Branchlers {a simple diy}

Branchlers! I've had a crafting itch lately and this was the perfect easy and fast diy to do during Axel's nap yesterday.  I even got the floors swept afterwards.  The hardest part (as always) has been deciding where to hang them.

Supplies...

a scrap of leather, wood plaque, paint, furniture tack or small nail, branch.

I collected all of these things from my craft room and the the branch I got from a tree in my backyard making it free, which I love.  If you don't have a black hole called The Craft Room then you can get the plaques for $1-2 at a craft store and while you are there you can get a grab bag of leather scraps.  I promise you will find other ways to use the leather.  

Start by painting your plaque.  While it is drying cut a piece of leather long enough to make a circle to fit around your branch.  Using a hammer, pound your nail in each end of the leather to punch holes. 

Put your tack through the holes to make a loop and then pound it into the plaque.

Set your branch into the loop and just like that you've made branchlers.  

For your mistle toes| printable

I finally found a minute to show you guys my next InstaChristmas tag!  I was going along all fine thinking I had a ton of time to get things done before Christmas.  Then this week happened and I feel like I have no time left!  

Sometimes though no matter how busy I get I always find time for things like adding touches to my dining room wall. Its been 3 years and I finally hung some of my favorite things on this really big wall.  I took a canvas and painted it with chalkboard paint so I could change it as often as I wanted. 

For your mistle toes! What a fun idea huh!  I kept it simple and used a circle punch to make little tags to tie on to some of my favorite colors of nail polish.  {jag-u-are. stylenomics. clambake.}  Chalk, hole punch, and some twine and you are done!  You could also use the tags to put on homemade foot scrub, or a cute pair of boot socks.  Really, just like the cup of cheer tags, there are a lot of fun ways to use these little guys!

 Mistletoes square Mistletoes 2

I made two versions of these tags.  One is these square tags perfect for cutting in to circles.  The other is a little bit bigger to add to a box for gift giving.  You can download them from google docs, easy peasy!  As always these printables are free to download, or you can click on the donate button and maybe donate a dollar to adoption fund.  

Are you guys feeling the sudden crunch of time for Christmas too or is it just me?!

Be sure to check out the other Instachristmas tags!

Cup of Cheer

Rock the Night Away

Have a cup of cheer.

Have you been loving all the chalk art that has been popping up?  Just when you thought the chalkboard was done, too.   I was patiently awaiting Rhonna Designs to release her InstaChristmas because I knew it would be perfect for adding some chalk art to my home for the holidays.   In fact the only thing I bought on Black Friday was InstaChristmas.  Well besides a trip to Voodoo Donuts I guess ;)  I have been adding it to my instagram photos and playing around with it in photoshop as well.  I really, really, totoally like it. 

Over at Rhonna's blog she is having a tag contest so I came up with a little gift tag that can be used lots of ways for gift giving this holiday.  Using a chalkboard background in photoshop I came up with this little guy.  Ivy has been walking around singing this song and I couldn't get it out of my head!

I made a fill page for the back side and was able to fit 9 of the 2.5x3.5 tags on a sheet of paper.  I printed it out on white cardstock and cut out each tag.  To give it a little bit more chalkiness I rubbed chalk over the whole design and then wiped it off.  Use a black ink pad to ink the cut edges for extra measure too.  

I think it would be a fun hostess gift to tie a tag on to a bottle of sparkling cider.  And even more fun would be to get those mini bottles and have them for New Years Eve!  Oh, man.  How cute would that be?!  

I've been wanting to try the sharpie mug thing so I decided to actually make a cup of cheer.  I got a mug from Target for $3 I think, and using a circle stencil and a bronze sharpie I put some confetti dots all over the mug. 

 While my mug was baking {at 350 for 30 minutes}  I made a pocket for a packet of hot chocolate.  I printed out the chevron fill page on kraft cardstock and then cut a library pocket like the ones I used for my advent with my silhouette.   I love seeing the design peeking out from the inside.  I backed my tag with some red striped paper and glued it to the front.  I tucked the hot chocolate, along with a mug rug and a box of chocolates into my fun new mug to give as a gift to add some cheer to a dear friend's day.  

I might even make up a couple more of these library pockets to stick some Starbucks gift cards in for quick gifts to give to friends and teachers.  So many ideas for one little tag!

EDIT!!
You can now download your own Cup of Cheer tags by following the link below.  And read about how you can maybe help with our adoption HERE

CUP OF CHEER PDF

PS you can check out the other instachristmas tags too!
For Your Mistletoes
Rock the Night Away

An Asian Insprired Birthday Party

My friend Lindsay is amazing.  And amazing friends deserve big parties.  

