DIY Burlap Wreath

Truth be told (why is this a thing?), I don't like it when Justin is out of town.  I don't know how some of you awesome and amazing wives do it (especially you military wives) but I get really lonesome when my husband isn't here.  Last weekend Justin took a group of our students on their annual ski trip to West Virginia.  They had an amazing time and I'm so glad everyone got to go but I was definitely missing him and missing being with our students.  But, Silas and I had fun.  We spent our weekend getting crafty, playing with his new animal set, coloring pictures, watching Lady & The Tramp and slowly continuing the process of getting organized.  We had plenty to keep us busy - and that's what I have to do when Justin is gone - stay busy.  My friend and I had a girls night and decided to be all creative and make new wreaths, it was just about having fun and hanging out...here's how my turned out...

 It was easy and besides the wreath form (thank you Erin!) I just used things I already owned.  Here are my steps below..

1. Cover your wreath in burlap

2. Find and old diaper box 

3. Trace or draw your letter - mine was free-form, I know it looks pro, just kidding - it looks hand drawn.

4. Cut it out

5. Wrap your letter in yarn (I used a little hot glue here and there to keep it to stay in place) and then hot glue it to your wreath.

7. Make a few no sew felt and fabric flowers  

8. Hot glue them onto your wreath

Your're done!  Yay!

I think I'm feeling kind of springy these days in the dead of Winter.  I'm so thankful for sweet friends who keep me company when Justin is away.  Everyone needs a good crafty night every now and again.  

Hope you are having a great week! What kind of crafty things are you guys working on?  Share with me!

Easy Ribbon & Burlap Banner

I don't know about you guys but we are dead tired after this weekend.  Every year our church puts on a moving play called Journey to Bethlehem.  Different guides takes groups through scenes as they search for the star and the newborn Jesus.  Each scene progresses through the Christmas story as they visit King Herod, the Wise men, the Shepherds, the Inn and the Nativity (with a few more thrown in there). It's really a neat experience and always a great ministry and outreach for us.  Our students run a concession stand for the waiting groups and we raise money for our summer mission trip.  Its a great, great week but boy we are pooped.  Now on to some crafts...

Today I have a quick and easy project to share with you that I made with fabric scraps.  But first let me show you my shutter that I painted to use for our "mantel".  After painting our house exterior over the summer we decided not to put back up all of our exterior shutters -So, I raided our extra stash and spray painted one with a little black paint to pretty it up a bit.  This was the perfect backdrop for my ribbon banner.

Next I grabbed several scrap fabrics and cut them in strips, about 5-6" in length.  I used scrap fabric, bandanas, felt, t-shirts and ribbon.

Then it was as simple as tying them onto my twine to make a pretty garland.  I made a really long one for my tree and a smaller one for this banner.

Next I cut out three burlap squares with a scallop and used leftover chalkboard labels from this project and attached them to my twine with mini clothespins.

And then it was all ready for a little chalk writing and to be hung up on my newly painted shutter.

I love it and I love how all of my Christmas decorations this year are homemade and coordinating.  

So I have a little faux mantel going on in our kitchen on top of our cabinet that I will show you tomorrow.  It's all Christmasy.  We don't have a real mantel because we have no fireplace but I like to use my little cabinet to decorate like a mantel so it works.

So how was everyone else's weekend?  Any crafty things going on?  Share with me!

Have a great week!

Kids Party Ideas - DIY Dinosaur Burlap Tablecloth

Today I have a little dinosaur party project to share with you.  This project actually cost me nothing to make, just because I already had all of the supplies on hand but really wouldn't cost very much at all if you needed to purchase a few of the materials.  I had so much fun making this!  It's simple and easy and so cute.  It only took me a couple of hours one night to complete so if you have a lot going on this is not that a very time consuming project.

Materials needed for the project:

- Burlap cut to fit your size table

- Craft paint in your choice of colors

- Skinny tip craft paint brush & a fatter craft paint brush

- Dinosaur Stencils (you can see how I did mine below)

- Scrap Paper

- Fine tip Permanent Marker (Lighter colors work best)

So I started out by cutting my burlap to the size I wanted and then ironed my burlap on a medium-low heat setting (the steam was the best so if you had a steamer you could use that as well).

Next, I needed a few dinosaur stencils and I knew the perfect place to find a few dinosaurs - in one of Silas' dino books.  So I found a few easy shapes and traced them onto a piece of white paper and cut them out so I could then trace the pattern onto my burlap.

I decided on the placement and chose which colors I wanted to use.

Then I placed a little stack of scrap paper under each dinosaur template and traced around them with a fine tip permanent marker.  Make sure you leave the paper underneath while you paint so you won't get any bleed through on your table.  Also, the paper helps allow you to fill in a lot of the spaces in the burlap itself.  Some of the paper stuck to the back of my burlap when I was finished but I didn't mind because you couldn't tell when it was on the table.

Next I just used my skinny tipped craft paint brush to trace around the outline of the dinos and then used the fatter brush to fill it all in.  I did two coats of paint just to get a good coverage.

And then I had this!  I loved it.

It was ready for our little snack table set up.  

I love the look of burlap and you could do this with any shape, monogram, design that you wanted.  I actually have and idea of what I want to do with the tablecloth now that the party is over so hopefully I will be able to reuse it.

Thanks so much for burlap painting with us today!  Anyone else have any party planning diying going on?  Share with us!!