Where We Met Silhouette Picture

I found picture of a project I did last year as a present for my husband. Since we first got together I have made a point to make at least one of his presents myself every year. This one now hangs in our bedroom.

Last year one of them was a silhouette of the place we met. Don't recongize the place? Don't feel bad, lol, we met in an on line video game, World of Warcraft. It was so romantic, I was a healer and my group was looking for a tank, we found him, and the rest is history.

Materials Needed:

Picture frame (I scaled mine for a 8x10) $11.99 at Hobby Lobby, then 40% off!
Scrap booking paper, mine took three sheets/colors (I chose thick sparkly sheets, sparkle = good)
X-acto Knife (needs to be very sharp)
Something to cut on, I used my fabric cutting board
Tape
Scissors for trimming
Ruler for measuring and making sure you get straight lines
The image of where you met (might want to have a couple identical copies, that's the one thing I wish I had done, I ended up having to be very careful and tape it back up before I went on to the next part).

This was the finished product. See, three colors.

This is the image I worked off of. This was the instance in the game that were met in. 8 years ago, lol and we still play that game till this day.

I cut the frame of the image, man, castle and the front tree out of black. The furthest trees and moon out of light purple, and used a dark purple sheet as the background, and that one didn't need to be cut at all.

All I did was lay the image on top of the piece I was cutting and tape it in a few spots around to the back of the image so the two were stuck together but I could still move the image as I was working. This took a lot of hunching over nose to image to complete.

So just pick which layers you want which colors and slowly and CAREFULLY (those knives be sharp) cut out the image. As long as your knife is sharp and you are willing to put the time into it you can do as detailed of an outline as you want. I did find it took some hit and miss testing to find the exact right pressure needed to cut through the thick (and yes very sparkly scrap booking paper I had chosen). And be prepared for sore finger tips and indents that might last a few hours.

Once you are done, just stack the image and put it into your frame. Easy right!

One thing I did do afterwards was write a little note to my husband and glued it on the back of the frame, it's never a bad thing to put it into words how much you love and appreciate the people in your life!

Over all the project cost less than $10.00 but the look on my husbands face when he opened this present was priceless. Something that comes from the heart is always best.

Toddler Advent Calendar

Ok, so this isn't exactly a Christmas present but it's still part of my Christmas craft preparation.

My son goes through phases of what he likes to watch on t.v. I'm very much a person that can't sit in silence, I like having background noise going while we are playing or doing projects. And since he gets to pick what we watch I become very familiar with certain shows / movies.

Well for about a month straight we were watching A Very Monkey Christmas (Curious George). This led to two things being decided. One, we are going to pick out a real tree this year, because that's what George and the man in the yellow hat did. And two, he needed a countdown chart, because George got one. Last year we bought our son his own smaller tree to put his little ornaments on (he left the big one alone because he had his own, yay for last minute 'pick this up on your way home'). So I figured, hey we should get him an advent calendar with ornaments so he cause decorate his tree! It can't be that hard ...

Well I did my normal research on Amazon and the like. Decided I didn't like the look, functionality or price of any of the ones on there. Plus I knew it had to be 3 year old proof. Then I turned to Pinterest and started doing research there.

After some thinking and planning and multiple "inspiration" pins, I came up with this.

 

Little man checking out the finished backdrop.

And here are the ornaments I made.

I tried to choose things that he likes, as well as one to represent Mommy and one for Daddy. Plus one thing I decided to do was only make 24 and buy the last one. That cost more then the whole project! The reasoning for that ... we are a family addicted to Christmas ornaments ... there I admit it. My thought process is, once he is on his own *sob* (kids grow up too fast) he will have a nice collection already started. So he will get a new one every year. Just like I pick out ... 'one' every year for myself and my husband gets one also. This year is a Curious George one.

So left to right and down there's: red mitt, snow man, Christmas tree, blue snowflake, gingerbread house, monkey (for my little monkey), blue present, snow globe, reindeer, Totoro (From my neighbor Totoro), penguin, Christmas light, Santa's boot, Owl (for me), heart, star, acorn (to go with Totoro), Santa hat, cat, candy cane, bird, turtle (for Daddy), Mickey, guitar. And the bought one.

