Another crafty afternoon

So I was inspired by my friend Joy to finally make some of the big flower hair clips that are so popular right now. Here is her craft blog tutorial. Thanks Joy! I had some leftover bright pink daisies, so I started with those and that quickly spiraled out of control and I went through my scrapbooking supplies and kept going. I had gotten a lot of flower petals from an online swap a few years ago and a lot of the flowers are just too big for my taste in scrapbooking. However, they were perfect for hairclips! I also had some alligator clips that were already covered in ribbon from a huge lot of hairclips I purchased at a discount a couple years ago. The flowers that were on them kept coming off and I just saved the clips. I also already had the little bits of bling for the centers. So in the end, 15 hair clips - $0.00, cute girls - priceless.

I'm a bit of a control freak, and I didn't want these to just get shoved in the bathroom drawer with all the other hair clips, so I rigged up a ribbon clip to hang in my scraproom where I can control who wears them and when. I just tied a pink fabric sash/belt thing onto a keyring (both laying on my craft table) and hung it on a push pin stuck into the wall.

While I was in a crafty mood and cleaning off my table I ran across a couple of projects that needed some spray paint. The large letter F was originally white and the smaller one pink. They are now black with some green accents to go in Lissy's Parisian themed room (I'll post more pictures of her room soon). The little wooden birdie basket was a country blue color. My hubby kindly removed the handle and taped off the birds for me several months ago. The black is more versatile for me and it is now on my buffet holding valentine boxes ready to go to school.
And these are the beautiful flowers Lydia and Evie made me for my birthday. My favorite color - yellow.

Miscellaneous crafty stuff

While I had my glue gun out the other night working on my glitter hearts, I also decided to fix this little donkey. He is from a resin nativity set that I got a few years ago for the girls, and his poor little ears broke off. A couple snips of felt, a little hot glue, and he has new ears. They're not as good as the original ears, but he's happy. I also glued some pieces of felt onto the bottom of some wooden boxes that have been scratching up my bookcases. Easy fix. By the way, can you tell who just had to jump in the picture? Silly girl.
For family home evening on Monday we worked on valentines. Lydia had to make a box and wanted me to get a picture. My girls love to glue paper onto boxes! My favorite parts are the stand up pipe-cleaner heart and the curly cues on the side. Lydia continued to make hearts out of her scraps after she had labeled all her valentines. Evelyn also got all of her valentines labeled. I have seen a ton of cute homemade valentines out there, but when I can get a box for 35 cents or less on clearance, that's what I'm doing.

Valentine Decorations and Crafts

So, when I went to put up some Valentine decorations, I realized I didn't have many. A trip to Dollar Tree was in order. I found some glittery heart picks and a really cool black picture frame, which really isn't valentiney, but I liked it. I should go get some more and paint them holiday colors....

Anyway, I took four of the glittery heart picks and stuck them in my houseplants. Creative, I know. The other three I cut the pick part off of and glued a twine loop on the back so they could hang on my welcome sign in my entryway. So easy!
I googled "free vintage valentine images" and printed off a picture to go in my black frame. It says, "And there will be one long Spoontime, Dearie." Who doesn't love a good spoon time? Also so easy!
The rest was stuff I had in my box. Last year at Albertsons they had some Valentine stuff 90 percent off! So, that is where I got the cute little pink votive cups and phrases. The heart-shaped box of chocolates was also 90 percent off. The chocolates didn't last long, but the box was too cute to throw away. It has a beaded texture and is really quite pretty.
The really old stuff was this little wall hanging by the front door and a heart garland that goes over our living room entry and dining room window.
And this welcome heart that I think I made at a BSU student ward homemaking night.

Crafty Attack

So I've been in a crafty mood lately, but here is what my craft table looked like - not conducive to crafting. That's my box of sewing supplies still out from the day I mended and made the butterfly cape. I started sorting it and then had to go make dinner or something trivial like that. Eventually, I started cleaning it off, and it is still messy, but I just decided to work on stuff as I excavated. Some of the projects were so easy I don't know why I haven't done them earlier. Besides this table, I have a box of full of "projects" on the floor as well. I've been pulling a few things out of there too. I'm trying to do a little every day and I'll share with you, if you don't mind.

Recipe Blog

I've been adding some recipes to our family recipe blog at the request of my sis-in-law. Just thought I'd let y'all know in case you need to get out of a rut. Some of the recipes we haven't had in awhile - but they're "keepers" in our book. The link is over on the right in the side bar - It's a Keeper recipe blog. Enjoy!

I Like Pie?

So, when a friend commented that her pre-adolescent was also fond of this random phrase, I thought, "Am I missing something?" So I Googled it. Apparently it is quite the popular random phrase. See this post at Urban Dictionary. I still don't get it though..... Anyone else have a clue? I guess I'm getting old.

"That **** Donna Reed"

For my fellow Gilmore Girl fans out there - you'll get the reference ;)

Yesterday was my Donna Reed day. After volunteering in Lydia's classroom I came home and got all domestic (okay after I watched my recorded "What Not to Wear" and a little Rachel Ray). First I got out my sewing machine and did some mending. I got everything in my pile done except for Lydia's dance costume pants - I need brown thread for that. That means I fixed 1 sheet, 2 pairs of girl's jeans, 1 pair of girl's slacks, 2 sweaters, 1 pair of suit pants, 1 men's shirt and 1 girl's shirt.

Then, since we were having soup-from-a-can for dinner, I decided to make some rolls. I used my mom's Madge Rich Rolls recipe - so really, I guess it's Madge Rich's recipe. I'm pretty sure this is the first time in my married life that I have ever made rolls from scratch. No Rhode's rolls for me this time. They turned out yummy and out of the 2 dozen I made - two survived the meal.

While the dough was rising I decided to make a butterfly costume that I have had for YEARS (so long I can't even remember when I bought it - maybe in Provo?). I have the sewing machine out, so why not? It is just a fleece panel, so was actually quite simple. I couln't find the little brochure I had with the directions, so I just made it up - which made it even simpler maybe since I didn't stress about all the embellishing. This is the first time I have ever appliqued anything and I'm excited to say it was pretty easy - of course, they were just circles - but I could maybe do that again. They girls were excited to try it on and are now debating on who gets to be a butterfly for Halloween.
Lydia the butterfly.Evelyn the butterfly.