Craft Overload!

I have pretty much been on craft overload and so thankful for it! I was so upset about not being able to buy much for Christmas being a one income family of 5 now. I've been looking up so many blogs of people who do these great crafts and spend almost nothing to make them! I almost could not believe it! There is no way this person made this amazing thing using items from the Dollar Store. No way...but they did!

I purchased this beautiful wood frame from Michael's for $1. I decided it would be my first project and I wanted to make it for my dad's birthday gift. He loves camping so I wanted to make him a frame that would had some camping accents on it. Here's what I started with although this is a picture with the edges already painted green. (Special thanks to Ian's paints he already had in his room!)

Before...

After!

All I had to purchase was a pack of embellishments from Michael's for about $4, I already had the ribbon and scrapbook paper, and I did purchase my very first bottle of Modge Podge. I could marry this stuff I love it so much now! LOL The frame was my very first project so please don't judge too harshly. (o;

Here's another project I just finished yesterday and was absolutely bubbling over about. I took a very nice (in theory) mirror from the Dollar Store again for $1! That's all I had to spend on this one. I had the ribbon, hot glue gun, Modge Podge, alphabet sticker letters, scrapbook paper, and the flower I snagged from the girls room. They won't miss it!

Before...

After!

I am so proud of how this on turned out. I made it for my niece who is super girlie, girlie and loves to play dress up, put on lip gloss, & do her hair. She doesn't have a mirror in her bedroom and I thought this would be a great present for Christmas for her.

I have another project I am in the middle of for Christmas. It's a wooden sign that says 'Love'. It was completely unfinished and I did get to pick the color scrapbook paper to Modge Podge onto the letters. I just need to paint the rest brown to match the 'E' and then add some special touches. I should have painted first THEN did the scrapbook letters but my impatient nature needed to see what it was going to look like and just HAD to start something on it. Obviously I need to run out to get a little thing of paint or that would have been done first like it should have. I am pretty precise with my painting skills so hopefully it will not get on the front of the letters.

Love sign in process

How blessed am I that God gave me this passion for creating things and set me up to be able to do this. I was always creative but never thought I would be able to do anything with that side of me in my life. I will do this every year for Christmas from now on. One item thoughtfully made with that person's tastes (hopefully) in mind! I love it.

Now I just need to get better with my camera skills! These pictures are not the best and I apologize. That's another thing I intend to work on getting better with. I might need to bust out the good camera now. I just wish it was digital and not film. Hmmm...

Playing Catch Up

So...there has been so much going on that I haven't even found the time to write about it! Here's a quick recap of what has been going on since the last post.

We celebrated our oldest child's birthday. Ian turned 6 and I am still in a bit of denial that I actually have a 'little' boy who is six years old already. How can this be?! Time really does fly. He is just so intelligent, energetic, and up to try anything. He had requested a pirate theme and a pirate theme he got. A pirate theme right before Halloween...seriously it was like throwing me an easy pitch. Ok...I am not into the baseball analogies. Anyway it was easy peasy! The hubby made a pirate ship out of a large furniture box a very wonderful family member got and dropped off for us. They did games and Ian even told me he wants another pirate birthday next year.

Ian doing his best pirate snarl. ARRGH!!!!

We also celebrated our middle child's birthday. Ava turned 3 years old right before Thanksgiving. She told me while eating her birthday breakfast that she is a real princess now. Apparently that's the threshold. Hit three years old and you can officially become a princess. Aw...Ava you were always our little princess. When I had Ava I said "Nothing pink and definitely no Disney Princesses on anything!" Yeah...she had different plans. She is pink everything and just has to have everything princess she can. Oh boy! At least it was gradual so I could warm up to the idea of so much pink and so much girlie!

Little Miss Ava

We also had Thanksgiving. What a wonderful time to be thankful to God for all the blessings in our lives that He has given us. I love getting together with family in the warmth of our home. I love having a holiday that we do here at our home so we don't even have to go out into the cold once that day. Yay! I love cooking so this is my all time favorite holiday to do here.

The hubby with our turkey. No this is not fully cooked. It came out after searing at 500 degrees for 30 minutes. He does a great job on the turkey!

I also went out Black Friday shopping. Oh my! It was only my second time out on this crazy adventure. The main reason I wanted to attempt getting up at 2:45 am to leave the house at 3:30 and make it to Target that early was to have fun with my sister-in-law and her twin sisters. You think that's crazy, right? Waking up at that hour when I woke up the day before at 4 am to start the turkey in it's fabulous brine. (Thank you by the way, Alton Brown, for making the best turkey recipe EVER! This was our third year and I don't know if I will ever make another recipe it's that good.) Well my sister-in-law and her sisters are hysterical. Not just funny mind you but hysterical. I had the best time and I even got a few things. I can't wait for Christmas! I got home exhausted that day only to have the hubby ready to start taking down Autumn decorations and put up the Christmas ones. Now I can't wait to get our Christmas tree this weekend. The kids are super excited.

Anyway...that's been our crazy couple of months. Now my brain has moved on and been on complete overload on craft projects for Christmas presents but more on that in the next post!