Love Sweet Love

Tricky Little Leprechauns

2012-03-14T06:00:00.000-07:00

There's just something about having little ones that makes holidays just brim over with excitement. I love getting things set up and all ready the night before, and am just GiDdY with the thought of how their faces will look when they wake up in the morning and see all that the day will have in store for them! I love to watch their eyes get big as they slowly turn their head from side to side, trying to take in every ounce of the world I've created around them, and then...the smile.

The smile that says what no words in my language could say. The smile that leaves them speechless, as if saying the words they're thinking would break the spell of the magic that surrounds them. The smile that makes every moment of the previous late night of preperation worth it.

And then comes the laughter.
The laughter that starts in their heart and comes from deep within their chest. The laughter that is contagious as it fills every corner of the room. The laughter that is priceless because it comes from the mouth of a child.
Your child.

And that is why I do this. Decorate, craft, use that dusty old right-side of the brain, and go hog-wild crazy for holidays. For those moments. And I believe moments make memories.

Looking for some ideas to create some memories with your kids...how about some of these fun St. Patrick's ones!

Last year we woke up to find our kitchen had been turned topsy turvy by those tricky little leprechauns! How do we know it was them you ask?

I think their little green footprints they left across the kitchen floor gave them away! (Just washable green fingerpaint-mine was the Crayola brand. Just curl your hand up into a fist for the foot part and use your fingerprint to make the toes!)

A whole trail of them as a matter of fact that led to...

...the refrigerator!

"What did he do?! What did he do in the fridge?!" Tyler was screaming. We opened it up to find that the leprechaun had turned our milk green! They thought that was so awesome-especially Tyler since his favorite color is green-and thoroughly enjoyed drinking it and having it in their cereal that morning for breakfast!

When Tyler went into the bathroom to get dressed he screamed to me, "MOM! There is green pee in our toilet!" What?! That tricky leprechaun went potty in our toilet and we thought it was very rude that he didn't flush away his business!

We were so excited when we saw this green footprint on the fireplace since our trap is sitting up there and hoped that we had caught the tricky little man that had wreaked havoc all over our house!

Awww! It looks like we almost caught him!! Better luck this year!

That afternoon a couple moms got together and put together a little St. Patricks day party. We had a yummy green lunch and then did some fun activities. We started out by painting some Blarney stones! These weird squinty eye people are me and my kiddos...we may or may not have the ability to be in direct sunlight without shrieking in pain-vampires much?

A little clover face-painting :)

Next we made some clover necklaces...

Lastly, we did a little scavenger hunt. We heard a knock on the door and found this clover from Larry the Leprechaun...

We followed 5 more clues till we found the last one where Larry had left the kids a pot of gold!

They had an awesome time and had lots of fun stuff to bring home!

I feel like the LUCKIEST mom in the world to have these two bugs in my life!

I know I said this would be my last St. Patrick's post, buuuuut I totally forgot I have just ONE more thing to share with you! Are you totally sick of this yet?!?! Ha ha, well if you have a little girl you just might want to check back tomorrow for a last minute, easy peasy holiday skirt idea! ;) Thanks for reading!

St. Patrick's Mantel...and stuff :)

2012-03-13T06:00:00.001-07:00

Okay so I did not intend for all the rest of my St. Patrick's day goodness to end up in one post-or take a WEEK for me to get around to it!!!-BUT that's just what happens when it's almost 60 degrees outside in Northern Utah in early MARCH! We have spent hours at the park, on bikes, having picnics, playing with friends and just enjoying this amazing weather!

At nights I have been slaving away :) working on getting the Relief Society birthday activity planned. In my church I have been asked to serve as the person who puts together the quarterly activities for the woman ages 18+. Every year in March we celebrate the "birthday" of the Relief Society which is an organization that was formed 170 years ago this year! This is our biggest activity of the year and I have a very small committee -2 people-that help me pull this off so I am very busy in March! You can read more about the Relief Society organization here.

March will also hold a lot of memories for my family this year, as my younger brother will be returning home from serving a two year mission for our church. He comes home ONE week from today (eek!!!!!!) and so I have also been doing everything that has to do with getting ready to go on a week and a half trip with two kids (hubby's staying home for work/school)!

Aaaaand-as if that's not enough!-we have our bi-annual housing inspections (oh the joys of living in a rental!) this week and we're talking white glove test, pull out the fridge and clean behind it, clean out and re-organize the whole garage(and for my thrift store loving self it looks like an episode of Hoarders in there) so that has been a BIG project as well. But oh how I do love my CLEAN CLEAN organized house right now!

So can you PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE forgive me for my absence this past week, I didn't mean to leave you hanging! And I'll just go ahead and ask for a little forgiveness in advance because I don't imagine there will be too many more posts this month either! But when I can finally get around to taking some pictures and writing up posts, I do have lots to share with you...A fun menu planner I made, some re-purposing of old shutters to hold photos, and LOTS of spring decor! I can't wait to show you!

So just in case you're doing a little last minute decorating for the old st patty's holiday, or want to store some ideas away for next year, here are a few fun things I did to amp up the spirit in our house! :)

The mantel...

**the Lolli banner tutorial and St. Patricks printable on the window frame above the mantel can be found on my previous post**

Even though St. Patrick's isn't a big decorating type holiday, I still wanted to update my mantle for it but spend as close to ZERO dollars as possible! I found that just by digging around the house for green things I already had, spray painting other things (with green paint I already had), and making the rest by hand I had a fun, new look and spent $5 for the whole mantel decor!!!

I found this set of tiny leprechaun hats at JoAnns for $1 the week before st. patty's last year and stuck them in a little glass vase I already had. The FUN leprechaun trap behind it was made by recycled materials from around the house, and you can read about the making of it HERE.

I already had these black candlesticks (originally from the thrift store and then painted black) on hand, and to top them I dug out one of my green bean balls, and an old candle-updated with some green scrapbook paper and embellishments from my lolli banner. I downloaded THIS free printable from Today's Fabulous Finds, printed it out at home, and then used spray adhesive to glue it to an old, green piece of wood that was sitting in my garage (I like being able to display things using different looks...versus always putting things up in picture frames).

Next, I took a cute little glass jar I had (I found these puppies for .88 each at our dollar store-somehow knowing I was saving .12 made ALL the difference ha ha!-and stocked up!!), put a little foam leprechaun sticker on the front (from the same set of foam stickers from JoAnns that I used for the lolli banner) and filled it with rolos to make our own little pot- o'-gold! **NOTE-this pot was full of "gold" not very long ago...

I love, love, LOVE displaying holiday photos of my kids throughout the year and I just loved these pictures I took of them last St. Patrick's day and wanted a different way to show them off rather than just putting them in a frame, so I grabbed these plastic clipboards from walmart (they were out of the wood ones) for about a dollar each and embellished away!

I first covered them with scrapbook paper using spray adhesive, but I didn't love the way they looked so I went over them with a coat of green spray paint. I love how the bumps in the paper still give off a little textured look, but it's not as distracting as the paper was alone (before the paint was put over it). I didn't want to go way crazy with the embellishments because I wanted the main focus to be the pictures, so I just added some different ribbons, buttons, and gems that I already had in my little stash.

To clip the picture to the board I used a fun, decorated clothespin. I made them by spray painting them yellow (you can get a pack of like 100 from the $ store), mod-podging on a little strip of scrapbook paper, and then adding a felt clover (with a little added bling in the middle of the clover b/c you know I just can't help myself!!) Cuteness right?!

This St. Patrick's printable made by Michelle at A Little Tipsy was the perfect thing to place between the pictures of the two people in my life that I'm most LUCKY to have. (I don't consider being married to my husband "lucky" since I psychically chose him...I chalk that up more to good life choices :) )

And lastly, some easy and cute wood blocks. These were just cut from some 2x4's we had in the garage that were then spray painted black and decorated using scrapbook paper mod-podged on and vinyl letters cut from my cricut (you could use scrapbook stickers if you don't have a machine cutter).

The Mr. actually cut a whole bunch of blocks for me at one time out of a 2x4, and I've decorated them for all the different holidays throughout the year. I do the front and the backs of each block to get even more use out of each set! The back of these ones are for valentines day :)

Whew! Sorry for the overload, I meant for these to be separate posts! I just have ONE more St. Patrick's related post for you coming up tomorrow with some fun ideas to do for your kidlets ON St. Patrick's day. Until then...thank you SO much for reading!! Getting your comments throughout the week makes me smile SOOOO big!

Have a great day!

I have a little sister...

2012-03-09T15:20:00.003-08:00

So I have a little sister. Well I actually have 3 little sisters and my littlest little sister (who's not so little at all anymore since she's a JUNIOR in high school!!) is Alena. (are you sick of the word 'little' yet-hehe) Well all of us sisters love to get goofy and take pictures of ourselves, do silly photoshoots together and ham it up for the camera. Pretty much anytime we can take pictures of ourselves...we do. Ha Ha, we're just dorks that way! But Alena has a love for the camera that none of the rest of us could ever come close to. She is fantastic on both sides of the lens and does not let her camera leave her side whether it's taking pictures of herself, or herself and friends...or herself :), she is always ready with a smile. Right now she has an opportunity to win a photoshoot from Shannon Kaeding Photography by simply getting the most 'likes' for her photo on the Shannon Kaeding Photography Facebook page HERE. I would love it SO much if you could just do a quick little clickety clack-clack on your keyboard and 'like' the photographer's FB page and then go HERE to the contest and click on Alena's picture and 'like' it. That's it! Good luck Alena, you're beautiful!!!!

St. Patty's "lolli" banner and a Cuh-UTE printable!

2012-03-06T14:11:00.006-08:00

I think the thing I love most about decorating for St. Patrick's day, is that it can be SO simple and super light and easy on the pocket-book! (versus other holidays where your whole house turns into a wonderland :) ) By just adding a few *green* touches here and there to your home, it is just enough magic for this fun holiday!

Last year I made this easy and cute lolli banner using this tutorial from Michelle at A Little Tipsy and it cost me all of two little buckaroos to make!

The CUTE Subway art hanging above is from the adorable blog eighteen25-they always have my favorite subway art! (and it's still available for free download!) I just popped it in a thrift store frame painted green and BAM...cuteness!

If you've got some green scrapbook paper, a cereal box, some green fabric scraps and some ribbon you can make yourself a sweet little banner too! (and if you don't, you can pick up a sheet or 2 of paper from your local craft store and some plain green fabric and make one for a few bucks too!) I started with the clover in the center.

As Michelle suggested, I used a cereal box to cut out a clover shape-I just free-handed it. Then I cut strips of fabric in about 1" width strips.

I wrapped those strips around the cut out pieces of my clover just hot-gluing it to the cardboard wherever the strip ended and then started a new piece. I then hot-glued all the pieces together to get my clover. It doesn't have to be perfect because the center will be covered by a lolli.

You can find a perfect tutorial on how to make lollies here...mine we're 4". I used some 3D foam stickers I found for a dollar at JoAnns to place in the center, but I think buttons or ribbons would be cute in the center too if you don't have stickers.

Then I hung them all from...a shoelace!! St. Patrick's ribbon was a couple dollars, but this set of shoelaces were only a dollar at JoAnns so I opted to use that! You say ghetto, I say frugal! ha ha!

The clover just hangs by running the shoelace through the openings, but I attached the lollies using paperclips-so easy!

Now hang that little cutie wherever you want and you've got some cute, fun holiday decor for next to nothing!

I'll be sharing a few more ideas on how to get a little more 'Irish spirit' in your home later this week for ZERO dollars so be sure to check back!

Thanks for reading my friends!!

Just a Peek...Our Snow day

2012-03-02T06:00:00.001-08:00

One of my favorite bloggers-Amy from Naptime Crafters- does a cute post about once a week or so that she calls Just a Peek, where she shares a pic or two from her "real" life giving us readers a little peek into her. I sorta love that.

As I was going through some pictures from my camera tonight to put a post together for my personal family blog, I thought, hey why not give my craft reading friends a little peek into my real life every once in awhile too?! If you hate it, I'll just stick to craft posts-promise!

So today I thought I'd share with you just a little peek into the fun snow day we had today! My husband came home this afternoon for a little 2 hour break between work and school (I know 2 hours may not seem "little", but when he's gone by 8 and not home till midnight 2 hours doesn't feel very long.) It had been snowing ALL day-good sticky, big, chunky flakes of snow (our first REAL snow this winter!) and he walked in the door and announced we were going sledding! (and by "go" I mean walk 30 feet out our front door to our little hill) You'da thought he said Santa Clause was standing outside with presents the way the kids were screaming, and jumping up and down, and running around like crazy trying to gather up all their snow gear, they were SO excited!

I hate the snow. I'm pretty sure I've mentioned that before, but since there hasn't really been any this year even I was excited to get out there and have some fun!

One of my absolute FAVORITE things in this world (even more than mint oreo IceCream which is seriously saying something) are rosy, red cheeks. I love them in the summer from a hard day's work of sweat and laughter, and I love them in the winter from meticulous snowman making, and spontaneous sled days.

But I especially love them, because in one moment, mommy's nice glove-warmed hands can warm them instantly upon them rushing up to you, out of breath, saying, "Mom, this was SO fun...but I'm really cold, can you warm me up?". Then I take their sweet, little, rosy-red faces in my hands, and I kiss their red, icy noses, and I look into their eyes full of excitement, and I hear the laughter falling from their lips, and in that moment...everything is perfect.

Have a WONDERFUL weekend friends! Thanks for reading!

A Tricky Leprechaun Trap ;)

2012-02-29T06:00:00.000-08:00

"As everyone knows, leprechauns hoard pots of gold, and if caught, must reveal the treasure's location to their captor." says JoEllen Mitchell from Family Fun Magazine.

Those tricky, little leprechauns sure have played US for fools over the years-turning our kitchen upside down, dying our milk green, leaving green footprints on the floor, sending us on wild and crazy scavenger hunts and even leaving green pee-pee in the toilet-GROSS!

So this year, we're fighting back! We figure they owe us some treasure after all the havoc they've wreaked in our house so we used this idea from Family Fun Magazine to make our own leprechaun trap!

JoEllen also says, "Leprechauns have big egos, so a giant version of their own hat is irresistible to them. Once they step on the false top, you'll have caught a 10-gallon prize"

Want to make one too?? You probably already have everything you need and can make one this afternoon with your kiddos! Here's how...

Supplies:
-Some kind of used cylinder container (the actual one I used was a rolled oats one)
-a cereal box
-a couple sheets of green felt
-a piece of black, yellow and green construction paper
-"gold" (I used Rolo wrappers)
-twigs to make a ladder
-hot glue

What to do:
1. Wrap the container with your green felt using hot glue to secure.
2. Cut a circle-I just did mine about an 1 1/2" bigger than the bottom of the rolled oats container-out of the cereal box for the bottom of the hat, and cover that with green felt as well. I just hot glued the extra felt that came over the edges onto the bottom of my cut-out circle.

3. Hot glue the top of the hat to the base.

4. Make your "belt" around the hat using a strip of black construction paper and a square of yellow placed on-top of the black. Adhere using glue or tape.

5. If you have a machine that cuts paper use it to cut out some clovers on your green construction paper(I cut about 15 in different sizes). If you don't have a machine to do this, I'm sure you could find something to this effect at your local craft store, or find an image online to print out and then cut them out manually. Then use either a small dab of hot glue, glue dots or double sided tape to adhere it randomly all over the felt.

6.To make the lid-or the trap- part of your hat, just cut a small circle of felt slightly bigger than the top of your container and it sits just right on top! A perfect place to put your bait of "gold" for those little sneaky men!

Another piece of advice from JoEllen was,"Leprechauns love to break rules. Warning signs are sure to lure them in." So we made this little lure from a popsicle stick painted green, stuck in some green play-dough with our warning to NOT climb the ladder!

JoEllen goes on to say, "Natural materials make these woodland creatures feel at home." So we used some twigs from outside and glued them together to make a tricky ladder!

Now we just sit and wait to capture our ticket to fortune! :)

I hope you're having a great week!! I have a few more St. Patty's things to share with you so I"ll be back soon!

Thanks for reading!

Friday Funnies!

2012-02-24T06:00:00.000-08:00

Okay yall, so it has been waaaaaaaaaay too long since we've had a 'Friday Funnies' post on here-like September!!!- and I don't know about you, but I just need a GOOD laugh to kick my weekend off to a great start! (although we did get some sunshine here today and it was sooooo nice-I even got my booty up and worked out, awesome!) So I hope it's okay with you if we interrupt our holiday crafting craziness for a day so we can share some laughs! I hope you find one or two that make you smile! Enjoy! (all of these can be found on my Pinterest Have a Laugh board.)

*I love the mom that actually went and grabbed her camera before helping her kid :)*

And my personal favorite :)...

Okay...NOW go and have a great weekend friends! I'm putting up our St. Patty's decor so I'll be back next week to share, talk to you soon!

Thanks for reading!

Cutting Edge Stencil Giveaway Winner!!!!

2012-02-23T06:00:00.000-08:00

Good Morning! I'm so excited to announce the winner of the Cutting Edge Stencil giveaway! As always with giveaways here on Love Sweet Love, I'll let my littles do the honors...

And just in case you're in a place where you can't watch the video (although I'm pretty sure it's worth the watch since you get to see my kid almost pick his nose-don't worry I turned the camera off just in time! ha ha!) ...

Comment #26 was JODIE!!!

Congrats Jodie, email me and we'll get your stencil out to you!!

Talk to you soon friends!

St. Patrick's Rag Wreath

2012-02-22T14:45:00.001-08:00

Hi friends how are you?!?! Can I be a little honest with you? I have been feeling totally BLAH lately. Not like sick blah or like depressed blah, just...blah.

Like you've sat on the couch all day in your pajamas, watching reality tv, eating ice-cream blah.

