Our Christmas Card

I love to get Christmas cards in the mail.

But, I love, love love it when they are photo cards! Which mean I in turn always try to send a photo card.

Last year since it was the first year we had our daughter we did family portraits and used that for our card. It was a hit.

This year since I would be nine months pregnant come Christmastime I was not about to put my picture on a card and send it to everyone we know. Call me crazy.

I like to use the paper cards that have the frame slot on the front that you slide an actual photograph into. That way the grandma's and anyone else can just remove the picture after the holidays and still display it without having to display our whole Christmas card. In fact I am pretty sure that last year's picture ended up being framed by most of our family after the holdiay's had passed.

I try and buy my cards the year before at the after Christmas sales and I scored big at Target last year. I bought several boxes of really nice, shabby chic-like Christmas cards for less than $3 a box.  And, because I already had then I was able to work on them well before Thanksgiving so they were ready to mail right after Turkey day and before I got too worn out and caught up from the end of my pregnancy.

Our picture this year...well let's just say I am obsessed with how great it turned out. Right after our tree was decorated and lit we dressed our little girl in a velvet dress with Christmas adornments and sat her down. We just sat her on the floor, handed her each letter and she did whatever she wanted. It was fun! I bought the letters at Jo-Ann's with one of my % off your total purchase coupons so they were relatively cheap. Plus, I am now planning on turning them into a decoration for next year now.

So far our pictures have received rave  reviews and so many people have told me how cute and creative they thought they were.

Just in case I am not on anymore before the 25th (my last doctor's appointment is tomorrow and we start discussing eviction of the little one!)from my family to yours I wish you a Merry Christmas!

O Christmas Tree

Our Christmas tree was up early this year.

Like, before Thanksgiving. Being due the week before Christmas really lights a fire under your butt! There won't be any presents under this tree this year since we are doing all our celebrating with family instead of driving back and forth with a newborn but I think my daughter still loves it.

I am not one to do a themed tree or a color specific tree. I am so NOT into those. We had a similar decor growing up and my mom still does it.

Our tree is covered in ornaments from my childhood, my husbands childhood and now some that our daughter had accummulated in her short life. They are all shapes, colors and sizes. I will only ever display a tree with multicolor lights as well. I love the look of Christmas colors :)  My mom always hung some kind of tinsel on our tree but for me I have never wanted to do anything but ribbon. Right now it is a gold ribbon covered in multi-colored wrapped Christmas packages. I am hoping to change it up this year but I have to find a new ribbon I like in enough spools to fill my tree. I always had an angel on the top but my husband already had a special star so we stuck with that. Yes, that is a train under our tree and we display our nativity set under the tree too. So far we have had minimal touching from small fingers but we will see how the future goes. My husbands late grandfather made the wooden manger to our set and it is very sentimental to my him and I look forward to telling our children all about how special it is someday ;)

I am surprised at how well this huge tree is covered. I guess my husband and I collected more ornaments than anyone else in our lifetimes. It has our baby's first Christmas ornmanents on it, ones from vacations we took, lots that symbolize my husband's hobbies and favorite sports teams, about a thousand ones I made in Brownies or grade school classes and since we were married right before Christmas I think we have four or five 'Our First Christmas Ornaments' and I can even tell you who gifted them to us as wedding gifts!

I want to display some of the craftier ornaments to our tree as well.

These two are proof that at some point in her life, my mom was crafty. She claims she isn't able to do much but when they were first married my parents tree had mostly ornaments that my mom made herself. This little train and fancy oval are the only ones like this she made. There are several designs she did but only these are each one of a kind and I have them. She said they took so long she wasn't about to make more! I treasure them and always will.

 This next one has to go on my tree every year no matter what. I made it in first grade and even if I didn't remember doing that it is dated on the back by my teacher. It's one of those juice can tops to which we attached a picture cut from a Christmas Card. I chose this one because my favorite Christmas carol is (and always will be) 'Away in a Manger'. I can't believe how well the glitter has held up over the last 20 some years. I wonder what kind of glue we used??

