In the mood for...

WINTER!!!!!!

Okay, and some love!!

It's been such a crazy winter season here in good ol' KY, as well as most of the continental US.  At least Alaska is getting some snow, or ALL of the snow!!  (lucky ducks)  I mean really, can us snow lovers catch a little break?!?!  Our winter so far has been mild, which has totally, and I  mean totally messed with my body.  Every spring, like clockwork, I get sick.  Starting mid-April and lasting about 2 weeks, I'm down with sinus infections and all the fun that goes with it.  I had to go on a Z-pac to get through our wedding (going on 10 years!!  Wow!!).  So, why am I going through all this now?  THE UPS and DOWNS of this SPRING like WEATHER!!!!!  It's nuts.  Seriously, the zombies are coming my friends!!  Haha!

Okay, so onto the LOVE!!  Here's a little secret...  I've never, EVER, liked Valentines Day.  Always hated it in fact.  Well, except maybe when I was a child.  Mom would always get us a little chocolate heart and a cute little stuffed animal.  And then the picking and signing of just the right valentine to give to your BFF's, your teacher, and your secret crush.  Oh pitter-patter of the child's heart!  But then enter into the teen/high school years.  That's when my hate, and yes, it was total hate for "V-day" came in to play.  Each and EVERY year I got to see all the beautiful girls in my classes get the Whatever-they-were-called-Grams, and I'm talking these girls got a ton of them.  It was like, okay, just stab the rest of us in the heart a little bit more. Each. And. Every. Class.  SEVEN CLASSES, SEVEN times to feel like the loser that I was!!!!  Oh but wait, it got better!!!!  At the end of the day, they would all get called to the office to come and collect their Valentine bouquets (usually from their parents and or if you were one of the super-duper girls, you got them from your boyfriends too).  Do I sound bitter?!?!  Ha!!  Heck yea!!!  I was so jealous and every year I felt just a little bit more loser'ish.  I so hope they don't do that stuff today.  But, I'm sure they do.  I'm sure I'll get to go through the hurt and pain all again with my daughter.  *sigh*  Not looking forward to my babies growing up.

ANYWAY, I regress...

Onto the LOVE!!!

As an adult, I LOVE VALENTINES DAY!!!!!!  I finally have every reason to love the day!!  I have the love and respect from a funny, sweet, and totally amazing Valentine all rolled into one sexy, amazing package!!!  Then, one, by one, by one,  we were blessed with three little funny Valentines!!!

My love, my best friend

Always leading us the right way

Nothing like watching a big strong man with  a baby

MY MAN (hear Rachel from BB here) and our oldest offspring.

Us with our latest funny valentine

 Okay, okay, okay...  Enough pictures already and on to my project du jour:

GAUDY VALENTINE WREATHS!!!!

(At least that's what Kris called them!!)

One of my final products!!

Up close with the KISS

Someone took a bite out of my LOVE

Here's the set-up:

FINALLY, after searching every closet in this house, I came up with two matching wire coat hangers.  I'm a plastic kind of gal.

2 wire hangers made into circles, one roll of deco mesh
and one Lucy!!

I used 2 sizes of cookie cutters to make my "candy hearts" (oh how I think those candy heart are disgusting. makes my teeth hurt when I think about eating them!! Ugh!!)  

I mistakenly "hoped" that the cutters would slice right through the styrofoam.  YEA RIGHT!!!!  ha.  But, they did make a good imprint, with plenty of brute force, to cut them out.  

Used a little hand saw for the first one....

Then, I remembered!!!  My Pops gave me his band saw for Christmas!!!!  Que the chorus of angels!!!  

AAAHHHHHH!!!!!

Yes my friends, the saw works on styrofoam too!!!!  (Hope Pops never hears of this tho!!!)

Cuttin' the foam

candy 2 down in  seconds!!!

Allie girl helping me paint our 'candies"

Logan thought they were marshmallows!!  

I used the ABC stamps my wonderful Mimi passed to me.  I thought they made the 'candies' look authentic! Well, as much as painted Styrofoam candies can authentically look.  But you know what I mean!!!

 So, if anyone out there in blog land ever wants to try this, make sure you hang your wreaths BEFORE hot gluing your hearts, or stars, or whatever you choose to decorate your bad boys with.  I got some hearts hanging low.  Poor little fellas!!!

Christmas Outfit

So I finally got back to my sewing nook.  Oh how I have missed thee!!