I pretty much just had to buy:

Felt sheets (I would recommend looking before buying. Hobby Lobby was 4 for $1.00 and Joann's ended up being about 3 for $1.00)
One bag of batting
Enough felt for doing the back drop, pockets and numbers.
Sequins (I found one multi-colored baggie was more than enough)
Clear beads for anchoring the sequins on for the detailing
Cross stitching / embroidery thread, you could use regular thread I assume but I liked the actual sewn look I got using two strands of the embroidery thread.
Craft glue that will adhere to felt
Ribbon or twine for hanging the ornaments.
Marker for doing rough outlines before cutting out your shapes
And any little decorations you want for jazzing up the backdrop
A dowel to hang it up
Oh and duh, scissors!

And most importantly, patience. This took me about two weeks of naps to get of the ornaments done and two days to get the back drop done. I cut out all of the numbers and letters, you can buy pre-cut ones but I wanted to do as much as possible myself.

Most things I already had, what I didn't I used coupons for.

Most ornaments where just two identical shapes cut out, one side got sequins (to reflect the Christmas tree lights!). Sewn 3/4 of the way around, filled a little bit with batting and then sewn up with the hanger sticking out ... and yes some of my ornaments will be hanging a bit sideways because I would get distracted talking to my husband and forget to put the hanger where I had planned for it to be.

Sorry for the lack of detailed pictures. I hadn't thought of posting this until I saw the reaction it got from the whole family.

Thanks for dropping by!

Wall Hanging Earring Holder

I started this blog / craft site a few months ago, and don'tcha know that's the exact moment that life got REALLY hectic. I've tried to take pictures of all of my gift projects as I have gone so I can post them when I finally get a chance.
Anyone with children can understand this. Children take a lot of time. As they should. It is our job as parents to spend that time with them and on them. But *little happy dance* the master is asleep ... for now ... LOL. Yes, in this house we know who rules the roost.

One of the first projects I worked on back in March / April for Christmas was a gift for my mother-in-law. She is an awesome lady that I am very lucky to have in my life. And as with everyone else that I can consider "my people" (you know the ones that you are most protective / attached to? I love everyone in my family but my main focus is on my household family, and my parents back in Canada.) I listen closely when they mention wants and needs and store it away in my over crowded brain to pull out another day.

One thing that my mother-in-law has been in need of for while (she started really complaining about her need for something right after Christmas last year! If she had started two weeks earlier I may not have had a chance to do this project.) was some way to store her earrings, the dangily ones.

Well like the good little amazon shopper I am I went on a search. I tried every way I could like of to word the search, moved on to the expensive stores and google and I couldn't find something that I thought she would love. Well one of my other little addictions is Pinterest. After snooping for awhile I took a few different ideas I had found, combined them in my head, and headed to the craft store.

Please excuse the quality of the pictures. I was using my old phones camera.

Wall Hanging Earring Holder

Materials I used: Everything was from Hobby Lobby and I used 40% off coupons, and had my husband go though and pay for another part of it using his own coupon. Coupons = awesomesauce.

Cross stitching hoop (just a plain wooden one)
Lace (I got enough cut so that I would have some left over for another project.)
A hair clip with a purple flower on it (back with the ribbons in the fabric section)
Paint (I splurged and got some fancy dancy Martha Stewart metallic purple paint for this)
Hot glue gun and glue sticks
Scissors

I choose to paint my frame unlike some samples I saw because I wanted something that looked pulled together and also to cover any imperfections on the cross stitching hoop.

Step One: Paint the hoop while it is apart so you can get some paint in the crack where the two pieces come together so you don't have wood showing through.

Step Two: Lay the outer half of the hoop down on a surface that is clean and won't have anything that will snag the lace.

Step Three: Lay the lace on top of the frame with the pattern how you want it. (I wanted the roses to look like they were going up.

Step Four: Place the inner hoop inside the outer hoop and tighten slightly. As you are tightening, gently pull the lace back toward you so it pulls taunt on the front of the frame. But be careful not to pull too hard, you don't want to rip it. Once you are happy with the tightness of the lace tighten the frame the rest of the way. Cut away the excess lace.

Step Five: (Optional) I decided to run a bit of hot glue all around the back of the frame where the lace was showing to A) secure the lace so it would snag and it would stay in place and B) so when the frame is on the wall the wood wouldn't be rubbing on the paint of the wall). Careful this part can get pretty hot, I burnt my fingers multiple times ... but that could be because I wanted my hot glue beading to be more flat and I messed with it.

Step Six: Place bow, flower, whatever decoration you liked on the front of the frame where the tightening screw is (That tightening screw is what you are going to use to hang it on the wall on a nail!) and hot glue that flower to the FRAME, not the screw.

And viola! All done. Really simple and I think she will love it. Choose colors that she would love and a style that will match her perfectly.

Here are a couple of pictures that I took, not much, this was before I realized I should take pictures of each step.