Cute Little Magnet board and easy magnets!

Every fall ladies from our Church get together and do a craft night. This year I took a leap and did a craft. I think it turned out adorable. 

 I don't have any picture of the process to make them, but it is super easy.

Supplies :

• Small piece of metal (I get mine from Lowes in the roofing area for about $1. 
• Fabric that is about the size of a fat quarter....you can use a piece that is a little smaller. 
• Hot glue and hot glue gun
• Ribbon (I used 24'')
• Crop-o-dile 

I didn't iron my fabric, and it turned out just fine. 

Directions: 

1. Cut fabric down to a little larger than the metal 
2. Lay fabric down and put metal on top of it. Hot glue one side of the fabric
3. Hot glue the opposite side, but stretch the fabric tightly to get out any wrinkles
4. Hot glue two reminding sides while stretching fabric when need be.
5. Use a Crop-o-dile and punch holes into the metal.
6. String ribbon through holes....now it's ready to hang.   

Super easy! 

These magnets were SO easy! I got magnets from Hobby Lobby and gems that were about the same size and just glued the gems on. Love!

Scripture board

I was wanting to make a scripture board for my family. I've sort of made it a goal to memorize a scripture every few days...this turned out to be super cheap and turned out super cute.

Supplies needed:

• wood (mine is about 11'' x11'')
• paint of choice
• Chalkboard vinyl
• regular black vinyl
• black ink pad

Steps

1. Paint board
2. rub black ink along edges
3. cut out a shape for your chalkboard vinyl.
4. attach chalkboard vinyl to board
5. measure space  left for wording, cut out of regular vinyl (sticker letters would totally work too.
6. attach letters. 

Easy peesy! I also put a little hanger thing on the back and have it hanging under our family home evening board. It turned out super cute! 

Easiest ever coasters

One of my cousins that is like a sister to me is getting married soon. Today I got to attend her bridal shower. I had an amazing time. It was a kitchen theme shower. The bride got so many kitchen things. Sweet!

For my gift to her, I had to make it (because I've been wanting to craft)! I came across this simple tutorial on making felt coasters HERE on Better Homes and Garden's site.

I took my own little spin on it....

These were even easier than the Better Homes and Garden's take. Yipee!

Materials for a set of 4:
1 sheet adhesive backed felt
1 sheet felt (the kind with designs are fun!)
1 pack adhesive gemstones (my pack had enough for more than 8 coasters)
White pencil
ruler
scissors

Instructions:

• Remove backing on the adhesive backed felt
• Place normal felt on the adhesive felt sheet
• Mark out 4 inch squares on felt and cut *make sure your squares are about the same size (I used one as a guide to trim up the others)
• Place gemstones on the outer edge of the felt squares

LOVE how they turned out! Plus....shhh, they were super cheap...about $6. $1 for each adhesive backed sheet of felt, $.50 for each sheet of designed felt, and $3 for the gemstones. Everything else I had on hand. My sister in law also helped me create these and she had the wonderful suggestion for the placement of the gemstones.

I made 8 coasters and also gave 8 cups to go with them.

Kids hair cuts, free!!

I just had to post this on my blog. In August, JCPenny is giving free hair cuts to kids in grades K-6. Sweet! It runs all month long, so give the JCP salon a call and set up an appointment.


I've already got my kids 'on the books'! Hurry and get yours in.

USA Sign

I'm all about painting. I love it. I was so excited to realize that 4th of July was coming up (somehow June just got away from me)...it meant I could make another sign for outside my front door.


I'm so excited with how well it turned out and the fact that it was super easy.

I've had some planks of wood hanging around for a while, so I took one and painted it red, white, and blue separating it with painters tape.

After the paint was dry, I used E6000 to glue some USA floral ribbon on to the sides. Just make sure you  press down firmly and get the glue to spread out. I left it alone for a while, and it stays just fine.

It was looking awesome! I love how the ribbon turned out.

Last step...I cut out letters in vinyl with my Silhouette. Thankfully, I had red vinyl on hand. If I didn't, I could have painted it on using the vinyl as a stencil.

I LOVE how it tuned out! I couldn't be happier. When 4th of July is over, this awesome sign will go in my kitchen that has the whole Americana theme.

