DIY Yarn Pom Pom Garland

Do you decorate for the little holidays? I'm a big fan of having at least a little something out to change our home up for a bit.  Valentine's Day is one that I enjoy adding a little color around the house for.  Nothing crazy for fancy.  I made a little yarn pom pom garland to use for Valentine's that I'm sharing with you today...its so so simple anyone can do it and its a fun and easy craft to do with your kids too!

Materials Needed - 

1. Yarn

2. Twine

3. Scissors

4. Hot Glue Gun

4. Some sort of card or cardboard to wrap yarn around

The hardest part about this craft is wrapping your yarn many many times around your card.  The number of times you wrap  will determine the fluffiness of your pom pom.  This is a great craft to do while watching a Disney movie or favorite Disney Vlogger (shout out Tim Tracker).  After you have wrapped your yarn, cut off an extra piece and tie a knot around the middle of the yarn you  just wrapped.  Cut through the looped yarn on both sides.  Finally, you just fluff and trim the edges and that's it!

After you have your yarn pom poms made just line them up along your twine and hot clue them into place. 

Done! Super simple, and really cute.  And also for a fraction of the cost something like this would cost in a store.

The top of this cabinet gets changed up a lot over the year, right now I all about adding pink candles everywhere.  If you like the square boxwood wreath, I made that too! I have an easy diy tutorial on how to make a faux square boxwood wreath, I made this wreath years ago and still use it all of the time.

Let me know what kind of decorating you guys like to do for the little holidays or seasons! I love to hear ideas.  

Don't forget,  Only 6 days left to grab a Remodeled Tee! You can order one here.

Have a great week!

Easy Paper Arrow Canvas

Today I have a simple and sweet craft project to share.  If you can cut strips of paper and triangles, you can do this!

Gather your supplies:

1. A canvas (check your local craft store)

2. Modge Podge in Matte Finish

3. Scissors

4. Pretty Papers

5. Paint Brush

6. Embellishments (twine, ribbon, washi tape, etc)

-Start by cutting out your arrow strips from your pretty paper.  

-Next, apply your modge podge to both the back and front of your paper strips and place them on your canvas where you would like them.  I usually use a little more at this point and lightly brush over everything and make sure its smooth.

- Then cut out your arrowheads (aka triangles) and any fletching designs you like (arrow lingo for the back of the arrow...I googled it, I really don't have that kind of arrow knowledge)

- This is also the time to find any other embellishments you would like to add

-Modge Podge away until you have your desired arrows.

-Make sure you give your canvas one final all over coat of modge podge to seal it all together

-Give it a night to dry and you are done!

So sweet and cute for Valentine's Day or even a little girls room...or just of fun!  

PS - Don't ever try to type "modge podge" - auto correct will have a heyday. 

Easy Valentine's Projects

Here in NC we are experiencing something we don't get to experience very often - snow.  And I love it!  So while we are hunkered down, enjoying our milk and bread that we frantically ran to the store yesterday to acquire - maybe a little crafting is a good option.  Monday I shared a glimpse of some of the Valentine crafts I had been working on, today I have a bunch more.

First up, a sweet and easy fabric hoop wreath.  Hoop wreaths are my new favorite thing.  For this one I used some leftover burlap, both felt and paper to make the little bunting and some little letter embellishments.  Of course, hot glue was my friend here.  No sewing required.

If you don't have a pattern punch, I highly recommend one.  This little garland was quick and simple.

After punching out a ton of flowers from some craft paper I simply glued two together along a strand of yarn.  These little garlands are now adorning our living room shelves.  My little deer also got in the spirit and is sporting a little felt rose boutonnière.  

These pinwheels are so sweet and simple.  I loved making them and you can whip a bunch out in a very short time.  Make sure you check out this tutorial - its awesome.

Another easy and simple, no sew option for a banner is knotting strips of fabric or ribbon on a strand of yarn.  I love the simplicity of these things.

We are getting pretty vintage up in here for Valentine's day.  To pull everything together I just walked around my house and stole things here and there that I liked and thought would flow together.  Such an easy way to change up a space and plus its free.

Slowing down for a moment and making something with your own two hands is such a mind clearing activity.  The theme of Valentine's day is love and I couldn't help but think clearly about the theme of our God - which is always and forever will be = Love.  His love is the only love and what all other loves spills out from.  We love because He first loved us.  What a beautiful thing to take some time to reflect on.

But God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:8

Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth. 1 John 3:18

For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:38-39

Ok, I'm off to sled down some snowy hills, make a snowman, eat some snow cream and probably check out all of my favorite blogs.  

Thanks for stopping by!

