Thankful Tree

I've been sick as a dog (I don't really understand that saying).  Either way I've been really sick, I have barely left me house this week and I haven't even had the strength to look at other people's blogs, let alone my own.  Well tonight I've found a tiny bit of strength.  I got to check out other people's blogs and while during it I found this project from my favorite blog Under the Sycamore.  As she says, she not the creator of this idea.  I have seen it else where but this is the first place this year.  I really hope I get a chance to do this Thankgiving Tree, this month.

Please check out her site to see the photo's. It's really cute.

My family has so much to me thankful for! We serve a loving and caring God!

Wreath

Here is my newest wreath.  It's made from coffee filters and jute.  It was easy but took longer then expected to wrap the jute around.  The coffee filters ended up being in just a small area because it was taking a long time too.  But I like how it come out.
Here is a site's tutorial Little Brown House  but I shortened the filters by cutting them off at the bottom (to make it not full) and use hot glue instead of pins. 

This is my first post from my phone, so I'm going to keep it short and hope it comes out ok.

Dress like a spider Day!

Tomorrow, I will be the parent helper at my daughters preschool.  Which means I'm in charge of bringing the snack.  This may be no big deal for most mom's, but probably like most of you, I have to do something crafty.  Tomorrow's theme is "Dress Like a Spider Day".  I only had a few hours to put it together after buying the supplies, but this is what I came up with. I think it's pretty cute.

First, I made up spider peanut butter crackers.  I bought these supplies:

I opened each of the crackers and added extra peanut butter on both sides.

The took the pretzels, broke them in half and squished them into the peanut butter.  

Then I added the top cracker.  With two raisins dipped in peanut (to make them stick) to make eyes.

Then I pulled out my stash of Chinese take-out boxes, drew little black spider on them and then used white bubble fabric paint I had around to add little smiles. 

In the bottom of the take-out boxes I put some extra pretzels and raisins.  Then put two spiders in each of them.

I closed up the boxes, and for the final touch I found some black ribbon that I tied around the handle of the take-out box.

So if you like this craft, my only suggestion would be to make your spiders with 8 legs because after making them all my husband made a spider for my daughters head band out of pipe clearer and I saw 8 legs.  Then I thought, "yeah they do have 8, crap!"  Oh well.  The good news is I also made this, with the correct number of legs.

I think it turned out cute!

birch candles

I cleaned my garage this weekend.  It's a one car, plus that's the area we store the majority of our stuff.  While cleaning I re-found some birch bark. So I put it in my craft supply area.  Then yesterday, I ended up having a little bit of unexpected time alone so I pulled out the bark and grabbed a few candles that I posted about over a year ago, I love a great deal!. 17 candles for two dollars.  I've use a few here and there. But still have a number of them left so I thought this would be a good time to use them.

I pulled out the supplies I thought I would need.  I later discovered I also needed a razor blade knife, Mod Podge and an applicator brush.

I roughly cut a piece of bark that I thought would fit around the candle nicely, then hot glued it to the candle. But careful not to touch the gun to the candle, as you can image it melts quickly.  Then I trimmed up the bark with the razor blade.

Then because the bark was dry and flaky, I put a layer Mod Podge over the bark.  This helped to keep the bark from falling apart as much.

To make the larger cande I stacked two candles on top of each other, because I only had smaller size candles.

The pottery barn sells this sort of candle too.

                                                                                  Source: None via Tracy on Pinterest

I actually think it's a even better idea to use a glass cylinder shaped hurricane candle holder. That way it's reusable. I didn't want to spend and money, so mission accomplished!

Grab Bag Score!

Check out my recent score from Michael's.  Every now and then Michael's has grab bags for 

$2 and you can get some awesome deals.  Here's my most recent purchase, all in one, $2 dollar bag.

Six metal trays the prices on the tag says they were $8 each.  That's $48 total.  I'm planning on using them for our church's upcoming Art Show Coffee House.  Then probably re-purpose them for something else.

The other items were not as great, actually some are just really 

silly but there are some that I can find uses for.

 There are a few cute magnets in this bunch.  The other I probably will cute up and use them for magnets onto other things.

Then is a bunch of note cards and a few bookmarks.  I think I'll just let my 3 year old find some use for most of the note cards.  I do just want to point out the Judy Garland and Elvis note cards.  They made me laugh.  I'm not sure why anyone would buy them in any other way then in a grab bag!

Overall, it's a pretty good deal.

Trick or Treat Bag

I've been holding on to this bag for the last month or so because when I look at it, it said Halloween.  So finally I got out the scissors and got to work.  I cut the bag in half and then cut all the seems.  

I added on the ribbon and lace embellishments and sowed all the pieces back together.

Now Ella will have a cute, one of a kind, little candy bag to take with her to our churches trunk or treat!

E

I just noticed that I posted this on Pinterest but never on my blog.  So I made this able 2.5 moths ago.  My mother bought me a white painted, wooden E from Michael's.  I wanted to make it into something cute for my daughter's room.  So I pulled out of my random accessories and this is what I came up with.

It makes a cute addition to Ella's little shelf.  It was really easy to do. Just Mod Podge on scrapbook paper to the front of your letter, use the x-acto knife to trim it up.  Then I used Jute to wrap around a couple of times and added the jeweled feather, white painted bird and a big pink gem, glued on with E6000.

Give it a try!

kokeshi softie

My hubby got back from Japan about a month ago and brought me back some really nice fabrics.  They were small though.  Japan holds an extremely dear place in my heart, so I wanted to use the fabrics in something that would remind be of what they were from.  Plus, I've been wanting to try out one of these softies.

