Patriotic Bandanna Wreath

This week I walked into my favorite craft store and was overwhelmed by the insane amount of red, white and blue merchandise that had replaced the pastel Easter items so quickly. Very rarely do I plan early for anything, but I was really inspired to create something for the upcoming Memorial Day holiday. Being fresh out of ideas, I popped over to check out what the CSI ladies were up to this week and learned it was a wreath challenge - cool.

A while ago I came across an adorable wreath made out of men's ties - you can see the picture here. So I decided to combine a project I did last year with the tie wreath to create a bandanna wreath...


I don't sew, so I used hot glue to make the pennant flags. Once they were made, I simply glued them onto a 13" wooden wreath that I purchased from the dollar store.


Here's a close-up of the bow I made using a bandanna. Yes, I am theme-obsessed!


This was super easy to make thanks to hot glue. Maybe one day I'll finally learn how to sew!






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Easter Eggs Fit For a Teen

This year I will be spending Easter with a close friend who has teenagers. I've been racking my brain trying to come up with a cool gift for these teens who long ago figured out that thing about the Easter Bunny. So I decided to make them "fashion-inspired" Easter eggs to accompany a traditional chocolate bunny.


I started off with paper mache eggs that I got from the craft store...



First I painted the eggs with a base coat and then used coordinating colored tissue paper to decoupage the eggs.



Egg Inspiration #1 - Tiffany and Co.

Egg Inspiration #2 - Western Chic



Egg Inspiration #3 - Lilly Pulitzer



I hope the girls like the eggs as much as I do!




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Burlap Easter Basket

This week's challenge over at the CSI Project is to make something using a material I have never worked with before: burlap. My first thought was to take a pass on this one, but I just love a good challenge! So, in keeping with the Easter theme, here is my best first attempt at making a burlap Easter basket.

The first thing I did was soak a large piece of burlap in fabric stiffener and then cut it into strips.



Next, I glued some of the strips onto the bottom of a plastic plate that served as the base of the basket (lots of improvising went on during this process).



Once the strips were on, I flipped the plate over to start the weaving process. I know it looks kind of crazy at this point, still improvising...



I then started to weave the other burlap strips through the ones that were glued to the plate using the "over-under" approach.



I only needed to weave in 4 horizontal rows because the strips were pretty wide. Finally, I decided to make a little burlap bunny to embellish the basket.



And here is the final result...

The fabric stiffener was definitely the key to making this basket happen. I just love it when a great improvised plan comes together!






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