DIY Favor: Personalized Stationery Box

The other day I stumbled across a great font that automatically creates monograms. It only takes a minute to make a really nice design and it's free to download. Here's a link to the font and the monogram I made...


I decided to make a super easy favor using the monogram - personalized stationery.
I found some adorable little boxes at my go-to-store Target in the dollar section. There were three different styles (each priced at $1) - I went with the preppy green and pink design.


I dug up some leftover ribbon from this project and wrapped it around the box...


Then I simply attached the monogrammed oval onto the box (I printed the monogram on adhesive-backed paper). Too easy!


Finally, I created a design using the monogram in a Word document and printed out/cut several sheets for the box...


This favor cost a little over $1 and took about 10 minutes to complete.
Easy + Cost Effective = Happiness.

Craft Mashup [Silly Band Gift Wrapping]

The first time I ever heard about the concept of a mashup was with the release of The Grey Album. A music mashup is a song that is created by blending two or more pre-recorded songs seamlessly. The Grey Album blended songs from Jay-Z's Black Album and the Beatles' White Album - genius!

I thought it would be fun to apply the same concept to crafting since I don't make music. Like many of you, I am constantly coming across amazing crafts that inspire me. So I'm going to take some of those amazing ideas and try to blend them seamlessly to make a craft mashup. First up I'm taking crafts from two of my favorite bloggers and making the following mashup: silly band gift wrapping.

A couple of months ago Kristy (aka The Purple Pug) threw a crazy cool Super Mario-themed party for her little guy. One thing that stuck out to me was her creative use of unwanted silly bands...



Photo Source


One of my other faves, Kendra over at My Insanity, created adorable gift wrapping using (of all things) balloons!

Photo Source

So, I took Kristy's idea of repurposing silly bands and combined it with Kendra's creative gift wrapping idea to get this...



This is really easy to make - all you need is a bunch of silly bands. We have a ton of formerly-couldn't-live-without silly bands laying around our house doing absolutely nothing...



Just loop one end of a silly band through another one to form a "chain link". Once you have a long chain, wrap it around the gift (I used one color for each chain). To make the bow, simply tie the silly bands together into a ball shape and then tie it onto the gift.



Thanks (again) to Kristy and Kendra for being constant sources of inspiration! Look out for more craft mashups coming soon!!

DIY 4th of July Place Cards

Okay I'm going to let you all in on a little secret about me and blogging: whenever I can't think of anything interesting to blog about I make place cards. There I said it.

But, with that being said, I did come up with a last minute do-it-yourself place card for the 4th of July holiday that's kind of cute and super easy to make. Patriotic rockets...



Here's what you'll need:
Patriotic-themed scrapbook paper
Adhesive (I used hot glue, but tape will do)
Shoelaces
Scissors

Step 1: Cut out a circle in the scrapbook paper (I used a roll of duct tape as a template).



Step 2: Cut a slit halfway up the circle.



Step 3: Twist the paper into a cone shape and glue the ends together.



Step 4: Cut out a rectangle in the scrapbook paper (I used a different pattern for contrast).



Step 5: Roll the paper into a cylinder shape and glue the edge.



Steps 6,7,8: Glue the cone on top of the cylinder, then cut and glue a small piece of the shoelace inside the bottom of the cylinder. Finally, add the name on front. Sorry no pics for the multiple steps, I got lazy.



Hope all you US readers have a great 4th of July holiday!

Family Ties

I think my craftiness is starting to rub off on my kids because they insisted on making something for their Dad this Father's Day. Normally I'd be cool with this suggestion, but we're on vacation and away from all of my goodies - no hot glue, no cutting board, no nothing. So I decided the best thing to do was to make something edible. I'm no baker, but I make a mean tray of rice krispie treats. So after a brief meeting with my guys we decided on this design...any guesses?


Shocker - it's a necktie! We just used the basic rice krispie treat recipe, added food color and topped it with icing.


As nice as the tie came out, I really wanted to make something else to complete the presentation. So I gave into temptation, found a craft store and bought a couple of supplies to make matching "ties" for my little guys...



Hope you all have a fantastic Father's Day!





Linking up to:

DIY Painted Vases

A couple of days ago I saw a bunch of painted flowers at the market that I couldn't take my eyes off of because the colors were so vibrant. I instantly knew that I wanted to make something that would showcase the colors, so I decided to paint bud vases in coordinating colors. Let me start off by saying that I am no painter, but I stumbled upon a technique that seriously anybody can do.

First, here are the flowers that inspired this craft...cool, right?


I then selected acrylic paint in matching colors.


At my son's request I picked up these square-shaped bud vases because they reminded him of inkwells. I wanted to ask him how that related to this particular craft, but I decided not to go there.


So all you have to do is pour the paint into the vase, shake it so that paint covers the entire inside, and then turn the vase upside down to dry (this allows excess paint to drip out as well). That's it!


I painted one vase for each flower color in the bunch (please bear with me - there are 4 colors)...first up, purple:


blue:


pink:


orange:


The hardest part of this craft was waiting for the paint to dry, which took about 24 hours. I've also seen another technique for achieving this look by using spray paint - I think I'll try that next!

A Patriotic Centerpiece That Rocks!

A few years ago I signed up to receive daily organizing tips from Martha Stewart via email - I had to do something to keep motivated! So Tuesday's tip was all about lining your flower beds with river rocks to prevent mud from splashing when it rains...genius! For some reason the idea of using river rocks with flowers inspired me to craft. So, using Martha's useful tip, I decided to make a patriotic centerpiece.

First I rounded up a short glass vase and a glass votive...



I then placed the votive inside the vase and filled the votive with water.



Next I spray painted some river rocks in patriotic colors...



and then placed them inside the vase around the votive in layers.



Finally, I snipped a few flowers from my garden and the centerpiece was complete - too easy!



I hope this inspires you to create something using river rocks - please send me a pic if it does!

Junior Mint Julep Shake

In addition to Mother's Day, the 137th running of the Kentucky Derby will also take place this weekend. Last year I came up with some ideas for kids at a Derby party - you can check them out here. I decided to do a variation on the "Junior Mint Julep" by making it into an ice cream shake (recipe courtesy of 1000easyrecipes.com).

Ingredients
Vanilla Ice Cream
Milk or Half & Half
2 boxes of Junior Mints



Directions
Fill a blender half full of ice cream. Add enough milk to just cover the ice cream. Pour in the Junior Mints. Blend all together until smooth.



Top off the shake with extra candy, a bunch of fresh mint leaves and enjoy! If you want to make the shake into an adult beverage, just add a little rum!