Christmas Crafts

I wanted to post some handmade gifts that we received and gave away to our family for Christmas. I love a good craft project and I think all three of these ROCK!!

The first is what we gave away to Steve's family and the ladies that I visit teach. I think it turned out really cute. I love to steal other people's ideas...I lack some creativity there. But my daughter "J" received a frame similar to this last year from her church activity day leaders. They did a lot of scrapbooking on the frame and spelled out the words JOY along the side. We loved it and took that same concept and just painted the frame instead.

The Second is a new Christmas stocking holder given to us from my Mother-in-law with the help of a Brother-in-law and Sister-in-law. We think it turned out really cute. I think I had it hung up minutes after we received it.

The last is a JOY picture frame from another Sister-in-law it looks very scrapbookish and we love it. We hope you had a very Merry Christmas!

You Block Head!

It has been a while! I know this isn't something I got at Goodwill, but it is a fun craft for the season. My MIL had the grandkids do these cute snowmen at our family party. They are made with cement pavers. First, spray paint them white. We added googly eyes and a wood nose painted orange. Then we added miscellaneous buttons and fabric scraps for the hat and scarf. This is a project that you can almost do any fun thing with and it would look cute. I guess the one that my MIL got the idea from had big pom poms glued on where the ears would be, and connected with a chenille stick/pipe cleaner...like ear muffs. It's cap was made out of a men's tube sock. The kids had a blast making them!

Friends are the Best

Jana came over and helped me brain storm on my wall that has been giving me a headache lately. I have wanted to change this wall for a while, but my mind would hit the WALL every time I tried to lay out the pictures. So with some great help and peanut butter pie we were able to tackle the picture wall. All the frames were bought at our favorite store........you guessed it...... Goodwill. I think it turned out great. Thanks Jana!!

Blinds...Blinds...Blinds

I have desperately wanted a change in my window decor. My 11 year old mini blinds are looking a little sad. After 3 kids pulling and peeking through them they have seen better days. I have never loved the look of mini blinds, but they were cheap which made them practical....so up they went.

Now for the fantastic news.... I used to be a DI shopper all the time, but Goodwill is so much closer and they have 50% off days...can I say more. So the last time I was at DI was seriously over a year ago. So off I went just to check things out. What a great decision that was. I found in the AS IS section brand new never been opened white wood 2 inch blinds. SCORE!! They were $10.o0 a piece on a sort of clearance. So I bought 3 and literally sang all the way home. I forgot to mention my Dad happened to be with me and helped talk me into it. We decided that they were a little to wide...ie about 3 1/2 inches to wide....so we decided to take them home and cut them to fit. VIOLA...They look perfect. (Thank you Dad) So the very next day I went back to DI and bought 3 more for other windows in my house. They were Home Depot blinds "Basswood". I checked online and the same window size I purchased for 10 bucks was originally $104.00

So I spent a total of $60.00 and I saved $560.00 YES!!! Seriously why anyone pays full price for anything boggles my mind. Now I need to buy 6 smaller blinds for the remaining windows...wish me luck!

Paperback Jack-o-lanterns

I finally finished a project that I have been putting off for far too long. I bought some paperback books at Goodwill and turned them into Jack-o-lanterns. I got the idea from one of my magazines, Country Home. The boys had fun helping fold the pages in half, cutting out the faces and gluing on the toppers. You can use any books, but in the spirit of the season, I picked Halloween appropriate books. You just fold the pages in half and then glue the front and back of the book together, so that it fans out in a cylinder shape. We used black construction paper to cut out the faces and the toppers. I couldn't tell how they did the toppers on the site, so I just made it up. I crumpled up a paper to make it look like the stem. We cut out different shaped leaves and glued them around the stem. We also wrapped thin strips of paper around a pencil to make it curly like a vine. I love the way it turned out. I also found a site for a paperback book Christmas Tree(HERE). They have a few more steps, but both are still pretty easy projects...as long as you don't mind newsprint on your fingers!

Black or White

I got these really cute frames on clearance at Target a while back. I love them even more then I did when I bought them. Well, now that I figured out where to put them, and what to put in them. The white seemed to get washed out on the wall. Black spray paint and some of our new Disneyland pics and I think they are looking pretty good!

Before

After

A New Shower Curtain

Since I got my new bedroom comforter set I had to change out the curtains that were hanging in my room. Luckily I have a pair of tab top curtains to take their place, but what do I do with the old curtains I took down. Which I love...by the way. I decided to turn them into a shower curtain.

I bought grommets at Wal mart in the camping section. I think they were around $5 bucks. So while my little one was sleeping I hammered away to make a new shower curtain. I didn't want to measure anything, so I used the spacing of the existing tab tops to space my grommets.

Then I cut off the tab's and duct tapped the two curtain panels together, YES I said Duct tape!! Seriously you can't even tell. It looks great.