Green and white Patty's Day Parade

Challenge: Decorate for St. Patty's Day and spend NO money. Only use items you currently have around the home.

Best shot:

So, I kept the white decor balls from the red and white balls I bought for V-day decorations, pulled out some magnolia stems from the attic, left the "theme tree" (courtesy of darling cousin L), grabbed a potted fake plant from the bedroom and used old glass square ornaments to get my Patty Day Parade started. A glue gun, lace, moss and some green and white buttons sure can go a long way:

Shhhhh.....don't tell my husband, I cheated just a little here and bought the stamp.....all of $2 spent since Hobby Lobby's stamps were half off.

Now for the 'let's get really creative and see what happens' portion of the parade:

BANNER TIME! But the banner looked lonely, so we made some shamrocks:

The banner says "LUCK" and is attached via blinged out clothespins on white grosgrain ribbon:

Case in point: blinged out clothespins (a little glitter ribbon and more BUTTONS)

To make the shamrocks, cut strips of paper 1.25 inches wide. I didn't have enough of the same color or pattern of paper, so I mixed and matched papers on hand. Each strip is 12 inches long.

Double up each strip of paper if it's white on one side and green on the other or paper, instead of cardstock (for strength). Now, you'll put your long strips in the center and cut two long strips in half for the smaller heart inside each leaf of the shamrock. Layer like so (splayed out to show layering, but want them all in a straight line):

Now, fold over each strip, layering each on top of the previous strip. Pinch at the end, then staple all layers together:

For each shamrock, I made 3 hearts, then glued all 3 together. I added a little stem to each shamrock by folding a strip in half and gluing it to itself, folding in half again and gluing it once more to itself, then placing it between two of my hearts with more glue. Since I used old-school Elmer's glue, I used a clothespin to keep it together until the glue was dry.



Happy shamrock, happy crafting, happy Patty's Day Parade!


I'm linking up to Finding Fabulous' Frugalicious Friday!!

Don't forget to check out the "Party Central" tab to see what parties we love linking up to every week!

Cream Puffs for Dummies

Yesterday I plunged into the world of French pastries with this surprisingly easy cream puff recipe.

Ingredients:
1 cup water
1 stick butter
1 cup flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
4 eggs

Filling Ideas:
Instant pudding
Whipped Topping
Yogurt
Anything creamy, sweet, and delicious

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
• In  a medium sauce pan heat water and butter until butter is melted. 
• Mix flour, salt and sugar into water/butter mixture. Should form a doughy ball.
• Let cool (it shouldn't be steaming at this point) and mix in eggs.
• Mixture should form a sticky, paste-like consistency. 
• If you have parchment paper, line your cookie sheet with it. If not, leave the cookie sheet ungreased.
• Drop spoonfuls onto sheet, bake for 20-25 minutes. 

After baking, your dollops should be cute little puffs. Do NOT, under any circumstances, poke warm puffs with a toothpick. If you see someone suggest this on a web forum for cream puff making, do not heed their counsel. I can only assume they want your puffs to deflate and be ruined, so they can keep the title "Best Cream Puff Maker" to themselves. They are NOT your friend.

The puffs should look like this out of the oven:

To fill, you can cut a small slice in one side, and squeeze in your chosen filling. I put vanilla pudding in a gallon sized bag, cut of a corner, and squeezed a little bit of love into each and every one of them. Piping bags filled with pudding, or canned cool whip would also work.

This recipe yields about 24 yummy little puffs.

Good luck, and let us know if you try it!

Some little decor projects...

We added this little chandelier to our nursery. I got it at Home Depot. It adds just the right amount of vintage charm. Thanks for installing it Dad!
I made this magnet board earlier, but because I had to cut it with pliers, it was all bent around the corners--plus it looked a little drab with dull metal on heirloom white. I hot glued some pink and green corded trim around the perimeter of the metal for a pop of color. Then I found some after-season Christmas tree ornaments for the magnets by just cutting off the strings and gluing on round magnets to the back.

Every time I looked at the original hanger, the dusty blue and maroon bothered me. I had no maroon in the room, and my blues were either turquoise or sky. I tried to ignore it, but finally I decided to redo my Toy Land sign. Sigh, I liked that it said Toy Land--alluding to my storybook theme, but the colors had to go. I covered the graphic with scalloped cut scrapbook paper with a little mod podge, replaced the knobs with these fabulous blown glass pink ones, and put a sparkly flower embellishment in the center. Perfect.

Just goes to show you how often I redo or add to my crafts. ALL THE TIME.

Don't forget to check out the "Party Central" tab to see what parties we love linking up to every week!

Pretty Petals Embelishment

I've been into making hairbows this past week...
I saw a cute hairbow like this at a craft boutique and just had to figure out how to make my own. I call it my pretty petals bow. I'm posting the intructions here so you can enjoy making one yourself. You can use this flower for a myriad of things too--not just hairbows!

