friendship pins

summer is coming to a close around here and we're soaking up the last of it

we spent alot of time in the kitchen baking goodies & making crafts this summer

these friendship pins were probably one of our favorite projects

you can make your own with some seed beads and a few different sizes of safety pins

we purchased both at Joanns & Michaels

with a quick search on pinterest, we found a bunch of pin "patterns"

flags, animals and lots of other things! 

you can find my "summer" board here where i pinned a bunch of them

 it's a little bit of trial & error, but once you start making them it's addicting!

my younger daughter ended up finding an empty bead box in my craft room and started to use some of her spending money on more supplies ha! 

her box ended up filling up pretty fast and her little fingers were working even faster!

some of the bigger beads were surplus from my supplies (mostly found on etsy) 

& she had some of the character charms in her rainbow loom stash.

we found these canvas sneakers at five below for only $5 

and she added puff paint polka dots to the front of the sneakers 

for the hanging pin designs like the flag one - we found out how to slide the hanging pins through the loop of the main pin - just think of it like a key ring - use a small pliers or even a thumb tack to open up a little bit of space in the ring to get started - once one pin is in the opening it's easy to slide the rest through

once all the hanging pins are on the opposite side of the closure side you can pin it to anything you want - shoelaces, jacket lapels or backpacks!

she even made some friendship pin earrings! so fun ♥

if my feet were small enough

 i'd be borrowing these happy rainbow shoes from my daughter's closet fo sho :)

happy crafting!

yarn wrapped fall wreath ♥

i love fall in upstate

it's so pretty here

and the donuts and cider are everyyyyywherrrrre.

yum

i always get an itch to make a new wreath in the fall

and when i accidentally stumbled upon this beaaauuuutifuuul yarn in michaels last week

(i was looking for another type of yarn that i can't find anywhere)

i knew i had to make something out of it

guys. this yarn is plush

it's so soft and luxurious

i'm wondering now if there was other variations and i missed them because i was mesmerized with this one. 

i picked up a styrofoam wreath form on the way out in isle 9

(just kidding i'm not really sure which isle the wreath forms were in but nine sounded good)

and wrapped it around and around and around

do this step while Jimmy Fallon is on - doing his Donald Trump impersonations

 it goes faster if you are watching Jimmy Fallon

you can use hot glue to secure the ends onto the styro

in my case i was upstairs on my bed (watching Jimmy Fallon)

and i was too lazy to plug in my glue gun

so sewing pins work great too!

added a little Martha metallic paint to all the tips of a package of white feathers (from michaels too)

(ps i love Martha's paint. it has the best thickness and THE BEST colors)

(cause well duh. she's Martha)

i used pins to secure the feathers (or again hot glue would've worked great) starting near the bottom and working my way up towards the side

i dug through my ribbon stash and used some navy satin ribbon to wrap a sort of "cuff" around the one side hiding the feather tips that were left showing at the top

and that's it! are you gonna make one?!

so easy. so fun

wreath. check

mums. check

pumpkins. check

i think my front porch is ready for fall!

rainbow pinwheel wreath!

hi all!

we're back from a wonderful vacation, and boy.

it sure is hard to face reality when sleeping in and krispy kreme donuts for breakfast at 12:30 in the afternoon was life for two weeks. yikes.

so we're trying to settle into a summer routine, it's been a little tough so far this week but we're striving for progress not perfection. and not staying in pj's and watching tv all day is making progress. ha. my shop is closed for the summer leaving me SO much free time to do crafts with my girls, fun projects around the house, bike rides etc.

and project life! i've been hoarding PL supplies for about 3 years now and haven't touched one album.

so i'm going to be working on that this summer too. any PL people out there? any tips for getting started? i want to keep it simple. i'm not a simple person and that's what keeps me from getting disciplined activites like project life done and kept up with. so i need to make it uncomplicated! 

anyways... back to this wreath :)

i found these ginormous rainbow pinwheels last month when we went into 5below and they had my name written all over them. i bought 6 and decided to try making a wreath with them somehow, and it was really simple actually

supplies you'll need // styrofoam wreath form ( i got the largest one i could find) 

// fabric strips // ribbon for hanging

the little pin the holds the pinwheel together comes apart very easily

and you're left with just the pin part to push into the styrofoam wreath

i made holes with the pinwheel to kind of get an idea for spacing

i ripped some fabric into a really long strips and wrapped it around the wreath marking with a sharpie where the holes were in the styrofoam

once it's covered and the holes are marked i snipped little holes in the fabric with really sharp scissors so i could push the pinwheels in easier

that's it! i put some ribbon around the form and hung it with a command hook

i love our little front porch, my dream home would be in the country (sorta in the country :) it would be white with black shutters with a wrap around front porch, rockers, bunting, lights and all ... but this little porch makes me happy.

my hubby found these hanging strawberry plants at wegmans and thought we should try them 

they have been SO AWESOME. we pick berries every few days and have them for breakfast or lunch and they're sweet!

i really really do love summer. i just love it.

the begonias & succulents on the front porch are doing really well this year.

i think i'll transplant the succulents into the back yard in the fall since they're perennials.

the begonias were hanging baskets that i got at the market. i transplanted them into my chalkboard pots that i made at least 3 years ago... they're holding up pretty good and they got nice and chippy.

i found the rocker on the curb probably 5 years ago. it's seen a lot of colors and cans of spray paint. i love making something out of old things people just don't want to bother with anymore.

much love to you and happy beautiful summer days!

Christmas card caddy ♥

i'm determined to get Christmas cards out this year.

de. ter. mined.

so when i saw this idea while reading one of my favorite blogs

i knew this would be the cute project incentive to get me going and keep me focused on getting those envelopes addressed. sounds so sad i know.

i got the silverware tray at target and the pulls & screws at Lowes (like she did i think)

the instructions are all on Jen's blog ... except i think a glue gun was used to attach the handles... but i had the hubs drill two holes on each end for the drawer pulls and used the screw size pictured to secure them. all screws have different thread sizes, so just make sure you buy the right thread size for whichever drawer pulls you pick out. (the nice man at Lowe's helped me figure that part out)

i haven't decided if i want to paint it yet.

(i know my husband will have to pick himself up off the floor after reading that)

(#paintallthethings)

or maybe decorate it? hmmm...

or maybe just leave it alone for pete's sakes.

just leave something alone for once jaime.

it's not like there's tons of cute stuff in it anyways ... 

that it would make it overkill or anything 

:)

are all your decs up already?? only our tree is up ... which is not good

i'm very very behind.

and i have a long list of projects, crafts and baking to do

and gifts to buy ... sigh. gifts ... yes lots of things to do

go to target today and get the stuff to make this caddy

it'll make you smile.

♥

oh and check out my previous years Christmas projects!

i forgot about some of these! cute!