 These two are by far my favorite. The blue one is from last year; my daughter's first Christmas. I only managed to get two out of her tiny, always moving hands so I have one and my mom has one. This year (the green one) she was much more into it and I got LOTS of handprints. Only three usable one and that is exactly what I wanted. I have one, my mom will get one and my mother in law will get one. I painted her hand and then had to smack it down on the cardstock (she was very willing to do this part!) and then cut it out. They are each mounted on a thin piece of wood and I glued a ribbon hanger to them before attaching a piece of plain cardstock to the back. I added the faces and hats with markers and the scarves and noses with paint. I drew some trees on with a Sharpie for a little extra effect. And, of course they are dated. If you look closely you can see how the one from this year has about eight digits since my daughter moved her hand so much but I only made five of the fingers in to snowmen to get the full effect. Hopefully next year I'll be able to add one for the baby.

My Christmas mantle

Growing up we didn't have a fireplace in our house. But, we never wondered how Santa got in either so my parents never had to worry about answering that question!

For most of my life we just each hung our Christmas stocking in our bedroom. When I was in college my mom found a stocking hanger that had five hooks on it-exactly the number in our family at the time-that you hung on the wall and we finally had a 'place' for our stockings.

When I married my husband I was very excited that his house had a fireplace. It was a beautiful brick fireplace, albeit gas and in the basement but I was happy nonetheless.

We had the standard red/white store bought stockings for the loooooongest time growing up. As we got older we were all gifted with special stockings at one point or another and they still hang in my parents house every year along with new ones for our spouses and children. Yes, Santa fills our stockings there too :)

I was very excited to start a new tradition in my own little family for our daughter's first Christmas. I made a stocking for each of us and next year the new baby will have their own too!

I simply used a store bought stocking and made my pattern out of newspaper by tracing the stocking. These are two layers and we each chose the fabric for our stockings. Well, my husband and I picked out the little princesses but I am sure she'll love it! The inside of the stocking is lined with one fabric and it matches the letter (attached via heat n' bond) on the outside of the stocking and the hanger. Easy peasy and hopefully they will be treasured for years to come.

Dollar Store Magic!

Ok, enough time for one more post today. I hate posting twice in one day (I'm just weird that way) but I couldn't resist.

I found this little guy at the Dollar Tree last year:

It's a clear plastic Santa if you couldn't tell from my awesome picture taking skills :)

It's amazing what a little spray paint can do....

I like him much better this way! And, he looks like I spent a bit more than a dollar on him now!

These are my sconces on the wall in my living room. They usually have tall ivory candles on them. Again, two red Dollar Tree candles and one package of stars (they were 2 to a pack-score!) from the same store and they are all festive now. For only $3!!

Christmas Topiary

It seems all fall long I couldn't wait to show off my Christmas projectsI made last year. I go ALL OUT to decorate my house and last year I took pictures of what I did in every room. Yes, that's right...I decorate every room. Even my bathroom :)

Sadly this year I haven't put out nearly half of my things! The basment has NOTHING in it this year.

But, with our biggest project in the making planning on arriving very soon I made the decision to cut back this year. I figure everything I take out I will have to put away too. And, I don't want that big of a job with a newborn and 2 year old to handle too!

This project is one of my biggest ones and I am so proud of it. I saw a picture online somewhere last year and couldn't wait to try it myself.

If you buy your ornaments out of the dollar bins at Target like I did you shouldn't have to spend much either. I think I ended up using altogether 6 tubes of ornaments in a mix of large and teeny tiny sizes. And, I have a few little ones left over.

I spray painted the styrofoam ball red before I started sticking the ornaments in since I knew I would have the smallest little spots left uncovered. I did and you can see some of them in the picture. I also covered the top of the ornament with hot glue before smashing it into the ball. I also painted and glued the dowel too. I didn't want it shifting too much or too far into the foam on either end so I put hot glue on each end before inserting it into both the ball and the foam in the flower pot.

I painted the flower pot (one I had on hand) myself and didn't even try to make it straight or even...which you can also tell! I like the way it looks that way much better :) I filled the bottome with some stones before stuffing floral foam in it. This is SO top heavy so I needed to balance it out.