Except I haven't done any of those things. I think I have to blame it on the weather. I'm one of those weird people whose mood is completely dependent on what it looks like outside. And outside it's been cloudy, rainy/snowy and COLD for over a week and so I just feel blah! Something about clouds and rain makes me feel tired and unmotivated. I need some SUNSHINE!!!

I will tell you though...I just absolutely LOOOOVED reading your 'pet peeves' as part of the entries for the giveaway last weekend! They were the little bit of sunshine to my cloudy week and they made me laugh, and most of them I was yelling at the computer, "I KNOW, ME TOO!" ha ha! So thank you for sharing those, it makes me feel like I get to know you, the readers, a little bit better instead of you always reading about me!

Okay, so I know decorating for St. Patrick's day isn't a super popular holiday to decorate for and you probably don't have a ton of clover decorations floating around your house-if any. Even though you may not want to go all out and decorate because it's just for a couple weeks in march, if you're looking for just a little somethin' somethin' to add to your house to bring a little of the 'luck' charm your way, I would suggest a wreath! And a simple one at that!!

Rag wreaths, I would say, are THE easiest, fastest and probably cheapest wreath there is to make. AND I would also say a perfect wreath for a fun, spunky holiday like St. Patrick's day, 4th of July, Halloween, etc. I found this rag wreath online last year and I loved the texture it had and knew I wanted to do something similar.

*Supplies*
-green circle wreath form (mine is from JoAnns)
-complimentary fabric colors (for this wreath I chose 2 shades of green and some green tulle). It'll take about 1/2 yard of fabric total, so I used 1/4 of each shade of green.
-Scissors
-embellishments

(I actually made this last year before I was blogging so you'll have to excuse the poor quality pictures of the how-to :) )
1. First you cut lots of strips of fabric-mine were about 2"x9".

2. Then just start tying them around the wreath form in whatever pattern you prefer.

This is what the back of the wreath will look like.

3. When you have it as full as you like...embellish! I hung this cute little shamrock ornament from the top of my wreath (from JoAnns).

These little do-dads are St. Patrick's picks (also from JoAnns) and I just pulled the metal pick part out and hot glued them straight to the wreath. (which seems to have worked fine since they're still glued on a year later!)

I used some fun green/white st. patty's ribbon from the dollar store to hang it with. The ribbon is just pinned using straight pins to the back side of the wreath.

I know you can't see the tulle very well in these pictures, but in person it's easier to see and I love the extra little whimsical touch the tulle adds. :)

I had the tulle and lt. green fabric already on hand, and the embellishments were purchased at 50% off so the total price for this wreath came in right at about $6. Yay! But even if you had to purchase everything to make this it would be about $7/8 to make-not too shabby right?!

I don't have boxes full of St. Patrick's nick-knacks, but you know I'm pretty much obsessed with ALL holidays and celebrating them in lots of fun different ways-including decor-so over the next couple weeks I'll be sharing some fun, easy decor, party ideas, and kid activities for this fun little holiday.

Annnnnd be sure to check back FIRST thing tomorrow morning for the results of the Cutting Edge Stencil giveaway winner to find out if it was YOU! :)

Thanks for reading!

Linking up to these great parties!

Painted Rug with stencil Tutorial and a Giveaway!!

2012-02-17T06:00:00.001-08:00

Happy Friday everyone! Have you linked up a project yet to the MEGA -21 blog linky party going on now? The party's still going strong with over 350 links so you still have time to help Crafty Scrappy Happy celebrate her 1 year blog Anniversary by linking up, or just swing by and check out all the AMAZING crafts and treats people are posting-lots of inspiration!!

I was over-the-moon excited when I was contacted last month, by Cutting Edge Stencils, to see if I would like to do a review and giveaway for one of their stencil products. They were so kind, helpful and easy to work with and I am just THRILLED with the results!

They have hundreds of stencil designs to choose from including wall stencils, all-over stencils, nursery stencils, geometric stencils, holiday stencils, craft-size stencils, and SO much more! I have never used a stencil to paint anything, so I am as NEWBIE at this stenciling business as they come so you better believe I watched this video from their Youtube channel that gives a detailed demonstration of how to use and apply their stencil about 5 times over to make sure I got it before I started!

Since living in a rental is limiting in the fact that I can't paint or stencil anything on the walls, I knew I was going to need to choose one of their craft size stencils and I spent WEEKS trying to decide what object I wanted to stencil. Pillows? Curtains? Tabletop? Dresser? Then one day after my little one dropped her yogurt on my kitchen rug (that we've had for 5 years) for the THIRD time that day, it was going in the trash and I was gettin' myself a brand new, custom painted rug...by me. :)

I had chosen to try out the Casablanca Allover craft size-small stencil and they sent that to me along with...

...a foam roller and...

...and a stencil brush-just the tools I needed!

I started with this plain, woven, accent rug from Lowes-24x40" (about $10).

I picked out a red color of paint (I used about 1/2 of one of those tester size paint containers that cost about $3-for the whole rug) that matched the red I have throughout my kitchen and got started!

How to paint a rug:
1.Pour paint onto paper plate
2.Tape stencil down onto rug (painters tape would probably be best, but I didn't have any so I actually used packing tape and it worked fine.) I started my stencil in the middle of the rug and worked left and right and then up and down.
3.Roll foam roller through paint till the entire roller is covered evenly and paint stencil applying pressure evenly.
4.Pick up stencil and move to the next spot. Repeat! (watching the video definitely helps visualize this!)
5. For the edges of the rug I laid a cardboard box down and just kept on painting, using the box to cut off the stencil. I love how the stencil just drops off all the edges (which is why I started in the middle-so I'd have that look of an unfinished stencil around the edges)
You're done!

The paint dries SO fast so you can just keep on working and don't have to wait for one section to dry before you can lay the stencil back down. AND the stencil doesn't need to be washed after every use; in fact, I didn't have to clean it at all until I was done! A perfect project for someone whose impatient and eager, and just wants to get done so she can see the final result of her hard work!

I did love doing this project because it was quick, easy and even a novice like me can read the simple instructions and be good to go and have great results; however with that being said, as far as using a stencil to paint a rug, here are some things I learned while I was going along and would caution you about...
Having never painted any kind of fabric or thick material like this before, I was unsure of how much paint exactly would need to be on the roller and how hard I would need to roll the foam roller so-as recommended in the video- I started out with pretty light coats. I found though, that the rug just soaked up that paint and using more paint on the roller and pushing harder actually gave me better results. Unfortunately I didn't realize this till closer to the end and had to go back over almost the entire rug to get the deepness in color that I was looking for. Because of this, the paint is not evenly distributed on the rug and some stenciled pieces came out darker than others. I just couldn't get them to all look exactly the same without going over the entire thing by hand with a small brush (which I was not going to do). This is in no way a reflection of the product from Cutting Edge Stencil, just my own naivety of using a stencil and trying something a little more difficult my first time using one. I still love the outcome and am proud of my first little painted stencil project!

I love the Casablanca Craft stencil I chose and am excited to try it out again in the future for another project!

Cutting Edge Stencil has so generously offered to give away one stencil of your choice of any value-up to $50 with free shipping!!-to one lucky ducky Love Sweet Love Reader! There are sooooo many possibilities with these stencils and so many designs to choose from that anybody can find something that fits their style! Want one???? Here's how you can enter for your chance to win...

1 entry-Head over to Cutting Edge Stencils website and tell me what your favorite stencil is!
1 entry-'Like' Cutting Edge Stencil on Facebook
1 entry-Although it's not required that you be a follower of my little blog to enter this giveaway, I'll give you an extra entry if you already are, or become one! :)
1 entry-'Like' Love Sweet Love on Facebook (or tell me if you already do)
1 entry-Tell me one of your biggest pet peeves! :)

Please leave a SEPARATE comment for each entry so you get all your chances to win! 5 ways to win, 5 days to enter...giveaway will end Feb. 21st at midnight. Good Luck!

HUGE linky party with Crafty Scrappy Happy!!!

2012-02-15T13:29:00.000-08:00

Today I am just THRILLED, jumping with JOY, ECSTATIC, and just darn tootin' EXCITED to have the opportunity to co-host Crafty Scrappy Happy's 1 year anniversary linky Par-TAY! I have considered Jaime one of my absolute DEAREST blogging friends since we became friends...almost a year ago!

We both started our blogs about the same time and I am just so happy to see how much success Jaime's blog has achieved and how much happiness it has brought into the crafty blogging world, and to so many peoples lives. She is truly one of those people that is just gorgeous on the inside AND the outside. If you don't know her...GET to know her, she will embrace you with open arms and a warm heart. I'm so happy for you my dear friend and wish you even more happiness and success this next blogging year!

So won't you PLEASE help Jaime celebrate by linking up your projects here at this HUGE linky party! There are TWENTY (20!) co-host to this party (meaning when you link up once it will be seen on 21 blogs-including Crafty Scrappy Happy's!!) so your projects will get SO SO SO much attention and could bring lots more traffic to your blog, so link up mmmkay?!

Feel free to link up anything and everything Crafty, Scrappy and/or Happy! No giveaways or etsy shops please.Check out other links, be inspired and make some new friends!Grab a button if you would!And check Crafty Scrappy Happy for features all next week!!!!

Valentine Scavanger Hunt

2012-02-14T06:00:00.000-08:00

Happy Valentines day my wonderful friends!!!! I hope your day is filled with happiness and laughter and surprises, but most of all with LOVE!

I have a few fun things planned for my kiddos (cupid's visit is always a favorite!) and we're excited to do our traditional pizza making for dinner!

I just thought I'd stop in for a quick sec today (well for one, to wish you a happy VALENTINES day! :) ) to share a couple of the little valentines I've put together over the past week.

For little Miss's dance class valentine exchange we did these...

{source}

For the little Mr.'s pre-school friends we did packets of a Kool-aid with a tag that said, "you're a KOOL-kid Valentine!"

{source}

For the Mr. this week I've left little treat surprises around the house, in the car, in his backpack, etc...everyday-I'm pretty positive I enjoyed it more than he did. ha ha!

Smokehouse BBQ nuts-"I'm NUTS about you!"
Vitamin water Zero-"I have ZERO regrets choosing you!"
Sweedish Fish- "You are the best FISH in the sea for me!"
Mountain Dew- "Thanks for all you DEW!"
Beef Jerky- "Thanks for never being a JERK or giving me any BEEF, I love you!" (I know that one was a stretch, but he LOVES beef jerky so I had to throw it in and make it work!!)
Packs of gum- "I CHEWS you!"
Pack of Crush- "I don't think it's any secret now...I've got a CRUSH on you!"

{source-Lots of fun v-day ideas and free printables for a hubby at this link as well!}

Nothing super BIG, but fun all the same!

Annnnnd, I also thought I'd share a SUPER fun scavenger hunt we did for the kids last year (and we'll be doing it again tonight since it was such a hit!!).

It all started when we heard a knock at the door and found that Cupid had left us our first clue...

Clue #1: Today is about LOVE & family & friends and giving big kisses and Hugs that don't end. If you want to find the gift from yours truly, go look in the place where you watch Scooby Dooby!
*The computer

Clue #2:
Nope it's not here sorry that was tricky, but don't give up yet that'd be too picky! I'll give you another clue & try not to be mean, go look in the place where you wash your body clean.
*The Bathtub

Clue #3:
Yay you found me you're off to a great start, keep going like this and you might steal my HEART! The next clue is hiding in a place that is cold, where you put milk & cheese so it doesn't grow mold. :(
*The refrigerator

Clue #4:
Now you've got the hang of it look at you go, keep up your pace don't get too slow. You'll find you next clue playing in Cinderella's house, but you better beware of her little grey mouse!
*Kylee's play princess castle

Clue #5:
The more that you know, the closer you get, to claiming your prize, are you ready...get set! Your next clue is waiting alone in the dark, in the place you get mail, right next to the park.
*The mailbox

Clue #6:
You're almost done now just a couple more clues, keep doing what you're doing you just can't lose! This clue you'll find where Tyler sleeps at night, when mom tucks him in under blankets just right!
*Tyler's bed

Clue #7:
CUPID'S my name, LOVE is my game, if you've had fun you have ME to blame! The gift you've been seeking is awaiting your peeking at the place where we go if we want to be eating!
*Kitchen Table

They ran to the kitchen table and found their sweet Valentine treats from Cupid. Powdered donuts and strawberry milk for Tyler (his fav) and chocolate milk for Kylee (her fav). I love that tyler's cheeks are all red and his hair's all sweaty from running around.

She was thrilled that she had a prize!!!

Thumbs up Cupid!

If you can't see she has a donut in each hand and is drinking her choc milk.

After their treat they played with these plastic hearts cupid left for them as well for almost 30 min! We found that they're almost as much fun as hitting each other with pillows!

As we were cleaning up in the kitchen we heard Tyler say, "This was the BEST balentines ever!"

I hope YOU have the best "balentines" day ever today! Thank you SO SO much for stopping by today-I love you all!! :)

Burlap Bubble Wreath

2012-02-08T06:00:00.000-08:00

Just SIX more days till the day of Lu-huuuuv! Are you excited?! Valentines day has never been a big celebratory, give big presents, go all out kind of holiday for the hubs and I...we're more of the quiet dinner and a movie kinda people...so having kids to celebrate with has been SO SO SO fun! The excitement and energy they bring makes it worth all the preparation and time I put into different projects for the holiday (like the Love Shacks-they have been absolutely GIDDY over them, so happy!!).

My little girl (3 yr. old) has especially loved valentines day since there has been so much PINK everywhere! ha ha! And I have to say, since I have one month a year where the Mr. ~~can't~~ doesn't complain about pink decorations, I release all of my pent-up girly, pink loving, mushy-gushy, love emotions from the previous 11 months and go to town! My heart felt wreath goes perfectly inside, but I wanted a wreath for my door (surprise, surprise ;) ) that was a little more......gender neutral shall we say?!

There are after-all 2 boys living in this house too, so I was looking for something that was feminine enough to make my pitter-patter heart happy, and masculine enough to keep the hubs from taking it down. :) So when I found this burlap bubble wreath on pinterest here I knew it was perfect!!

The Valentines Burlap Bubble Wreath...

The wreath was created by Amanda who blogs at My Heart's Desire and she has a fantastic tutorial, so if you're interested in making you're own you'll definitely want to check it out! And the best thing is, she has one tutorial here just for the burlap bubble wreath and a separate tutorial here for the heart burlap wreath. I, obviously :), used and followed both and I love how it turned out!

I won't re-create a total step by step since I followed Amanda's instructions exactly, but just to show you how simple it is...

I started with 3 things

1. Burlap (1 yard tan, 1/2 yard red)
2. Wire wreath forms (1 18" circle, 1 heart-both from Hobby Lobby)
3. Floral wire
*between using coupons and what I had already on-hand, this wreath came out to under $10-perfect!

To make the round wreath, you're basically just gathering, bubbling and securing all around your circle form on the inner and outer rings.

And I will tell you this, it would have been much easier(not that it was really hard, but my fingers just started to hurt after awhile) if I would have used a thinner gauge wire. I was using 20 gauge b/c I already had that on-hand, but I would recommend 24 or 26 because it will tie around your burlap and wire lots easier and give you a better hold!

This is what the back of the wreath looked like when I had finished-just so you can kind of see how I tied the wire around.

Also, with such thick wire I had some problems with it showing in some places. With thinner wire I think you'd probably be able to hide it better.

For the heart I did basically the same thing, but just made one row of "bubbles" rather than one for both the inner and outer rings.

Using a recommendation from Amanda, I took some extra scraps of red burlap and stuffed them into the bubbles on this wreath to give it a little bit fuller of a look.

Then I safety pinned the heart to the round wreath so that I can use the burlap wreath on it's own for something else in the future!

And that was it!

I love that this doesn't have to be just a valentines wreath- stretchin' those pennies as best I can! ha ha!

So are you doing anything fun with your Mr. Love or your littles for valentines day?? I would LoVe to hear about it!

Thanks for popping in, talk to ya soon!

The Love Shack

2012-02-03T06:00:00.000-08:00

As I mentioned last week, The Shack...Radioshack, holds a very special place in my love story.

Without it, the BOY wouldn't have met the GIRL, and the GIRL wouldn't have ever known the difference between a red, white and yellow TV cable. And most importantly, there wouldn't be two little sweet loves that call us parentals.
Whiiiich is why The Shack become fondly known to us as...The LOVE shack.

I had been wanting to create some little valentine mailboxes, similar to this idea, that I could stick a little note or treat in for my two kiddos every day until Valentines day (starting in Feb. :) ) but I couldn't find little mailboxes like that anywhere!! I came up with a few other ideas of things I could put ontop of a candlestick to create a mailbox type project and when I saw these little birdhouses in the $1 aisle at Michaels I knew exactly what I wanted to do.

Make some *Love Shacks* to house love notes for my love birds!

I love that we now have a more aesthetically appealing, meaningful object that reminds the Mr. and I of our beginnings (the old, rusted Radioshack magnet on the fridge has now met the garbage man-thank goodness!!) and we can include our kids now by making new memories with them!

I started with these 2 wood bird houses-I tried to pick one that was a little more masculine for my boy :)-and painted the one for little miss K sweet pea pink, and the one for the little Mr. metallic silver (by Rustoleum).

And because I can't just leave well enough alone, I had to add something to make them...standout. :) I have lots of glitter around my house, so I decided to add a little sparkle to the roofs of the birdhouses. I just applied a thin layer of Mod Podge to the roof and poured on the glitter (this pic is from before I shook off the excess).

And then I had a craft FAIL moment. Splotchy white glitter on pink roof=hot mess.

So I had a momentary freak-out moment, ran back to my stash of glitter and re-covered the roof with ruby red. WOW! Just the bold statement I was looking for. In yo' face bird house.