Cute spin on a magnet board

Last year, my amazing friend, Whitney, showed a bunch of ladies at Church how to make these cute magnet boards. Adorable. Check it out HERE. I made one, and it was such a hit with everyone I showed, that I made a few more. For all the details check out Whitney's blog. You have to buy the wood in a big 10 foot section. So, when I did this project on my own, I had Lowes cut it....apparently it was slightly longer than 10 feet and one board had a little extra length to it. IDEA! 

I made the magnet board as per Whitney's instructions...but then I got a basket from the $1 store and nailed it on to the bottom.

We love it! If you couldn't tell, we are using the magnet board for all of my girls Littlest pet shop animals. Sadly, they stopped putting magnets in the bottom of the feet, but no worries because we have a basket! NOW...to make the girls keep the animals on the board :)

Quick, easy, cute bday card

A few months ago, my sister in law had a birthday. I was still on a kick about what I could do with my Silhouette. For $10 (minus a 40% off coupon) I got a pack of 40 cards and envelopes at Joanns. The cards are adorable! I also had some adhesive backed card stock on hand. All I had to do was cut out "Happy Birthday" and stick them on the card. Super easy and so cute! I could spruce it up by cutting out a little flower next time. I love how easy it was to create an adorable card...and it was fairly cheap too. 

Note. I used my Silhouette to cut the letters. I used the 'heavy cardstock (89lb)' setting. The 'medium cardstock (65lb)' setting didn't cut through all the way.

Fix up those old earrings

I have a few favorite pairs of earrings. Sadly, one of them was just nasty looking. My cool spiral metal earrings were in sad shape. One of the earrings was missing the fish hook finding and the other's was not silver anymore...no way I was going to put that in my ear. 

Who knew it could be so easy to make my awesome earrings usable again? 

Supplies needed:

• Sad earrings that need their fish hook finding replaced (FYI: 'findings' are the little components that make jewelry).
• a pack of fish hook earring findings (I got this pack at Joanns, but Micheals and Hobby Lobby have them too). 
• Pliers (I got these at Hobby Lobby in the Jewelry section).

Step 1: Hold the fish hook with your fingers and hold the little loop with the pliers. (notice, I am not holding it with my fingers...I needed to take the picture). 

Step 2: Slowly pull the loop apart until there is enough space for the earring to come off. (Yes, I had my amazing husband take a picture of this, since I don't have 3 hands).

Step 3: Take the earring off the old nasty fish hook finding.

Step 4: Repeat step 1 & 2 for the new fish hook finding.

Step 5: Slip earring on and close it up the loop by carefully moving the wire back into place.

I repeated steps 4 & 5 for the earring that was missing the finding.

I'm so thrilled with how they turned out and that I can wear these neat looking earrings again. Yippee! You can also do this with other style of earrings! Go look in your jewelry box and see what you can revitalize!

Spicing up our fish tank.

I did this project back in December, and thought it was high time I posted it. For Christmas, two of my girls were given fish tanks. They were SO excited!!  I was happy for them. If you know me, you know that I like things matching. I'm obsessed that everything in my kitchen is red, white, and/or blue. As excited as everyone was about getting fish, I wasn't too excited to have these tanks sitting on my counters. It isn't just the tank, there is a mess of wires and tubes also. Ugg. I HATE wires too. Here is my neat little fix for my frustrations with the tanks. 

What an awesome idea...I put scrapbook paper on the back of the tank! I had some red, white, and blue paper left over from a project, so I pulled that out and got to work.

I laid the paper on the back of the fish tank and folded it around the corners and made the best crease I could.

I then cut along the crease and taped it to the back of the tank.

Super easy, and the paper helped so much. The tanks now match my kitchen theme AND they hide the wires and tubes behind the tank...for the most part.

The fish tanks came with the blue rocks...perfect, it matches! They also came with the plants too. I'm not loving the plants because they don't match the color scheme, it drives me crazy, I just haven't looked for different plants. 

Note for the future. These lasted about two months...until my two year old started playing with the water in the tank and got the paper wet...and killed the fish. Lesson learned. Next time, I will try gluing them down with Mod Podge or something similar, so they are sealed somewhat.

Resurrection Rolls

Last week was crazy around here with some unexpected stuff. By the time Easter rolled around, I didn't have anything planned. Oops. We don't do the whole Easter bunny/basket thing. It is a day to focus on our Savior and the wonderful gift he gave to us...to live with him and our Father in Heaven again. 