I put a few dollar store gift packages underneath it and it makes a cute little picture!

Big Girl Room Revealed!

I thought I would display some shots of how the BGR ended up looking. I am so happy with it and my daughter has a whimsical, girly place to lay her head every night :)

The white sleigh bed was the inspiration starting point. I found it at Salvation Army before we even got pregnant with Miss C's sibling. I went home and researched the company that was on the plaque on the bottom of the headboard. It turns out they are big on childrens furniture and all of their trundle beds are priced over $700!! I told my husband what I found and we went back that night and brought it home for $117 since all furniture was 25% off that day. It really is a good solid, heavy piece of furniture and will allow us to use it for many years in her room.  Of course, there are the curtains, nightstand and mobile I made her as well. She got a pink and green comforter that looks like a patchwork quilt so we stuck with pink with bits of green for the rest of the room.

The princess rug is another something I found at a mom2mom sale for $8. It comes with teacups, saucers and a teapot so you can have princess tea parties. I can't wait until the day we do that :)

Both of these toys were rummage sale finds. The doll set has a high chair, rocking cradle, bathtub, sink and lots of storage underneath it. I got it for $10 and it is starting to overflow with not only her few dolls but any stuffed animals that may need loving. The desk is a little tikes piece that my mom found for $5 and Miss C LOVES to sit in that chair and color or cause other trouble. On the wall is the vinyl sticker I like to call 'paint by numbers from hell'. It was 105 separate little pieces that took me over an hour to figure out. I had to find each piece on the 'map' they give you to help put it together and then go and find it on the sticker sheet. Of course none of these numbers could go in any order. I promised my husband this thing was staying up for YEARS after all that work! We got it at Target for less than $20.

This is a better shot of the curtains with the nightstand. But, this is an even better closeup shot of the nightstand that I took while it dried.

 Once again, the dresser we redid. It holds her name blocks and picture frames I made. The top of this thing is always covered in stuff now. I try to stay on top of keeping her room neater than mine but nobody's perfect. The shelf on the wall is also a project I re-did and the butterflies are more vinyl stickers we got at Jo-Ann's for 40%.

My husband is also very happy with it alll but most especially on how much I saved him. I think he is finally impressed with how much I am able to do with so little to spend :)

Thrifty updates

The big girl bedroom was finally finished a few weeks ago!

I decided to post all of my halloween crafts before revealing any new projects though. But, with Christmas projects on the horizon I have to get them in now. Plus, everyday gets me one day closer to my due date and I have so much to do before then :)

I bought this bookshelf storage thingy at a garage sale for $3 about 2 years ago for my mom. She had those colorful plastic bins on it to store toys in the playroom in her house. But, as the number of her grandchildren grows, so does the number of toys! We had been looking for something to use as a nightstand of sorts in Miss C's room when we were at their house one weekend and it was sitting in the hall. My mom said she was waiting for someone to take it to the curb. It was pretty beat up when I bought it and our kids had added to it so she was just going to trash it.

It came home with me and we got to work. My before picture was taken AFTER my husband had sanded it down:

We painted it white to match the other furniture and I found some scrapbooking paper I liked and Mod Podged it on there. This was a big project for me. I had never done such a big area of mod podge before or on something that I needed to be perfect. I re-did the top twice-thank goodness it's water soluble! Then I did research and got out an old credit card and used that to smooth it out and I was happy with my second attempt. I really love the overall final look of it:

It has many more of her books and trinkets on it now and is the perfect size for what we wanted. That pretty cool lamp was found at a mom2mom sale and I think it adds the perfect bit of diva :)

The last project for the big girl room took me forever to finally get to. And, it was the easiest-there is no method to my craft madness!

I found a 52x90 curtain panel at Salvation Army a long time ago. It was $2.99 and I thought it was beautiful and of course a great quality; very thick and sturdy. I really had no idea what I would use it for but I thought it would come in handy eventually.