I think if I were to do another, I would do it differently but my daughter loves it.  She calls it her Japanese Princess.  It's not too bad for not being a good sewer and just sorta wingging if from a picture I quickly glanced at.

Check out my favorite post's for the week on my Pinterest:

I love this cute, quick craft idea from under the syramore.  This a craft idea that encourages family time!

Source: ashleyannphotography.com via Tracy on Pinterest

I think these decorative paper clips are adorable, created by little lovelies.

Source: u-createcrafts.com via Tracy on Pinterest

I'm not that into Halloween, I don't like the spooky, horror side of it, just the cutsie dress up part. So you won't see much on my blog about Halloween, but I just couldn't help myself with this.  SOOOO CUTE!

Source: eighteen25.blogspot.com via Tracy on Pinterest

Check out these and so many more great ideas on my Pinterest.

Local Thrift Store

I went to my local theft store and find a vase and candle stick so that I could work of finishing up my serving dishes. 

 I picked up the vase in the back of this picture, for .25cents

The wooden candle stick on the right, for .25cents

in addition to those I also got this HUGE spool of elastic for $2.75.  I mean this thing is HUGE.  I also picked up a little grab bag of ribbon for .35cents.  I love thrifting! 

The beauty of Autumn!

I love Autumn, it's my favorite time of year.  My favorite pictures of Ella are almost all from our many fall trips to the area's Pumpkin Farms.  

I'm definitely not a photographer (I wish though) but I love these photo's and it was all free fun! 

I'm looking forward to going again soon to get some more!

Where do you go to take great family photo's?

I found this blog tutorial for a teepee and love it!  I probably won't be able to try it anytime soon, but would love to make it for my daughter's room sometime.  Go on over to Sewing In No Man's Land and check on the Dreamy Teepee Tutorial.

Source: sewinginnomansland.com via Tracy on Pinterest

Pretty stinkin' cute, right?

I added this and a lot of other great stuff on my Pinterest, check it out!

Home for my succulent plant!

I have this succulent plant that was in need of a good home.  It was in an ugly pot on my front porch looking really weird, but I love plants that are really hard to kill,  I couldn't just get rid of it.

From Instant Upload

  So I went to my crafting room and looked around.  The first thing I saw was a Chinese take-out box. I gave it a try....   I didn't like it so much.  I think flowers or plants would still work in a take-out box, just not what I had to work with.

From Instant Upload

I saw the goblets I picked up at the antique store I wrote about in my post ("Antiquing on my free afternoon").  I have a lot of things that I could use this for but thought the plant would look cute.  So after the take-out box failed, I gave it a try and was happy with the out come.

From Instant Upload

Taking the week off for flood relief work, birthday party prep, and spending time with my hubby who get return from Japan.

My favorite post of the week!

Check out my favorite posts for the week.  

Here is a few really cute projects for Fall:

This Book Page Pumpkin posted by Creations By Kara is so sweet.

I also found this creative idea for making pumpkin's found by I Heart Nap Time, originally made A Blog by Danielle Thompson. These totally cute fabric pumpkin aren't a totally new idea to me, but the tutorial is great. Who know it would be so easy.

I gotta try these two!

Then I came across this post, also posted this week by I Heart Nap Time.  Helping me to see what I should have done when painting my stencils.  So if you want to try your hand at stenciling read this post, she even directs you to a great tutorial!  

Last but not least lined envelopes, I found this idea for personalizing a plain envelopes for any occasion by See Kate Sew who guest hosted over at Ucreate.

I hope you enjoy these posts as much as I did!

Painting my room with A.D.D.

             So I really hate my room, but my husband and I don't have any idea if we will be in this house or not it two years.  We may be living oversea's and so we don't want to really put money into buying new furniture that we may not be able to take with us.  We are looking to do things that will improve the house for resell, so I to painted the walls, which is a big improvement seeing there was rough sparkle everywhere.  So I bought paint, two different color one in a gallon the other in pint size.  When I started to paint, I didn't bother to check the color (this is where the A.D.D. comes in, I truely have it and it comes to bit me often while crafting). I just grabbed the one that I thought was in the gallon and started painting.  It looked a little darker but I assumed I was remembering it differently.  Well after I painted the whole room I found the paint swatches in my purse and discovered I was painting with the wrong color, by a lot.

This is what it was suppose to be:

This is, is what I got:

Please excuse the mess, it's part of my painted process :). 

         My advice is slow down and make sure everything is right, don't ever except me to be able to do this though. I decided that there was no way that I was going to repaint the room.  So the stencil that I had planned on doing with a darker color, I changed to the color the room was suppose to be.  I've never done stenciling before but I thought I could make one with my silhouette machine.  I made it with sheet of plastic that I bought at the craft store.

Unfortunately, it didn't work very well.  After a few times of using it, the paint started bleeding behind the stencil and no matter how many times I tried to clean the stencil really well and start again, it wouldn't stop. Then, I decided to try and do it on card stock and use a new stencil each time.                                                   This worked a little better but I decided my stencil just had to think of lines, but it was to late.  I just finished them up and cleaned up the lines with a fine art paint brush and I think it looks pretty good. I still need to put the room back together and decide if I want to change some of the art around. But, that's for another day.        For now I'm just trying to keep my basement as clear of water as possible.  We are having crazy rain   that is causing flooding everywhere.  10,000 people are expected to be evacuated, that's a lot for a small town. I still can't get over this video:

So prayers for the people of Broome County, NY are welcome.