Family Values/Rules group project

Last Fall, I shared Family Values canvases that my friend Lisa and I completed.

That post is here!

I was inspired to complete this project from a post I saw on The Pleated Poppy. I don't know that I've ever seen a project inspire more people that this one!

Here again is the Family Values canvas that I made.

And here is the one that Lisa made.

So, Lisa mentioned it to a craft group that she is a part of at First United Methodist Church in Oviedo, FL and they too were inspired! They were finishing up a project at their Wednesday night class and asked if she would show them how to make these! She asked if I would help so both of us attended the classes to pass along this great project to others! We took our canvases and showed them how we did it and I also shared about 40 pictures that I found online, mostly from comments at The Pleated Poppy where people shared their versions. This is a great project to show your creative side and make something special for your home with your family's input!

I asked if I could share their finished projects so that we could give credit back to Lindsey and her guest blogger Nicole at The Pleated Poppy for inspiring so many of us.

Below is a picture of each person's completed canvas with a close up of my favorite part of their project!

Big swirl-this canvas was completed with lots from the Cricut

How perfect, the smear for 'imperfection' was an accident. I love that.

More fun swirls and I love how precise this one is

COLOR. I love a girl who loves color!

So much texture! That letter I think is an iron on? She used lots of great accents!

SO FUN! Can't you see the personality in this one? Bling and spunk, love it!

One of our members enjoyed this project so much that she completed her rules canvas and then made this sign. When we were finishing up the class, she was about 65% way done with an awesome Pool Rules canvas! She caught the mod podge bug!

I really enjoyed being a part of this class and hope you enjoyed seeing their completed projects!

I'm a blogging failure!

Wow. It's been a long time. At one point, I had readers and people who 'followed' me but I have really failed at this blogging thing. I'll tell you all, I have no real patience for blogging, or perhaps just blogger.com. It is PAINFULLY slow, don't ya think?

I'm a big facebooker. As someone self employed and with no real coworkers, I find it a great way to have conversations with adults and be the social person that I am! I post a lot of pictures there and am amazed at how fast their uploader is. I then come here and am TORTURED with the uploading system. I have also really thought recently about how my clients find me and it's not really through my blog traffic. What I did realize is that almost every client I have had in the past year has been on facebook and many of them asked me about my business because of pictures I shared on my personal page and actually became a client because of facebook. And people say that place is a waste of time! What I really want to share with those that are interested are photos with a little bit of words and blogging is mostly words with a little big of photos.

So, my point of this is that I am working now on getting a business page up that will focus on sharing my creative side and work, mostly through pictures. So there may be an album of a room Before and After of a clients or it may be my latest craft project! Whatever amuses me creatively-kinda like how this blog has been! I will post here again as I promised I would share something here soon and will post again with a link to my FB business page once I'm ready. I'm sorry to those who I abandoned in blogger world but am guessing you have started FB pages as well since I am not the first one to make this move . . . I hope to see you in FB land instead!

Kiersten

Teacher Gifts for Christmas!

Time to make teacher gifts! Here is a 'before and after' of my project. Before was Wednesday around 5 pm and After is Friday morning around 5 am. I didn't work on this the entire 36 hours but I'm embarrassed and horrified to say that I did spent probably 12 hours on this? I know, pathetic. I blame it on the glitter glue. Read on for the details . . .

My inspiration was the peppermint and white chocolate spoons that I bought at Crate & Barrel at an amazing price. I bought 18 sets and then decided to make cocoa to go with it. Easy right? I found the cute tins in the Target $1 section but switched out their ribbon. Still not too crazy right? Well then my friend Lisa bought me the Joys of The Season Cricut cartridge. I started to make tags which then turned into a hybrid of tag meets ornament. Still EASY but tedious and takes time to cut out the 'layers' and put it all together. THEN, I discovered A La Mode Glitter Glue. That took my craftiness to a whole new level. Elements that were cute became adorable with glitter glue! SO much fun! Here is one that I ended up loving~


It was okay as paper but once I started on the glitter glue, I was LOVING it! You can also see 'bling' like pearls and rhinestones and that too is easy but just takes time. I just kept going and going and adding to it and all of a sudden it was 3 am. So then I thought, eh, who needs sleep? Focus on glitter fun.