Then I dug out some glittery scrapbook sticker letters to spell out "Love Shack" on the houses.

Since I couldn't really figure out a way to put a "flag" onto the side of the bird houses-like a mailbox has-I just used these heart picks I had leftover from the dollar store last year, snapped them in half, put each of my kids initials (scrapbook sticker letter) on their heart for their shack (added a little rhinestone bling to miss K's of course) and the houses were done!

I chose to go with silver, red and black colors for Tyler's shack, for ONE because my husband would have died if their was pink anywhere on his sons birdhouse (I was already treading on thin ice with that as it was :) ) and TWO, because after seeing the metallic and black together I felt okay adding GLITTER to his because it reminded of a tuxedo! That shiny metallic and black just says STUD to me, ha ha, so I added a little black "bow-tie" to the front of the candlestick I had painted black to finish off the look.

That's when I went back and added a pink bow to the roof of Kylee's shack, to add just one more touch of femininity and compliment the look of the stud standing next to her ;).

Both candlesticks were purchased from a thrift store over a year ago for .50 each (and I painted them red and black for this project), but you can find glass candlesticks at the dollar store year round! They are glued to the birdhouses using E6000.

Since the holes aren't quite big enough to stick a treat in (without losing it!), I'm just sticking a new "love note" inside for each of them everyday! They just eat this stuff up, I love it!!

So happy that 2 little buckaroo's turned into this...

I dare you not to have "Love Shack" stuck in your head all day now. You're welcome. :) Have a fantastic weekend, see you back here next week and thanks for dropping in!

Hugs and Kisses Gumball Machine

2012-01-31T06:00:00.000-08:00

Hi friends! First I just wanted to say thank you SO much to all you sweet girls for making me feel like I'm not alone on the momma guilt wagon last week! Your thoughts and kind words were so encouraging and I realized 2 things:

1. I don't need to be so hard on myself all the time and
2. I shouldn't write blog post while under the influence of heavy medication.
'Nuff said.

Sooooo....how bout a little PINK to perk you up?! This was the perfect little project for me this weekend to get me out of my *rut*...I mean how can chocolate not heal you?!

Want to whip up one of these for yourself, or a friend or neighbor? Here ya go!

I found this idea through Pinterest, and it's originally from the blog Dandelions and Dust Bunnies, but when I saw it I thought a Valentines version would be so cute!

Supplies:
-4" terracotta pot ($1-Michaels)
-terracotta saucer(.79-Michaels)
-glass bowl ($1-dollar store)
-wooden doll head ball (.25-Michaels)
-1 bag of Hershey hugs and kisses (about $2.50-Walmart)
-Spray paint in color of choice (already had mine, but it's about $3 a can at Home Depot for the Rustoleum brand-my FAVORITE!!)

First I painted the pot, saucer and ball pink. I almost went with red for the "gumball machine" (like I was shakin' it up getting ready to spray my pot and almost had to flip a coin because I couldn't decide), but decided I wanted it to be a little more light and flirty, so I went with Rustoleum's Sweet Pea-eeeek love!

I used some scrapbook stickers I already had in silver and red (purchased from Hobby Lobby) to write out
Hugs & {kisses} on the pot (and make sure to flip the pot upside down!).

Then I just used some E6000 to glue the glass jar to the upside down pot, filled it with some hugs and kisses and tied a pink, grosgrain ribbon bow around the middle.

Then I glued the wooden ball to the underneath side of the saucer and stuck the "lid" on the top of the glass bowl (I guess you could glue the lid to the bowl but I chose not to-I have to be able to access my chocolate! :) )

And that's it! A little something simple and cute to add to your decor, or a cute gift to give to a friend!

Thanks so much for stopping by today, I'm so so SO happy you're here! Talk to you soon!!

Mom Guilt.

2012-01-27T14:26:00.000-08:00

Mom Guilt.

This week I feel like I've done nothing. Well you know...

I saved superman by gluing his arm back to his body,
I found Rapunzel's long lost shoe-underneath a slice of stale cheese...which was left inside the play kitchen refrigerator for what I would guess (from the texture and color) to be at least 3 days old,
I built a lego batcave in no less than 1 hour,
I attended a dance recital in my living room where the dancer danced to 'Jingle Bells' (a Christmas cd that got left out of the christmas box) over and over and over,
and I'm pretty sure at one point I made a pretty dang good pot of Macaroni & cheese so you know...
it wasn't nothing exactly.

But I've been SO sick this week that I feel like a literal BUMP on a LOG! I look at my house and I just cringe! I look at my laundry piled up to way past overflowing, my kitchen sink full of dishes that I just have no desire to empty, the toys just pushed off to the sides of the room so the kids could go to bed because the thought of having to actually clean their rooms makes me want to dive into a cave, and I look at those 2 little faces and I just feel...guilt.

I didn't play with them enough, I didn't want to crawl out of bed to play princesses and pretend I'm the evil queen that locked the princess in the dungeon, I let them watch hours and hours of TV,-and the fact that I can't even put a number on those hours because I honestly don't know- makes me feel even more guilty.

Even though the hubby's good to try to relieve me of my guilt by telling me that it's okay our kids know all of the characters on spongebob square pants (seriously? dumbest. show. ever.) and haven't eaten a vegetable in a week because I'm sick, I STILL feel guilty.

So by day 3 of having body aches so bad I couldn't move my neck and chills that kept me dressed like I was living outside, on the streets, in the Arctic, and a sore throat that completely obliterated all attempts to break-up fights between the littles because all I could do is whisper (and seriously whisper??...I wouldn't even take me seriously.), I crawled out of my bed because of GUILT. And I played, and I laughed-in a freaky ghost movie kinda way-and I drove kids to preschool and dance, and made dinner, and looked for toys and turned off the TV and worked on reading and writing with them, and read every library book we have (and yes, they are 2 weeks over-due glad you asked!) and woke up to do it all over again the next day. Why?!?!

Mom Guilt.

I think, especially as woman-and I think this is true even if you don't have kids yet-we are so hard on ourselves. We think we have to know how to sew and cook and bake and have a doctorate and never yell at our kids and serve our neighbors and fulfill religious obligations and be an attractive wife with dinner on the table at 5:00 and be in perfect shape and have children that behave like angels and be running at full speed even if we're sick. :) Not ONLY do we have to do all those things, we have to do ALL of them perfectly, ALL the time.

Why do we put all that unnecessary pressure on ourselves?! Is the Woman Police going to come arrest us for not sewing every clothing item our children wear, or for not baking the perfect pie for our sick neighbor, or for weighing an extra 5 lbs because we love cheeseburgers? I think I must think that because I worry about not being able to accomplish all the things I want to do. So I have to focus on this thought:

I can do everything I want to do. Just not right now. One thing at a time.

I think that's why finding balance, and making sure I'm doing other things with my time besides crafting and blogging, has been so important to me this past month. AND I think that's why this week has been so hard because I've been trying to be the perfect mother and I let mom guilt take over when I should have embraced the few ways I was being a good one (like when I turned OFF spongebob-chalk that up for a winner mom moment! go me!)

{source}

Sorry for the very real, un-edited, edition of the Angela brain dump today. I think I'll feel better next week. :) And I've got a few projects on the docket for the weekend so I'll be sharing those next week! Have a great weekend!

'Heart-FELT' Wreath

2012-01-25T06:00:00.000-08:00

Once upon a time there was a boy.
He was smart and CONFIDENT and had a serious case of mackdaddyness.
He had a fabulously romantic, fLaShY job at The Shack...Radioshack.
He liked computers and cars and Napoleon Dynamite.
He met a GIRL. He fell in love.

Once upon a time there was a girl.
She was blonde and FLIRTY and had a serious case of single-itis.
She had a fabulously romantic, fLaShY job at The Shack...Radioshack.
She liked fakin' bakin', dancing and going out.
She met a BOY. She wasn't sure.

He KISSED her. She laughed at him.
He played hard to get. It worked.
She fell in love.
They dated. They broke up.
They dated.
He sat next to her on her little brothers bed, held her hand, and asked her to be his FOREVER.
She said no.
He cried. She cried.
He left.
She changed.
He asked her again.
She said YES.

7 1/2 years, 2 kids, and thousands of kisses later they are still in love and she still wants to be his forever. Sometimes he's not so sure. (ha ha just kidding-I hope!!!)

Love. Such a small word that holds so much meaning it can make you experience every emotion the human body can feel.

I know some people detest Valentines day, but for me it's one day a year I can SHOWER my family with love. I hope I show them everyday how much I love them, but I will happily take one extra day to be ridiculously, over-the-top, mushy, gushy and lovey!

I love LOVE! I love hugs and kisses and hearts (as you've probably noticed that's what's been used in all my decor!) and that I get to decorate with those things one month a year! When I saw this Valentine Heart last year on The Idea Room I was inspired to make my own little version...

Amy uses a heart styrofoam form, but my craft store was sold out so I just picked up a block of styrofoam and Mr. Sweet Love cut me out a heart shape. :)

I used about 1 billion more felt circles that what's pictured below. Ha ha! Seriously...SO many felt circles!

I did this before I was blogging so I don't have any step-by-step pictures for this one, but I made another felt wreath for Halloween, and I did a detailed tutorial that you can find here. (And a Fall one here.)

Amy also just did a solid red felt, but I got a little crazy and did red, hot pink and light pink.

It ended up being more long and narrow, than wide but I like that it fits kinda snuggly right up into my window frame. :)

What about you? Do you detest Valentines day or are you a sucker for love? Either way I'll still love you! :) Hope you're having a great week, thanks so much for stopping by!!

Linking up to these great parties as well as:

DIY Valentine Candy Jars

2012-01-23T06:00:00.000-08:00

Well I promised you a little XOX, and the only thing that can make LOVE sweeter is...candy right?! So today I've got a quick-SO easy-DIY candy jar craft!

I started with 3 glass canisters from Hobby Lobby (I bought them when they were 50% off so they were only $2 each), 3 candlesticks (from the thrift store .50 each), pink and white valentine taffy from the dollar store and red vinyl.

I spray painted the lids of the canisters black (they were originally silver) as well as the candlesticks and glued the jars to the candlesticks using E6000. Then I filled the jars with candy, cut the letters XOX out of red vinyl using my cricut and stuck them on the jars. Done!

If you were in the crafty blogging world last year there is no way you missed Amy's post-from The Idea Room-on her Tissue Paper Rosette Balls (or kissing balls). It BLEW up the blog-o-sphere and I for one am a big fan of riding on bandwagon's so I whipped up a few for myself!

Amy's tutorial is perfect so since there's no need to re-invent the wheel, I'll just tell ya I used:
-3" Styrofoam balls (a pack of 6 for about $4 from Hobby Lobby)
-a roll of white and pink crepe paper ($1 each)
-100% of my patience (felt like I should have been paid $100 an hour)
-1 bag of peanut butter m&m's (.79)
-and a few dozen episodes of Modern Family (priceless)

I love these so much I'm almost tempted to whip up a few more...except it wouldn't be whip up it'd be...pull my hair out, 500 3rd degree glue gun burns, ~~500~~ lots more m&m's...ya I'll think I'll just keep it as is. :)

Anyone shocked I haven't shared my Valentine wreath with you yet?! Don't worry it's already made and hung and made of...felt! (surprise surprise :) ) Aaaaand I'll be sharing it soon! Have a wonderful Monday all you Lovelies!

Linking up to these great parties as well as:

DIY Valentine Framed Artwork

2012-01-20T12:26:00.000-08:00

Haaaaapy Friday my friends!! Can you believe we're already heading into the end of January?! With the kind of weather we're having in my neck of the woods it feels more like spring than winter (which is TOTALLY A-OK with me!) since we've had hardly any snow this year (in comparison to years past-compared to...Texas we'd be a winter wonderland :) ).

Okay so I'm pretty darn tootin' excited to show you a project I created last year for Valentines day. It was before I was blogging, but I was thinking about starting a blog last Feb. so thankfully I do have some step-by-step pictures for you if you're interested!

It's not very often that I do a project without completely copying a tutorial I find on a blog or Pinterest, and it's even less rare for me to come up with an idea all on my own, so I'm pretty proud of the fact that I thought of this just by sitting in my garage starring at a tub of old "house decorating stuff".

DIY Valentine Framed Artwork

The supplies I used were old picture frames, scrapbook paper, vinyl, square glass coasters, and E6000 glue.

First I picked 3 different size picture frames, took the glass out and spray painted each of the frames black.
Then I came up with 3 different Valentine phrases I wanted to use for each picture
-LOVE me tender
-Be My Valentine
-Save the Date: 02-14

I had 10 square glass 'picture' coasters (the kind you can slide a small 2x2 size picture into) just collecting dust, so I came up with a different layout for each frame with my coasters and phrases and got to work.

For the 'LOVE me tender' frame, I cut the words 'me tender' out of black construction paper using my cricut and used double sided tape to tape each letter to the scrapbook paper (from Hobby Lobby).

I cut 2x2 squares from pink cardstock and cut the letters L-O-V-E out of black vinyl (using the cricut) and placed one letter in the center of each cardstock square.

After I slide them into the picture pocket on the coaster I used E6000 to glue them where I wanted them onto the glass for the frame and let it dry/harden overnight.

Then I just slid the scrapbook paper behind the glass put the frame back on and I had my own customized Valentine artwork!

I followed the exact same steps for the other 2 pictures, just changing up the phrases and placement of the coasters on the glass.

The 'Save The Date' and 'Saint Valentines Day' are cut from construction paper and the hearts, and numbers are cut from vinyl.

I pretty much do not do a craft without adding some sort of bling-a-ling to it! :) For this frame I added a couple white rhinestones to the letters V, N & E (on the outside of the glass) to give it a little something different.

And remember, even if you don't have a cutting machine you can always just use scrapbook stickers to get the same look!

You could get really personal and creative with these if you used phrases you share just with your husband or kids that are special to you. What a meaningful craft this could be! Wish I would have thought of that last year, but I still like the way these turned out!

Next up...a little XOX. ;) See ya soon!

Linking up to these great parties as well as:

Ballerina Birthday Party

2012-01-17T13:41:00.000-08:00

I'm SO sorry this is getting posted a day late! I've got an extra {cute} 3 year old running around my house this week, and now I'm seeing what it'd be like to have a 4 year old and twin 3 year olds all under the same roof...wow! Let's just say I'm not getting quite as much done as I usually do ;).

Buuuut I am so so so so so excited to show you what I've been working on the last week and over the weekend because our Ballerina Party was a complete success!!

Like I mentioned before, little miss K turned 3 and for her first 'friends party' requested it be a Ballerina party. Oooohhhh I couldn't have loved putting this together more!

Since I won the 'procrastinator of the year' award in 2011 (awarded to me by myself of course...anybody else have one of these trophies layin' around?) I thought...why change my ways? In some weird, completely irrational way, I work better under pressure so I put myself in a tiny box of 6 days to plan, create and execute this party. Whew! And I have to say, I only had one meltdown (day of party...I'll explain) so I'm gonna go ahead and chalk that one up for the win category. Booyah!

First I started off with the invites. Of course when it was 5 days, 23 hours, lots of minuets and counting, I had to turn to my dear creative friend Pinterest for ideas and boy did she come through!

I took the idea for the invite from THIS blog and came up with my own little rendition of a Ballerina invite. On the blog I found she has a step by step video you can watch if you're really interested in making one, but here are a few of the pictures I took making a simple ballerina dress using:
-cardstock bodice form (free template found here)
-square of tissue paper
-thin, white ribbon
-double sided tape

After you have folded your square of tissue paper accordion style, you use your double sided tape and adhere it to the front of your bodice attaching the tape right at the waist. You'll want to make sure the folds are spaced evenly to get a pretty skirt form.

The tape should be about 2" so that you have enough to have some on the back.

Turn the dress back to the front and fold down the top half of the tissue paper. Then kinda smoosh (my spell check is telling me that's not a word, but since it's quite possibly the best word in the English language I'm gonna have to rebel) the tissue paper lightly with your finger-you don't want to flatten it completely, just smooshed down enough that the top layer will lay nicely (yet poofy) over the top of it.

Next, f0ld down the top layer of tissue paper and gently give it a little crease to secure the fold.

Now, using the tape on the back of the bodice lay the middle of your ribbon across it.

Turn it over and tie the ribbon into a bow and you're done!

I then used a piece of double-sided tape to attach the dress to the invite.

The invite itself, is a 6x4 pice of light pink cardstock. I used brown ink to darken up the sides and a strip of white ribbon, layered with sheer pink and white polka dot ribbon, across the top. I had some brown scrapbook stickers on hand so just layed a letter K on top of the ribbon for little miss K. I finished it off with 2 hole punches on the top and a matching pink/white polka dot ribbon run through.

The back of the invitation had all the party information:

Then it was time to decorate! On the front door I hung little miss's ballet shoes, using white grosgrain ribbon, behind the coffee filter wreath I had out for Christmas.

I loved the simple little touch adding something personal to her added to the party!

Inside I opted to decorate with...flowers, balloons and food!! I wanted the atmosphere to be frilly, soft, pretty and GIRLY! I went with pink and white for the colors of the party with pops of yellow! I'm a "pop" kinda girl. Two colors just bores me, I have to have something that says, "HELLO!" ha ha!

Using the tutorial found here, from All Things Thrifty, I made these tissue paper pom pom balls to hang from the ceiling, and I have to say I was really disappointed with how they turned out.

The tute wasn't super specific-as far as telling you what kind of wire to buy-so I bought something that was too thick (thanks to the advice from the cashier at Michaels-boo) and the tissue paper didn't bend and fold right because of it SOOOO I didn't get the look I was going for, but it was alright.

My tip to you...the thinner gauge craft wire the better! I would suggest maybe a 24 or 26 gauge.