Updating our Kitchen Chalkboard, plus a Valentine's Craft

I just like to paint things.  Nothing is safe in our house.  When I updated our little desk to navy it was pretty obvious I needed to update the kitchen chalkboard that hangs out with it as well.

Way back when, I found a nice sized piece of framed wood in our shed.  I'm really not sure what it was originally intended for but it looked like the perfect thing to turn into a chalkboard for our kitchen - so I did.  We have loved it but once again it was time for a change with some paint.  When our little desk received its navy paint update, the teal frame on our chalkboard was just not working with mint green walls and a navy desk.

I really considered white for the frame but I wasn't sold.  I checked our stash of paints and found a little paint sample I picked up a while back.

I'm pretty sure it was a pre-made sample that was on sale for $.50.  It was one of those, you never know purchases.  I can't help but always peruse the oops paint section at the hardware stores.  Sometimes there are decent colors to be had and at crazy cheap prices.  Matter of fact, our mudroom floor paint was found in the oops section. I scored a whole gallon of gray paint for $5.00 and then the nice lady tinted it darker for me.  So moral of the story, it never hurts to check out the paint when out and about.

A little tape around the edge and a couple of coats of paint and I was done.  Free, simple and quick.  I used a little foam roller and a small brush for the cracks.

As you can tell this chalkboard gets a lot of use.

I love the new update and I am loving the calmer feeling that we have going on in this little area of the house now.

Over the weekend Justin was out of town taking our students on their Winter Retreat so I took the time to be crafty and have a dance party.  I'm not normally one to decorate for Valentine's day but I got into the mood and couldn't stop.  I have some more to share tomorrow, but for now here is a little scrappy banner I whipped up - anyone can do this.

If you can cut with scissors and tie a knot, you are a crafter - fist bump.  I used old t-shirts, an old lace tablecloth and some ribbon...all from my scrap fabric stash.  Just cut a bunch of strips - they can be jagged and uneven it doesn't matter at all, t-shirt material is especially forgiving.  Then find some yarn, string or ribbon and tie all of your little strips along it.  

That's it, you have a sweet little scrappy, vintage looking banner to hang up anywhere your heart desires.

You can make these for any occasion and I have and will.  Tomorrow I have a bunch more Valentine's crafts to share with you, they are all easy too!  

Thanks for visiting, I'm off to celebrate my 33rd year today!

DIY Silhouette Necklace

I'm so excited to be participating in Kelly's Mother's Day Handmade {love} Series!  I'm the third project out of ten coming your way!  Yesterday Jamie at Roubinek Reality shared a really sweet DIY Ruffled Kitchen Towel.  She has awesome and easy to follow instructions - go check her project out!!

So today I'm going to share a fun and easy Mother's day gift idea - a sweet little silhouette necklace.  I'm all about a silhouette - I love the vintage charm.  I wanted to come up with something that anyone could do and uses easy to find materials.  This really is easy, I promise!  Ok, let's get started!

Supplies I used:

- Balsa Wood Shapes

- Craft Paint

- Pencil

-Silhouette Stencil

- Sharpie Markers

- Small Nail (for making a hole to hang)

- Jump Rings

-Jewelry Chain

Jewelry Clasps

-Diamond Glaze or some other finish

The first thing you need to do is paint your Balsa wood shapes with craft paint - simple.  Balsa wood is a soft wood and its found in most craft stores.  I found the pre-cut shapes at Michaels.  I decided to use two circles and to add a little heart for an accent.  

  

After your paint is dry its time to trace your silhouette onto your pendant.  I simply found a profile of my son on my computer and shrank the size down to fit and printed it out.  Then, I cut out the silhouette to make a template and traced around the template with a pencil onto my pendant.  Next, I simply used a black sharpie to trace around the pencil.  *Here's a tip - a fine tip sharpie will work even better for outlining your silhouette.  After you have your outline use the regular tip sharpie for filling in.  I ended up filling in a couple of coats to get it dark and as even as possible.

Now you need to make your hole so you can use this as a pendant for your necklace.  You can either drill a hole or use a small nail and lightly tap it into the wood.  Its super soft wood so it doesn't take much to make a hole.  

After that, the next part is sealing and finishing it all off.  I decided to use diamond glaze- since I had it on hand and I like the glossy, hard finish it gives...Oh, also it dries super fast.  You could totally use a glossy modge podge or even a clear coat spray paint sealer - just use what you have.  

After your finish coat is all dry the last part is just assembling your necklace together.  I used a couple of jumprings to attach my pendants onto my chain.  Round nose pliers work great for opening and closing the jumprings.  Don't let this part intimidate you if you have never made jewelry - its so easy!  Jumprings can also be found at any craft store - even at Walmart.

