"Born to be a King" Board

We have a big window in our kitchen with a lot of wall space above it that looked bare to me for a long time. I tend to be indecisive, so trying to figure out what quote or piece of art should hang above the window was not working out so well. I eventually decided that I didn't need to be decisive, I could have my husband cut some large boards for me and make different quote boards for different holidays or seasons that I could change often! The very first board we finished was our Christmas board, so it's only fitting that it's the first one we share here!

Ever since I became a mom, I've been amazed by Mary and the faith and wonder she must have felt, bearing a child who would become the King of all men. Though He began His life as a tiny baby, He was born to be great, and we all owe Him a debt that can never be repaid. Christmas is truly a time to celebrate His birth and life, and the season is magical because of it. 

"Christ in Christmas" Board

A few years ago (before Pinterest) I saw a Christmas board that had phrases pertaining to the Christmas season for each letter of the word Christmas. I loved the idea at the time, but Kim and I thought that the phrases would be even better if they had to do with Christ instead of just general Christmas themes. The two of us brainstormed and came up with phrases that we were satisfied with, then made vinyls of our idea so that we could put together some boards with the rest of the girls in our family at Thanksgiving that year. It's still one of our favorite holiday decorations, so we thought it was worth sharing!

Our boards were 20" tall and 15" wide. Kim painted hers cream and then aged it a little with some stain that she brushed on and then wiped off. I painted mine Metallic Taupe from Plaid FolkArt paints. It's a quick and easy project that is a great reminder of what the Christmas season is really about!

Disney Inspired Felt Christmas Tree

I saw some adorable kid-sized felt Christmas trees, like this one from Johnny in a Dress, and knew that we needed one for our house. What kid wouldn't want their own tree to decorate, un-decorate and decorate again? And felt tree ornaments mean no broken glass that could hurt little feet. It is a well-known fact that we are huge Disney fans in our house, so it was only fitting that our felt tree had some obvious Disney influences!

The project turned out to be quite a bit bigger than I was expecting! Luckily, my husband is much better at drawing and dimensions than I am, so the ideas I had in my head were able to slowly come to life in felt. The ornaments were inspired by tree ornaments and antenna balls made by Disney, and the presents we just tried to make to fit the personality of the characters that inspired them.

We bought about a yard of green felt, though I think we could have gotten away with less. We spent a little more to get the glittery felt rather than the standard dark green. I just thought the glitter helped the tree look like it already had Christmas lights on it or something...

My husband helped me get everything figured out on paper before we started cutting anything for the ornaments...

We made templates...

And cut out lots of felt pieces:

Felt sticks to felt, so we don't have to glue the ornaments to the tree or add anything to the back of the ornaments to stick to the tree, but we did use hot glue to keep the pieces of the ornaments together. It was so fun to see the ornaments come together! And no Christmas tree feels quite complete without a few presents sitting underneath!

Twenty character ornaments, a star, and four presents later, we have our adorable Disney inspired felt Christmas tree! Our kids absolutely love it and it definitely makes the big project seem worth it now that it has already provided hours of enjoyment for our kids!

Linking up to: 

"The Magic of Christmas" Glass Block

A couple of years ago we made a Christmas glass block that we absolutely loved. It is really easy to make, so we thought we would share really quickly how we put ours together.

Lowes had a sale going on their pre-drilled glass blocks awhile back, so we picked up quite a few at the time, knowing how much we love glass block projects! If you can get them on sale, pre-drilled is definitely the way to go! We like to start with the clear version (with no texture), and if we want a frosted look, we just spray it with a little frosted glass spray paint like the kind shown below.

We sprayed our block, waited for it to dry, then applied our vinyl. We've seen this quote around quite a bit on vinyl websites, but we wanted to change the fonts up a bit so we made our own version. Then we put a small set of white lights inside and tied a pretty bow around the block! We love how it looks, whether it's daytime and the lights are off...

...or nighttime and the block is all lit up. So simple, but so pretty!

{Thanksgiving Fun} Pilgrim Hats for Thanksgiving Games

I don't know about you guys, but Thanksgiving goes a lot smoother at our family get-togethers if we have some fun games planned for the kids. We made a larger version of our little pilgrim hat treat boxes to use in a few fun games to play while the turkey is in the oven. These pilgrim hats made from disposable plastic bowls are perfect for kids because they are sturdy enough to make it through a day of play.

