DIY Headband Holder

You know that song “Little Girls” that Miss Hannigan sings in the musical ‘Annie’? Sometimes I find myself humming that song. Having 3 girls, our house is covered in little girl things. I step on a hair clippy at least 10 times a week. Moms of boys think Legos hurt?! I stepped on my share of legos when I was younger. Legos got nothin’ on those little claw-shaped hair clips. OUCH! Along with those hair clips, we have about 10 bajillion hair bows and headbands. The tiny drawer in the bathroom can’t hold them all. Headbands were breaking and bows were getting smashed. I know a hair bow board will solve the smashed hair bow problem. I’m going to take care of that soon. I needed to figure out how to get all those headbands in one place.

This is the answer:

An oatmeal canister is the perfect size to put headbands around!

I trimmed two pieces of scrapbook paper to fit around the can and hot glued them.

Then, I hot glued a ribbon down each side where the paper overlapped so no edges were showing.

Last, I glued a cardboard circle that is about an inch wider than the base of the canister to the bottom.

Middle A insists on wearing a headband every single day, so it’s great having them all right there where she can choose which one she wants. It’s also handy for teaching her to put them where they belong. She is doing a great job keeping up with her headbands since they’re all displayed on her dresser now. 

Here are Middle A’s headbands on her headband holder:

Halloween Craft: Felt Magnets & Brooches

A guest post by Sage Adderley.

My family loves Halloween. We spend weeks talking about what costumes we will put together, we carve pumpkins, and love to make things to hang up around the house to set the spooky mood.

This year, we decided to make some easy felt crafts. They were definitely a kid-friendly activity. We actually didn’t have to purchase any of the supplies, everything we used was already in our craft collection!

I found some magnets and pinbacks on clearance at our local craft store and finally put them to good use!

Supplies:

Squares of felt in various colors

Glue gun

Googly eyes in different sizes

Sharpie

Glitter pens

Scissors

Directions

We simply cut Halloween-themed shapes like pumpkins, witch’s hat, a witch on a broomstick, a bat, and spider from the felt squares. We drew the outlines on the felt with a sharpie, but you can use stencils if you’d like.

There are no rules when it comes to this craft! Have fun and let the kids use their imagination. We glued one large eye on the bat to make a Cyclops bat and found a stick outside to use as the broomstick for the witch.

After you decorate the felt image, allow it to dry thoroughly and then flip it over to glue either a magnet or pinback. Let it dry again and you are all done.

TIP: There are many free stencils online that you can download and print. Just search free Halloween stencils and see what you come up with.

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I met Sage six years ago. We have gotten to know each other over the last several years, and I'm lucky to be able to call her one of my best friends. She is a major inspiration to me, creatively and otherwise. She runs Sweet Candy Distro, and has a blog of her own called, 'my name is: Sage'.  She's a freelance writer and has an Etsy shop, which is also called, 'my name is: Sage'.  She recently started Sage’s Blog Tours, a tour of book reviews and promotions among numerous blogs, which I am honored to participate in.

Crafty Catch-up

The next two weeks will be mostly about cleaning and organizing, but I don't see why we can't have some crafty posts in between. 

I don't always make tutorials for the things that I create, but if any of you want to learn how I made or did something, please feel free to let me know in the comments section below. I'd be happy to either direct you to the tutorial that I used, or make one myself to share.

We've had a busy couple of weeks between Easter and family birthdays.
(BTW, I still have to get my pictures of us on Easter from my father-in-law. I have to remember to take my laptop to his house so I can upload them).

Princess Ava with Snow White & Cinderella

We went to a Chinese restaurant and tried out chopsticks!
Both of the girls were good at it!

I was also busy working on a hair clippy order for a friend. 

She wanted some Minnie Mouse clippies and some assorted ones as well. 

I think they turned out pretty cute. 

I tried to do different colors so they would match a few different outfits. 

I had already made them some headbands with removable clippies for family photos a few weeks ago, but I completely forgot to take pictures! 

These clips will clip right onto the headbands if they choose to wear them that way. 

Be sure to check in tomorrow morning for Day 2 of our 2-week clean-along! 

I have much more to share with you this week, so don't forget to follow me on Facebook! 

I'm a pretty crafty person. 

I love making things with my hands.

Sewing, crafting, building, cooking.

I just like creating things. 

It's getting harder and harder to sit down for long periods of time since I have 3 kiddos. It takes me forever to make things that should only take an hour or two, unless the kids are sleeping. 

Anyway, here are some things I've made lately. 

A couple of reversible headbands and a cute flower headband. 

I really think that I love those reversible headbands. They're super easy to make and you get two headbands in one. I made the green ones for my girls for St. Patty's Day.     

One of my close friends wants me to make her some of the flower bands to match her daughter's Matilda Jane clothes. I think they will be cute with that line. MJ is a very cute label. I just can't fork over the money for it, having 3 girls to dress! OUCH!

These are some prefold diapers I made. They're made with 2 layers of flannel and a strip of terry cloth in the middle. They're very easy to make. Little A was outgrowing the cotton prefolds I have, so I had to come up with something new. These work like a charm. They just stain like no other. I need to put up a clothes line so I can hang them out in the sun. 

Last is this khaki vest I made for Big A.