Last night for family night, we made our lesson/activity/treat, those awesome resurrection rolls you've seen on Pinterest and blogland. Last year a friend we go to Church with dropped everything off for us to make these and to do the little lesson...such a neat idea. I was excited to do it this year. 

I remembered what to do from last year, but I did reference THIS blog (The Larson Lingo) just to double check and to get the meaning of the things I forgot. grab some dough, butter (melted), marshmallows, and cinnamon sugar. We just made our own cinnamon sugar...1/2 cup sugar & 1 tablespoon cinnamon. *note, the cinnamon shown below has a little different taste than normal cinnamon...I'm not too big a fan of it.

I told the kids the meaning of each item. The dough represents the clothes Jesus was buried in (or the tomb, whichever you prefer), the marshmallow represents Jesus's body, and the melted butter is the oil & the cinnamon sugar are the spices that his body was prepared with. My kids had a fun time dipping the marshmallow into the butter and then rolling it into the cinnamon. One of my girls started to use a spoon to coat the marshmallow, but quickly realized it was easier to just dunk it.

 The oven represents the tomb that Jesus was put into. I cooked our rolls as per the instructions on the dough package...375 degrees for 12 minutes. My 8 yr old son said, "it's like every 4 minutes is a day." Very smart son!

Here is the big pan of Resurrection rolls. Can you tell which 1/2 of the pan I made? Make sure your dough is completely closed up. Don't be forceful about it though. Just do the best you can, the kids will understand the lesson no matter what.

The final product. Very neat that 'Jesus' is gone...he has RISEN! The kids were fascinated with the rolls and how the marshmallow was gone. My 9 year old even said she wanted these for every birthday and holiday...haha, I think she liked them. I think the cinnamon we used made them taste a little funny, but we will for sure make these next Easter!

Easter quote board

I loved my St. Patrick's Day blessing board so much, that I wanted to do one for Easter. Well, time got away from me and the week before Easter was crazy with some unexpected family stuff, that I never got around to finishing this project. So, around 5pm on Easter day, I finished my quote board.

I started by sanding down the board and the wooded stakes. The stakes were really bad and needed quite a bit of sanding.

When I was done sanding, I wiped the wood down with a damp cloth to get the dust off. Then I was off to paint. I found a small sample of this awesome olive green color at Lowes. Samples are usually $3 I believe. I got an 8oz sample for $1.25 because it was a miss tint. <3 finding deals!

Then to paint the stakes. I chose pastel colors to keep it springy. If you choose to go with the distressed look (as mine are in the final product)...just let your kids play with them and bang them on each other and on your kitchen counter. ;)

On my Irish Blessing Board, the lettering was crooked. This time I changed it up. I printed all of the vinyl on one big sheet and I used a level to make sure it was put on straight. It was tricky, but my awesome husband helped.

A few letters didn't transfer over properly, so on Easter, I finally cut the missing letters out & put them on, used wood glue to put the stakes on and sealed the whole thing with some glossy Mod Podge. It looks great out by the front door, especially with the new door mat we got at Costco a few weeks ago. Tangent here...Costco has these awesome door mats for only $14. It's heavy duty too. Wish I could get another one for my back door. It looks SO much better than my old $10 door mat I got at Lowes almost 2 years ago.

Just so this beautiful color won't go to waste, I plan on using the back for some sort of Thanksgiving quote.

Cute braided bracelet

My new obsession is polymer clay. It is SO fun! I am currently work on a few items to sell on etsy using polymer clay. 

Here is one of the fun projects I've done....

So adorable. It's really too bad that I am not use to wearing bracelets. I found the adorable tutorial HERE on Delighted Mama's website. For the record, she makes it look so easy. Well...it isn't hard to make these bracelets, but it does take some practice to get the snake/worm thing perfectly even. Here is my attempt to do them.

Roll out 3 snake/worm shapes. This was the part that took the longest time. When I did my dark purple bracelet, the clay was quite stiff (despite me conditioning it) and it took forever to roll them out. However, it is the one that ended up being the most uniform.

When you're done rolling them out, just braid the clay together.

Measure it against another bracelet that you know fits and cut the ends off...then smush the ends together and work them into each other. Carefully lay the bracelet into a circle on your baking pan (I used foil on a cookie sheet) and cook for the amount of time the clay says.

You end up with a beautiful product. I do have to warn...the thicker your snakes are, the more sturdy your bracelet will be. This bracelet got fairly skinny at the ends and it isn't very sturdy...but still cute.