Supplies

Disposable bowls (32 oz or even a little larger)
Black spray paint
Yellow sticky back foam sheet(s)
White grosgrain ribbon (somewhere around 7/8")
Scissors
Exacto Knife
Glue dots or double-sided tape

We didn't show a step-by-step tutorial this time, since it is basically the same process as the pilgrim hat treat boxes we made (you can find that tutorial here), with just a couple of differences. We used a larger size disposable bowl for the game hats, we think it's best to use the 32 oz disposable bowls (may say 4 cups or 1 quart). They may not be quite big enough for all kids to wear, but they work great for the purposes of our games. 

There are 19 grandkids in our family and we didn't want to hand-paint each one of the bigger bowls, so we went with the spray paint option. Since we weren't planning on putting any real food into the hats we went ahead and spray painted the inside of the hats with black spray paint. That made it a little easier to put the ribbon and buckle on the exterior of the hat without scratching or peeling any of the paint off, since the spray paint does not adhere to the plastic quite as well as the craft paint. We still had some scratching of the paint occur throughout the course of our games, but we figured we can do a quick touch-up if needed each year when we bring the hats back out.

The rest of the process is the same as for the little treat boxes. You just measure the ribbon to go around the bowl (we used a 7/8" grosgrain ribbon) and attach it with double-sided tape or adhesive dots. Next, cut out a buckle shape in your sticky back foam sheet (we used a regular yellow this time). The size of the buckle really depends on the size of your bowl, so you may want to cut out a buckle shape in paper first so you are certain what size you want to cut your foam. We typically like to cut the buckle into a square three times the size of the ribbon we are using, so that when we place the buckle over the ribbon, there is an equal amount of buckle on either side of the ribbon. Next, use an Exacto knife to cut out a square in the center of your foam buckle, in this case we cut out a 7/8" square. When you have the buckle cut out, peel off the back and stick the buckle on top of the ribbon. We like to place the sticky foam buckle so that the seam where the ribbon meets is hidden. 

And that's it! Pilgrim hats ready for Thanksgiving day games! Stayed tuned for game details!

{Thanksgiving Fun} Pilgrim Hat Treat Boxes

It's always fun to give friends and neighbors a little treat around holiday times, so we came up with this cute little pilgrim hat treat box to share this year. The idea was actually sparked by some leprechaun hat party favors we saw awhile back on a Canadian website (you can find that tutorial here). We thought the idea was cute enough for a pilgrim hat version, though we thought we would make our containers quite a bit smaller. Filling up those big bowls can take quite a few treats!

Supplies
Small disposable bowls (we used Glad 4oz containers with lids)
Black craft paint
Gold sticky backed foam sheet
1/4" white ribbon (ours had some texture to it)
Small foam brush
Scissors
Exacto knife
Glue dots or double-sided tape
Fall Hershey Kisses or another favorite treat

The 4oz containers can actually hold quite a few Kisses or other small treats.

We chose to use craft paint instead of spray paint for a couple of different reasons. We felt like we would have a little more control with craft paint, and since we knew we meant to use these little containers to hold treats, we wanted to make sure we didn't get paint anywhere we didn't want to (like anywhere food might end up touching). We also thought the more textured look we could get out of the craft paint might make the hats look a little more fun. 

The hardest part of painting the hats was getting the paint into the little crevices in the bowl and lid. We wanted to keep the paint out of the inside of the container and the off the inside of the lid, so we used the tip of our small foam brush to squeeze the paint down into the little crevice around the bowl lip. 

After the inside of the lip was filled, we dabbed the rest of the container and lid with paint, taking care to keep the texture even. I think our first container took three coats but we were down to two coats by the second or third container as we got a little better at it. 

While we were waiting for our little hats to dry, we cut out our ribbon. The length of your ribbon is really going to depend on the size of the container you get, so just make sure that your ribbon wraps all the way around your container before you cut it. We attached the ribbon to the painted container with a glue dot, but double-sided tape would work as well. The foam buckle has a sticky back so it will actually help hold the ribbon in place, but we found it easier to work with such a small ribbon if it was secured in place a little better to begin with. 

Foam sticky back sheets come in a lot of different colors, but we thought the gold was especially fun for the buckle.