I had brainstormed over a few ideas of how to use it in the BGR and finally decided to just use it as a window treatment just like it was intended. Except I needed two short panels so I cute it in half and made a spot for the rod to go through on the bottom half and just did a basic hem on the top half that I cut. I added some pink rick rack along the bottom that I got for $3 at Jo-Ann's. For $6 I got beautiful curtains for my daughter's room.

Halloween Headband

I joined Pinterest about 4 weeks ago. One of my friends had invited me-I didn't even ask. I had heard about this place all over the internet and it seemed EVERYONE and their brother was begging for someone to invite them. This must be something good.

I must admit I don't get it. I am not addicted. I don't even go on everyday. Is there something I'm missing?

Yeah, I have several boards and add to them every once in a while but I think I would have survived without it. So far.

It has given me lots of inspiration and ideas for projects so it isn't a bad thing at all. In fact I saw things like this headband all over pinterest for Halloween and I thought: "I could do that!"

I googled some directions for the rose thingy's and got to work.

I bought two of those fabric quarters for $1.99 at Jo-Ann's and used maybe a 1/4 of each one. I found the glitter netting stuff with the rest of the halloween decorations and craft stuff. It was 2.99 but I went three weeks before the holiday so of course everything was already 50% off. I made the rosettes, attached some bling I had on hand and glued the whole thing to felt in the order I wanted and cut it out of the felt. I added the netting to the felt first and then put the flowers down on that. I sandwiched my headband between the felt that held the flowers and another plain piece of felt and I was happy with it.

I am not happy with how my pictures turned out so please forgive me.

I am looking forward to wearing a lot this weekend....we have several trick or treating and other Halloween events to go to and then there's the big candy night! I think I could re-do this for any event or holiday by changing the colors and embellishments.

Happy Halloween to you!

Haunted house and a Treat Bag!

These, again are both crafts that I made last year...when I first got back into crafting. And went crazy with it.

But, since I didn't have a blog I can feature them now.

The haunted house was originally a unfinished bird house from Michael's. I don't remember what I paid for it though. I painted it black, mod podged some halloween themed scrapbook paper on the two sides of the roof and added some other embellishments that I found in the scrapbook section. I thought about putting it on a candlestick or something this year to give it height but I never did. Maybe next year. Or the one after...

I made this treat bag that I originally found here at eighteen25 (one of my first craft blog obsessions!) As you can see from the picture on the website and my picture I didn't get too creative with mine. I made mine look pretty much just like the one they made. I love it and hope my daughter uses it for years to come and am planning on making one next year for her sibling. It folded up nicely for storage this past year and when I pulled it out of the box and fluffed it up a bit it looked as good as new. So much easier than trying to store those buckets!



DIY No-sew Halloween Costume

I finally finished the halloween costume I promised to my niece. Yes, if you haven't read my entire blog yet I LOVE my nieces and do so much for them since my sister is craft-challenged :) I was planning on making my daughter a costume but when I found the perfect frog at a Mom2Mom sale for $5 that would keep her so warm, I changed my mind!

My niece decided months ago what she wanted to be and I told my sister it would be SO easy....it was! And, very inexpensive if done right.

These are the main characters in this project and I will see if you can guess what my niece will be going as this year:

If you guessed a cute little cowgirl from a big movie, you'd be right!

My husband and I babysat for our nieces back in the springtime and we watched Toy Story 3 with them. At first they did NOT want to watch this movie. I think they are afraid of the unknown and they had only seen a few minutes of the first Toy Story and freaked out. But, we took our chances and they LOVED it. In fact it was all they could talk about the next mornng. Thus, began an obsession with Jessie for my oldest niece. She loves Jessie and squeals with glee anytime she sees anything with an image of Jessie. So, Halloween planning began long ago.

My mom bought the jeans at another Mom2Mom sale for $1 since they would not be wearable outside the costume after this. We searched everywhere for a shirt and my sister finally gave in and gave me one of their $5 outlet store shirts they wear under their uniform jumpers. Jessie has a shirt with the buttons all the way down but ours works just as good. I got the cow print fabric on sale for $3.99 a yard at JoAnn's and only used 1/2 a yard. The felt squares were .29 each and used two whole ones. My niece is an average sized 5 year old if that makes any difference to this project :) The rest of the things I had on hand but I also needed red fabric paint, fabri-tac and white grosgrain ribbon.