But back to the food table...the main event of course! :)

Starting on the right end...pink donuts!

Okay they weren't totally pink because apparently to get custom iced donuts you have to place an order (procrastination rocks) so I bought every single donut they had with pink anywhere on it!

Above that we had cotton candy (I hate cotton candy, but love the fluffy texture for the purposes of a party! And 2 dollar store bags filled 10 cones!)

I made the paper cones for the cotton candy using a sketch my husband came up with that made a cone shape and scalloped scissors to trim the edges (can I admit that for the life of me I could not draw a 3d cone shape that worked?! Geometry was NOT my subject. I did however pass cheerleading so...whatev.)

In the back corner I placed a bouquet of yellow, white and pink flowers in a pink vase I found at the thrift store months ago! I added 4 pink rhinestones to the top and white ribbon around the middle and pretended they were just for me.

Going up the center of the table were glass bottles of kiwi strawberry (snapple) juice that I added a slice of lemon to and a yellow straw (smoothie straws so they're thicker-from Walmart). And to tie in the strawberries on the cupcakes, I added a bowl of sliced strawberries in the center as well.

Worst moment of the day. My meltdown. Over cupcakes. But first I'll give you the good news. I made a cute cupcake stand for the birthday girls' cupcake (idea from I heart Naptime)!!

I started with a glass candlestick from the dollar store, a .50 wood piece from Hobby Lobby, some clear gloss paint and yellow paint from Rustoleum. I always spray paint my glass with some sealer first so that the spray paint sticks to it better. And then spray painted them both yellow.

Using some scrapbook paper from Hobby Lobby, I cut a circle the size of the top of the wood circle and mod podged it on.

Then I used E6000 to glue the candlestick to the wood.

And because it was in some serious need of frillyment, I added pink adhesive rhinestones around the edge of the circle and a little ribbon bow around the candlestick.

Back to the tragedy. Baking. WHY do I try?! Why?!

And the worst part is...I didn't even bake them. Mr. Sweet Love did!

I left the "icing" of the cupcakes till the day of the party because I didn't want them to get hard and crusty. Let's just say...what was supposed to be white icing, turned pink, then blue, then purple and then what can be described in the nicest words possible as 'dusty rose' pink. Then the attempted pretty icing swirls on top of the cupcakes turned into diarrhea looking blobs and the icing bag exploded 'dusty roseness' all over my hands, shirt and face. Awesome. I salvaged what sugar mess I had left and slapped it on some of the cupcakes with a knife and a grrrr, and opened the fridge to see what else I could do. I found some whip cream and some strawberries and tried to make something edible (and not completely revulting) of the ingredients that were left and still sanitary. Next time, if there IS a next time, I will be buying cupcakes. Just so you know.

Moving on :). At the back of table, to add a little height, I made some pink and white lollies. (I love this tutorial for making lollies if you're interested!) This one is a 3...for her 3rd bday.

And this one has her name and some sticker ballet shoes (from Hobby Lobby).

To make the pots, I just picked up 2 medium size ones from Micheals (.89 each) and spray painted them white. I stuffed some green styrofoam floral filler in the bottom of each pot and topped with yellow lemonhead candies. The lollies are attached (with double sided tape) to a skewer and stick right into the green floral stuff inside the pot. So simple but I love how much they add to the table!

On the left side of the table I had pink popcorn (white stove top popped popcorn with white chocolate (turned pink using food coloring) drizzled over the top of it) in little popcorn boxes I made, using this template, some scalloped scissors to trim the edges, and then tied a pink satin ribbon around the box.

The stands that the popcorn and cotton candy are sitting on were made from dollar store platters and candlesticks. Take a plastic platter...

...and a glass candlestick and use E6000 to glue together. LOVE the fun color possibilities of this by just using different color cans spray paint!

In the back left corner I added a candy jar I made for my Easter decorations last year. It's just a dollar store candlestick (I swear by these!) glued (using E6000 of course!) to a glass jar I found at a thrift store for $1, that I had spray painted yellow and then filled with pink candies. You could use gumballs, but since it's around Valentines they had lots of pink candies to choose from!

And last but not least, some PINK rice krispie treats! I was going to make my own from this recipe, but luckily it's valentines so they had boxes of these already made and they were cheaper than 1 box of rice krispies cereal!! Deal!

I really love how the whole table came together!

We have a fairly small kitchen-for party throwing anyway!-so I had to set up 2 card tables in the center of the kitchen to eat at. It was a tight squeeze but 3/4 year olds are pretty tiny so it worked ok.:)

I added another vase of flowers to the table, as well as pink plates, white napkins, white dollies, and wands (all purchased from the dollar store!) for each Ballerina.

My FAVORITE thing on these tables though, were the water bottles and the little bowls of lemonheads. Those little "pops" of yellow made me ridiculously happy.

I had the lemonade for the girls over on the food table, but I know some kids are pretty picky about what they eat/drink, so I decided to add some water to the tables and used the mini water bottles (8oz) and strips of yellow polka dot paper.

Just in case the magic of how to adhere paper to a water bottle blows your mind :)...you just place double sided tape on one end of the paper, stick it to the bottle, wrap it around the bottle and place another piece of tape on the end of the strip and attach it to the bottle.

My other favorite (can I have another favorite?!) thing were the placecards I made for each little ballerina. I pretty much exactly copied the one I found here. When the party was winding down I had the idea to double the use of the placecards and use them as thank you cards as well!

Since it was just cardstock folded in half, I just quickly opened up the placecard, wrote a thank you and stuck them in their favor bags before I handed them to the parents. I love getting more than one use out of things.

I love how the party turned out and little miss K was in absolute HEAVEN, but there are a few little details I had planned on doing that I just didn't have time to get done (maybe next time I'll give myself a 7 day window instead of 6...probably not). Like I would have loved to make a cute Happy Birthday pennant banner to hang on the food table and I wanted to make ballerina cupcake toppers (the same ballerina dresses that were on the invites, just stick a toothpick to the back of them to stick in the cupcake) and matching tutus for all the girls, but as the week was coming to a close I had to pick a few dreams to let go of. sigh. If only...ha ha! But you probably wouldn't have even noticed those things if I hadn't said them!

**Just in case you're trying to gather some ideas for your own ballerina extravaganza here are some of the games/activities we did (our party was an hour and a half)**:

1. As the guests arrived we decorated foam tiaras (from the dollar store) with princess stickers, glitter glue, markers, etc.
2.After doing cake, treats and presents we played 'Ballerina says'. Like Simon says, but Ballerina says twirl, jump, hop,etc. and if a player does an action when ballerina doesn't say they have to sit down.
3.Then we played Ballerina Relay.
split the group into 2 teams. Have a basket of princess stuff on one end of the room (opposite to where the 2 teams are lined up). Each basket should have an item for each member of the team. You could use princess dresses, shoes, necklace, ring, purse, feather boa, tiara, etc. The first person on each team runs to the basket puts on an item and has to run back to their team. They then remove whatever item they put on and the next person in line has to put that item on, run back to the basket and add a new item. Repeat until all items have been put on and the first team to empty their basket wins.
4. Next to calm them down a bit we played a fairy trivia game. I had a list of 10 questions about different princess/fairy movies or stories and whoever got the answer right got one m&m.
5. Then we made candy bracelets. I used twizzler pull aparts for the bracelet form and a few different candies that had holes in the center (lifesavers, gummy lifesavers, sour lifesavers, wintergreen lifesavers, etc.) to slide on the bracelet.
6. Then we played freeze dance where we turned on some ballet music (using Pandora) and whenever the music stopped they had to freeze. If you don't freeze you have to sit down. We had little girls that didn't quite understand this so mostly we just kept dancing when the music was on and when it turned off we'd wait for everyone to freeze before we turned it back on again.

I think the girls had a really good time and they loved that they got to dance with their wands throughout the party AND take them home! Yay for girly parties and YAY for it being over! ha ha!

Happy Birthday my beautiful Kylee, I hope all your wishes come true!!

I promise my next post will have some valentine goodness!!! Have a wonderful day, thanks for stopping by!!

Linking up to these great parties as well as:

Birthday Sneak Peak...

2012-01-13T06:00:00.000-08:00

My *baby* turned 3 a couple weeks ago, but since having a birthday a couple days after Christmas isn't conducive to party throwing (read: mom is way too burnt out to put a party together) we're having her party this weekend.

For our kids first and second birthdays we just do small family celebration/parties and when they turn three they get their first FRIENDS party! I kinda feel like when they're 3 they actually "get it", as in...are more interested in the actual present they get rather than just wanting to play with the cardboard box it comes in, use a fork to eat their cake rather than their fist and can actually play the party games rather than be forced to pin the tail on the donkey they can barley walk to. I feel like, for as much work that goes into a party, they better be old enough to appreciate it! :) Ha ha!

Sooooo....that being said I have been having so much fun this week putting together my very first, VERY girly party!! Eeeek I just can't even tell you how much I L.O.V.E. having a girl!!!! I've done dinosaurs and Superheroes which were both a LOT of fun, but I have to say this has definitely been my favorite party to plan! I won't share the whole thing till after it's over but I thought I'd share a few sneak peak pictures of some of the things I've been staying up WAY WAY too late putting together this week....do you think you can guess the theme??? :)

Have a wonderful weekend! See ya next week friends!

Welcome 2012!!!

2012-01-10T06:00:00.000-08:00

HI!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh my friends how are you?!?!?! It has been so weird to go from posting almost every day for the last 3 months, to nothing the past three weeks, but we had a WONDERFUL Christmas break together as a family and I hope you enjoyed your holiday as well!!!

The Mr. started his FIRST day of Classes for the LAST semester today and so we're finally getting back into the routine of having a routine. Oh how I love my structure! :) It's nice to be able to do nothing for awhile and not feel guilty for going to bed early, spending a whole night watching movies, keeping the kids up WAY too late hopped up on nothing but sugar, buuuut I have to say by the time the "vacay's" over I am SO ready to get back to my nice, organized, OCD life! :)

Sooooo, I've spent the last week trying to get ready for the next 5 months. Organizing, goal setting, new years resolutions...just kinda all of that. I'm not a 'resolution' kinda gal per-say, but when I feel like my life is about to spin out of control because there is SO much going on, so many un-knowns, so many changes a comin', I do whatever I can to keep that spin in a hand-reaching radius because I'm a big fan of being in control. (I'm getting better :) ) And what I CAN do-amidst all the spinning-is prioritize, make lists, make more lists, and balance-super important while spinning and kind of the key to NOT falling :).

My 'Goals for 2012' list consisted of six things. Some are things I just want to accomplish by the end of the year, some are things that will need to be done weekly and some are things that I need to do everyday. A couple of them are for my own personal growth, a couple of them are specific to my kids, but most of them include things that will benefit my whole family and our relationships.

I realized after I had made my very short list, that if I truly wanted to achieve these goals balance was going to be the key. So THEN I took my 7 day week, a list of all the things I need to do in a week to be working through my goals, and a calendar and planned out what "goal" per-say, I'll be working on each night. I guess I'm telling you all this mumbo-jumbo so you kinda know what to expect this coming year here on Love Sweet Love.

If things work out *perfectly* :) week to week I'll have posts coming up on Tuesdays and Fridays. Maybe if I find a little extra time here and there I'll post randomly another day during the week or if some weeks are weird the days will shift a little, but the goal is for my craft blog to have new projects posted on those days!

I know that's not very much, and I hope you're not disappointed or think I'm a slacker, TRUST me I wish I could craft and blog every day-ha ha, but I really want to focus on my kids this year and make sure I'm doing absolutely EVERYTHING I can be doing to help them grow and learn and have FUN!

My little boy will be turning FIVE years old next month which means I only have 7 months with him before he goes to Kindergarten!! I don't want to look back once he's in school and think..."when did he grow up?!" I want to think..."I was there for all of it, I watched him grow up!" So during their 'quiet time' during the day (they don't nap anymore so they have quiet time in their rooms) I would usually blog, but I'll be using that time this year to be doing some one-on-one learning activities and projects with them so I will only be crafting/blogging at nights now, and even then there are a few other things I need to be doing with my nights to achieve my balance and get some of my goals checked off so I won't be blogging as much as I was at the end of last year. I hope you understand and will still come back every week to see what's going on!!

Aaaaand believe it or not I am already all decorated for Valentines day :) so I have lots of mushy, gushy, PINK love headed your way the next couple of weeks!!! I have all of January's posts and most of February's planned out so start gettin' excited and get those hearts of yours ready for some serious LOVE!!!

Know what else I seriously love?!?! Shabby Apple!! If you haven't already burned through all your Christmas cash, make it go a lot further by spending it at Shabby Apple because they are kicking off the New Year with 20% off SITE WIDE!This sale last the entire month of January. Use code NEWYEAR at checkout to get 20% off. Just click below to start saving!!

Happy Shopping! Thanks so much for stopping by on my first day back in the new year, talk to ya soon!!

Merry Christmas {and a Happy New Year!}

2011-12-16T08:15:00.001-08:00

Well friends it's that time. Mr. Sweet Love is DONE with his finals. This semester has been the hardest semester he's had at school, which consequently means it's been the hardest semester for our family (and yep we live our lives semester by semester. every 4 months we change our routine, our schedule and sometimes where we live! Who else knows how that is?!?!) which is why you can imagine that I am SOOOOO excited this next semester will be our LAST semester of school eveeeeer!!!

There are actually A LOT of benefits of having a husband still in school when I take the time to really think about it and count our blessings (versus being grumpy that he is studying ALL the time :) ) but my absolute favorite thing about being married to a student, is that we actually GET a Christmas break. THREE whole weeks of a husband, daddy, laundry connoisseur, chef, movie buddy and snuggle time. (okay I made that last one up just to make the hubby squirm) But really I can't even relay to you in words that are in the English language how happy I am that we have three weeks of peace and a stress free life! Being that this is our last semester of school I don't forsee having 3 straight weeks of 'hey what you wanna do?...I don't know, what do you wannna do?...I don't know, what do you wanna do?" ever again, so I'm going to take advantage of this time with my family and sign off the blog until January when Mr. Sweet Love's locked back up in the library.

I have about 4 other Christmas projects I did that I wanted to share with you, but just didn't have the time to post about so I guess those'll have to wait till next year-sorry! Instead we'll be...having family here, celebrating my little girl's 3rd birthday, wrapping presents-after I finish buying them!!!, finishing our '12 days of Christmas' for our neighbor, going to Salt Lake City to see the lights on temple square, baking our eyeballs out, going to a couple movies (my favorite way to waste money! :) ), and lots and lots of sleeping {and snuggling}!

Merry Christmas!

From my family to yours.

Framed Ornament Wreath

2011-12-15T06:00:00.000-08:00

"It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes or bags!"

We LOVE LOVE LOVE How the Grinch Stole Christmas movie at our house and even though Mr. Grinch is TOTALLY right when he says Christmas "doesn't come from a store"...I doooo have to admit that a big, sparkly bow catches my eye and pretty little boxes all done up in festive love makes my heart beat a wee bit faster. :) So I'm sorta lovin' this *wreath* I made from an old frame, some dollar store ornaments, $ store jingle bells, and $store ribbon-coming in at a grand total of $4-because it's sparkly and festive!

I actually made this last year before I blogged so I don't have any step-by-step tutorial pictures, but it's 100% simple. I spray painted an old frame red and hot glued ornaments (pack of 5 for $1) and jingle bells (pack of 9 for $1) all together in a sort of 3 tiered circle. I wanted it to have some dimension to it so I did 3 "layers", just hot gluing the ornaments side by side and the bells on top of the ornaments.

Then I looped the ribbon between the top 2 ornaments to hang it from the frame and tied the rest of the ribbon up into a bow.

Love!

But before you get too attached to that look (because I'm sure-after 4 pictures-you have already bonded with my wreath) I must tell you that it's actually inside now hanging on my window frame because I put my white coffee filter wreath outside when I finished it.

I kinda loved that it looked like a pretty little present just hanging there on the door though. :)

Thanks for stopping in today, I'm SO happy you're here!! Now I'm off to finish addressing and sending out my Christmas cards! Have I mentioned that I loooooove Christmas! I hope you're enjoying these last couple weeks of December and not letting the stress of the commercial side of Christmas get to you so you can really enjoy and appreciate this season of giving and trying to be more like our Savior whose birth we are celebrating. I have to keep reminding myself...if it's not a "have to" thing, DON'T worry about it!

How do you stay focused on the true meaning of Christmas amidst all the bustle around you??

Linking up to these great parties as well as:

Welcome Jaime from Polka Dots on Parade!!

2011-12-14T06:00:00.000-08:00

Today I'm so excited to welcome Jaime from Polkadots on Parade!! I just LOVE the name of her blog and her blog is just as fun as it sounds!! I link up to her Wow Me Wednesday linky party every week and always find such great inspiration there!

So happy to have you here at Love Sweet Love Jaime, show us whatchya got!

Hi Friends!!

I'm Jaime from Polkadots on Parade!

Isn't this fun??

I'm loving this time of the year for all the craftiness it brings out in people!

I think we are all a little more inspired this month!

Christmas to me means baking up some sweetness!

Get your HO HO on with these holiday hotpads!

Begin with 4 squares of Insul-Brite and 4 squares of fabric, 8" square.

Set your stitch length long.

Baste each piece of fabric to a piece of Insul-Brite.

Then pair up the sewn squares, fabric sides together and stitch them 3/4 of the way around the hotpad.

Turn hotpad right side out and stitch all the way around the edge, closing the hole.

And your hotpads are complete!

Unless you want them fancy, and we do!

Cut your letters out of coordinating fabric.

Pin them on the hotpads and applique with a zig-zag stitch.

HO HO!!

Happy HO HO holiday hotpads!!

Thanks Angela for having me here today!

Happy happy holidays everyone!!