Since our ribbon was 1/4" wide, we started by cutting out a 3/4" square, so we could have an equal width of buckle on either side of the ribbon. We used an exacto knife to cut out a 1/4" square in the center of the 3/4" gold foam square. Then we removed the backing and placed the buckle on the container so that it would cover the seam where the ribbon met. 

That's it! Just add some tasty little treats and you are ready to go! 

If you really wanted to, you could make a bigger version and fill it with a stack of cookies or something. We'll leave those decisions to you! 

Tomorrow we are sharing a large version to use in some Thanksgiving day games so be sure to check them out!

Black Feather Halloween Wreath

When we shared our spooky mantel the other day, it included a black feather wreath that we had made. It really was such a simple a wreath to put together that we thought we should share with you just how we did it. We don't have pictures of the whole process, but the process is simple enough that it really shouldn't be an issue. 

Black Feather Halloween Wreath

Supplies

Styrofoam Wreath

Black fabric

Black Feather Boa

Decorative Holiday Picks (we think that's what they are called)

We love Joann Fabrics because they are the best in regards to allowing coupons from their competitors. We were able to get a styrofoam wreath and a black feather boa using 40% off coupons, hurray! We bought the smallest feather boa they had because we really did not want to spend a lot, but you can always splurge and get a bigger one! We knew we had a way to work around the fact that ours was small, but we'll get to that. We also picked up the decorative picks at Joann. The spiders came from the Halloween section, but the silver stars and purple spirals actually came from the Christmas section! That's a little tip we've discovered over the years, if you are willing to look at things a little differently, it's amazing how many different ways you can use them!

Okay, now to get down to assembling the wreath! 

Step 1: We already had some black fabric scraps, so we tore it into strips (about 1" wide) and just wrapped it around the wreath, securing the fabric with straight pins. That way you don't have to worry about white styrofoam wreath peeking out between the feathers. That's also what allowed us to get away with a smaller boa. 

Step 2: The boa was attached in the same way, just wrapped around the wreath and attached with straight pins. It's a much less stressful way to go about it then using hot glue or something similar, because it's much easier to adjust the boa until you get just the look you want. 

Step 3: Last of all, we jabbed those little decorative picks right into the styrofoam and bent them until we got just the look we liked. 

Simple right? If you decide to put one together we would love to see it!

{Lil' Frankie Stein}

We love all of the glass block projects out there, and while we have vinyl cutters, we also think it's nice to have projects that don't depend on everyone else having one. This cute Lil' Frankie Stein is made without using any vinyl at all. We love our goofy little guy and hope some of you get a kick out of him too! 

{Supplies}

Mod Podge {both gloss and sparkle}

glass block {with pre-drilled hole}

Lil' Frankie pattern {download here}

green paper

black paper {card stock will work, but it is harder to use, it's not flexible.}

sponge brush

scissors

grey craft paint

spray varnish

light set: green or clear {I found green at Walgreens for $3.99.}

cork “bolts” {for side of his head, NOT pictured, I hadn’t gotten to JoAnn's or Michaels to buy some.}

strong adhesive {to attach the bolts}

freezer paper: optional {it made a great work surface while I was creating... the project didn’t get glued to my working surface. And it cleaned up nicely!}

PDF of Instructions w/ Pattern {download here}

1. Print pattern and trace onto black paper and cut out black shapes - set aside for later. {side note- all I had was black card stock... probably could be found at craft store in the scrapbook section, but the paper would need to be completely black not white in the core of the sheet.}
2. Clean/dust the block and remove any adhesive from the label.
3. With the gloss Mod Podge, glue torn pieces of the green paper over the entire block, glueing only the backs down.
4. After green has had time to dry, {doesn’t take very long} mod podge the hair and face onto the block. After face is dry, finish the rest of his hair/head by using the same torn pieces method that you used with the green. I didn’t think to take a picture, but I applied his hair half -way down along the sides and about half-way down the back of his head, so all sides meet up nicely and look like a head of hair.
5. In between coats of mod podge, take a minute to paint the corks grey.
6. After all paper has been mod podged with the gloss formula, cover entire surface with the sparkle Mod Podge. I laid mine down face up and did the sides and top first. Then when the front was dry I turned him over and did his back.
7. Attach “bolt”s with adhesive.
8. Spray with varnish.
9. “Stuff” him with his lights and enjoy!