For the pants I started by folding the jeans in half and tracing one leg at a time:

Don't go all the way up to the waist though since Jessie's are more like chaps. Isn't the little rufle on the bottom of the jeans a cute touch? :)

Once traced I cut my material and attached it to the jeans with the fabri-tac glue. I only did it on the four main sides of the leg and not the middle  since you would be able to see the glue lines through the material-it's very thin. I set them aside to dry and began working on the shirt.

I folded the arm to the back and the collar inside the shirt so the seams would be more visible. Then I laid my felt on the shirt and found the seams with my pencil and just followed the lines of the shirt with my pencil to trace them on the felt and had my basic piece. You need one for each side of the chest with room for the buttons in between. I also attached these to the shirt with the fabri-tac. I used the red fabric paint at this point to make the designs on the yellow felt. I Googled a picture of Jessie to make sure I got it exacly right. I would highly recommend having a good picture of her on hand for this.

I used about 3/4 of each square for the shirt and then took the last 1/4 piece of each felt square to make the sleeve cuffs that Jessie has. Seriously, Google it. They were just a long, wide rectangle of fet that I painted the same curly cue desing on. Once dry I cut three pieces of white ribbon for each cuff and hot glued the ends together to make a little loop and glued them to one inside side of the cuff. I added a piece of velcro on each inside end so they would stay on my nieces little wrists.

Now I was done and I could't wait to see her in it. I realized after I was done that Jessie had a belt and my costume didn't. The pants have no belt loops so we would have to brainstorm that one but my sister  told me not to worry about it so our Jessie doesn't have a big belt. I was going to just embellish a red dollar store foam hat for her but my sister treated my niece to a 'prize' for doing something or achieving something and my niece picked out Jessie's hat at the Disney store for her reward. I think she got it on sale for about $8. The boots are something my niece saw at Gymboree and proclaimed that she HAD to have them to be the 'real' Jessie. My sister got them on sale for $9.99. So, the costume itself cost me about $8 to make and had I made the cheap hat and she wore her own shoes it would have come to about $10 but it came out SO CUTE!!

When she had it on she came running into the room and threw herself at me in a big hug she was so excited. She kept thanking me and thanking me and told me how excited she was to show her friends at school. I can't wait to see her in the Halloween parade the kindergarten class puts on :)

 

 

I'm up for the challenge!



Jack-O-Lantern cake

This past weekend was the big fundraiser at my nieces' school. Not only are they in Kindgerten and Pre-3 full time this year but my brother-in-law works in the parish offices and my sister, their mom, is a teacher there now too. So, they have to put in volunteer time as parents AND staff. Plus, this is something for my two perfect and absolutely wonderful nieces so the whole family is willing to help :) My mom cooked up a storm: two kinds of cupcakes, two kinds of brownies and halloween cookies galore. She packed them all in pumpkin themed wrap and sent them to school on Friday for the bake sale portion of the event. My sister called her that morning after getting to work to tell her how happy and excited the 'bake sale ladies' were with everything. Come to find out they weren't getting as much in as they normally do (they ended up getting a TON of stuff in later that day and sold out by Saturday night!) and they had just found out that the lady who makes them a few fancy cakes to raffle off or sell for a bigger price wasn't going to make them anything this year. They had no 'big' eye catching item. I wanted to help and since I know how to basically decorate cakes with the flowers and all that fancy stuff I wanted them to have a special cake. But, I was already down at my mom's house for the day and had none of my tools so I knew it would have to be relatively 'easy'. I found the instructions for this cute little guy over at Family Fun and I am so happy with how he turned out and how much fun he was to make. My mom helped me out a LOT so I think that was part of the fun! I used two bundt pans, three Betty Crocker Spice Cake mixes (so GOOD!!) and two tall cans of whipped frosting. The stem is a ice cream cone and the face is flattened and cut out gumdrops.

I have a few things I did differently and a few tips to offer.