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Those are SOOOO adorable! You guys know I do not cook, I do not bake, and I really spend no time in the kitchen other than to eat food my husband makes, BUUUT my cute kiddos and I are having our Christmas baking day this weekend and I'm thinking I just might need to whip these up for the festivities...maybe they will help me enjoy the baking rather than sweat the small stuff...ie my kids licking their fingers and sticking them back into the bowl, throwing flour by the handfulls onto the floor, adding an extra cup of salt b/c he thought it was sugar into the cookie mix....you know, stuff like that. Good thing none of these treats are coming to your house. Sorry neighbors, just bless the treats before you eat them and it'll be all good!

Thanks for the great tutorial Jaime!! Thanks for popping in today friends, EEEEEKK Christmas is coming so soon-I. Can't. WAIT! Love yall!

Shabby Apple Necklace WINNER and a HANDmade Holiday gift!

2011-12-13T13:00:00.000-08:00

I wish ALL of you (and me...I'm just gonna throw that out there) could take home this beautiful vintage key Shabby Apple necklace, but today it will just be ONE of you. Are you the lucky one?? Watch and see...

*winner was selected via the generator from random.org but it's just tradition on my blog to have my littles announce the winner on video :)

And just in case you're at work right now and can't watch the video because you'll get busted by the boss man for looking at craft blogs instead of working :), the winner is...

#23 Jennifer said...: I like Shabby Apple on Facebook!; December 6, 2011 9:26 PM

Congrats Jennifer, who blogs at Vintage Gwen, I am THRILLED for you!! Email me at loveseweetlove@gmail.com so we can get your necklace to you!

But you don't have to cry if you didn't win, remember you can still use the code "sweetlove10off" at checkout at Shabby Apple to get 10% off your purchase until Jan. 5th. Merry Christmas!

AND P.S., I absolutely loved reading all your #1 Christmas wishes they were so fun so thanks to those of you who shared those!!!

Alllllso-P.S.S.-, I'm guest posting over at A Little Tipsy today for the sweet Michelle where I'm sharing a Holiday gift idea, I would love for you to stop by and say hi to me over there!! (EXCEPT YOU MOM. Seriously don't. Love you.)

Welcome Jennifer from Delightfully Noted!!

2011-12-12T06:00:00.000-08:00

Okay, so I know you have been up to your eyeballs in Christmas this past week, but you are going to LOOOVE the simplicity of today's post by Jennifer from Delightfully Noted! This little treat she has in store for us is the perfect little FREEBIE :) we need at this crazy time of year! Aaaaand if that's not enough, I'm now introducing you to your new best friend forever. Well...she can't be your new BFF cause she's mine, and I'm kinda obsessive about my friends when they're this cool, but she can be your BF mmmmkay? Seriously though you HAVE to go check out her blog-EVERY post. Every. Post. makes me laugh.

Thanks for being here girly, take it away.....

Greetings! I’m Jennifer, the CEO {crafty, enthusiastic oddball} of Delightfully Noted, my little corner of the world where I get to share my passion for all things creative & everything delightfully in-between. I'm also the owner/wanna-a-be graphic designer behind a little stationery shop on Etsy called, well, of course.......Delightfully Noted.

I’m super excited to be in Angela’s hood today. She’s so sweet. She didn’t even bat an eye when I suggested I share with you all the story of the time I accused my husband of hiring a hit man. Perhaps she feared for her life if she said no. Buuuttt I decided to save that tale for some other time mostly because every time the hubby and I tell that story ~~we lose a friend or two~~ an angel gets its wings…..or something like that. I always get that confused with bells. I figured at this time of the year there’s an abundance of angels getting their wings {thanks to the Salvation Army bell ringers whom I’m pretty sure are running a monopoly on angel wings} and I didn’t want to be responsible for contributing to limited air space or anything. Sooooo, on a more cheerful note I decided instead to share a free holiday printable with you all!

You can download your free cupcake flags here.

Print on paper or card stock.

Then all that is left to do is cut & decorate!

Cupcake flags are an easy way to add a little festive touch to any of your baked goods or use them on toothpicks for appetizers. I added little pom pom embellishments to the top of my lollipop sticks to dress them up a bit.

I hope you enjoy your little free treat!

Happy Holidays to you and yours!

Thanks Angela for sharing your space with me.

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Wouldn't these would be SO SO SO perfect to use for some quick neighbor gifts this Christmas, or to take for your kids school Christmas party, or maybe a Christmas party you're hosting??, or just to perk up some cupcakes for the fam?! I love the simple little touches that give things that extra spark-I mean, how could you not be cheery and bright with that little pom pom flag waving in your face ontop a scrumptious cupcake?! Perfection Jennifer, simply perfection! Thanks for sharing your talent for design with us! Don't forget to check out her wonderful etsy shop here and you can find her on facebook here!

Thanks for stopping by today girlies, I hope all your Christmas plans are coming along wonderfully!! Don't forget today is the last day to enter the Shabby Apple giveaway, see you back here tomorrow where I'll be announcing the winner!!!

Creating Christmas Linky Party

2011-12-10T20:25:00.000-08:00

Hey my peeps! It's here, It's here, It's here...the HUMUNGO JUNGO Christmas Linky party! Oooohhhhh I SO hope you've been inspired this week and are letting the beauty of Christmas wrap it's pretty little festive arms around you! Please Please link up anything and everything Christmassy you've been working on this month, I can't wait to see what you've created!!! (not to mention that your project will show up on 18 blogs! Eeeek!)

And now a note from our wonderful host, Diana from The Girl Creative...

As we wrap up Creating Christmas week I hope that you have all been inspired to stop pinning and start creating! I’m excited to see what everyone has been working on. This Christmas Linky Party is no ordinary party. This is a blog hop. And what that means is that there are 18 FABULOUS bloggers that are hosting this party at their very own blog. Whether you add your project link here or at any of the other 17 co-hosts blogs, it will show up on one huge party list! Awesome!
If you haven’t already, please take the time out to visit the other co-hosts and go through their Creating Christmas posts. There is some really neat projects!
The Girl Creative, Que Linda Crafts, The Cottage Market, Love Lindsey, Domestic Mischief, Chicken Scratch, Love Sweet Love, Randee’s Organized Chaos, Musings of a Glamour Puss, Anastacia Knits, Southern Scraps, Modern Yet Old Fashioned, Broken Treasures, Alyssabeth’s, Domestic Deadline, Life on Walnut Street, 52 Mantels,
The Glamorous Life

The Rules are SiMpLe:

Add a link to a project that YOU have created!

Visit the 2 links ahead of you and check out what they’ve got going on. Leave some comment love. Tis the season for giving after all. {wink wink}

HAVE FUN AND BE INSPIRED!!

Creating Christmas day 7-Welcome to Michaela from Covered in Mod Podge!

2011-12-10T06:00:00.000-08:00

Whew, we made it...SEVEN days of Christmas goodness!! I hope this week gave you a plethora of good ideas for decorating, gift ideas and creating Christmas memories! (remember to check The Girl Creative's blog for the other fun bloggers co-hosting this event to see what they've been posting all week too!)

Speaking of memories, I am SoOoOoO excited to share with you our very last Creating Christmas project for day 7 from Michaela at Covered in Mod Podge, who has a fantastic gift idea to hold those precious memories!! Take it away Michaela....

Hi! My name is Michaela, and I blog over at Covered in Mod Podge.

Thanks so much, Angela for letting me be apart of your Creating Christmas Series. It's such an honor!

I recently moved half way across the country. The cost of plane tickets alone are at least tripple our normal Christmas travel and gift budget. So, in order to still give meaningful gifts and stay in our very tinny budget, I'm handmaking nearly all of our gifts.

This little diddy is a Brag Book for my dad {who is a first time grandpa to my little miss}. My dad is always wanting pictures of the little miss to show off around the office. I nearly titled this sucker "My granddaughter is cuter than yours." I have a feeling that's what my dad is saying under his breath as he brags about his new little joy.

In order to create your own brag book, you'll need:

2 12x12 pieces of card stock

1/4 inch ribbon

Photo stickers

Photo corners

Embellishments

Scissors

A scoring tool

I don't have a scoring tool. I don't often work with paper {mainly because I can't cut a straight line to save my life}. So, I looked around and came up with this little pizza stone cleaner that came with our Pampered Chef pizza stone. If you don't have something, I say shop your house before you shop the store!

You're going to want to pick a paper that has two pretty sides. I started out by cutting off the paper selvedge. I wanted my album to be 4x6. I cut each of my 12x12 sheets in half.

Then, I used my super fancy scoring tool to fold each section into thirds.

In order to make a larger album, you have to adhere each of your four pieces of card stock together. I did this using photo squares. I added an extra square to the seam side because of the added stress. Then, you stick the two pieces together, making sure the folds continue to make the accordion.

Next, cut a 25 inch piece of ribbon. I cut mine on a diagonal so it looks all fancy. Use Fray Check. You'll want to glue the ribbon along the middle of the front of the book. Only glue it to the front or you won't be able to open your album all the way.

Then, put your embellishment cover piece down. I printed this awesome free chevron print {thanks Nat!} onto card stock and then cut it down to 4x4. Decorate to your heart's desire! {I'm a sucker for lime green and glitter, so these stickers were heaven!

I used clear photo corners to attach my photos. I also left the back side nearly empty. I'm going to send pictures and photo corners from time to time to my dad as the little miss grows. That way, this album will document more than the first six months of her life.

Tie the bow and you're set.

What grandparent wouldn't love a brag book!

Thanks again, Angela for having me. I hope you all will come visit me over at Covered in Mod Podge!

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Thank YOU Michaela for finishing up our week of Creating Christmas with such a GREAT gift idea! I absolutely LOVE the idea of a brag book and Michaela made it the prefect size for an adoring grandparent to carry around and show off! I think my favorite part about it, is that nothing's permanent so you can change the pictures as they grow and don't have to make a whole new one-great idea!

And a BIG thank you to YOU for coming back everyday to share in all the fun!

**Don't forget to enter the Shabby Apple necklace giveaway going on now!**

Creating Christmas day 6- A Christmas Card Holder {by me!}

2011-12-09T06:00:00.000-08:00

Has this week been fantastic or what?! I feel SO blessed to have had so many great bloggers help me out with Christmas projects this week and thank them SO much for their time guest posting on Love Sweet Love! I hope you have loved their projects as much as I have and were inspired to come up with some of your own holiday cheer. :)

For day SIX of Creating Christmas I wanted to jump back into the blog myself-if you don't mind :)-and share a project I shared over on Crafty Scrappy Happy at the beginning of the month.

One of my absolute favorite things about the Christmas season is receiving cards from family and friends all over the United States and being able to 'connect' with them at this special time of year. In the past the "special place" I've stored all these meaningful cards has been on top of my kitchen counter-in a sloppy pile. I thought this year they deserved a real home, so I transformed an old shutter into a Christmas card holder!

I got this idea from a friend at church who was making them for an activity. She found a local store in our area that was selling old shutters for just $2 a piece-score! I definitely was not going to miss out on that deal so I grabbed a couple from her and busted out my Rustoleum spray paint!

I knew I wanted the color to come out a deep red to match some of my other Christmas decor, so I first spray painted one coat of Kona Brown and once that was dry added a couple coats of red.

It came out looking like this:

Which I actually really loved, but since it's absolutely impossible for me to leave anything alone, I wondered what some sanding and dark walnut stain could do...

Oh SQUEAL! Love!

I have so many projects that happily pay my garbage man visits, that on the rare occasion that something actually comes out the way I envision it in my head, I get pretty darn tootin' excited about it.

Originally I was just going to add a simple felt christmas tree, or stocking to the bottom corner for some embellishment- not that any is really needed since the cards that will go in the shutter are what "embellish" it-but when I turned out with this vintage bad boy I knew some of these old-school cut outs (from Michaels) were going to be sneaking there way onto the shutter.

Something about these old "pictures" just makes my heart melt...

...and I got a little carried away...

...but seriously, can you blame me?!?!

Since Christmas cards haven't started going out yet, I picked a few homemade/vintagey type ones that I've kept over the years and put them in so you could have a little looksy.

And that's it!

And since I hadn't decorated for Christmas yet when I made this, you get a picture of it in my makeshift studio-aka my living room...with a florescent lamp...at night, yikes. So just imagine it's sitting next to pretty Christmas decorations, in nice lighting, mmmmkay?!

Oh! And in case you were wondering, the cards stay tucked nicely into the slats because of the stick of wood that runs up the back (you know...the thing that you use to open and close the shutters, and if that rod has a name I obviously don't know what it is) but if you find a shutter that is missing that piece you could just use some wood glue and glue a thin piece of wood to the back and I think that would do the trick as well!

Yay! A pretty, organized, way to display all those special cards we receive from family and friends throughout the season!

Thank you so much for spending the week with me and helping me celebrate Christmas!! Buuuut the fun's not over yet...I have one more EXCITING project in store for you from one last guest poster tomorrow so come back ok?! And then...the moment you've been waiting for...(okay I know it's the moment IIII have been waiting for!!) will begin. The HUMUNGO. JUNGO. Christmas linky party!!! See ya tomorrow friends!

**Don't forget to enter the Shabby Apple necklace giveaway going on now!**

Linking up to these great parties as well as:

Creating Christmas day 5-Welcome to Jaime from Wayward Girls Crafts!

2011-12-08T06:00:00.000-08:00

Today I am so proud to introduce to you, not only a fantastic blogger, crafter, and scrapbook extraordinaire, but also my FANTASTIC friend Jaime from Wayward Girls' Crafts! This girl and I go way back to the college days and we know stuff about each other that could make you blush so maybe we should just leave the introductions at that-for my sake anyway! :) Welcome Jaime, to day 5 of our Creating Christmas event!

Hi Love Sweet Love and The Girl Creative readers! Thank you for having me here. I'm Jaime or Just Jaime from Wayward Girls' Crafts. I love repurposing, scrapbooking, home solutions, and crafting frugally. I’m so happy to be guest posting on Angela’s blog. We have been real life friends since our husbands were in school and we lived in the same complex. With our other friend, Maranda, we formed “JAM,” “JAM” took a dance class together, watched a whole season of American Idol and had tons of late night chats. We all moved away and I miss it. Ok so anyways, I should get to my craft and stop reminiscing!

I wanted to make a fun ornament with these seed beads I've had for ever! It was so easy, I think it'd be a great project for kids too.

Start with a flat ornament; kinda hard to tell this is a round, flat ornament. I got mine from Hobby Lobby for 50% off.

Pour some seed beads into the container the ornaments came in. This makes the perfect container!

Paint the ornament with Mod Podge.

Put the ornament in the container. The good thing about the container is that it’s a perfect circle! Carefully take it out and allow it to dry. Add a bow and you’re set!

It kind of looks like a sugar cookie with sprinkles to me. What do you think?

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I think it's GORGEOUS-definitely too pretty to eat! :) My kids would have SO much fun doing this, I can't wait to try it for our next craft day!!! I know I swore I wouldn't make anymore crafts hunny, but...it's for the kids and how can you say no to the kids?!

Thank you Jaime for spending the day with me here today, if we can't be together crafting in person I guess this will have to suffice! Make sure to stop by Wayward Girls' Crafts where Jaime crafts with her 3 beautiful sisters and momma (whose equally as beautiful!!!)! And thank YOU for stopping by today too and sharing one of my bestest friends with me! I'll be back tomorrow sharing one of my very own Christmas projects with you, see ya then!

*Don't forget to enter the Shabby Apple necklace giveaway going on now!**

Creating Christmas day 4-Welcome to Courtney from Between U and Me

2011-12-07T06:00:00.000-08:00

How is your week going?!?! Are you finding lots of Christmas inspiration around blogland?!?! My house is so full of Christmas cheer I think we might all burst at the seams and then I see just ooooone more project I just have to do! ha ha...I just have to keep telling myself there's always next year and that's why I have Pintrest-to keep track of all my lovely ideas!

Well today I have ANOTHER fun blogger to dazzle you with inspiration for day 4 of our Creating Christmas week!

I am happy to introduce you to (if you don't already love and ADORE her) miss Courtney of Between U & ME, take it away girlfriend...

Hi Love Sweet Love readers! I am Courtney, the girl behind Between U & Me! I am a big fan of Angela's and I enjoy coming to hang out at Love Sweet Love to see all the awesomeness she has in store for us! I am constantly inspired by her and I am truly honored to be here today!

Over at Between U & Me, I really try and focus on cost conscious ways to make my house in to a home and really great DIY/craft projects that are easy to do and kid-friendly. Here is an example of the kind of stuff you can see over here at my blog home: Between U & Me

Today, I'm going to do a super easy tutorial on how to make a very awesome centerpiece for your table. Actually, it could really go anywhere,... it's just so purdy. Okay let's get started:

What you'll need:

3 Boxes Candy Canes

1 Glass cylindrical vase

Alotta hot glue

Flowers to put in your vase

Red ribbon

1 Spearmint

1. Wipe off your glass vase. (If yours is anything like mine was, it has dust all over it.)

2. Unwrap your candy canes and carefully position the first one on the vase and determine how tall you would like it. I cut about a 1/4 inch off the bottom of most of mine. Make sure you put each candy can up to the glass before you glue it down, to see if it needs to be trimmed. Candy canes are not identical, like I thought they were. Some are shorter than others.

3. Continue to go around the vase, gluing as you go.

4. Wrap a pretty piece of ribbon around the vase and place a spearmint in the very front.

5. To finish it off, place a pretty bouquet of flowers in it and enjoy what you've just created!

I hope you're having a great day!

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Isn't that just gorgeous?!?! Courtney's blog is FULL of beautiful, original projects that are so inspiring! You must stop by and see what she's got going on over there-including a weekly Crazy Cute linky party on Thursdays! Thanks for helping me out today Courtney!

