My New Laminator!!

For Christmas my parents gave me this laminator! I really wanted one for my recipes, but in using it today I've decided this is my long lost craft best friend!! I not only laminated all the favorite recipes that I use all the time, but I. . .

made luggage tags for an upcoming trip!

Made a "Need" refrigerator thing for all those other things I need when we go to the grocery store! (This has been on my "to do" list for a while, but haven't come up with a way to make one. This made it 1000 times easier and way less expensive!!)

Laminated my recipes!

And laminated my pictures for teaching songs in Primary!

I have already loved this, and can't wait to come up with more this laminate! I'm going laminating crazy!!

Thanks Mom and Dad!!

Table Tent / Fort

For Christmas, my SIL (Melissa - who is also an author on this blog) and I made table tents for our kiddos. We spent a week in August starting our projects together, and then motivated ourselves in the next few months to finish in time for Christmas.

The table tent for my little guy is made out of cotton, with some felt and velcro attachments. It fits easily over a standard card table.

Inspiration mainly came from Sew Much Ado and Homemade by Jill; but I made things up as I went.

Welcome to Tent #19! The door easily ties up and down.



Here's the view from the top. Everything is lined. After sewing all the sides together, I sewed them all to the top.


Here's a side vinyl window. I sewed biased tape to both the outside and inside panels. The window covering ties up just like the door.


On the other side is a vinyl peep hole - the cover is on the inside (keep scrolling to see a picture).


The back of the tent has a forest made of felt, equipped with velcro animals! The animals are a huge hit with my little guy.


On the inside is a felt campfire with velcro attachments for the inside flame, wood log, and marshmallow sticks. Next to the vinyl window are a few pockets for storing all of my little guy's important camping gear.


Here's the peep hole cover from the inside. To the side of the cover is a vinyl picture frame, ready for me to slip a family photo inside!




My little guy LOVED this fort...it was a huge hit on Christmas morning! Be sure to stay tuned to see how Melissa's table tent turned out - I can't wait to see the finished project!

Dog Room Flooring

For Link for Christmas we bought him a new room. He's grown since we adopted him and he was in need of some bigger digs! We decided to get him a nice big crate (he jumps high so we couldn't get him a gate). I wanted to make a nice floor covering for him so it would fill more like home!So I bought a yard of fleece and cut a piece 3'x4'. Then I simply sewed up the sides and sewed a big piece of velcro on one the 3' sides. It was a super simple and I'm happy with how it looks!

And I think Link is happy with how much room he has now!

apron for a swap

I finished up this apron a couple weeks ago for a swap I did with some friends. Loved the pattern and the girl wanted bright colors, so I used this cute fabric I found in town at the quilt shop. The ruffle was fun to do. Instead of using thread to pull the ruffle, the pattern said to sew over dental floss, then pull the floss - it was great, because it didn't break like thread does!

Halloween Decor-Spider

This was actually not my idea. And I didn't even make it, but my cute friend Janie said that I could post it on here because I thought it was such a cute idea! She had a broken umbrella and decided to make a spider out of it. She bought some fleece in the remnants section and used some fiber fill.

For the body she cut a big circle, cut a scissor size cut where each of the legs were, then stuffed the top with fiber fill and hot glued it all into a ball.

For the head she cut a circle and stuffed it with fiber fill and then sewed the ball shut.

Here's her super cute cat!!

Then she hot glued the head to the body. With the fleece she had to use quite a bit of glue, but after holding it for a minute or two it held pretty good.

She bought some googly eyes from Hobby Lobby and hot glued them onto the head. It was a pretty simple project, but I think it turned out awesome! I hate spiders, but for a Halloween decoration I think it's such a great idea and just goes to show that you can make anything out of anything!

Thanks Janie for letting me share this!

Candy Corn Wreath

When I received the October Woman's Day Magazine in the mail, it had a candy corn wreath on the front cover and I knew immediately that I HAD to make it!! This could also be titled the Patience Wreath! It took a lot of patience, 2 bags of candy corns, and a few blisters to make this! For those of you who have not seen the magazine, this is what I did:

First, you get a styrofoam wreath. The instructions said to cover it with black Duct Tape. I did not have black on hand, but I had silver and black spray paint. So I covered it first and then sprayed it.

After the paint dries, pop in your favorite movie (or two) and glue, and glue, and glue!

When that's all dry, wrap some black ribbon around it, hang it up and enjoy!

Candy Corn Decoration

Items Needed:
Styrofoam Topiary
Clay pot
Black spray paint
candy corn
hot glue gun
cute ribbon

1. Spray paint pot and topiary

2. Hot glue the candy corn to the ball parts. (I was going to do the whole thing pointy, but it took me forever. So I did the lower one with the candy corn on the side. It was quite a bit faster.)

3. Hot glue the topiary sides to the pot.

4. Fill the pot to the top with candy corn.

5. Tie some cute ribbon on however you'd like!

I don't know how well it's going to last for next year. I might try spraying it with some kind of lacquer, but I guess we'll see. If it doesn't last. . .it was a lot of work and will kind of annoy me. . .but it is cute, so I'll enjoy it for as long as I can!!