Wooden Easter Blocks

Hubby had some scrap wood laying around that I found last week in the basement so I asked him if I could have it. I wanted to come up with a little sign or something for Easter. He had one good sized piece of wood and some smaller pieces of a 2 x 4 left over from another project. I have been seeing some cute things out in blog land and was inspired! I drew out a bunny shape and had him cut that out of the larger piece of wood. Then he sanded down the blocks and the bunny for me. I gathered my supplies and got to work:



I decided to go with some bright pink and green paint that I already had in my paint stash for my blocks. And I used a vanilla color for my bunny. I took a piece of floral wire and cut it down for the bunny's whiskers. I dredged it through some black paint and let it dry. I painted the blocks with a base color of the vanilla and topped that with the pink and green colors. Then I took a white paint marker and free handed the words "happy" and "Easter" on them. Once they were dry, I used sandpaper to distress them a little bit so that some of the vanilla color showed through.

For my bunny, I left her vanilla. Then I took some blush from my make up bag and using my finger, gave her some pink cheeks and highlighted her ears with it. I glued on her whiskers, painted her a cute heart shaped nose and added some eyes with my paint markers. I took some black paint on a sponge brush and dry brushed the edges to highlight her a little bit. I finished her off by tying a purple ribbon bow around one of her ears.



I love how this turned out! I am going to send this set to my Mom who lives in Arkansas. She loves stuff like this and is always asking me to make her things! I hope she likes it!

I'm linking up to these parties this week:







Until next time. . .

Handmade Birthday Presents

I have a co-worker who will be celebrating her birthday early next week. So I set out to find her a gift that would be cute and useful. Her personality is a lot like mine so I knew that if I found something I liked, she would probably like it too. I am on a limited budget so I had to find something cheap! Well, turns out, eveything I liked was too pricey for my budget. So I decided to make her something. I have been seeing a lot of beautiful picture frames adorned with ribbons and embellishments on several different blogs and I thought I'd take some inspiration from them and see what I could come up with. I bought a $3 plain jane wooden 5 X 7 photo frame, scrapbook paper, some pretty coordinated ribbons, and a butterfly embellishment that I found in the jewelry department at Wal Mart and got to work.



I started by spray painting my frame white. Once dry, I lightly sanded around the edges for a distressed look. Then I took my ribbons and just played around with different bows and placements on my frame. Once I had them suitably arranged, I used a couple dabs of hot glue to adhere them to my frame. I then glued my butterfly embellishment onto the center of my top bow. Then I cut out a piece of matching scrapbook paper to fit my frame. I freehanded an abstract "T" from a coordinating scrapbook paper piece since that is the birthday girl's first initial. I glued the initial to the larger piece of paper and inserted this into my frame. I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out!






Here's the breakdown of the cost to create this beautiful frame:

5 x 7 frame from Wal Mart ~ $3.00
Butterfly embellishment from Wal Mart ~ $1.00 (I bought a pack of 4 for $4.00 but only used one)
2 sheets of scrapbook paper ~ $ .44 (I only used 1/2 of the sheet of blue and a tiny scrap piece of the patterned paper. Each sheet cost $.44 but I used less than one sheet on this project)
2 spools of ribbon ~ $2.00 (each spool cost right at $2 but I only used about 3/4 of one spool total so I'm going with $2 for the cost of ribbon)
1 pre-tied ribbon bow ~ $1.50 (I bought a pack of 2 which was $2.97. You could save even more if you tied your own bow, and while I would normally do this, I wanted to save some time so I splurged on this one!)
Total cost to create a personalized frame ~ $7.94

So for around $8.00, I have a nice, personalized gift for my friend. But, I wasn't finished yet! I wasn't sure if the picture frame would turn out the way I had envisioned, so as a back up plan, I purchased some tiles from Lowe's to make a set of coasters. Since I was on a crafting high from my awesome picture frame, I decided to make her a set of coasters to match her new frame.

I'm sure most of you have seen these around blog land so this is not a new craft. I took my sheet of scrapbook paper that I fashioned the "T" for my picture frame out of, and traced around one of tiles four times. I then cut out the squares, trimming them so that they fit a little smaller than the actual size of the tile. I did this because I wanted the edges of the tiles to show. Then I used Mod Podge and applied a thin coat to the tile, placed my cut out scrapbook paper and smoothed out any bubbles. Once dry, I applied another coat of the Mod Podge on top of the scrapbook paper to help seal it. I then sprayed a coat of sealer on them for a little extra protections from any sweating glass that may be set on them.




Once everything was dry, I attached self adhesive round cork pieces to the bottom as "feet" to protect the furniture.



Then I took some of the ribbon left over from the frame, and tied the tiles into a nice little bundle. All ready for gift giving!



Here's the cost breakdown for the coasters:

4 ceramic tiles from Lowe's ~ $1.40 (they were $ .35 each)
1 piece of scrapbook paper ~ $ .44 (I didn't use the entire sheet but am counting it as if I did)
1 piece of ribbon ~ $1.00 (I used less than 1/2 of the remaining spool left over from the frame)
Cork "feet" pkg of 36 from Dollar Tree ~ $ .75 (the price of the pack was $1.00 but I still have about 1/4 of the package left to use on other projects)
Mod Podge ~ free (I already had this)
Total cost for a set of 4 tile coasters ~ $3.63

So for a grand total of $11.57, I have a nice birthday gift for a crazy, silly, wonderful friend! I hope she likes it!

I'm linking up to these parties this week:














Until next time. . .

Springtime

And Spring arose on the garden fair,
Like the Spirit of Love felt everywhere;
And each flower and herb on Earth's dark breast
Rose from the dreams of its wintry rest.
~Percy Bysshe Shelley, "The Sensitive Plant"

Happy first day of Spring!

