Christmas/New Years Wreath

 When I was out looking for new Christmas decorations I noticed a lot of black, red and silver together and I fell in love.  I wanted to do my whole house in Black, red and silver, but only managed to create this wreath.  I am not going to lie it was VERY time consuming to make.  I do love how it turned out.  I was going to make more red flowers to go all the way around the wreath but I got a little lazy.  Maybe I will finish it up next year.

 I started off with a dollar store wreath.  I bought 1/4 yard black duck cloth and 1 yard red duck cloth.  I cut the black cloth into strips and wrapped it around the wreath.  The hard part was the red poinsettia flowers.  I took a small Tupperware lid and traced the circle onto the red cloth.  You need 10 circles to create one flower and I made 5 flowers, so that was 50 circles to trace and cut out!  Not so much fun my friends.   

 I used this tutorial to create my fabric poinsettia.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gecQrb1fzIk
I had to modify it a little to create a fuller look by using 10 circles for the flowers.  When I cut the petals I made them pointy.

Lots of hot glue later I finally ended up with 5 flowers.  I glued them close together on the wreath added a silver ribbon and called it good!  Not too shabby!!

Very excited about my X-Mas card

It turned out so cute!  I love it!  Simple and sweet!  I haven't actually received them in the mail, but they are on their way!  I can't wait to send out these beauties!

Check out Shutterfly to make your Christmas cards.  They have a deadline of December 19 to have them printed for Christmas.  They also have an option to have address and send out the cards for you for .99 cents per card.  If I wasn't so cheap I would totally do that!  pain free, what is not to love?

Make the fridge

True story: the cutest cards to "make the fridge" ever year, if you will, usually come from Shutterfly. The designs are adorable and the quality of the card-stock is awesome. So this year, we decided to step up our game a tiny bit and we added some Shutterfly cards into the Christmas budget. Shutterfly has some seriously cute Christmas card designs this year and I love that the insides are customizable a million (okay, many) different ways.

Here are some of the ones I am considering........

Christmas cards are my favorite. Love to receive them. Love to sit & read thru them. Love to put them on my fridge to admire throughout the season. Love to hold on to them from year to year and look back at them and see how people have changed from year to year.
 
As you can tell I am going to have a really hard time deciding on just one!  While I'm there, I'll be making 2011 calendars for my parents, as requested.  

If I was more on top of my game I would of done birth announcements for my now 15 month old baby. Do you think she is to old to send out this?   Love, Love, Love it!  

 P.S.  If you want to get 50 free cards from Shutterfly, do what I did and write a post on your blog about them.  Here is the info you need to take part of this great deal.


http://blog.shutterfly.com/5358/holiday2010-blog-submission-form/

Merry Christmas

Candy corn colored ribbon wreath

 Candy corn colored ribbon wreath.

I felt inspired by my friend Jessica's Lace Halloween Wreath on her blog Craftily Ever After.  Her wreath was so simple a chic.  I wanted to create a similar feel for my own door. 

 I purchased all of my supplies for the wreath at the dollar store.  Three spools of ribbon, in yellow, orange and white, and one green foam wreath.  That is only $4 for a cute wreath, so exciting!

 I cut the ribbon in 12 inch strips.  I then started tieing on the ribbon to the foam wreath in an overlapping fashion.  Make sure to tie the ribbon in a double knot, so that the ribbon does not come undone. 

 That is it, I can't believe it turned out so cute. 

Ten dollar Halloween 'mantel'

 What is a girl to do when she wants to be crafty and add cuteness to her home with out maxing out the credit card?  My answer is the dollar store.  There are so many cute things to be had, it is hard to resist.  I spent exactly $10.00 on my Halloween 'mantel', which is actually the top of my t.v. stand.  I was quite please with myself at the outcome.

 I definitely need some tips on doing mantles.  Mine is entirely too symmetrical!  At least it gets the job done.
Here is where I spent my money.  Two foam pumpkins painted a mix of metallic gold and copper.

 

 Two glass hurricanes, two black candle holders, one bag of peat moss and one bag of small rocks.

One 8x10 black frame and one black crow.  The cute Eat Drink and Be Scary print was done by my friend Jessica, who has it as a free download on her blog Craftily ever after

This was not part of my 'mantel', but I thought I would share it anyways.  One dollar store hurricane and glass candle holder hot glued together created the prefect showcase for all the yummy candy corn. 

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Butterfly Birthday Party

Anna Birthday invatation was created in photo shop by my husband and I.  I told him what I wanted and he created it.  Such a good husband!  We used some of the free digital scrapbooking images over at the Shappy Princess. 

My Little butterfly Princess.  I made this tutu using this tutorial I found on YouTube. 

I also made her headband from lingerie lace I found at a fabric store.  The flower was from a craft store.  I took out the center of the flower and added a crystal scrap booking brad.  I bought the tank top and added a butterfly iron-on.

This flower wreath was so easy, and the best part was that it only cost me $6.00 to make.  I went to the dollar store and picked up a wreath and five bunches of the same color flowers.  I took all of the flowers off the stems and just hot glued them right on to the wreath, easy as pie. 

I got the idea for this butterfly tree from the TomKat Studio.  I cut a branch from my friends tree (Thanks Jessica) and spray painted it white.  I made the butterfly's by folding tissue paper accordion style and tying it in the middle with a black pipe cleaner.  I was very pleased with myself when it was all said and done.

I wanted to create the feel of butterfly's in a net.  I used the extra tulle for my tutu project and simply tied it to the light.  I got butterfly's from the craft store that had clips on the back.  I clipped the butterfly's to the tulle and presto instant decorations. 

For the pom poms I followed Martha Stewart's tutorial Here.  I just made half of the pom pom so it would look like a flower on the wall. 

I LOVE the way Anna's butterfly cake turned out.  My very smart sister helped me figure out how to make this cute thing.  Use a whole cake mix and bake it in a 12 inch round cake pan.  Once it is cool cut it in half and flip the outsides in.  Cut the wings to shape them.  We used the extra cake from the wings to make the body of the butterfly. Frost with icing a few times and freeze.  It is definitely better to decorate a frozen cake.  Lesson learned.  My sis yet again amazed me by coming up with a way to get the sprinkles perfectly in place.  She created a stencil out of paper and then laid it down on the cake.  So ingenious.

Oh, yes and then there was the food.  Chocolate butterfly's I made with chocolate forms.  Dark chocolate and strawberry.  Yum Yum.  I think I ate most of these myself!

'Fruit tray'  Peach, grapefruit and butterfly gummies.

Chocolate dipped Oreos.  I got a flower mold from Michales.  Orange and pink chocolate melts from Michales also.  The tricky part was getting the two different colors do to run together.  I did that by melting the chocolate in a plastic bag and cutting a small hole in the tip of the bag.  I squeezed the chocolate in to just the flower part of the mold then put it in the freezer for 5 minutes.  Once the chocolate was good a solid I did the same thing with the second color and pressed on the Oreo and froze for 5 more minutes.  These were really good but didn't really get eaten.  My Husband said that they were too pretty to eat.

Sweet little smash cake, made the same way as the big cake.

I am not much of a chef so I decided to just make some of Anna's favorite foods.  Mac and cheese using Velveeta cheese.  Fruit cor bobs, cheese bread and salad.  I was excited to find some Izzys sodas that matched my Orange and pink theme to nicely. 

Birthday girl Anna enjoying her first birthday cake.

Me and my ONE YEAR OLD!