And, as always, thank YOU so much for stopping by today I'm so glad you're here!! See you back here tomorrow for day FIVE of Creating Christmas where the fun will continue with some craftiness from the Wayward Girls!

**Don't forget to enter the Shabby Apple necklace giveaway going on now!**

Shabby Apple Giveaway here at Love Sweet Love!!!!

2011-12-06T12:00:00.000-08:00

We wish you a Merry Christmas, We wish you a Merry Christmas, We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Shabby Apple Necklace!

That's right my lovely Sweet Love friends, all your Christmas dreams are about to come true in the form of a GORGEOUS antique brass, vintage, reproduction skeleton key from Shabby Apple.

{win this Key to Wonderland necklace}

Are you swooning yet? Consider me swooned. And then some. I am LOVING the look of vintage keys right now, and when the kind ladies at Shabby Apple asked me if I'd like to give away a piece of their oh-so coveted jewelry collection, I banged my knee because I jumped out of my chair so fast and then I didn't know what to do so I kissed my computer (which was a first for me)-as a thank you. My heart skipped a beat when I saw the Key to Wonderland and I knew she was the one that had to come back to Love Sweet Love with me as a Christmas gift to you from Shabby Apple and I!

While I was perusing around this beautiful online boutique I came across a few other things -Ya know, since I've been so good this year-that I wouldn't mind ending up with under my Christmas tree(Mr. Sweet Love start reading now)....

I am obsessed with rings, and this little Spring Ring needs to find its way onto my finger pronto.

And how perfect would this Dark Secrets Of Wonderland bracelet be with the Key to Wonderland necklace in this giveaway?

And EVERY girl needs a little black dress-how gorgeous is this black Beverly Hills number?!

But if you prefer white they've got ya covered! (although I'm not sure I would recommend wearing a white dress out in the country amidst horses...or around children)

{Freshwater Pearl }

And for all you Mama Apples out there, they've got your back too, with some hot, little, flirty pieces you just might need for your holiday party!

{Finding out}

Sooooo, one of YOU lovely girls (or guys-do we see some husbands/boyfriends out there shoppin' for your woman?! Make them enter too!) will win the Key to Wonderland necklace!

Here's how to make those Christmas dreams come true...

REQUIRED ENTRY:
-'Like' Shabby Apple on Facebook (which will let you know about special promotions and discounts!!) and come back here and leave a comment telling me you did so

Additional entries (make sure to leave a SEPARATE comment for each entry):

'Like' Love Sweet Love on Facebook (I just joined FB a week ago-how's that for outta the loop! ha ha!)

Share this giveaway with your either your facebook friends, blog friends or twitter friends

Tell me what's #1 on your Christmas list this year!

It's not a requirement to follow me for this giveaway, but if you'd like to-or already are- I'll give ya an extra entry :)

Did I mention that I. am. SOOOOO Jealous?! Cause I am! This beauty rings in at a retail value of $52 and can be yours for $0.00 if the number is right (you know like...if random.org draws YOUR number). This giveaway will be open until Monday Dec. 12 at midnight. A winner will be chosen and announced on Tues. Dec. 13th...will it be you?

Can't wait till Dec. 13th?? OR maybe you find that perfect vintage jewelry piece for that perfect person, use the code "sweetlove10off" to get 10% off your purchase! This code will expire in 30 days.

Please note...
-This giveaway is open to US residents only
-There will be no exchanges for the winning piece of jewelry

Creating Christmas Day 3-Welcome to Felicia from All Things Fee

2011-12-06T06:00:00.000-08:00

Hello my friends!!! We're back today with MORE Christmas fun for day 3 of Creating Christmas!

I was SO happy when Felicia offered to help me out this week since I've been a blog follower, party go-er (she has a weekly linky party every Monday!!), and crafty lover of her blog All Things Fee since I started blogging! You will LOVE her project today, so I better let her get started!! Take it away girl...

Hello Love Sweet Love Friends!

I'm Felicia and I create, cook and play over at All Things Fee!

Thanks Angela for letting me stop by today, and share what I have been Creating for Christmas so far this year!

Normally, I am finishing creating, and wrapping my presents at the last moment. But not this year!

I have to say I have presents done, wrapped and ready, AND made my boys hats and sweaters as photo options for our Christmas card. Which I also have done, and will share the hats here today!

Here's how I got it all done, hopefully it will help you too!

It all started months ago, when I saw this adorable elf hat for babies. Knowing I would have a little man ( he will be four months on Christmas day!) I knew I had to have one, or two ( for big brother)!

Following the pattern exactly for Wyatt's hat,

and then working off of it for Carter's (he'll be three in February!).

In no time I had two adorable hats!

Switching up the colors to traditional red and green, it became the perfect Christmas elf hat!

Once I finished, I got to work attempting to photograph my boys.

Man was it hard with two this year!

And I doubt it will get any easier for a couple years!

After some bribery and treats and tantrums I think we found a winner!

Now, to create the card!

This was the easiest part, since I was able to get a freebie from My Memories Facebook page a couple weeks back! Just had to insert my photo of choice and send off to get printed. Perfect!

If you need an easy program to create cards or scrapbook pages in, check out My Memories! It's super simple to work with, and like I said if you like them on Facebook they give out Freebies all the time!

(ordering My Memories? use promo code: STMMMS97848 for $10 off the program, and $10 off in the shop!)

( Please do not use photos of my boys without permission! )

Hope this gives you some ideas to get your Christmas cards started, and finished!

Thanks again Angela for having me come visit!

I've got more Christmas Creations up my sleeve, so I hope some new friends will stop by either on Facebook, or my blog! I love seeing fresh new faces!
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How adorable are those hats?!?! And her sweet little babies...oh yum! Preciousness!! Go visit her blog and give her some love because....EEEK she's so talented! Thank you for helping me out this week Felicia, I've loved having you here!

Don't forget to check the host of this events blog, The Girl Creative, for more GREAT Christmas ideas that she's daring to create instead of pin, as well as the 14 other co-hosts!!

I hope you're busy CREATING something yourself to link up to our party this weekend because you CAN do it, and you don't have to be "crafty" to create something beautiful!! Can't wait to see whatchya got! See ya back here tomorrow for another FANTASTIC guest post that will give you some great inspiration for a festive centerpiece! ;)

Creating Christmas day 2- Welcome to Isa from The M(agic) Chart!!

2011-12-05T06:00:00.000-08:00

I'm so happy to introduce you to my new friend Isa, all the way from the Island of Malta, who blogs at The M(agic) Chart!! She's here to continue on with our week of Creating Christmas to show us a great felt project (and you all know how I love my felt!!) for day 2!

Take it away Miss Isa!!!

Hi everybody:)

I am Isa from The M(agic) Chart.

Today I am here to show you how you can do these great felt boxes you can use in so many different ways!

So, the first thing you need is to download the template I created to make things easier for you. Just click here and download the file.

Did you print it already? Good!

Now go get yourself your hard felt sheets, your glue gun and scissors and some clothes pins.

Cut the felt as shown in the template (circular shape with 6 cuts from the periphery until half the way to the middle of the circle):

If you want your box to look more like a cupcake you can do 8 cuts, as long as the space between the cuts is always the same, like I did here:

Once your cuts are all done, pour some hot glue along one side of the cut...

Get the other side and glue it. To make sure it stays safe, get a clothes pin to make that job:

Continue doing the same with the other cuts and in the end you'll have this:

Allow the glue to dry and... Voilá!

Pretty simple, right? You can use this box in many different ways and not only for Christmas, of course! I did some to keep my daughter's hair clips as you can check here.

Or you can use them to decorate your house for Christmas (I added a bit of glitter on the borders and inside to hide the glue):

Or you can even put a special little gift inside them!

This is my gift to you! I hope you enjoy it and I wish you all the best Christmas ever!

Thank you so much Angela for having me here to share my little project!

Kiss,

Isa
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Wouldn't these be perfect to take little neighbor treats in, or to send your kid to school with treats for their friends or teachers?! You could embellish with buttons and bows to dress them up, or keep them simple as is and either way they rock! Thanks for helping us create Isa! Make sure to pop by and give this girly some love (especially since her birthday was yesterday!!) from Love Sweet Love!

And Thank YOU for popping in for a looksy today, see you back here tomorrow with an ADORABLE clothing item idea you can whip up for your littles (or yourself!!) this Christmas, have a Sweetly Lovely Monday!!

Creating Christmas {Don't Just Pin, CREATE!}

2011-12-04T12:44:00.000-08:00

WAHOOOOO it's finally here, our week of Creating Christmas!!! For the next 7 days you will find some FANTASTIC Christmas projects and ideas here at Love Sweet Love and I'm so excited to show you the projects my guest posters have been working on! But the fun's not all here, as I'm co-hosting this event with The Girl Creative and 14 other bloggers who you can follow along with this week as well!!!

The idea behind this whole week is to not just pin things, but to START creating them!! I love that motivation and couldn't wait to be apart of this event! Sooooo hopefully this week you will find inspiration here, and at the homes of all the other bloggers, as we took the dare to create something, and YOU will get out there and create something yourself! Make sure to blog about your creations so you can link them up to our HUGE Christmas linky party at the end of the week! I can't wait to see what you come up with too!!!!!!

To kick things off this week I wanted to share the Advent Calendar and 24 Christmas Activities I made and posted over at Midwestern Sewing Girl last week for those of you who didn't get a chance to swing by then....

I Love LOVE Love everything about Christmas! The decorations, the lights, the music, the colors, the smells, giving gifts, mistletoe :), and the pure JOY and excitement that those 24 days leading up to it entail! I created a fun way to help your sweet families kick off your Christmas season and squeeze every ounce of tradition, laughter, service and creativity out of the month of December...a Christmas Advent with 24 Christmas activities.

I first got this idea, of using a muffin tin, from my sweet neighbor (who's not a blogger :) ). I've been wanting to make an advent for the last TWO Christmas's but couldn't find the *perfect* one for us, so when I saw this style I knew it would fit our family perfectly! I got on pinterest (BAD idea) to see if I could find an example of how to make one-thinking just because I hadn't seen it before it would be a rare, if not original, idea. HA! (Is there anything now that hasn't been done in some way before?!?!) Sooooo, there are LOTS of muffin tin advent ideas on pinterest if you care to look, but I was surprised to find that a lot of them are just for sale, or no tutorials are offered along with the picture.

SO just in case you ARE interested in the 'how-to', I have written up a tutorial with some pictures to walk you through it. This would be the perfect sort of advent to make if you're looking to do something quick, cheap, easy and FuN!
Supplies:

You'll start with:
-A mini 24 cupcake muffin tin (about $5 at Walmart)
-A few sheets of scrapbook paper and coordinating cardstock
-embellishments (stickers, buttons, ribbon, etc)
-Magnet roll
-glue dots

If you have a device that cuts paper (cricut, silhouette, punches,etc) this will be LOADS easier for you :). I started by cutting out 24 small circles (using my cricut) to place into the bottom of each muffin tin.

I used mini glue dots to adhere them to the pan.
**TIP**since mine is a non-stick tin just one glue dot doesn't hold it in place so you'll need to use about 3 per circle.

I wasn't sure if I was going to hang mine up or just string some ribbon through it for a little added embellishment, but either way I needed 2 small holes at the top of the pan, so the hubby drilled them right out for me! :) (you can buy pans with holes already in them, but they're about double the price)

Next I cut 12 scalloped and 12 regular circles out of 4 different types of holiday paper big enough to cover the hole. (my paper is from Hobby Lobby) I also cut 24 smaller circles out of cardstock to place one on top of each of the bigger circles so the numbers would stand out better.

Then I decided to vintagey them up a smidge so I used some brown ink and a paper towel to distress up the sides of all the paper circles. (I did not use the circle below as it turned out to be a total flop-ha! It took me a couple tries to figure out what I was doing!)

To get the look below, I found that I needed to press the paper towel into the ink and then, while the paper circle was lying flat on another paper towel, lightly swoosh the ink, quickly, back and forth around the outer perimeter of the circle. (I'm sure you all already know this but just in case there are some newbie ink distresser's out there... :) )

I think the added step gives it JUST the touch it needs to add some character to the project!

And then the BEST part about this project...embellishing!!! This is where this project becomes ALL your own!! Your style, your talent, your ideas shine through right now and it doesn't matter how many of these you find online, yours will be unique and special to you!

Detail is everything to me! I love a little bling here, a little saying there, a little glitter pretty much everywhere! So for mine, I made sure to include little tags on the presents that say 'from santa' (they were stickers I didn't actually MAKE all the tags-ha ha even I'm not that crazy), glittery numbers (stickers) for the countdown, tree toppers, tags (cut from my cricut) with some of our favorite Christmas songs hand written on them, your imagination is the limit!!

Once each circle is decorated the way you want it and they're all numbered you're ready to add some magnet to the back. I used a magnet roll I already had and just cut pieces off of it and that white part peels off and it sticks right to your paper! So easy!

Behind each day is a *Kiss* and an activity to do for that day (24 activities at the end of this post). The Christmas season is always busy so I didn't want this to become something that stressed us out and made us feel obligated to add ONE more thing to our day, so most of these activities are things we would already be doing, it just make it more fun to pull it out of a tin and get a treat! :)

And that's all!

You could whip this up in 1 or 2 days EASY and your kids will LOOOOVE it, I promise!

My kids have been DYING to start doing this right away since we put it up this weekend! They love opening the little magnet "doors" and seeing their treat in there waiting for them!

I opted to set mine on an easel to display and just tie a simple bow on the top because I think there's enough going on on the advent itself and a fancy bow on top would just be distracting. Buuuut if you did simpler embellishments, a big poofy, sparkly bow would be perfect! :)

24 Christmas Activities:

Put the star on the top of the Christmas tree
First gift of Christmas
*Our first gift of Christmas is a gift we set aside for our Savior. We each write down what we would like to *give* Jesus this year (talk kinder to our siblings, do one act of service everyday, etc.) and we put all the papers in a gift box and put it under the tree. A great reminder of 'the reason for the season'!
Write letters to Santa
Watch the First Presidency devotional
Decorate Gingerbread Houses
Make a Christmas craft
Serve a neighbor
Snow day (sledding, build snowman, etc)
Leave love notes for daddy around the house
Christmas craft
Drive around to see Christmas lights in the neighborhood
Pick out and donate toys to an organization
Start our '12 days of Christmas' project for a needy family
Go see the newest Christmas/kids movie at the theater
Baking Day
Go out to dinner and anonymously pay for another family's meal
Deliver Christmas treats/goodies to friends and neighbor's
Invite a new family or widow over for dinner
Christmas craft
Go see Santa
Christmas movie with popcorn night at home
Go to Salt Lake City to see the lights on Temple Square
Read Christmas stories by the tree with Hot Chocolate and cookies
Open one present!

25. Merry Christmas! (our family pic last year :) )

Thank you SO much for stopping in today, I just love having you here sharing all this Christmas spirit with me!! Tomorrow we have a GREAT versatile idea from a guest poster that you won't want to miss! See ya then! ;)

Linking up to these great parties as well as:

Coffee Filter Wreath

2011-12-01T20:43:00.000-08:00

I have a love/hate relationship with snow.

I think it is absolutely one of the most beautiful things to WATCH. Sitting in your house-in your comfy pjs- the reflection of the Christmas tree lights in the window, a cup of hot chocolate-w/ mini marshmallow in your lap, Christmas music softly playing on the stereo, the smell of Christmas cookies baking in the oven...snow falling outside the window makes that whole scene perfection. It makes it feel like Christmas. I'm sorry if it doesn't snow where you live cause you are really missing out :).

But I HATE (more than I hate Christmas shopping on Christmas eve in a crowded mall) playing in it, driving in it, having it drench my freshly blow dried hair, and my frozen fingers and ears after I walk from the house to the mailbox and back. Buuuuuut I have kids. Which means I play in it, I drive in it, I never do my hair and I wear earmuffs, gloves and coats that make me look like the abominable snowman on steroids.

I've learned to deflect the kids pleads to build a snowman in the middle of a blizzard by saying, "Oh we HAVE to wait till daddy comes home because he would be SO sad if we made a snowman without him!!" Then they go outside and play with daddy, and I'm the one that's ready with the hot chocolate and cookies and warm snuggles on the couch when they come inside. It works, so I'm ok with it. The snow I mean.

I tell you all this 1. because it's on my mind because it's snowing today and 2. because I think my wreath looks like a snowball that exploded (from a stick of dynamite).

There are LOTS of coffee filter wreath tutes out there, but I loved the one from Little Miss Momma's blog. I've done felt wreaths, rag wreaths, yarn wreaths, and bean wreaths so for Christmas I wanted to get a little different and thought this style would be perfect for the season.

It is SOOOO simple and requires only 3 things and has only 3 steps:
-Styrofoam wreath form (mine's 12")
-coffee filters (I used 3 packs from the dollar store)
-Glue gun (I used about 5 sticks of glue)

1. Start by using a thick marker, highligher, etc (mine's a permanent marker) and fold the filter down around the top of it

2. put some hot glue on the flat part of the filter

3. Stick it to the wreath (the marker keeps your fingers from burning-great tip from LMM!) And that's it!

You can really do the placement of the filters however's easiest for you, but I did mine by doing one row at a time starting on the outer edge of the styrofoam and working my way up and in. For example, in the picture above, the flat styrofoam you can see is the back of the wreath- where it lays against the wall. I went all the way around the wreath till I got back to the first filter I put on and then started the next filter right above the first row.

I did three rows on the outside of the wreath and three rows on the front of the wreath. This picture is what it looked like with the 3 rows on the outside and 1 on the top.

Once the sides and top were filled, I flipped it over and did just one layer on the inside...

Since my front door is white/off white/creamish or something, I added a red bow (from the $store-where else?!) to make it stand out just a little. I also added a red ribbon to the back (just using straight pins) but I've since taken that off and just hung it on the hook because I don't like the way you can see the hook sticking out from the back.

