Craft Night!

Once a month, there's a group of girls that get together to do a craft. We have a different hostess each month who chooses, organizes and teaches the craft. So far we've done fabric rosettes, glass painting, wreaths, and this month was button bracelets!

Beautiful girls and sisters, Katie Beth and Meagan. First timers of craft night and first timers of button sewing! It's what craft night is all about! Learning stuff for the first time.

(l-r) Dena, Holly (hostess), Ezra (Dena's baby) and Tiff getting their elastic and thread ready.

The fun part of picking out the buttons. Holly had it all arranged in beautiful glasses and bowls all separated by color so you could easily pick what scheme you wanted to come up with. I don't have a picture of mine, but I did mostly gold and navy with bits of yellow.

We had about 14 girls total including 6 first-timers. So fun. The way we arranged the night was Holly had pre-bought all of the buttons on Ebay and elastic which we divided the cost and paid her accordingly, about $8.00 a piece.

The finished product! Well, at least 2 of them. If you wanted to make your own, you need about 2-inch wide elastic and about 30 buttons. Cluster them closely as you sew them on so there is little to no empty space in between. They look like they came straight from a boutique!

A Blog Without Pictures...

Fellow friends and reader, my camera has officially kicked the bucket. You won't be hearing from me very often because a blog without pictures is just not as cool. So unless I have something really intelligent to say or some amazing links to post, this might be it for a while. In the meantime, maybe I'll be crafting up a storm behind the scenes and will have lots to show you when I enter back into the blogosphere with a new camera in hand!

Coconut Flakes, Turkey Feathers and Pink Window Panes

I had so much fun decking my Christmas mantle this year. It was fun to play around with different things I had around the house to make it all come together.

I'm sure you can deduce that coconut flakes mentioned in the title is what I used for the fake snow sprinkles. The letter N came from my picture gallery in the master bedroom and the other "letters" I just gathered from around my house.

Here is my pink window pane. Which started out as white. Then I painted red. Then I painted gold. Then I distressed it. Pink is what became of it.

I was trying to make it like this from PB...
You can't see them in the pictures, but their are strings of twine in between each pane that I nailed in to clip card on. These are just some of my favorite vintage-y ones I've received or collected over the years.

Stockings hung by the chimney with care. The garland came from the cypress trees in my backyard. I made some for the windows too in the living room. They were a cinch to make, but a week later they are crumbling under the slightest touch!

Some bottles I recently numbered from 1-6 with glass paint. The 2 and the 5 were perfect to use as we prepare for the 25th of December. Can you spot my turkey feather in the vase? The other day I looked out my back window to find 5 or 6 wild turkeys in my backyard! I was so excited to find proof of their visit!

Those giant stars are gigantic versions of what my Aunt Ramona taught me how to make while she visited a few weeks ago. I have 7 dangling above my head as I type away in the living room right now. I thought I was making snowflakes, but everyone that sees them talks about how they love my stars. So stars they are.

Maybe one day we'll have our fireplace wired up for gas logs (the chimney is capped off so it can't be wood burning) but in the mean time we can simulate a roasting hot fire with a bunch of tapered candles.

Merry Christmas! I'll be linking up to The Lettered Cottage "Merry Mantle Party" today so if you need any ideas, these girls are the ones to check out!

Free Christmas Cards from Shutterfly!

I agreed to do a little blog write-up in exchange for 50 free Christmas cards from Shutterfly! We are on a super tight budget and I considered forgoing cards this year, but this was a deal I couldn't pass up!

Shutterfly has sooo many options of their christmas cards and holiday cards to choose from. This was the one I liked best!My brother-in-law snapped some family pictures of us in my husband's new (yet old and "distressed") 1969 black Ford pickup so I thought the whole retro look of it all with this card would tie together nicely. Normally, back in the good ol' have hours of time to craft days I used to make all my Christmas cards. Alas, it doesn't really save any money and of course you spend tons of time putting them together. Mind you, I consider it a hobby, so it was a task I enjoyed, I just have too many things now that I want to enjoy! These photo cards are the epitome of easy and thoughtful.

We've also given calendars to grandparents and my parents complete with pictures for each month. They're always a hit!

By the way, if you are a blogger, you can participate too! Check it out here!

Fall Mantle, Sitting Room and PB Wall

Flipping through the Fall Pottery Barn catalog was just the inspiration I needed to fix up our sitting room. Here's the picture that made me swoon...

Okay, and here's mine...

Ha ha. Well, it looks a bitttt different. I promise though, if I had a fancy camera like theirs, it might look a smidge more like PB. I really loved how linear all their pictures were and tried to model that, but I had such a big wall to deal with that I had to spread things out a bit. PS- that tv is only there TEMPORARILY!

Here's another copy-cat attempt...I saw these modular storage crates being sold in the catalog for about 30 bucks a piece! Well, I have a ton of old pine boards left over wall demolition and put those to good use!

Baddabing.


And here's my fall mantle...

With a little close-up...

I still would like to add a little homemade pennant banner that says "Happy Fall" out of burlap fabric that I saw and want to copy from someone's blog and hang it from the mantel.

Here's the piano with my new chair! I'm hoping to find a cheap filing cabinet on Craigslist to put to the right of it so I can get rid of the three plastic filing boxes!

And here's my favorite spot in the house. Love this for my morning quiet times. Would love it more if I had a nearby outlet to plug in the lamp and actually see what I am reading. :) Oh! And I almost forgot to mention my new galvanized metal magazine storage. I got this one and a smaller one (pictured on the other wall) on Craigslist for 25 bucks!

Written About on About.com!

A writer for the website, about.com, contacted me a couple days ago to see if she could write about my Old Fashioned Birthday Party I threw for Greta, specifically the party hats I made. It's kind of cool seeing my picture on a real live website! :) You can see it here! Thanks to Megan Cooley for the shout-out! She has some great ideas for kids parties in general so I would definitely check her out next time I throw a party!

$1.00 Garage Sale Treasure

Last summer, I picked this old wooden folding chair up at a church yard sale.
After a little spray painting in the color "jade" and a little reupholstering with a little acorn fabric curtain I made for my son's nursery in our old house, I have a new and updated chair!

I think it'd be really cool to paint something on the backrest...like a distressed number, chevron stripe, monogram, etc. I haven't quite figured out where to put the chair, but I think I'll wait to personalize it until it's found it's home.