-if you are making this for an event at your own home it's great. If you are making this for something where you will have to transport it-be careful!!! He did not look like the picture once he got to the bake sale..I had to do some damage control because he shifted between the layers. If I ever do another one and have to move it I will definitely put dowels in a few spots.

-I couldn't find a green ice cream cone so I bought a regular one and planned on covering it with green icing. I changed my mind once home. My mom had green sugar crystals and Karo syrup. I simply covered the cone with syrup via a basting brush and then sprinkled the crystals all over it. I let it dry and it was perfect.

-When you dip the pieces of the face in the chocolate let it dry or cool a bit. You can see my fingerprints in a few places where I touched it while trying to get them in place as soon as the chocolate was applied...oops!

I don't know who ended up winning the raffle but I have heard it was a hit with the kids and they ended up having to come up with a cover so the little fingers would stop touching it!

Definitely something I will try again in the future :)

A ghostly re-purpose

This is one of my favorite Halloween decorations this year and I don't know why. I made it last year-maybe it's because it was so cheap and easy. Or maybe it's because it's spooky but in a cute way.

I'm talking about that ghostly guy on the right :)

He started out as a $1 purchse from Salvation Army-it's a sconce cover, I think.

I simply painted the inside with mod podge and then sprinkled it with TONS of white glitter-be sure you do this over a piece of paper or a box top or something because this project got extra glitter everywhere! I used my black paint pen again to make the face and tied some halloween ribbons around the little piece at the top and was done. So quick and inexpensive. I put one of those LED battery operated tea lights underneath him too...that's the best part! My daughter makes me turn him on everyday...she even wants him on during the day when you can't even really tell he is lit up but he's cute nonetheless so who wouldn't want him glowing? :)

Halloween in my kitchen

I think I finally feel ready to post some of my Halloween crafts!

I made all of these last year when I really got back into the crafting thing. I had been dabbling in little things since my daughter had been born in January but there were so many cute and spooky crafts out there that I jumped in with both feet so to speak. Plus, now I had a kid who could enjoy it and I wouldn't look so crazy for going hog wild over Halloween as an adult :)

The first thing I would like to show off is my dining room table. My dining room is part of my kitchen with an island separating the two so I don't even know if it qualifies as a 'dining room' but that's what I call it. I don't really do much in the kitchen/eating are but I am slowly spreading out around the house for Halloween.

I saw a similar ceramic pumpkin last year at Hobby Lobby for $30 and thought to myself....I can do this. I went to Jo-Ann's and got one of those 'fun-kins' when they were already 50% off so I got it for $5. I also picked up a black paint pen, thick tip for this project for sure. I found a 'B' in Word that I liked, enlarged and bolded it and printed it out. Using an exacto knife I cut out the letter from the paper so I had a stencil. As carefully as I could I taped it to my pumpkin...not so easy to do on a sphere! I traced the 'B' with a pencil, took the paper off and filled it in with my paint pen. I added a few crystals from my scrapbook stash to bling it up :) I love it and keep it out even past Halloween. For Halloween it sits in a wreath I made in college out of fabric dipped in starch and tied to a wire hanger wreath form. I pull that out after Halloween but it is old and kind of crummy looking so it looks much better on the table than on my door :)All in all it's much better and cheaper than the Hobby Lobby version.

The other pumpkins that surround it are Dollar Tree or Big Lots pumpkins that are cheap-o. The glitter ones I probably don't have to explain but glue+glitter=fabulous! The bigger ones are just spray painted and the white one has graduated stick on bling in the natural creases of the pumpkin. I keep these out with the center one much past Halloween as well since they are more fall than spooky.

The last thing for today is in the corner of my dining room. I have this plant stand in the corner that used to have a big fake plant on it before I moved in. It wasn't very pretty so I got rid of it but love the stand and haven't figured out what exactly to do with it so most of the time it stands empty. I bought this container to use in a candy buffet for a shower I hosted. I think it was $7 at Marshalls and I think it's beautiful. I had the fillings already. I used to put this stuff in containers or on countertops all throughout my house. I put it all in the vase with the leftover leaves from my wreath and topped it off with another glitter pumpking and I was qutie pleased. Again, this will also probably stay out through Thanksgiving too. Fall is definitely in the air and now it's throughout my house too :)

Making the old new again

Never in my life did I imagine that I would have a white bedroom set in my home. I wouldn't even LOOK at them when we were choosing the furniture for our nursery and we ended up with a 'natural' wood color.