An Asian themed dinner party is what we decided on and I love how it all came together.  A trip to the craft store for paper to make lanterns for decorations determined our colors would be turquoise and orange.  I love how the reversible colors show through on the lanterns.  The turquoise fringe was so pretty fluttering in the breeze. The fringe was made from plastic tablecloths.  {tutorial coming soon}  I know who would have thought.  Plastic!  Hmmmph.

Fresh cut flowers and confetti decorated the tables.  For the confetti I cut up a few different colors of tissue paper in to squares and we spread it on white tablecloths.  The same breeze making the garlands flutter, scattered a lot of our confetti but it just added to the party atmosphere.  Also on the table were  vellum chinese take out boxes with tea lights in them for a little bit of ...mood.  {I said that with a voice like Sebastian from the Little Mermaid}

I dip dyed coffee filters {tutorial coming soon} for the other garlands.  I love how they look like fans.  I also had some japanese lanterns from a different event that I got at Ikea to hang above the center of the tables.  

We had the party in our friends backyard. Isn't it gorgeous?!  The light is so amazing.   Thanks Mel for sharing such a perfect location! For dinner we served lettuce wraps, rice, and different chicken dishes to go with it.   I'm so grateful for party planning friends who like to feed people and took care of the food.  It was delicious!

Of course every party needs balloons.  Geronimo balloons are so fun and just make it that much more special.  I ordered mine from Balloon Bargains and got a 6 pack for $18 after shipping.   

The hit of the party had to be The Cake made by Mandy.  It was a Salted Caramel Six Layer Chocolate Cake.  Umm. to. die. for.  That's all I can say. If you want to wow em go for this cake.  I wish I had a better picture of it, but even that couldn't show you the fabulousness of it, and all the other desserts we had there.  

 Everything came together so perfect.  We even pulled off the surprise, which can be so hard to do.  Sometimes its hard to know if its really going to turn out like you hope and this was what I imagined and so much better!

Happy Birthday Lindsay!  Thanks for being such a swell gal so we could throw you a party!

instagram photo strip bunting.

I love my instagrams.  But they stay on my phone.  I've printed out some of them using PostalPix before but wanted to come up a way to display a whole bunch in a smaller space.  I got to thinking that photostrips would be way fun!   And they definitely were the right way to go!

 I started making a template in photoshop but I got frustrated that it was taking so long.  So I turned to  my friend google and found these awesome templates from Blush and Jelly. She just happened to post these the very day I was making mine!  It was fate! Plus, I'm not gonna lie I love that people share their talents so my projects are so much easier!

Using her awesome templates I made ten strips of photos.  Then in photoshop I opened a new 5x7 document and lined up my strips.  I resized each strip a little bit bigger and fit 5 strips on my 5x7 template.  If you need help with math that means I made 2 5x7's.  I'm so glad I made them a little bit bigger because the pictures are way smaller than I imagined.  But I like the itty bitty-ness of them!  Since I was headed to costco I uploaded my two 5x7's to their photo site so I could pick them up there.  A 5x7 at Costco is 39 cents.  So for just about a dollar I was able to make a photostrip bunting!

Once I unloaded all my groceries from Costco I cut my 5x7's into strips using a paper trimmer.  Then using bakers twine and some clips I already had I hung them up on a window I have propped in our front entryway.  I stop and look just about every time  I walk by because its such a fun way to display our memories from this summer so far!  

May the 4th be with you.

Today is national Star Wars day.  Not a big deal to some, but it is in this house.  We will be having a marathon tonight when D gets home but I thought we'd share some of our favorite Star Wars finds to help you get in the spirit of things!  

{Darth Vader Face}

Its easy to make your own light saber to have Jedi battles.  We used a length of pipe insulation, duct tape and electrical tape for ours.  You could also use a pool noodle if your kid just has to have a colored one.  Our 97 cent length of pipe insulation made us two.  Just  cut it in half, wrap the ends with duct tape and add an electrical tape "switch".  Super easy and hours of battles.  

Toy-a-day has printable Star Wars guys that are super fun to play with and easy to assemble.  You can find them here.

Wookie the Chew.  The illustrations by this guy are SO dang cute.  He also has some other really fun art prints you should check out.  All proceeds go to help his daughter.

Girly Darth Vader.   via Crafster

Ivy's favorite line is Can someone get this walking carpet out of my way?"

Chewbacca softie pattern form Draw! Pilgrim.

And of course every true Star Wars fan needs their own R2D2 underwear!

You can find the full tutorial here.  Also if you want to make your own with your silhouette email me and I'll send you the .svg.  