1. You will need a needle, thread, scissors, a round object the size you want your finished flower to be, pencil, a bit of fabric (big enough to draw five ciricles with your round thing), and fun things to put in the center of your flower (buttons, mini flowers, vintage jewelry, etc)


2. Trace your round object five times (I used a ribbon spool) and cut out all the circles

3. Fold one circle in half with the "good side" out

4. Take each corner and fold them into the centerline to make a rounded-bottom triangle.

5. Sew the bottom of the rounded triangle with big stitches

6. Push the sewn triangle into the middle of the thread, and repeat the process with the rest of the cirlces.

7. Push all your triangles together and then tighten your thread as tight as it will go without breaking. Knot the thread together to hold it in place.

8. Glue your center piece in the middle and fill in the back hole with hot glue (I cover the hole with fabric or a ribbon leaf--totally optional)

9. Sew it onto a shirt, pillow, bag etc, or glue it onto a pin or alligator clip.

Walla, you have your own pretty petals flower. And you made it all by yourself.

Don't forget to check out the "Party Central" tab to see what parties we love linking up to every week!

The month of love and the Twitter debate..

A Valentine's card, with a lot of writing room on the inside, since it's super long and skinny. Did you know it really happened? The TV series, BONES, poked a little fun at those so enamored with the Valentine parade and pomp and pointed out there's no real excitement in celebrating a massacre. Evidently, seven people were gunned down on the day of love back in 1929, a big brawl between two rival gangs, involving police impersonators and mistaken identities. Sheesh, V-day will never be the same for me.




And I made some "original tweet" cards. Just perfect for my cousin Alicia, who is un-nerved by the fact Twitter is now a social network of catty comments and pointless updates. Really, no one cares a lick if you are at the puppy store, sitting bored at the mall or watching as your life passes by.

But a card really shows you care, so send one to your true friends today:

Tweet ya later!

Don't forget to check out the "Party Central" tab to see what parties we love linking up to every week!

Old book, New Tricks

The clothespin memo frame above Cory's desk needed some help.

He spends at least four to six hours a day studying there, and all he had to inspire him was a few random cards that I put up there 6 months ago. I assumed he would actually use the board, and eventually it would be filled up with his notes, or to-do lists, but turns out, he's not a big list person.

See? He hates it.

So, I wanted to make something that would make a statement, but not be too cutesy. It is, after all, for a man.

 Enter Rand McNally's Atlas, a mammoth vintage book I scored at Good will for 3 dollars a few months ago:

Oh Rand McNally, I love you so.

I ripped a few pages out of the ol' McNally, and ran them through the cricut to make some little triangles. If you don't have a cricut, this is where you would cozy up to a pair of scissors all friendly like. Each page made about 4 triangles.

Then, and this is the part that kills me,  it was easy peasy to sew them all together with the sewing machine. Did you know sewing machines can sew paper??? They can!!! Like a DREAM.

Well, it was news to me.

In about 5 minutes, I had a cute little pennant banner:

And, while I was in the page ripping mood, I went ahead a snagged the map featuring Belgium and the Netherlands. That's where Cory served his 2 year mission for our church, so I thought he might appreciate it. (Note: He totally got excited about the map, and started showing me every place he's been. It was cute.)

Here's a closer shot of the seam:

So..maybe it's not exactly straight. I think that adds to the charm...

I really can't believe how simple and easy this was! And I feel like a got a whole lot of bang for my buck here, which is always a plus.

And because its February:

So, go forth! and sew paper!

Lindy

I'm linking this Pile o' Craft up to these parties:

Map Party at a Soft place to Land

Who says Feb-RU-ary?

Is it just me, or is February one of those interesting English words?

Friend: Wha.....there's two "r's" in Febuary? I think I've misspelled that since I could write!

Me: I know. It's funny, but if you say Feb-RU-ary, you can kinda hear it.

Friend: No you can't. That's a dumb word. No wonder it only gets 28 days.
Me: 29 every 4 years, maybe it's a special month?

Friend: Yeah, it's "special" alright.

Oh and it's St. Valentine's month! The month of love, the month of amore, the month of sweet nothings.

Or, if you are like me, the month of it's-a-new-month-I'm-dying-to-decorate-something!

So I tried :).

Here's the table centerpiece. A few peonies from Target (yeah, those are fake), some red and white balls, a few hanging hearts from Hobby Lobby and a new red candle:
With this silk flower only costing $1.90, who could resist? World Market's clearance bin is fun to look through. AND I went to an estate auction and the vase was part of my $40 lot. I'll have to post about that auction...it was eye-opening and super fun. I was number 168!



I cannot get over how pretty the fake peonies from Target are, not half bad, I've had a few ask where I get my fresh flowers:


I took the ribbon off, it didn't really match too well:

These candy jars were in the auction lot too. I dolled them up with the leftovers from the red and white balls and the hanging hearts and re-used some of the moss and glitter letters from Christmas decor:

Can you see the ball at the top of the stack? The brown dotted one with little pearls sticking out from it? Yeah, I made it. Guess how? I took a 12X12 piece of brown dotted scrapbook paper, wadded it into a ball (yes, as though you will throw it away), played fetch (or in Daisy terms "go get it") with the dog a few times, glued down the tail end of the paper, and gave it some "glam" via gluing stamen pearls from a botched Martha Stewart craft attempt onto it. Hey, it could be worse:

Yeah, I ripped off the classic Valentine's stamp look:
Muwah! Loves from Pile o' Craft!

Don't forget to check out the "Party Central" tab to see what parties we love linking up to every week!