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!






Linking up to:

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!




Linking up to:

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!






Linking up to:

Easter Bunny Lantern

A few months ago I stumbled upon a terrific blog that inspires people to create and share handmade projects each week in the form of a challenge. The creative ladies over at The CSI Project come up with specific themes each week that must be incorporated into every project submitted to the challenge. Some examples of upcoming challenge themes are 'Burlap', 'Easter' and 'Wreaths'. This week's theme is a $5 Challenge and I just had to join in the fun! So the challenge is to make something - anything - for $5 or less. With Easter in the air, I decided to go for a bunny.


Paper Lantern - $1
I found some adorable paper lanterns at the dollar store that became the inspiration for this craft. The lantern will be the body of the bunny.



Craft Foam Paper - .79 cents each
Then I embellished the paper lantern by adding the face and the feet of the bunny using various colors of foam paper.



And here is the result! I simply cut out the head and feet and hot glued them onto the lantern - that's it...


I had so much fun with this challenge I'm going to try (emphasis on the word 'try') to make something for the rest of the challenges this month - stay tuned!

DIY St. Patrick's Day Place Card

Last Thanksgiving I came across a tutorial for making a pilgrim hat using a clay flower pot - check it out here. I never had the time to make it, but saw an opportunity to use the same technique for a different holiday...St. Patrick's Day!

So I gathered up the necessary items to make a leprechaun's hat: the clay pot, green paint, black ribbon and a gold buckle...


First paint the flower pot (I couldn't get the spray paint to play nice with the clay, so I used green acrylic paint instead), then wrap the ribbon through the buckle and around the pot - that's it!

I decided to make the little hat into a place card because my obsession with place cards is still in full effect...

A Tale of Two Birthdays - The Invitations

I have two wonderful little boys who were both born on St. Patrick's Day - two years apart. For the past few years they have been thrilled with having a joint birthday party, but that all changed about a month ago (*sigh*). I knew this was coming, I just didn't think it would happen so soon! So I've spent the last three weeks planning two separate parties for my newly emancipated birthday boys.

My oldest son is turning 7 and decided on a baseball-themed party since he is obsessed with the sport. I immediately knew that I wanted the invitations to have the same look as this invitation I made for a baby shower earlier this year. Here is the baseball jersey version...


Ironically I put myself in the exact same situation as I did with the baby shower invite by underestimating the amount of time needed to complete them - I guess I'll learn on the next go around. So, I again modified the original design for the sake of time. Here's the result...


My youngest son is turning 5 and chose a dinosaur theme for his party. He has never had the chance to experience his very own birthday party, so I'm going all out for this one. I came across a fantastic dinosaur party that was thrown by invitation designer Jill Smith. She created an amazing invitation that I attempted to recreate for my son's bash. Here's my version...


Both parties are happening next weekend, so look for more pics coming soon!

Fruit Shamrocks

I might have mentioned a few times that I tend to hold onto things forever. I like to call it collecting, others might call it hoarding - either way, it works for me. So I was super excited to see the latest post over on the Cute Food For Kids blog where Tiffany shared her collection of cookie cutters. The reason I was so excited was because I too have amassed a large collection of cookies cutters, even though I can't stand to bake - I know, my husband doesn't get it either. You can check out Tiffany's collection here ...this is what mine looks like...


It was kind of fun going through all of the cookie cutters - I had forgotten I had so many cool shapes. Since St. Patrick's Day is only a few weeks away, I was really happy to see that I had a miniature shamrock-shaped cutter in the pile.


Since the fruit kebabs were a big hit at my son's Valentine's Day party, I thought I'd go for two and make more fruit for his St. Patrick's Day party at school...this time using kiwi fruit.


Too cute, right? And no baking required!