And finally, you have a cute little silhouette necklace, ready for gift giving.  Mine came together pretty quickly.  I had a few minutes here and there to paint, cut, trace, gloss, etc.  Don't let handmade projects seem time consuming - usually I'm doing one little step at a time throughout the day when I work on a project like this instead of trying to carve out a chunk of time.  It works for me!

Thanks so much for joining me today!!  Tomorrow Jaime at Raising Up Rubies, will be sharing another great handmade mother's day gift idea so make sure to check it out, I can't wait!!  

Have a great day!

Monthly Roundup: March

Ok, confession - I have spring fever.  I totally want to just be outside right now - which is making it a little difficult to sit down at the computer to write a blog post.  I think our weather here in NC has made a turn towards Spring.  At least its sunshiny today and its calling me to be outdoors.  This week is spring break for our students and we are busy doing a mini-missions week around our city.  So far we have hosted a vbs for a local community and made food packages for our local crisis ministry.  I have enjoyed it so much.  With so much going on this week today I thought I'd take a look back at March and remember some bloggy highlights from this past month....

To start of our month we had our big student ministry event of the year - Disciple Now.  We loved every second of fellowship, worship and growing together in Christ.  We even got crafty and made a little instagram collage.

Then, we got our guest room cleaned out and in a normal state and even talked about some of the craft organization I have going on in there.  Much more to do in this room.

Looks like my spring fever actually started way earlier than now - here is my easy spring wreath/embroidery tutorial.

I'm still on my "mission organization" and made this quick and easy pegboard for organizing all of those papers and photos on the fridge.

Over the last month I have really tried to learn and grow as a blogger.  I even mentioned starting a little blogging tips series and got a lot of positive feedback- so I'm working on getting that started. It will mainly be just a lot of basic things that I wish I had learned earlier as a blogger.  I also decided to join up with bloglovin - you can follow me here.

My sister and I had a spray painting party and made a fun chalkboard canvas for her family room.

I decided to try my hand and gardening this year and began by starting some seeds indoors - which turned into a fun activity to do with my active two year old.

Finally, I got thrifty and freshened up some frames and used a pretty gift bag for artwork - I love the way these turned out.

I kind of like looking back like this, it helps to motivate me for the next month.  So what's on the horizon for April?  I have a medicine cabinet update to share tomorrow which includes some bathroom organization as well, a new blog tips series is in the mix, I think I'm finally ready to do the exterior painting post and share some other exterior updates as well as little crafty things that I have been working on - so lots coming.  I also can't wait to share about what has been happening this week with our students, so stayed tuned!

Thanks so much for joining me each month, I am so blessed my so many of you and your sweet and encouraging comments.  Hope you have an amazing week!

Another Sunburst Mirror

Have you guys seen those awesome sunburst mirror tutorials? I know, Duh right? They are everywhere and were kind of a big deal - like two years ago.  Either way, I have finally gotten around (two years later) to making one - yay for me!  I decided to take on the task of coming up with a mirror with nothing but things found at the dollar store, you know I like to roll that way.  So here is yet again another diy sunburst mirror, enjoy.

Supply List:

- Round Mirror from the dollar store (mine is from dollar tree)

- 3 packs of Wooden Chopsticks from the dollar tree (I found packs of 8)

- E3000 Glue

- Painters Tape

- Spray Paint of Your Choice (I used Rustoleum in Bronze)

First thing you need to do is glue down your first four chopsticks, which will be your map for the rest of them.  Don't try and use hot glue - it just isn't strong enough to hold this all together.  Also, E3000 is awesome glue but make sure you do this outside or in a well ventilated area - it stinks - really bad.  After I had my four pieces glued I just eyeballed the rest and glued them around...its not perfect but I'm ok with that.  You could probably be really precise and measure everything off but that involves too much thinking for me - at least for this project :).

- Let it dry for several days so the glue is set and then you are ready to paint!

I just taped over my mirror and spray painted my chopsticks.  I used a spray paint that already had a primer built in so it was an easy two light coat process.  

After that, I was ready to hang it. I took me forever to decide where I wanted it but ended up putting it up in our back hallway/laundry room area.  To hang it up I used a metal bracket from a pack I found at Lowes and just glued the bracket to the back of the mirror to secure it.

After it had a couple of days to dry it was ready to hang.  

I love this sunny mirror in our sunny laundry area.  This project was so simple and easy...and cheap too!  I'm kind of on a kick to finally get some artwork and photos on our walls.  We pretty much have bare walls still - after two years of living here - I think its time.

Thanks so much for joining me today!  So, how many of you have attempted a diy sunburst mirror?  I would love to see them!!  Or, have any of you thought of making one a thousand times and have never gotten around to making one?  Share with me!

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