Happy Star Wars day!  And May the 4th {and the force!} be with you!

The Friendship Bracelet Kit {with free download}

I have 8 nieces and they almost all have birthdays in the spring.  The younger girls were easy to get gifts for but the older ones needed something pretty cool.  Cuz I gotta be the cool aunty ;)  So I put together some friendship bracelet kits to keep them busy this summer!

They are quick and easy to put together.  You just need to head to the craft store armed with coupons and they are pretty cheap too. 

Since I made multiple kits I started with a huge value pack of embroidery floss that was about $10 on sale.  The pack had 150 flosses in it and I was able to make 5 kits.  I also got these awesome floss organizers that, after using a coupon were $2 each.  

I created a tag in photoshop {which you can download it at the end of this post!} and attached it to the lid with double sided tape.  I also added a bracelet that I made just for fun.  

I found clipboards at that one big huge store I don't like that has a ruler on each side which I thought would be perfect for measuring out floss and knowing how long to make each bracelet. I got it all tied up with some yarn and its ready to give to my nieces!

I've uploaded some tags if you want to print out for your own friendship bracelet kits.   Just click on the link under whichever one you want to download.    

Wouldn't these be awesome for road trips this summer?!

Pink

Brown

font: blackout

arrows: courtesy of Amy Morby

How to grow grass in a can

Do you remember growing grass in a cup when you were little?  Its easy and perfect for teaching how things grow.  A little dirt, a little sunshine and some water and you have results in just a couple days!  Ivy has been faithfully checking how her grass is growing every morning.  Its even ready for a haircut!

All you need for this simple project is a couple of things you probably already have at your house, and a $3 bag of grass seed from the store.  We used tuna fish cans and some dirt from our empty planters outside.  {We are still waiting for that warm weather} Add some dirt to your can, then sprinkle a couple teaspoons of grass seeds on top.  Put your cans in a sunny spot, add a little bit of water and watch your grass grow!  

To cutify our cans a bit I cut strips of scrapbook paper 1.5 inches by 12 and wrapped the paper around the can.  I used double sided tape to adhere it to the can.   This step is easiest before you add the dirt to your cans.

After the grass grew tall enough to use as decoration we spread them around the house.  I took two small skewer sticks and made a little bunting with these two.  Just tie some string between the two sticks and cut some banners.  I  folded the tops over about a half inch and set them on the twine.  Its an easy way to decorate for spring!

If you want to get fancy you can also grow wheatgrass as decoration too.  Ours is just getting long enough to clip and start adding to our morning smoothies.  Wheat grass is just as simple to grow, using the same steps as above, but with hard wheat from your food storage.  If you don't have any hard wheat you can find the seeds at your local health food stores {sometimes called wheat berries} or online.  The only extra step is to cover your seeds lightly with dirt after you plant them.  Keep it watered lightly and in about 10 days you have wheatgrass to use as decoration and to add to all those green smoothies.  

Hope spring has sprung where you are!

How To Save Pinterest Photos To Your Phone

Ok so this is kind of a fitness tip too.  I exercise first thing in the morning, you know before I actually am awake and can think a normal thought. That way I can't talk my way out of it.  But I do like to stretch and do a few exercises in the evening, especially if I'm watching TV.  Thats where my handy Pinterest app tip comes in handy.  If you have the Pinterest app you can save photos to your phone, like one of those exercise things you see, so you don't have to go digging through Pinterest for it. 

Open up your Pinterest app and choose explore.  It will pull up a list of topics to search through.  For this I'm going to look in fitness.  You can also search things like exercise, abs, leg workout...

Scroll through until you see an exercise you might want to try.  I think that lean legs pyramid looks pretty good so I want to try that.  Sigh, since that is the area I need the most work on!

Tap the photo you want to take a closer look at.  You might have to scroll down a bit but see that button that says More?  Tap that.

It will pull up this screen.  Check it out, you can save it to your camera roll!  Tap that button.

After you finish checking out all the other fabulousness on Pinterest you can go see your photo in your camera roll.  See my Instagram photos?  And yes I am kind of considering homeschool.  But thats besides the point. There is my lean legs pyramid at the end.

Now I can get lean legs while watching 30Rock and the Office.  Oh geez this looks tough.  I hate jumping jacks!  

Pretty snazzy eh.  Now you can have exercises within reach instead of reaching for the cheetos!  Want to know something terrible?  When I was nursing Ivy I would watch the Biggest Loser and eat cheetos.  She was literally sucking all the fat off of my body so I felt completely justified.  At least they were the natural cheetos... just sayin.