However, on a shopping trip to Salvation Army when my daughter was about 8 or so months old I ended up coming home with a WHITE twin bed. The horror still stuns me :)

So, when she started using the big girl room we had to get furniture to somehow match it. Or at least come close. I wanted a low, long dresser but not a high, narrow one. Does that make sense?? I also didn't want the low long one to have a mirror attached to it. There was already a mirror on the wall in the room and I wanted to use that and just position the dresser beneath it.

I didn't want to spend a fortune on furniture either though. I was delightfully surprised when my parents offered us my old dresser from when I lived at home. I moved out of my parents home the day I got married and didn't take any of my bedroom furniture with me. The bed was technically theirs and they could still use it for the grandkids. The dresser was mine but we had no space for it since my husband had been living on his own in our current home for nearly 4 years and every room was outfitted. Thus, it became storage space for my 'rents.

They told me I could have it back if I really wanted to paint it for the big girl room. I REALLY wanted to do this and after I showed the piece to the hubs he was pretty happy too. I got this piece when I was a teenager from a  church rummage sale. I offered them $20 for it and they offered to put it in the car for me! It is much older than me and beautifully built. It is one of those pieces that you look at and say: "they don't make things like this anymore".

We took it home, removed the handles off the drawers and my husband got to work. I barely remembered to take pictures of what it looked like 'before' but you can get the basic idea.

One coat of primer and two coats of white paint (not exactly like the bed but close enough) later and it was ready. I thought about getting new, fun handles but when we put one back on 'just to see', I fell in love. The old ones went back on and much to everyone's dismay I didn't even try to clean them up. I love the look they have after all these years. I don't even know what all I will put into every drawer but I am sure they will fill up as C grows up :) I could barely wait to decorate with my craft projects...I was really bugging my husband to give me the green light but I had to wait until the paint 'cured'...it was so worth everything though:

DIY Flower Chandelier

I knew I wanted to make something like this for the big girl bedroom long before we even started putting the room together.

I read a lot of online tutorials I found while doing a Google search and then used them all to make my own version.

I decided to write up how I made mine in the hopes of helping someone someday (added to the fact that I never plan on making one of these again unless I am being paid big time!) and I even took some pictures while I was working to help explain things :)

This project took me a long time to do...well at least what I consider a long time! I think because it is so much tedious work that it was harder for me to 'get into' it and keep at it. Once I made a bunch of progress on it and it started to take real shape I was hooked though and got it done in record time. Record nap time of course since this was a no-go to bring out while the big girl herself was hanging about.

I am so happy with how it looks in her room and love when she points up and says 'momma do's it' :) She knows at least that I put it there!

All in all I probably spent between $5 and $8 on this project. I had to buy two new hole punches but I got them at 40% off at Jo-ann's so they cost me $12 total but I can always use those again so I don't take the total amount into consideration of my final cost. That's just how I think at least :)

What I used:

Cardstock-I used 3 sheets EACH of three different shades of pink. 9 sheets total of 12x12 cardstock. I got it while it was on 5/$1 sale or something like that.

Two hole punches-One 2 inch flower and one 1 inch flower from Fiskars.

Bunch of old pennies-I used 20 total.
Glue dots-found with the scrapbooking supplies but I already had mine.
Fishing Line-surprising how my family has an abundance of this on hand at any time ;)

Two embroidery hoops-I used an 8 inch and 4 inch. I opted to buy the plastic ones that were already pink since they were each only $1 more than the unpainted wooden ones I would have had to buy spraypaint for anyways.

