{Ahh..the little things}

creative spaces

I am on a hunt for CUTE creative spaces!

We have lived in our house for about 8 years, and have been pressed for space for about the last 5 or so.  We have an attic the size of our house (slanted celings) that I have wanted to make into a toy room & extra bedroom.  My *plan* would be...move the boys upstairs & the girls to the back bedroom, which would leave an empty room.  I've been ready to make that my craft room/office for YEARS :) 

Here is a wonderful blog post that has a bunch of great craft room ideas...a girl can dream, right?

creative overload

I had mentioned that it has been quite a while since I have done much in the way of crafts, but have been planning & getting excited for some Christmas things.  A friend & I have also been e-mailing each other some great blogs with some fun re-decorating/organization types of craft ideas.  I have a few of them running through my head already on a "to-do" list for winter.

I also mentioned (quite a while ago) that I am the craft coordinator for my MOPS group this year.  Well, Wednesday is our meeting, as well as a craft day.  So tonight I have been busy getting all of the supplies ready, as well as creating a few samples.  This time we will be dressing up some hand sanitizer bottles because it seems that EVERYONE is worried about the nasty sickness going around and because I think they are just too cute :)   I *think* I first saw this idea last school year on Suzanne's blog and I am almost positive that she linked to "Just a girl" (this post specifically) where she shared the idea/tutorial.

But, before you go there (I am too late, right?) I must warn you that her current post is the inspiration behind my post tonight.  She is hosting a blog party she calls "I can make that" where there are sooooooo many crafty gift ideas.  Oh my goodness... I think it will take me a week to get through them all  :)  I've spent quite a while blog hopping tonight and have only visited maybe 20 of the 138 ideas.   My poor brain is in craft overload!  How do I decide what do I make first????

crafting

I am trying to get some of my many Christmas crafts/ideas started.  I LOVE this time of year & am looking forward to taking more time to do some crafts.  I do not feel like I have done much at all for quite some time!

I am taking part in an ornament exchange again this year, and I am thinking of making these...

(this is my sample one, I always have to try it out first!)  The kids thought it was cool, but that it should be made with green buttons.  I am pretty sure I saw the idea on Martha Stewart & that one was a green one.  What do you think?  I thought that some other colors would be cute, but now am not sure.  There were also some other button ornaments where the buttons were stacked and made into snowmen, and they were too cute as well.  I may try to make them too, but did not have all of the right buttons on hand.

And I have been searching all over for cute ides of things to put in a jar, which we are doing for my MOPS group exchange.  I am thinking of doing a dry mix (maybe cookies?) but want to be original too, so I may just stick with a color & put random things of that color in it (buttons, ribbon, ornaments, etc).  The only problem I see with that is that it is not very practical for the non-crafty person .  Still thinking...

I also gave my old winter wreath a makeover!  I've been looking for a replacement since last year, but I noticed that I am -  #1 too picky, #2 too cheap  :)  So, I came up with an idea to re-do mine.  Here it is before...

If you look closely, it is very faded and many of the cranberries are torn (thanks to my kiddos who LOVE to pick them off!)

I picked up some white spray paint and gave it a light coating so it looked like it had snowed on it, then I added some glitter spray over the top to give it a little sparkle.  It turned out very cute...

*I just noticed that when I am ready to hang it back up I need to make sure I center it, LOL!  I am waiting until a little closer to winter before I use it, I am trying to hang onto fall as long as I can :)

Today I also have a "melted snowman" drying on the counter.  My friend Mandy has a daisy troop and was going to make some ornaments with her girls and I told her I would help if she needed me to.  So, I cut out some pieces for her this afternoon and HAD to try one of them out.  Here is my version of the melted snowman ornament made with white glue...

I am excited to see it as it dries.  All of the little parts should show through really well, then you take a hole punch (or you can place the ribbon while the glue is wet) and tie a cute ribbon through to hang it on the tree.  I think the kids will really enjoy it!