My girls love these bracelets and they will have tons of fun wearing them. I don't know how much I'll wear them since I'm always cleaning up, picking up children, etc and bracelets aren't really conducive to that.

Super easy model Teepee.

I LOVE scouts. My oldest son is currently a wolf. He only has about a month and a half left before he is a bear. I used spring break as a time to work on some more arrow points. I was originally scared of doing Elective 10 in the wolf handbook. It's all about native american stuff...mostly recreating stuff. One thing that I was freaked out about was making traditional clothing. After googling it...I found out that a paper bag turned vest was perfectly acceptable...score. That was easy (and free!) and my 8 year old did it totally on his own.

Elective 10 E asked the scout to "make a model of a traditional American Indian house". After I actually sat down and thought about it...duh...a teepee was so easy. 

Materials: (use what you have on hand)

• straws (I used coffee stirring straws)
• ribbon/string 
• hot glue gun
• construction paper/card stock/ printer paper (any kind of paper really)
• tape
• scissors

I had my son use coffee stirring straws because we have tons of them (no coffee, but someone in the house takes a medicine that needs to be stirred into water). We arranged the straws and my son tied the ribbon while I tried to hold the straws in place. The ribbon didn't hold well at all, so I (I'm not letting my 8 year old play with my glue gun) put some hot glue on top of the ribbon between the straws. It dried super fast and it ended up being quite sturdy. 

To finish off the teepee, my son cut triangles out of construction paper and taped them to the straws. Easy peasy.

After we were done with that, we had some fun with paint. I pulled out some red, yellow, and blue paint and had my son do Elective 12c from the wolf book "Mix yellow and blue paints, mix yellow and red, and mix red and blue. Tell what color you get from each mixture." All of the kids joined in and had a blast. Oh, and I didn't feel like pulling out paint brushes, so we just used qtips. hehe. Cheap and easy to clean up.

Irish blessing board

I'm so thrilled with my latest project and can't wait to share it, so here we go....

It turned out super cute.

After doing my "lucky" blocks, I really wanted to do another St. Patrick's day project. I had some wood in my garage that I had gotten for a project, but oops, I got the wrong size. I pulled the wood out and used my first power tool on it....a belt sander. That was SO fun!! I used a 40 grit sand paper to just get the rough splintered edges off and smooth it down some. NOTE: this didn't make the board smooth, it just made it so it wasn't going to give me splinters. I made sure to take a damp cloth and wipe off all the dust.

Before

After...MUCH better. 

The next step was one of my favorite...I got to paint the wood the beautiful "shamrock" green that I used for the "lucky" blocks. Beautiful.

Now, came the hard part...figuring out what I wanted to board to say. After much searching and narrowing down, I finally decided on the cute Irish blessing that I used. It was short and made me think of St. Patrick's day. I used my awesome Silhouette to cut out white vinyl for all the words. I then put them on the board. Ya, they aren't perfectly straight, but oh well.

I was super excited for the next step...putting the word 'gold' on. I cut the word gold out of the white vinyl and used the outline as a stencil. I took extra special care to make sure it was attached to the board in every little crevice so that paint couldn't leak past.

I made sure to only put a little bit of paint on at a time. I made sure the layer was completely dry before applying another layer. I think I did 4 layers of the gold. I wanted to make sure that there was no green showing through. 

After one coat.

Yay! No leakage! 

Oh, this next step frustrated me so much...but it should be much easier for you. The word rainbow.
I tried rainbow scrapbook paper...that didn't really work. I bought printable stickers with the hope that I could make a rainbow pattern on them...only to learn if I want to design my own, I need photo editing software, which I can't locate at the moment (it got lost in our move 2 years ago). I bought card stock with an adhesive back...eh, it didn't work great, but I made do...because I was NOT going to go to the store again.

I ended up having to glue the letters down with Mod Podge...and then had to paint the whole board with Mod Podge because you can totally tell if only part of the board is painted.

After that was dry I added two coats of polyurethane to make sure it was good and sealed.

Oh Blogger...why do you constantly turn my photos. 

It turned out SUPER cute!

Resting in it's home. I'm excited to get my door in the St. Patrick's day spirit. 

 On a happy side note, my kids are loving this Irish blessing. They are going around the house singing it. haha.

*Note, I didn't find the Irish blessing on a certain site. It was on many sites and seems to be an old Irish blessings and the origins are unknown to me.