Coordinating Ribbon-I used a 5/8 inch pink satin that was 2/$1 and used 1 and one half rolls.

regular old sewing needle
ribbon or wire or something else for a hanger

How I did it:

I started by removing the inner hoop from the outer embroidery hoop. I only used the inner one (the one without the hardware on it). The bigger one is where I would attach my flower strands so that is the one I worked with first. I had some white transparent ribbon in my stash and used that for my hanger. I simply cut four even pieces of ribbon and spaced them evenly around the hoop and tied them in a double knot. Then I took the other ends and tied them all together in a knot and had my hanger.

My large flowers are what I would use to anchor the strands of flowers and since I decided to do 20 strands I would need 40 large flowers to be sure to make them double sided. I punched those out first; I was planning on doing a pattern with the large flowers (to be sure that two of the same didn't end up next to each other) so if you want to do that figure out how many out of the 20 strands will be each color so you can punch exactly the right amount. I didn't do this and had a bunch of flowers left over but that was ok for me.

After I had them punched out I worked on attaching the fishing wire. My cardstock was textured on one side and I decided I didn't want that side to show so that became the inside part of my flowers. For each strand of flowers I would need two matching big flower punches and one penny. I put a glue dot on the inside side of each flower. I pressed one penny on to one glue dot and the end of the fishing line into the other glue dot.

Then I took the flower piece with the fishing line and pressed it firmly onto the side with the penny.

I made all twenty of these in the beginning instead of making one strand at a time. I didn't pre-cut the fishing line either. I cut it once the large flowers were attached to the other end, this made it easier to handle and not so flimsy and fly-away. I eyeballed how long/short I would cut it and then figured if it was too long I could cut it once it came time to attach it to the hoop. I wanted them all to be varying lenghts but didn't want to measure them out and be too precise about it either. Once the large flowers were attached I laid them on my workspace in the order(pattern) that I would be hanging them to make it easier on myself.

Now, I had to punch a million smaller flowers. It didn't take as long as it sounds especially since, yet again I didn't count or punch the exact amount I needed but rather did a bunch and then did more as I needed them. I kept them in three separate color piles to make it easier to figure out which ones to grab. Then I worked one strand at a time. I thread the loose end of the fishing line through my needle. I chose the thinnest needle with the largest eye that I could find. I then poked it up through the back side of my small flower and out the front and then back down to the backside. I slid them into place as far from the top as I could. I knew I would need a lot of line to be able to tie and then could re-arrange them once they were hanging in place. I didn't do a pattern with the small flowers but tried to be sure not to add two of the same color in a row. That is as far as I went with organizing this part. I wanted each strand to be completely different from the next. This is how each strand looked. Of course how many flowers I put on it depended on how long the fishing line was.

After each strand had the small flowers threaded on it I tied it to my hoop right away. In the beginning I kept it flat on my work table but as more got added and it had even weight on it I just hung it off the back of one of my kitchen chairs. This made it easier on me to see the length I wanted and to make sure the lines didn't tangle too much. I put them on in the order of the pattern which is why having them laid out on the table all ready for me was so helpful. I did a double knot on each one, and pulled really hard sometime using my teeth to make sure the fishing line was secure and then cut anything that stuck out of the end of the knot. This is what I had going:

Once all 20 strands were attached I moved them as I wanted (and could depending on the strenth of my knot) into place. I was now ready to work on my inner hoop.

I cut my ribbon to 14 inches and now wish it was much longer. Oh, well. I cut it out a little at a time since I wouldn't know how much I would need to cover my entire small hoop. Once it was cut I would fold the ribbon in half and fold the loop end over my hoop. Then I would pull the two free ends through the loop and pull tight. This is what it started to look like:

I have NO idea how many ribbons I used since I wasn't about to count them. Once the entire hoop was covered in ribbon I made a similar hanger with fishing wire as I made for the big hoop with ribbon. I attached four pieces of fishing line-evenly spaced apart (think 12,3,6,9 on a clock) and instead of tying them together at the top I attached them to the bigger hoop with about 6 inches of fishing wire left between the knot of the large hoop and the one on the small hoop.

Now, you should be done! I hung it in her room right away as there was already a hook in the ceiling and she loves it. Even my husband was impressed when he got home from work! I do wish the ribbon was longer but I am not going to re-do it all and I know for sure it will be years and years before she is able to reach it by standing on her bed :)