Until next time. . .

Happy St. Paddy's Day!!!!

Wishing you and yours a blessed St. Paddy's Day!

Until next time. . .

My Newest Roo!!!

I was out doing a little retail therapy this weekend and popped into Cato's to look for a new blouse. They have an awesome home decor section and I happened upon this lovely rooster.




He really likes to strut his stuff! And when I picked him up and saw the price, I knew he was going home with me! Less than $5! Woohoo, can't beat that!



I have been on the lookout for a white roo but haven't found one I really like in a price range I'm comfy with. So, I decided to spray paint Mr $5 Roo white. He turned out great!



Isn't he just gorgeous???!!! For now, he's hanging out on my kitchen counter with my $1.50 charger I scored at Wally World back in January, along with some ivy and some nice, juicy red apples. This probably won't be his final home, but for now he's happy here and that makes me a happy girl!



I'm linking up with these fabulous parties this week. Click on them to check out all the great decorating ideas!

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Until next time. . .

Cloches, cloches, and more cloches!!

Hi everyone! Today I am joining in with Marty over at A Stroll Thru Life for her annual Spring Cloche Party! Now, when I first started blogging, I had never even heard of a cloche. But I was quickly schooled! How amazing that you can showcase things under a glass dome and have it look so pretty and elegant! So, I started my search for the perfect cloche to display all kinds of pretties. I looked and I looked and I looked some more, but just couldn't seem to find any of these pretty glass domes here in my small country town. So I did what any clever, crafty simple country girl would do. I made my own!!! We have a nice store near where I work called Southern Pottery and they sell a little bit of everything. They have a lot of fabulous fake florals, wooden signs, some primitive decor, garden accessories, candles, baskets, well, you get the idea. I was in there browsing one day and came across these rather plain looking glass domes. Eh, not so great to look at but for only ninety-nine cents each, I grabbed a few. Then I crossed the road where there happened to be a Dollar Tree and purchased a couple of glass candlesticks and a couple of glass candle plates. Then it was a quick stop at Wally World for a crystal looking cabinet knob and I was heading home as quickly as possible to create my very own cloche! I simply glued the glass candlestick to the glass candle plate with some E6000 glue and then used some more glue to attach my crystal cabinet knob to the top of my rather plain looking glass dome. Voila, instant cloche!!!!



This one is in my kitchen holding some cute little green apples. Mr. Roo looks like he's ready for a snack!



They are sharing the top of my microwave with my cute little white pitcher I found at Ross over the weekend.



While at the Dollar Tree, I picked up Miss Bunny and of course, she just had to have her turn under the cloche. I decided to display her in the center of my spring Easter egg wreath.



She really likes spring flowers, so I also paired her with some simple, pretty blooms as well:



Then I remembered the sweet little tea cup and saucer I won last year from my blogging friend Cindy over at Applestone Cottage and before I knew it, there it was, taking it's turn under the cloche with some pretty spring flowers inside.



I wanted to do something different with my other cloche creation, so I decided to spray paint the bottom piece (candlestick and candle plate) black and I painted a wooden knob with some black craft paint and glued it to the top. Perfect for my Willow Tree "Friendship" figurine that was a birthday gift last year from a very dear friend. She's holding her very own bouquet of pretty spring flowers!



Cloches are so much fun! I have tons of other ideas on what to put under my cloches and am excited to join Marty's fun party! Click here to check out all the wonderful creations submitted for this great party.

Until next time. . .

Busy, busy, busy!!

Hello all! Sorry I've been MIA over the past couple of weeks. Life has just been so busy. We've either been on the go, working, sleeping, working, eating, working, playing taxi to a teenager with his first job, working. . . well, you get the idea! I've had almost zero time for crafting which makes me sad. But, the good news is, we've been able to get some things done around the house that we've been wanting to do. We've painted our hallway. It went from blah white to a beigey (yeah, that's a new word!) grayish color. Here's a pic, although you can't really tell much about it. The hallway is narrow and not well lit so it's hard to get a pic of the true color.



I was kind of worried about the color because we bought this paint from Lowe's in the "opps" bin for $5 due to it being mistinted. So I don't know the actual name of the color, but I really like how it turned out.

We also got started on our kitchen. Yay! I went to Lowe's website and they were offering a free sample of any color they carry, so of course I had to order the Apple Peel red color I had picked out for my kitchen. I love it! We painted the lower portion of the dining area with this color and then we put up a chair rail. It looks sorta orangey in this picture, but it's really not. It's more of a country red color. I think we will do at least one more coat. This pic is with two coats and it's not as even as I would like it to be. A friend of mine ordered a free sample of the tan color (Summer Tan) for me so that is what color you see above the chair rail. I'm not sure if I'm really satisfied with it or not. I think I will like it once we get more of it on the wall. I hope so anyway!!


I was so excited when I got my free sample in the mail, that I just started painting before I realized that I hadn't taken a "before" picture. Oh well, just imagine a plain white (boring) wall and you'll get the idea!

My crocus and daffodils are starting to bloom. A sure sign that spring is on it's way!! Well, at least I thought it was, until I woke up yesterday morning to SNOW!!! We ended up with about six inches before it stopped. The good news is that a lot of it melted away today since the temps were in the upper 40's for most of the day.


Aren't these just the sweetest little flowers? They make me smile!

Finally, we did get a little bit of thrift shopping done over the weekend. I found a few treasures that I will share with y'all later this week. And I have to show you the awesome candlesticks I won in Marty's giveaway over at A Stroll Thru Life. They are gorgeous!

I have started a couple of small craft projects, but can't seem to find the time to finish anything! I hope to be able to do that this week as well.

I'm linking up here this week:



Until next time. . .