It is parent/teacher conference week, so of course it's also book fair week. 

They always hit you up for money when they know they have you  coming into the school. 

Anyway, there is a different theme for each day. The kids get to dress up in accordance with the theme. 

Today is Tacky Tourist day. Big A isn't one to look tacky when she's supposed to.  She evidently has no problem looking tacky any other day of the week, but not on the day she's supposed to. So she went to school all matchy matchy, but I think she looks tourist-y enough. Right?

I made the vest out of an old pair of khaki pants I found on the shelf in my closet. There are pockets on the front, but you can't really see them in the picture. It only took me a couple of hours to make (in between breastfeeding and changing diapers) so it was relatively simple. Big A really liked it, so that's a win in my book!

Don't forget, there are only 3 days left to enter my giveaway!

A smile...

Once again I'm going to mention the addictive site that is Pinterest. It has inspired me to decorate my house. I am in the process of adding more photos to the walls. I also want to add canvases with inspirational quotes or nice sayings on them. 

We have lived in this house for three and a half years but decoration is minimal. I want it to feel lived in and full of love. 

Speaking of love, D and I need to have some photos taken of just the two of us to hang in our bedroom. There are no photos of the kids in there. The rest of the house has pictures of our whole family or pictures with only the kids in them. The master bedroom is for us. No, this doesn't mean I don't love my kids. It means I want a space exclusively for celebrating the love that my husband and I have for each other. 

Soo....getting back on track here. 

I made this quick canvas to hang in Big A's bathroom. She's getting to an age where the little girls can be meaner than piranhas in a tank full of fresh meat. I want her to always be confident. I think this will be a good reminder. 

I just used sharpies to do this one. Since the color scheme in her bathroom is black, white & red, I figured a simple black & white would do. 

It's not perfect, but it's for a 7 year-old. I think it will do. 

Monogram Canvases

 I made a lot of our Christmas gifts homemade this year. I thought I would share one with you. I made this craft for my sister-in-law (here's her blog: Entirely Elizabeth) I won't post a tutorial because it's pretty simple: you paint.  I used tape to create the straight lines. I got the inspiration from these two pictures that she pinned on her Pinterest board: 

She liked the monogram canvasses in this one.

 She liked the colors in this one. 

So, I combined the two ideas and came up with this. She actually hung them in her bedroom, so I'm assuming she likes them. Haha!

 I will say that I actually went to Home Depot and bought the little sample cans of Behr Premium paint to do this because it only cost $2.99 for each color. I am positive I would have spent that much on the paint I would have gotten at the craft store. Plus, this project used so little paint that Elizabeth has it now to paint anything she finds that she may want to coordinate with these canvasses.

I'll post more craftiness in a day or two. For now, I need to start getting myself and my girls ready for church! Happy Sunday!

Easy DIY Halloween Decorations

This year, I have decided that I'm decorating for the holidays. I mean, REALLY decorating for the holidays. I want our home to feel festive--starting with Halloween! The only problem is, we don't have a never-ending supply of money, so I have to find cheap or free ways to decorate our home. These happened to be free since I already had the supplies lying around the house. 

First, we have spooky ghosts and bats! We made about 15 of these to hang around the house. 

I went online and found a free coloring sheet with the kind of bat & ghost I wanted. I had to adjust the size a little bit to make them larger. 

I used a heavy piece of cardboard (not the corrugated kind) to cut them out of. 

We painted them with washable paint. 

I went back after the kids were done and added a second coat of paint to make them look a little bit darker. 

When they were done drying, I added faces to the ghosts with a sharpie. 

I used an awl and poked a small hole in the top of each one and tied a piece of fishing line to them so we could hang them. 

We hung them in the entryway, living room, hallway & kitchen! 

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Halloween Trees

You can use just about anything to make these and you can make them for any holiday! 

For these, you will need scissors, tissue paper, cardstock, clear tape, and hot glue. 

We'll start with this one:

First, make your cone out of cardstock. 

Tape it in place. 

I just rolled it into a cone shape and trimmed the bottom so it would sit upright. 

Next, I cut the tissue paper into lots of squares. They were about 1"x 1".

Scrunch them up and glue them around the bottom of the cone. 

You can glue them in whatever pattern you like. 

You'll have to excuse the mess....I'm a multi-tasker. 

Keep going up the cone. Glue the tissue paper very closely together.

Try not to let the paper underneath show.

Progress! Keep going....

Viola! Finished!

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Now on to the next Halloween Tree!

Make a cone out of cardstock again. 

This time, cut your tissue paper into strips and twist them. 

You're going to start with a 'guide' strip. Glue on your strip in whatever design you want. I went with a crazy random swirl. You want it to go all the way around and from top to bottom. This is going to be the strip you use to guide you as you glue on more. You may have to use more than just one piece of tissue paper, depending on how long you cut each strip. 

Here's my 'guide strip'. 

Notice how it starts on one side and you can see it goes all the way around.

Next, you're going to glue your orange strip right next to it. Follow your guide strip as you glue. 

Keep the pattern going...black, orange, black, orange.

Progress! Keep going!

Keep going until the whole thing is filled up!

Finished!

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Here is a picture of our Halloween trees and some ghosts and a bat decorating our mantle.