Thanksgiving '13

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving! I know I sure did! It was a wonderful times spent with family and friends. One of the special things about the day was that we got to use my great-grandma's china! I had so much fun setting it all up!

 

 

I wanted to take advantage of this Thanksgiving season to teach the kids what it means to be thankful. I made a thankful tree and we spent many afternoons coloring leaves, asking them what they were thankful for, writing it on the leaf, and letting them glue it on the tree. I also made up a little song about thankfulness and taught them "In every thing give thanks." It was a fun craft for the month of November, and a great way to teach the kids to be thankful!

 

 

DIY Wreath Form

Wreath - simple decoration that livens up your front door and provides a friendly welcome to guests. We've been having fun 'designing' new wreaths to fit the seasons. Once again, Pinterest is great for inspiration. Last time I made one, I bought a wreath form from Walmart for $5. This time I wanted to try something I had seen on Pinterest and make my own using a pool noodle from the dollar store.

I cut the noodle down until it was the size I wanted it to be and formed a nice circle, and then taped the ends together really good.

Then I wrapped it with twine. {Like I've mentioned before, this takes a really long time. I'm trying to figure out the best way to temporarily attach decorations instead of hot gluing them so I can use the same form for different designs. This wreath was a gift, but my next one I will definitely be figuring that out so I don't have to do this again!}

I made fabric flowers this time and love how they turned out! So, my pool noodle experiment was a success! You would never know by looking at it that that's what the form is made out of!

Valentine Wreath

This was really easy to make aside from the fact that it took almost TWO hours to wrap the wreath form in twine. Definitely a project to do while watching a movie or show to keep from getting bored to death from it! I love it though!

Valentine Nails

My attempt at Valentine nails...the crooked heart is driving me crazy, but it took WAY too many coats of white to get a solid coat...so I'll live with it :) Not too bad for freehanding it though. (In case you're wondering, I used a bobby pin dipped in polish to make the heart.)

Here are some other cute Valentine Manis:



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Coffee Filters

Who would have thought that coffee filters could be turned into something for decoration?! Yet another great find on Pinterest!

We needed something for our table centerpiece, so I decided to make some flowers to fill in the box. You would never know by looking at them that they were made from coffee filters! I got the filters from the dollar store, so this project cost a total of $2...nice!

Here's the tutorial I used to make them...they're super easy!

December

December is here and I have a feeling it's going to go by as quickly as it came! There is so much planned for this month it's crazy, but I do love this time of year!

A while ago, I saw a table centerpiece box on Shanty 2 Chic and loved it! So, this week I bought the supplies and asked our resident handy man (aka: Dad) to help me with it. :) I showed him what I wanted and he did a great job! I stained it and filled it with some Christmas-y decor...I'm loving the way it looks!

I used branches left over from our Christmas tree to to fill in the box. See those red ball ornaments in there? Those are the ones I bought at the thrift store for 50 cents. Oh, and remember that wreath form I also bought at the thrift store?

Ta da!!

I'm loving our decorations this year. Maggie put the mantel together...doesn't it look great?!

Do you like our snow? Shhh...don't tell anyone, but it's epsom salt! Thank you Pinterest!

And our tree :)

DIY Foaming Hand Soap

I don't know about you, but I prefer foaming handsoap over regular. I don't know, there's just something about it.  I really like Bath & Body Works, but it can be pretty pricey if you don't hit the sales. A while ago I saw a diy project for making your own foaming handsoap. I love it! It may not smell as *pretty* as B&BW but it's much easier on the wallet. As you can see from the picture, I used peppermint soap, but you could also use a more neutral smelling soap and add essential oils if you wanted to give it more of a girly smell.

All you do is add 1/4 cup of soap to your container, fill it up the rest of the way with water, give it a shake and you just made your very own foaming hand soap! :)

Go here to see the original post for DIY Foaming Hand Soap.