this game last year but we have never broken it out to play it...until New Year's Eve. OH! MY! STARS! it is the funniest game we have ever played. There are all kinds of questions that everyone playing answers on a slip of paper. The 'reader' for that round reads aloud all of the answers then you take turns guessing who said what.

Here is a sample of one of the questions

The funnier the answer the better.

Beware! You will laugh until you cry (or wet your pants).

NOTE: I recieve no compensation from Parker Brothers for promoting this game.
IT'S JUST GOOD OLD FASHIONED FUN.

Valentine's Day Pretty

I am hooking up with the linky party over at A Soft Place to Land and also over at Kara's blog Creations by Kara for her 'look what I made' party.

I have admired the pretty Valentine topiaries being made all over blog land. The first one I saw was over at The Idea Room. Go on over and check out hers, it is done in pink and is in a very cute bucket container. Stay awhile and browse through her blog, she is a very talented crafter with wonderful ideas and great tutorials.

Below is our (my daughter Maria and I) version.

We added some pretty berry/beads and some ribbon and more beads underneath it. I also added some glitter spray, which is hard to see in the picture but it really add some glitz to it. All you need is some felt, styrofoam balls (we used 3-5 inch balls for ours), some straight pins and some berries clipped from these cute garlands. Also you will need some floral foam, a container (some sort of bucket or urn) and some Spanish moss.

We then cut a buzillion three inch circles from the felt.Doesn't Maria look like she is having a blast?
You then fold the circles in half and then in half again. Insert a straight pin through the bottom of folded circle and push into styrofoam ball. Continue until the whole ball is complete.
Not sure if you can see the sparklies on it or not. I had some spray glitter that we lightly sprayed over the finished product to give it some pizazz
Here is a completed red one. Check out Maria's blog, Rainy Day Farm in the next day or so and see all of the ones she made, she REALLY loved how they turned out and made five for herself and has the stuff to make even more. She has some made with two different colors of pink and one made of light pink with pink berries that turned out adorable.

THANKS FOR STOPPING BY. IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO LEAVE A COMMENT I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU.

From Chaos Back to Creativity

After four months of crazily crafting for my bazaar I just couldn't bring myself to go back in a get started again. I knew I had to have an intervention of sorts with my crafting space. Luckily for me my awesome friend Shawn is an orginizational guru. All I had to do was put out the call for help and she came running while pushing up her sleeves ready for the challenge. She not only has a passion for organizing she is fantastic at it.

(The room wasn't really this bad, this is after I had begun the throw out process)

The first thing she had me do was begin on the first wall and go through everything (and I do mean everything) and determine:

1. Did it need to stay in the room?

2. Did it need to go in the garbage?

3. Did it need to go to another room?

4. Did I want to give it away?

There were boxes for each catagory. One of the best tips she had was the box of things that didn't belong in this room but needed to be put away in other areas of the house. My method would have been to try and put those type of things away right then thus becoming side tracked (and 2 hours later return where I started after straightening a drawer in the kitchen, taking a load of clothes out of the dryer, making some phone calls and flipping through the 600 channels on the tv,etc.).

(This is how bad it actually was to start with, stacks of stuff everywhere)

(Stuff stacked under the table too)
(Here is just one of the six piles of stuff purged out of the craft room)

Ahhhhh...ProgressI LOVE that I can see my ribbons at a glance, not stuffed in a drawer. I actully bought this ribbon holder a few months ago at Michael's with my 40% off coupon. Well worth the price!

You can't tell from the picture but these drawers are so organized it makes me giggle. Thanks Shawn.

Don't you just love how tidy it looks?

Here are fourteen containers that were not needed after the BIG cleanout! Impressive, huh.

I can't wait to get back to my creativity.

Ugh! Now I need to tackle my work area in the garage.

(I wonder what Shawn is doing next week?)