Here is what I ended up with after a full night of crafting! I napped after the parties! I made 18 in total. And before you think I'm nuts and wonder if I have 18 kids, no, I just don't know when to stop. I feel like all my kids' teachers are SO wonderful and it's so hard to not include everyone. Even with this, I didn't do the reading team or anyone in the office and I hated not having something for everyone. But there's only so much one can do . . . The initial is their last name, of course . . .

Here are the buckets complete.

Of course I realized though that I still needed an actual tag as well as instructions on how to use their cocoa mix so that was another last minute craft to get together. There is a picture of that double side items in this little collage.

I loved them and hope their teachers did as well!

Christmas House Tour!

Merry Christmas! Here is the wreath that greets you at my front door. Please come in! I had lots of fun making this!

Here is my entry which usually only serves a purpose throughout the year as the center for nerf gun fights but during December, it is our Christmas wonderland. This year, I decided to embrace the bright colors I am drawn to and went WHIMSICAL! I had lots of fun!

This is the tree topper that I made. My 8 year old had fun making the pom pom springs with me. It looks insane here but you can see on a 12' tree that it works!


Here is the black and white portrait display on our stairs, which is where I display my santa hat collection.

This is the post at the bottom of the stairs. It's hard to get the entire stair case as this is a long narrow entry!This is another post ~ there are 4 in all.

In between the posts, I did this just for some added fun! Those are food picks!
And another post!The sole purpose of this table is to play all the great music that I love! I look forward to nothing more to the month of December than playing my Christmas music really loud while I wrap gifts and make candy trees!

These ornaments were done during one of my crafty Christmas nights with my Cricut! My friend Lisa gave the Joys of the Season cartridge to me and it is SO fun!

These cute felt ornaments and from Crate & Barrel. I have 3 sets decorating the garland on my dining room hutch.

The chalkboard which still requires a fun holiday message to be added to it!


Another fun holiday craft! I love candy trees and had lots of fun making this one, though I'm still suffering from some hot glue gun burns from this tedious project!

There are many house tours going on for the Holidays and I have linked up to the ones below! Enjoy checking out other bloggers' homes decorated for Christmas and thanks for stopping by!

Advent Calendar

I saw this in Joanne's after Christmas last year. I yanked the silver plastic knobs out of the holes before I took this picture but most of them were missing. Which is why I got this item with a price tag of $50 for $4! Yes, $4!!!! The challenge was on ~ I wanted to alter it completely and have fun with it!
I painted it with my green wall paint. Then, in order to put new knobs on this, I had to drill all the way through the holes. And then there were some brads I wanted to use and they need to fit into the doors so I had to drill for those as well.
I had to be patient and wait for the large order I placed from Scrapbook.com as I didn't want to mix stuff ~ I wanted everything I used to be from the same line so that my over the top project pulled together well. I ended up buying "We Are Memory Makers" White-Out Christmas Collection.

Many hours later, here it is!


Here's the back

Close up of the side. I used 'frosting' as well ~ the stick on 'bling' that links together and it is so fun and easy to use! Another thing not from the paper line I mentioned would be the knobs. Those are beads. I wired them with a small bead behind the door to attach them.

More close ups of the 'Glitz Frosting' which is the stone like embellishment I used. You may notice that some of the items are outlined in white. That is a huge trick of mine. So that things don't appear cluttered, I use a white gel pen to outline embellishments. It makes them pop and cleans them up too!

The big door is so cute!

More details including a bead

One of the cute little doors!

I love my new advent calendar and hope you enjoyed seeing it!