And just in case you're thinking...that's not that big, here's a little visual proof. Compared to this wreath and this wreath, also hung here, you can tell this is insane. It gives the word 'fluffy' a whole new meaning. LMM's tutorial said to put the filters very close together but I think I took that a little too literally. If I did it again I think I would only do 2 rows on top and 2 rows on the sides, unfortunately hot glue isn't very forgiving! :)

Snow anyone????

P.S. My husband's only comment to this wreath was, "that would be really cool to light on fire." Then did some weird hand gesture and a sound effect and smiled. Seriously?! Some days I don't know how we're married.

Thanks for stopping in today, I hope you are taking time to enjoy the spirit of the season that comes just once a year! Have a great weekend and I'll see you back here Sunday where I'm kicking off the Creating Christmas week, as a co-host with The Girl Creative, (A WHOLE week-as in all 7 days) where there will be lots of Christmas goodies for you to come see! I have some GREAT guest posters lined up to help me out and I can't wait for you to see their projects!!!

Linking up to these great parties as well as:

Crafty Scrappy Happy me thursday {A Link party!!!}

2011-11-30T20:00:00.000-08:00

I'm so SO so SO so SO excited to be co-hosting Crafty Scrappy Happy's link party with Jaime today. We are doubling the pleasure and the fun for you with a double linky party (you can link up here or there and it will show up on both blogs!) Join us won't you!!!

And now a note from our host :)...

Hello Love Sweet Love fans and Friends!!!

I am SO lucky to have such a great co-host this week----simply said, Angela is the best.

And I am SO thrilled to have you guys partying with my blog Crafty Scrappy Happy!!!

This is a double link party so anything you link up here will also so up over at my blog----

And I just can't wait to see what kind of crafts and fun stuff you are up to!!!

The only rules and requests for this party:

Have fun linking up anything Crafty Scrappy & Happy--no etsy shops or giveaways please!

Be a follower of Crafty Scrappy Happy and Love Sweet Love if you would!!!

Grab a party button!

and p.s. I love making new blog friends---stop by and say hi if you have a chance!!!

~Jaime from Crafty Scrappy Happy

Guest Posting over at Crafty Scrappy Happy!!

2011-11-29T08:08:00.000-08:00

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!!

There's music on the radio, snow on the ground, the Christmas tree is up and decorated, the stockings are hung and my house smells of cinnamon and spice and everything nice! :)

The Christmas crafts are in full swing as well and they continue on Love Sweet Love, as today I'm over at Crafty Scrappy Happy sharing an idea for a Christmas Card Holder!

If you don't already know Jaime from CSH, you HAVE to come meet her and see her gorgeous projects!! Come on over and say hi to us, I promise you will LLLLove her!!!

Guest Posting over at Midwestern Sewing Girl!!!

2011-11-28T08:44:00.000-08:00

Is everyone recovering from their turkey comas?!?! Did you survive black Friday?!?! Are you enjoying sitting at home in your comfy pj's while shopping online for cyber Monday?!?! Well, just in case you need a break in-between all that shopping, hop on over to Midwestern Sewing Girl where I'm sharing some advent love and 24 Christmas activities today!

I met Maggie during the American Crafter competition and fell absolutely in love with everything about her! Her blog is stylish, SO well organized, and inviting. Come on over and say hi!

20 Thanksgiving Leftover Ideas

2011-11-23T06:00:00.000-08:00

Simply stated...the BEST thing about Thanksgiving is the leftovers! For days after, our bodies are on a strict diet of turkey, potatoes, stuffing (and PIE!!!) as we stretch every last bite of our feast to get the most out of our WEEKS worth of preparation-and not to mention-pocketbook!

I mentioned before that you would {probably} never see another recipe on my blog again, but that {probably} is takin' a hike for today as I share TWENTY (2.0.) of the most interesting, and mouthwatering, Thanksgiving Leftover dishes I could find. Thanksgiving leftover are delicious, but even straight up turkey gets old after a few days so here are some fantastic ways to re-invent your feast and get the MOST outta whatchya got!

**clicking on the title above the photo will take you to the website with the recipe. All photos below are directly from the food websites.**

Enjoy!

Turkey pot pie

Recipe courtesy Paula Dean via Food Network

Grilled Turkey, Brie, and Apple Butter Sandwich with Arugula

Recipe courtesy Tyler Florence via Food Network

Potato Croquettes

Recipe courtesy Paula Dean via Food Network

Fried Stuffing Bites with Cranberry Sauce

Recipe courtesy Sunny Anderson via Food Network

Open Faced Hot Turkey Sammys

Recipe Courtesy Rachel Ray via Food Network

30 Minute Turkey Chili

Recipe via Food Network kitchen

Pocket Pies

Recipe via Martha Stewart

Turkey Cobb Sandwich

Recipe via Martha Stewart

Cranberry Pancakes

Recipe via Martha Stewart

Turkey Stock

Recipe via Martha Stewart

Turkey, cheddar and green apple sandwich

Recipe via Martha Stewart

Chef Salad

Recipe via Martha Stewart

Cranberry Tartlets

Recipe via Martha Stewart

Turkey Soup

Recipe via Martha Stewart

Turkey and Sweet Potato Hash

Recipe via Martha Stewart

Turkey and Corn Enchiladas

Recipe courtesy Kate Merker via Real Simple

Turkey Samosas

Recipe courtesy Kate Merker via Real Simple

Turkey and Poblano Chili

Recipe courtesy Kate Merker via Real Simple

Black Bean and Pumpkin Chili

Recipe courtesy Laura from Real Mom Kitchen

Turkey, Cheddar and Apple Hand Pies

Recipe courtesy Kimberley Hasselbrink from The Etsy Blog

Turkey Waldorf Salad

Recipe courtesy Wes Martin via Food Network

Thank you so much for stopping in today, I hope you have a WONDERFUL, family/friend filled Thanksgiving! I'm off now to take care of my sick husband-which is the equivalent of 3 sick children (I swear he takes the moaning up a notch as soon as I walk in the room) AND my 2 sick kiddos (whom I actually DO feel bad for) so I can get all ~~five~~ three of my whiners better before tomorrow!!! Happy Eating (and eating and eating and eating) :)

A {Thank you} Shout-out!

2011-11-21T06:00:00.000-08:00

Hey girlies!! Gooood Monday morning! And if you hate Monday's the good news is, it's a holiday week so you only have to get through the next 2 or 3 days and then you get a break! Yay! Aaaaand, in the spirit of Thanksgiving, I just wanted to stop in for a moment today and THANK a few websites/blogs for featuring Love Sweet Love.

It was SO fun to see my Gratitude Pumpkins featured on Make and Takes on their spotlight page.

They have EVERYTHING: kids crafts, home projects, recipes and more! One of my favorite bloggers, Jamielyn, from I heart Naptime is a contributor and shares some great project ideas! Check out my feature, along with some other AWESOME festive project ideas from bloggers here!

It was a happy morning for me when I woke up to an email from an editor of Pocketchange asking if they could feature Love Sweet Love on their Best of the Web series. (um Yeeeeees! but I was all...oh sure whatever. that's cool.) The series is a compiled list of bloggers that blog in a wide range of different genres-art, cooking, crafts, electronics, traveling, inspirational,etc.

Pocketchange Lifestyle Blog

They have an AMAZING tip center with 25 different categories ranging from baking to parties to home organization to pets to Vacuums and everything in between!! Be sure to check it out before all the holiday craziness begins for some great ideas!

And OF COURSE a Humungo-jungo shout-out and Thank you to the many, many bloggers who have taken the time to hold linky parties, go through the hundreds of links they receive and feature Love Sweet Love on their sites. I know it takes A LOT of work to host a party (well I guess I don't know exactly how much work...but I know it's a lot of work just to run a blog withOUT a linky party!) and I appreciate the increase in friends and followers I am honored to have due to their features!

I would still create, craft, and write Love Sweet Love even if the only follower was my mom because I do it for me (sorry it's true) but I sure do appreciate you being here because it amps up the fun of it by about 100000000 percent. :)

Which leads me to saying THANK YOU to YOU! I love reading your comments, getting to know you, and making bloggy friends! I hope you have a Sweetly Lovely Monday! I'll be posting Thanksgiving leftover ideas later this week, so be sure to check back! See you soon!

Fall Felt Wreath...and I need YOU!!!

2011-11-18T06:00:00.000-08:00

Guess what?!?! I need you. Yep, it's true. I've fought it off, tried to make it on my own, but I just can't do it and now...I need you. You, your crafty brain, your Christmas spirit, and your talented hands to make a Christmas related project and share it here at Love Sweet Love. Yep, I'm looking for guest posters!!!

For the week of Dec. 4th-10th I will be co-hosting Creating Christmas with The Girl Creative.

Each day of that week a new Christmas project will be posted here on my blog-as well as all the other bloggers that are co-hosting this event-and at the end of the week there will be a HUGE linky party for you to link up all the Christmas projects you've been working on!

Now, I coooould do this all by-myself and post all 7 days, but I LOVE guest posting on other blogs and getting a chance to meet new friends, so I thought I would take this opportunity and open up MY blog for YOU to guest post on! Due to the traffic this event will bring, it would be a great opportunity for you to guest post during that week to shine a little light on your blog! (and I would REALLY appreciate the help!!!!)

The idea behind this event is to get out there and CREATE something. Don't just pin it, create it! Get OFF the computer and INTO the craft room (or closet as is my case :) )

If you're interested in helping me out and being part of The Girl Creative's Christmas week, shoot me an email at loveseweetlove@gmail.com and I'll get you more info!

Speaking of guest posting :), it was so fun to be over at Designer Garden and share my fall felt wreath tutorial, but before fall is OVER I thought I'd better share the tute here for all my Love Sweet Love friends! You know, just in case you get the case of the crazies and want to whip one up before all your guest arrive on Thursday. Buuuuut even if you don't have time to make a fall one, you can use this tute to make one for Christmas...wouldn't a red and white version be so FESTIVE!!!

As for me, I can promise you this....I am NOT making a Christmas one. After my Halloween one and this one back to back my little fingers need a scissors break. :) But I can also promise you there WILL be a wreath (or 2 :) ) making it's way onto my blog sometime during December so be ready for some wreath-luvin fun!

Fall Felt Wreath

When Sommer asked if I would share a tutorial on how to make this felt wreath, I had actually already finished making this one so I apologize that a few of these 'how-to' pictures are actually from my Halloween one because I didn't take very many step-by-step pictures of this fall one. BUTTT don't worry, the only thing that's different between the two are the colors of felt!

Ready to make your own?!?!

You'll need:
-Styrofoam wreath (mine was 15")
-approx. 3/4 yard of felt
-straight pins
-scissors

I first started by cutting out a 3" circle onto cardstock to use as a pattern to cut out all my felt circles.
***TIP: double, or even triple, up your felt when cutting to save time!***

You will cut A. LOT. of circles. Half way through you will want to give up, your finger will be slightly bruised from the scissors pressing on it over and over, and you will swear you will never use felt for anything ever again. BUT you'll keep going because you know how fabulous it will turn out (this is my 3rd one!!), because you'll stick in a chick flick to keep your mind off it and because you're slightly crazy and think it's cool to make something ALL on your own for cheap! Just a heads up. You're welcome. :)

Once you've cut your circles out, slapped on a band-aid, and eaten ~~a gallon~~ a bowl of ice-cream, now it's time to make your wreath!

1. Fold your circle in half
2. Fold it in half again (it should now be in the shape of a triangle)
3. Place a straight pin through the tip of the triangle
4. Fluff it up so you get maximum usage out of your circle and therefore can use less :)
Then insert pin into the styrofoam. No right or wrong way to do this, just repeat all the steps until your wreath is FUUUULLL of little, felt, flowery looking circles!

Awww, so pretty right?! Worth the time to cut out all those circles, fold, and pin them on? I think so ;)

And it really wasn't thaaat bad. I cut all the circles in one night (watching a few episodes of Biggest Loser-SOOO motivating; yet I find I usually watch it while a)eating ice-cream b)sitting on my booty crafting or c)talking on the phone) and then I pinned them all on the next night. That's do-able right?! Totally.

I'm very traditional when it comes to holidays and seasons, so I kept the colors for this wreath nice and warm and fallish :). Brown, red and gold. The one picture I found of the kind of felt flowers I wanted to use for this wreath led to an etsy shop so I had to figure out a way to make something similar...

This is how I made mine...

1. Cut out petal shapes from felt
2.Hot glue the bottom ends together to create the petal form
3. Snip off any excess felt so that all the petals fit *snuggly* together in the center of the flower
4.I cut out a circle of felt and glued each petal around the circle to create the flower
5. Make sure that all the petals match up together in the center and add a couple extra dabs of hot glue in the middle to secure
6.Repeat the step for a top layer of the flower (cutting smaller petal shapes) and add an embellishment to the center if you want-which you probably will because it will hide the hot mess of your glue.

Make as many as you want, and then I just used a little bit of hot glue to attach them to the wreath.

I really LOVE texture and dimension and height when creating projects so I love that the flowers give the wreath something just a little bit extra :).

ALSO...when your pinning your felt circles all around the styrofoam form, you'll want to make sure you fill up the inside, outside, underneath and top of the wreath with felt so that no matter what angle you're looking at it from you see felt! (the only place you don't have to worry about is the back)

It added just the touch I was looking for to complete my fall mantel! What do you think?!?! I hope you like it!! (and if it looks like my topiary is falling over it's because it totally is :). I think I made it a little top heavy...oops. )

Whew!!! That was a LOT of information! Thanks for stopping in today and checking things out! Talk to ya soon my lovelies!!!

Linking up to these great parties as well as:

DIY $6 Tablerunner

2011-11-17T06:00:00.000-08:00

Ok so I have the easiest thing In. The. World. for you today. And since all fall decor is on SUPER clearance right now (hobby lobby just knocked theirs down to 80% off yesterday!!!) now would be the perfect time to pick up some fallish place mats and make...
a Tablerunner!!!

I actually picked these 4 place mats up last year after Thanksgiving for $1.50 each with the idea of turning them into pillows this year. (sewing the sides of two place mats together and stuffing in batting or a pillow form)

BUT when I was pulling out all my fall stuff and arranging and re-arranging things around my living room and kitchen these were tossed onto the kitchen table, and as I was about to stuff them back into the box to await time for me to turn them into pillows I thought...hey these would make a PERFECT, simple tablerunner!

I overlapped each place mat by about 1" and sewed a straight seam down, placing the 2 red mats in the middle and the 2 gold ones on the outer ends. That's it. One step. Done!

I'm not sure in measurements how long it ended up being with all 4 place mats sewn together- and I'm not even a little bit embarrassed to admit I am too lazy/comfy/selfish to get up right now, clear everything off the table, and lay it out flat to measure it-so it ended up this long (minus what's tucked into the door frame to keep it from falling as I snapped a pic):

Long. But that's ok. I'm making it with my future dream dining room table in mind. :) Or for a front entry way table, or coffee table,etc. But since right now we have a cozy, little hand-me down table that we are currently making our memories with, it goes right here and I love it!

Since I stuffed every leftover Fall decoration onto my table, it was already busy with decor so I needed the runner to be something simple, yet substantial. Ya know...hold its own but not take over. Something that could say, "Hi, I'm here backin' up the main event." Not, "WOWZA check ME out!"

I think...not too bad for 6 bucks! Whaddya think? Does this work?! (you can find a tutorial for the give {thanks} charger here)

Thanks for popping in today! I hope all your Thanksgiving plans are coming together nicely, just ONE more week! Anyone elses belly's starting to grumble for stuffing and sweet potatoes and TURKEY and pie?!?! Or do you do more non-traditional things for Thanksgiving dinner? See you tomorrow my lovelies!

Fall Scrap Tutu & Turkey Shirt

2011-11-16T06:00:00.000-08:00

Howdy Ho my friends! How is your week going?!?! Can I just tell you...I wish you were just sitting right here in my living room with me, next to my {electric :) } fireplace, sipping hot apple cider, helping me plan my Thanksgiving menu! (I'm actually not really at this moment doing any of those things...I'm really bundled up in sweats and slippers, eating a mint oreo cookie shake that my husband just made for me, sitting at the cluttered computer desk in my bedroom, wishing I was snuggled in bed watching Once Upon A Time on hulu...but if YOU were here we'd be in the living room because my bedrooms a mess and hot cider is debatedly better than ice cream.)

I wish we could all just craft together and chat and laugh and be friends in *real* life! I love creating projects and writing up tutorials and blogging, but I wish I was talking TO YOU rather than to the computer. You know what I mean right?! Oh my dear sweet bloggy friends (AND those of you who know me in *real* life!) I love that-even though I can't see your faces and know you for realz too-we're friends and I appreciate your comments and support!

Anywho...just know I really do care about YOU (even though I'm not exactly sure who YOU might be-but I see you come and visit through my Feedjit reader and it makes me happy :) ) and am so happy you stop by to see what's going on here! Thank you!

So....did you guess yesterday that all those scraps of fabric might be for a skirt?!

After all the crazy projects I've been doing with fabric over the last couple months I have quite the little stash built up sooooo I decided to throw all the leftover scraps (well the ones that had any remote relation to the fall color family) together and make a scrap tutu for my little one. (gosh she's almost THREE can I still call her my little one?!)

I made one for her for Halloween as well, but didn't have time to post it during October. I made it the same way, but added some purple, green, orange and black tulle to this one to make it a little more spunky for Halloween.

You see the tulle tutu's ALL over, but the fabric ones are a little more rare so I like that! This was a great way to use up some of that fabric leftover from my pumpkins and crates so nothing goes wasted!! When I bought the elastic for the Halloween skirt there was enough in the package (1 1/4 yard for about $1.50) for me to make 2 skirts so I was pretty excited to do this fall one! :) If you want to make one too, here's how I did it...!

