Copy Craft

My friend Raegen introduced me to her Aunt's blog and I'm obsessed. This woman lives my dream life. She started by just making amazing handmade cards as a hobby and now her job is to blog about her craft projects. She truly gets paid to do what she loves. She even has a stamp collection made from her handwriting!

Here is the link to her blog if your interested in checking it out. Dawn McVey

I was scrolling through her blog when I found a fun craft project I wanted to make for all the women in my life for Christmas. Being that it was an accessory, it was right up my alley. I love anything you can use on multiple things! Here is her original post.

I don't have all the supplies she has in her arsenal (someday I hope I do!), so here is my adaptation of the pin.

Here are all the supplies I used. I don't have a die cut, so I used a stencil to trace the flower shape and individually cut it out. After looking at her original post again, I like the 3 layers and will have to see if I can find a stencil for that (or invest in a die cut).

I found lots of fun colors and prints in felt. I even found felt that had a texture to it.










I traced the stencil on the felt and cut out the individual flowers. I then took a coordinating button and hand sewed through the layers. After that, I cut out a rectangle of the felt that matched the bottom layer of the flower and used hot glue to attach a safety pin to the back. I covered the hot glue with the rectangle of felt.

Here are my creations:

I ended up using the pins to decorate the recipient's Christmas presents. (Please notice the crafty handmade pin placed next to the $0.10 stick on bows. Isn't that a coordinating classy look?)

Hopefully as my craft room is put together in the house (its supplies are currently residing in 3 other rooms), my craft projects will grow. I'm hoping to tackle some furniture refinishing, surface distressing, and a mason jar soap dispenser eventually. Maybe if I consider painting the guest room a craft, I'll be more excited to finish it too!

O Christmas Tree

I know that technically Christmas day is over, but I'd like to think the spirit of Christmas goes on a little longer. It has always been my family's tradition to keep the tree and decorations up until New Year's Day. I plan to keep the same schedule for my house.

Adam and I had planned to find a big permanent tree early in the season for our living room, but after hearing so many people tell us that they had found trees during the after Christmas sales we decided to get an affordable it-will-work-for-now tree and hunt for our dream tree after Christmas. I have always wanted 2 trees, one for my future sports room and sports theme ornaments and one for the living room for all our childhood ornaments. Luckily, this dream will get to come true thanks to the it-will-work-for-now tree and the full year I have to finish our sports room.

One of my favorite things to do every Christmas morning was to race down stairs and see what ornament Santa topped my presents with. My sisters and I normally woke up before my parents and we knew we couldn't open any presents or peek at our stockings until Mom and Dad got up, but we could see our ornaments. My family is filled with traditions and one of them is the theme of our ornaments. For the past 27 years, I always received bear ornaments. My mom always gets rocking horses, Christy always got musical instruments, until she switched her theme to glass ornaments, Monica always received angels, and Dad got whatever hobby he was into like photography, birds, bbq, and currently pigs (not really a hobby, but it is his current theme.) I followed Christy's footsteps and switched to stars this year. I started the same ornament tradition with Adam this year and got him a handyman reindeer.

Here are some pictures from Adam and my tree this year:

One of my oldest and favorite ornaments.
Looks like me right?

Some future sports tree ornaments

One of my favorite bear ornaments. Clara bear

Go Cats!

I haven't quite found the prefect tree topper yet.

The first of my star ornaments

Our tree in its entire glory.

Our new home ornament from Adam's parents

Happy Holidays!

Current Project

Our first project is the guest room. When we moved in, we didn't put anything in the room except for an odor-eating candle. We suspect that the "gentleman" who occupied the room before sat and smoked 3 packs a day with the window and door sealed shut. I also kind of think he liked to hammer nails and anchor screws in the walls and ceilings just for fun.

Last night we braved the cold night to go buy 2 putty knifes and sandpaper, and make a side trip to Dick's for some Christmas shopping. (I think Adam was not interested in spackle-ing at all because he actually suggested the side shopping trip.) Once we got home, we attacked the walls. I can't say enough about the spackle that goes on pink and dries white... great home improvement invention! (I'm sure I'll discover more during our upcoming adventures.) Once we filled all the holes, the walls looked like they got a case of the chicken pox and were treated with a wholesale carton of calamine lotion.

Tonight I figured it would be a quick sand down and then we'd get to start priming... well we sanded at least. I hate the fact that the walls are textured (we discovered during our spackle-ing that there are a couple layers of a loud, sixtys-esque, floral patterned wallpaper under some plaster texture under a really bad, drippy paint job) but I like how it makes the sanding easy. No need to be perfect if there is suppose to be texture!

Three things we found tonight:
1. A giant hole in the wall near the floor behind the door. It seems like it opens into a duct and it is too big to be covered by a floorboard. Adam and I both swear that hole happend overnight. Neither one of us remember ever seeing it before.
2. We removed the vent cover to the wall vent and found there wasn't a duct behind it. You just see wood, no metal. Our heat is on (Yay new furnace!) but there really isn't any airflow coming from the vent.
3. A crack in the ceiling led to a large (to me) portion of the ceiling falling down. The hole revealed a really bad seam and taping job of the Sheetrock.

I'm not sure what to expect from the rest of the house when what was suppose to be a simple paint job has morphed into a chicken pox infected, swiss cheese hole-y, fake vented, first project attempt crapshoot! We'll see what tomorrow brings...

Fast Forward to Today

Here's a quick photo montage of 5 things that have happend in the past couple months while I've been on blog-hiatus...

1. We moved which means I finally got to unpack all of my amazing Fiestaware! This was the wash before first use... awesome!

2. A squirrel(s) devoured our housewarming jack-o-lantern.

3. Our first house project/chore... cleaning the overflowing gutters.

Abner helped pick up what came from the roof...

4. Our furnace was declared "condemned" and therefore commenced our first home purchase.

5. I made a yummy home cooked meal and we ate at the table for the first time. (Mushroom and Onion Chicken, Herb Roasted Yukon Gold potatoes, and carrots)

So... Its been awhile.

I have a good excuse... We moved! To say that closing and actually getting moved into our house was a breeze, would be a complete lie. Let's just say we closed later than expected which in turn made a tight turn around to get out of our apartment and into our house before I left for a long work trip. Luckily, Adam and I have amazing parents, siblings, and friends that made the move actually happen!

(If you ever want to know my true feelings on Wells Fargo just ask. It may be almost 2 months since dealing with them, but I'm not sure I'm over it yet.)