I didn't really "sew", like a whole outfit or anything, just did a little refashion to one of Lo's old gap shirts.  Al wore it to a Christmas Craft/Sale Fair yesterday with a pair of jeans (Lo's too, poor Al.  She get's boy hand me downs!!) that I refashioned.  Well, as she went to potty yesterday afternoon, she had a little accident, so I had to find her a new pair of pants.  Found some basic green knit pants at one of the booths.  OMGoodness, they had some of the cutest outfits for little girls, but basically they appliqued a lot of their clothes with glue, no sewing, but still!!!  So dern CUTE!!!!   Anyway, I couldn't wait to get my hands on the pants this afternoon to complete her outfit.  So, in essence, Al's little accident was a GOOD thing!!!

Here's my creation:

kinda looks like a wedding cake!!  ha!   Guess I need to add a tree root or something!

Can't wait to see her in this!!!  

Wire coat hanger Christmas Tree

Lazy day today. But this is an idea that's been floating around in the ol' noggin. Think I'm getting tired of Christmas crafts. Ready to start sewing again!!!

Christmas Wreath re-do

I kept putting off working on my wreaths this year because really, I didn't know what to do with them. I was tired of the plain Jane look they had. (sorry to my jane's out there!!).

Here is the before. I was into the deep reds/burgundy colors and minimalism. ( or most likely I took apart another decoration for parts!!!)

And sadly, that was that. But in my defense, these bad boys were straight out of storage. No 'fluffing' (as a dear friend calls it) had been done.

So, I took what little bits of decor that was actually there out and started with a blank canvas so to speak.

Between feeding kids, changing diapers, kissing boo-boo's and then putting them all to bed, this is what I came up with...

I found the polka-dot ribbon at Walmart and fell in love. Knew I had to do something with it. Was very excited to use it on the wreaths!!

Now, on our door. And yes, it, being our entrance, needs SO much more but. Don't think it will happen this year

My ornaments for church

I'm so excited!  I finished my ornaments for our church's "Hanging of the Greens" this coming Sunday.  All the families go up and hang ornaments on the trees.  I had so much fun tonight decorating them.  I "glittered" them the other night and had a few extras to finish up.  With those, I did this:

The ribbon was a left over, the "JOY" was Cell Phone Bling from Walmart (I kid you not, CELL PHONE BLING), BUT, the  the bling was a FAIL.  I ended up having to glue them on myself.  Their stickiness stuck to the plastic backing.

I'm still hoping and praying.  So far central KY hasn't been blessed with any snow.  Makes a snow loving mommy mad!!! 

All together now!!

This is my "Snow Angel" ornament.  Inside, which you can't see, is a Angel with "faith" inscribed on it.  On the back I glued more "cell phone bling" as a cross.

I'm telling ya, CELL PHONE BLING!!!  Don't know why I find this so funny!!

Packaged and ready for Sunday!!!

Better pictures of Christmas fun stuff

Here's better pics of what I've been up to.

DYI ornaments

I saw this picture in some magazine a few months ago and it stuck with me. Maybe it was because I tore it out and put in on my REAL pin board. Ha!!

Around early October, I went to michaels to get some things for Halloween and they had some DIY ornaments out. Guess they stay out year round. So, picked me up a package. Step 1 towards my own ornaments complete. Now, fast forward to November 30th, and I finally got to tackle them!!!

This is what I started with:

I used CLEAR Elmer's glue and added a bit of water to this it out. Shake and let sit. The shaking made a lot of bubbles. I wanted to jump right in, I didn't let it sit long enough so my ornaments had a ton of tiny little bubbles. Don't think it affected the final product, but I had to use more glitter to fill them in.

Worked like a charm!!! I used Martha Stewart glitter because I read somewhere that it was a lit finer than other types. It's so fine it's soft!!! Definitely will stick with Stewart for my glitter needs.

My idea to reality moment.....

Obviously, they aren't going to be as bold as a picture, but I like them!!!

I also used some of the snowflake glitter. I connected them to Christmas lights.

The others I plan to bedazzle or whatever.

Santa Base Tree

This has to be my favorite lil tree project so far. My aunt didn't want this little tree any longer, so she passed it on to the 'trash collector'!!!

Poor little forlorn tree!!! I'll save you...

Now my favorite part was the base for the tree. Got this idea from Pinterest. Imagine that!!!

A little spray paint, a plastic belt buckle from Al's old pirate costume, black ribbon, and lastly, a little sparkle!!!

A saved tree and recycled coffee can.