1. Take 1" thick elastic and measure around your child's waist. Cut and then use a safety pin to connect the two ends to create a band.
2. Cut lots, and lots, and lots of fabric into strips. Mine are about 1.5"x18-20'. (I cut them all different lengths).

3. Fold the fabric strip in half so the two ends touch. Pull the folded end under your elastic band.

4. Pull up the two ends together and tuck them into the loop and pull up.

5. Then pull the strip downward to tighten and make sure it touches right against the last strip of fabric you tied on so there are no gaps of white elastic showing.

**TIP**:It's much easier to make a nice FULL skirt when you place the elastic band around your thigh while tying on the strips b/c this stretches the elastic giving you more room to add more fabric!

When it's done it'll be nice and tight and full of color! This is what the inside of your band should look like. If you see any gaps or white peeking out at you just tie on another strip, the more the merrier!

Yum!

I had wanted to make some sort of shirt for her to wear with the skirt, but I didn't want to spend any money so I was DELIGHTED when I came across Jennifer's blog, Delightfully Noted, and she had a cute little FREE turkey printable iron on available. I printed it right off and ironed it onto a plain white shirt the little miss had in her closet. (you could use it to iron on to cloth napkins, an apron, a shirt, a towel, etc!)

And to make it just a wee bit more girly (and b/c I can't help but bling up anything I get my hands on) I added a few colored rhinestones I had by simply sticking a glue dot to the rhinestone and pressing it onto the shirt. I haven't tried washing it yet...do you think they will stay on in the wash?

The little miss loves it and it was free free free so I love it too! :)

Oh Thanksgiving...won't you come soon?! I'm waiting for you...

Thanks for reading! I'll be back tomorrow with quite possibly the simplest thing I've ever made using...place-mats. See ya then! :)

Linking up to these great parties as well as:

Guest Posting at Designer Garden!

2011-11-15T13:00:00.000-08:00

Today I'm sharing a tutorial for my newest felt wreath made especially for FALL over at Designer Garden! Sommer is my newest bloggy friend and I just know you will LOVE her and her awesome projects as much as I do! Come on over and say hi to Sommer {and me} if you've got a second!

I'll be back tomorrow with a scrappy fabric project!! Here's a sneak peek...

Have a Sweetly Lovely day today girlies!

Painted white GRATITUDE pumpkins

2011-11-14T16:00:00.000-08:00

As Thanksgiving is closely approaching, and the spirit of Christmas has already hit me (falling snow and pandora's Christmas station have helped with that:) ), I have been feeling especially grateful and thankful these past few weeks for the MANY blessings I have in my life. When I first started this 'pumpkin craft', it was just a simple attempt to cutesy up two boring, clearenced out pumpkins. After 2 weeks of being stuck in a creative funk I came out the other side with a project that holds SO much meaning to me. Love that!

Buuuuut, lets not get ahead of ourselves! We should start at the beginning...with these two orange pumpkins I picked up for .50 each at Walmart last year after Thanksgiving.

Although I'm ALL about the traditional colors for Thanksgiving/Fall, this year I'm really loving the simplicity and elegance of white pumpkins and have been wanting to add some to my decorations but didn't want to have to pay the $15+ dollars the stores were asking for them so I knew right away that I wanted to paint them white.

I gave them 2 generous coats of Rustoleum's Heirloom white.

I was hesitant to spray paint them for fear of getting drip streaks down them, so I was pleasantly SURPRISED when there were NO drips-yay for no re-painting!

They sat like that out on my counter for over a week because I couldn't decide what I wanted to do with them. I debated on leaving them as is, just simple, white and subtle but that just didn't feel right! I was just stuck.
I looked online for some white pumpkin decorating ideas and nothing really fit what I was looking for so they just sat. Pretty and undisturbed. And then while walking around Michelas I saw some rhinestone bling and my creative mind started to thunk and my crafty heart started to beat. Disturbia was coming these punkins way. First I added some white rhinestone stickers on top around the stem. (They come as one large sticker-from Micheals-so I just cut the one up to make enough to go around the top)

I loved my pretty cinderella pumpkins (at this point they reminded me of cinderella's carriage :) ), but it still didn't feel 100% finished. I love decorating with words/quotes/sayings that mean something to me and can remind myself and my family of what's truly important, so I decided to add some simple words to them.
I searched online for a short, simple quote that would involve the word gratitude, for the season. I used my cricut to cut the quote out of brown vinyl and just stuck it right onto the pumpkin. (if you don't have a cutting machine you could use scrapbook stickers!!)

As soon as I read this quote I immediately started to tear up. (This quote has been all over blogland since it was featured on TT&J but I'm pretty proud to say I found it -NOT on pinterest :)-AND printed it before it was popular!...I'm proud of this because I'm always behind on the trends!!!)

{Gratitude}
Turns what we have
into
{Enough}

The past 3 years for our family have been challenging, trying, exhausting and FULL of happiness and blessings. My husband is in his final year of school (can I get a halleluiah?!) so between school, work, having and raising 2 kids, moving from apartment to apartment, fulfilling church responsibilities, and just LIFE ups and downs, we have had some financial strains, housing strains, and BIG emotional strains :), but we always come out of our struggles
TOGETHER
and
BETTER for having gone through them.
Always.
We have always had a roof over our heads (sometimes a moldy, falling through roof, but always a roof :) ), food on the table, clothes on our backs, one car that gets us everywhere we need to go, and LOTS of laughs, hugs, and arms to bear one another up. And it was always enough.

Mr. Sweet Love's been a student for longer than 3 years, but it's the past 3 that have been especially hard. Gratitude and counting our blessings is what has pulled us through. Every. Single. Time.

At the end of the day, as we kneel down and pray as a family together we always, always have a list of things we can thank our Father in Heaven for. That Gratitude turns what we have into enough. And we have been truly happy.

I think I was touched so much when I first read it because it was like these 7 words summed up everything I've been feeling, thinking, and trying to explain for SO many years. Every fall as I pull out these pumpkins, no matter how monetarily rich or poor we are that year, I will KNOW it's enough and even more importantly, I will remember this time period in our lives and how blessed we were.

Even if you have to start by giving thanks out of obligation, or force yourself to make a list and be happy for what you have...it works! It really does make you genuinely happy!!!

{source}
Thanks for bearing with me through that looooong post and sharing a little bit of my personal life with me today! I'll be back tomorrow to share my newest felt wreath! ;)

Mod Podged Fall Pumpkins

2011-11-07T13:00:00.000-08:00

After I had such a great response on my Halloween Mod Podged pumpkins, I decided that making some fall version ones would be the perfect thing to get me in the mood for fall decorating!

The pumpkins I did previously were from the $ store, but by the end of October not ONE dollar store in my city had ANY pumpkins whatsoever left! Isn't that crazy?! So I picked these ones up from Hobby Lobby when they were 70% off. The stems weren't too bad how they were, but I wanted them to really complement the fabric so I decided to paint them a copper metallic.

P.S. I am LOOOOVING this color right now, I'm painting everything I can get my hands on! :)

I had picked up these 3 scraps of fabric for about $1 each from JoAnns about a month ago and I still have plenty of each one left that I'm using for another project I'm working on right now! :)

Following the tutorial I wrote up HERE, I mod podged on the fabric in strips all around the pumpkins.

Although I was bummed that I couldn't use cutsey, easy, perfectly shaped for this project, $ store pumpkins, now that they're done I love that they're all different heights, and roundness. Good dimensions I think. :)

Thanks so much for stopping by today, I hope you're staying warm where you are! It snowed this weekend for me...and today...so we're bundled up inside crafting! What are you doing today?!

Linking up to these great parties as well as:

Decorative Fall Chargers

2011-11-04T06:00:00.000-07:00

I Love Fall. Love Love Love Love.

I want pumpkin anything in my mouth; reds, golds, and browns smothered on me, my children and my house; and scarves, boots and leggings littering my closet floor.

It is the perfect time of year and in my area of the world (northern ut) it is breathtakingly gorgeous. BREATH. TAKINGLY.

And it probably goes without saying, although it is absolutely worth mentioning, it
means that glorious Thanksgiving feast I wait ALL year for. No lie. My husband is the best cook in the world and he lets his talents shine that one day a year.

Sooooo, I thought for my first fall craft this year I'd share a simple-and cheap-idea that you could use for a centerpiece for your Thanksgiving feast, or just as a decoration around the house.
Decorative Fall Chargers

I got this idea while shopping at Michaels where they had some Halloween ones displayed. Since I was in charge of creating a fall craft for the woman in our church to replicate for a Relief Society activity, I thought I would take the decorating a charger idea and create my own fall ones. I figured these would be easy enough that they could be done in the time frame we had, all the materials would be easy to have available and the cost would be affordable (it cost me $15 to make all 3...approx $5/plate).

Want to make some too?!?! Here's how I made these 3...

Give Thanks Charger

I started with a gold charger ($1.99) from Michaels and using brown glittery chipboard stickers wrote out...give {thanks}

I then added a couple orangey, gold rhinestone stickers to the side of the charger (also purchased at Michaels). Since the stickers go down over the curve of the plate they weren't sticking to the plate very well so I added a couple dabs of hot glue in places where it would pop up and problem was solved!

These leaves came in a package of and some were felt with rhinestones already adhered to them, some were plain felt, some were patterned paper, some were glittery,etc. I played around with a few of the different leaves in the package till I got the look I wanted and used hot glue to glue some glittery leaves to the felt ones and then glued them around the outer edge.

And then added it to the set up on my sweet little kitchen table :)

Monogram Charger

This one probably took the most supplies...

-Bronze charger
-1 sheet scrapbook paper
-Spray Adhesive
-Xacto knife pictured...not used :)
-Thin wood letter (mine's from Hobby Lobby)
-bronze glitter
-gold glitter glue
-gold ribbon

First I cut the paper to fit the inside of the charger and sprayed spray adhesive to the back of the paper and then pressed it onto the plate. Next I sprayed my wood letter with the spray adhesive and sprinkled glitter all over to cover. I then used E6000 to glue the letter to the charger.

Before I added the gold ribbon, I used the gold glitter glue and made small dots about every 2 1/2" around the edge of the scrapbook paper (sorry I don't have a pic of it and you can't tell in these pictures b/c it blends in with the background of the paper, but in person it's really pretty! :) ) To keep the ribbon tied to the top half of the plate and not have it slipping off, I put a little dab of hot glue on the back of the plate where the ribbon rested and it stays in place perfectly!

(this could make a great gift too!)

And lastly...the FALL charger

This was also on a bronze charger (even though in the pic it looks red??) and I started it the same way as the last one, by cutting a sheet of scrapbook paper to fit the center and using spray adhesive to adhere it to the charger. Then using mini glue dots and red ribbon I made a...wave (is there a better word for this-ha ha!!) around the paper.

I then took a couple of felt leaves from the package I used on the 'give thanks' charger above, hot glued them together and used red, glittery chipboard stickers to spell out fall across the leaves.

And then hot glued that onto the bottom right corner of the charger.

And then added them to my fall mantle! The FALL charger is actually not in that window space anymore, I just put it there temporarily until I finished my new fall wreath(SOoOoO excited to show you!).

See I told you...SMoThErED in fall colors. I can't help it. It's a sickness (that I love :) ).

You can find info about my window makeover here and my Turkey Thanksgiving Advent here. Thank you so much for stopping by today and reading/looking at pictures (it's ok, I usually skim the post and just look at the pics too :) ). I've got fall projects coming out my ears right now, so I'll be back soon with something new!! Have a Sweetly Lovely day today!

My little Trick 'r Treaters!!

2011-11-01T06:00:00.000-07:00

Are you sick of chocolate yet?! Nope. Me neither. These two had a BLLLAST this year trick or treating! Last year it was really cold and rainy so they only lasted about one block. This year the weather was sunshine glowing, fall leaves crunching, cool breeze whispering, perfection! My little Kylee had to be drug from house to house last year, and this year after every house would say, "One more house mama!!"

The boy lives and breathes spiderman every day of his life, so it wasn't too hard for him to get into character. :)

I think she pretty much rocked her skeleton princess costume! :)

After ringing the doorbell, and waiting in eager anticipation on the porch-their baskets held right in front of them, the words "trick or treat?!?!" right on the tip of their tounge-Tyler would lean over and whisper excitedly to Kylee, "Ky, are you having SO much fun?!" and she would whisper back, "YES!" and nod enthusiastically. They were so fun to watch this year! And they made out like bandits in the candy department. :) We took them trick- or- treating in an older neighborhood and those grandma's and grandpa's just ate them up!

I hope your Halloween was full of candy and laughter too!

Thanks for stopping in today!! Have a Sweetly Lovely day! See you soon!!

Skeleton Princess Costume

2011-10-28T06:00:00.000-07:00

Are you holding your breath right now in pure excitement over the anticipation of the costume reveal of my little Kylee?! Whew, I am!! This has been a mad crazy week of costume decisions, costume failures, pin pricks, sore fingers, non-wash-off-your-hands-psycho-glue, tulle coming out my ears, all wrapped up in a glitter utopia. Perfection.

After failed attempts at obtaining a batgirl, spidergirl, and/or supergirl costume (can you tell her brother is being a superhero :) ) she was devastated and I was quickly losing time.

I finally took her to a Halloween store, gave her 4 costume choices and said, "pick ONE!" And of course since it was 7 days before Halloween they didn't have any good costumes in her size, so when she decided on the skeleton princess in a girls medium (she wears a 3T) I promised her I'd make her the skeleton princess costume of her dreams! :)

The one at the store was a grey skeleton with a silky white skirt...we went in more of the PINK direction! She is head-over-heels in love with it and her older brother (4) gives her rave reviews every time she puts it on, which makes her burst into a fit of giggles. Love.

To make this skeleton more princessy I opted for a tulle tutu. I've made these a few times and they're SO simple that I thought I'd include a quick tutorial in this post in case your little ballerina (niece, friend, neighbor) is need of one too!

1. Start with 1" thick elastic (mine is from JoAnns) and measure around the child's waist to see where to pin it. My little girl is almost 3 (granted she's on the tiny side) but my elastic measures 18". You'll want to cut a little bit extra so you have room to safety pin it so I think I cut about 20".
2. Cut your fabric into strips. I used black cotton and pink, black and silver tulle. I wanted her skirt to hang down about 9" so I cut 20" strips b/c you fold it in half and tie it around the elastic. (and mine are 2" wide)
3. Next slide the folded strip of fabric underneath your elastic
4. Then open the folded edge and guide the tail end of the fabric from the front and into the opening to make a loop
5. Pull the tails up through the loop
6. And tighten it by pulling downwards
7. REPEAT all the way around the elastic until your skirt is as full as you want!
**TIP**
While tying the fabric around and around the elastic, slide the elastic band up around your thigh. It helps keep everything in place, pull the fabric tight, AND make sure your getting as much fabric as you can on the band to get that really full look.

Next was the skeleton part. I picked up this long sleeve black shirt and black leggings from Walmart for $3.50 each. While Ky was wearing the shirt and pants I pinned where I wanted the bones to sit.

I then used the pink felt fabric above (idea to use felt from my dear friend Maranda who made some for her and her husband!) and free-handed some bones. After they were all cut out, I pinned them onto the shirt to make sure I liked how it looked and then spent the next ~~8 hours~~ little while gluing them on with fabric glue. Maranda sewed hers on, but after my last 3 weeks full of sewing projects I'm on a sewing strike and opted to go with glue. :)

Ta-Da! All dried and ready for trick-or-treating!

When I saw this child's black witch wig at Walmart for $5, I knew it would add the perfect touch to her costume! I sprayed it all over with silver sparkle glitter spray (for hair), pulled 'em up into piggies (what we call pigtails), and tied some black and pink ribbons around the rubber bands.

Costume complete.

I was TOTALLY going to wait until Monday to post my kids in their costumes, but when I was going through editing photos last night I just could NOT help myself from including just ONE, itty bitty, sneak peek picture cause it's just too darn cute on her! Eeeek I love it! :)

Thank you so so much for stopping by today! I love sharing little bits and pieces of my life and crafting with you cause yall are just so darn nice! :) Have a SPOOKERIFIC weekend friends, I'll stop in just for a quick minute on Monday with some more costume pictures!!

Linking up to these great parties as well as...

20 Halloween Party Treats!!

2011-10-27T06:00:00.000-07:00

If you're throwing a Halloween Party this weekend, or attending one that you're bringing a yummy treat to, here are TWENTY {20} different FuN ideas I've gathered from websites/blogs just for YOU! Some of these would also work to make for your cutie kids to take to their school Halloween Parties or to pass out to their friends! Enjoy!
*All of these can be found on my Halloween Ideas pinterest page as well*

Harry Potter fans????

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Chocolate covered strawberry ghosts

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Pixie Stix Treats

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Edible Spider Webs

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Trick or Treat Favors

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SandWITCHes :)

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Funny Bones

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Spooky Punch

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Pumpkin Dip IN a Pumpkin (could totally use this for thanksgiving too!)

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Spider Tootsie Pops

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Owl Cupcakes and Mummy bottles

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Nutter Butter Ghosts

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Monster Eyeballs

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Pumpkin Bundt Cake

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Ghost poop ;)

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Ghost Party Favors

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Deviled Spider Eggs

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Witch's Brew

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Graveyard Pudding Cups

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Polka Dot Cake-Ummm Seriously??? AH-MAZE-ING! So fun!!

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Hopefully that gives you some good ideas to finish up your party planning-in the treat department, or a good place to start if you're a procastinator like me! :) Oooh it's so close now I can just smell the chocolate...wait, maybe that's just the bowl of peanut m&m's sitting next to me. I'll admit to nothing. See you tomorrow girlies!!