LUCKY

It's been awhile since I've done anything 'crafty.'

Recently my husband used his creative side to redo a pool table. Since he was being so crafty, it kind of got me in the mood for it again. It didn't hurt that a store he had to go to was next to a wood craft store.

Here's my two newest projects...

A shamrock door hang and Lucky blocks.

I got both from a store called Crafty Wood Cutouts. It was the first time I've been to the store and I was really quite surprised at how similarly laid out to The Wood Connection it was. While I don't like to be mean, the whole time it felt like I was in a store that was trying to be a knock-off. I don't know which store came first, so I don't know what the truth is there. But that's my 2 cents. My husband also stated that for people who don't want to travel all the way to Murray or American Fork, had this store as a closer option. So you know, sometimes you've got to look on the good side of things.

Things this store did have going for it:
- The children's area is located in an awesome area and the 2 kids I had with me at the time, stayed in the room the whole time. They didn't even want to leave it to go home.

- The LUCKY blocks came WITH the vinyl (By the way trying to stick vinyl on glittered cardstock DOESN'T work. I had to use Mod Podge to keep the c and y in place)

- I got 5% off my order just for 'checking-in' on Facebook

- They do have different options than The Wood Connection does

I'm still happy with my purchase and yes, I'd probably go back again. There were a few other projects I was looking at, but just didn't have the funds for it all. If you're closer to Utah County than Salt Lake County in Utah, Crafty Wood Cutouts may be a better option for you.

SUPPLY LIST

SHAMROCK DOOR HANG

PAINTS: Daler/Rowney Simply Acrylic - Dark Green & Folk Art Acrylic - Winter White

RIBBON: The Ribbon Boutique - Lime & The Ribbon Boutique - Black

WIRE:  Found at The Wood Connection

FONT:  Celtic Hand

LUCKY BLOCK LETTERS

PAINTS (IN ORDER FROM L - Y): Delta Ceramcoat - Apple Green, Delta Ceramcoat - Gamal Green, Folk Art Enamels - Fresh Foliage, Delta Ceramcot - Medium Foliage Green, Daler/Rowney Simply Acrylic - Light Green
PAPERS (IN ORDER FROM L - Y): Doodlebug Design Inc. Candy Dots - Limeade, The Paper Studio - Scribble Shamrocks, Doodlebug Design Inc: Sugar Coated Cardstock - Limeade, The Paper Studio - Lime Green w/ White Polka Dots, Doodlebug Design Inc.: Sugar Coated Cardstock - Leapfrog
GLITTER: Doodlebug Design Inc. Sugar Coating - Lily White Glitter
FLOSS: We R Memory Keepers Sew Easy Floss
RIBBONS:  Offray - YelGold and The Ribbon Boutique - Lime
HAT
PAINT: Delta Ceramcoat - Apple Green, Plaid Folk Art - Black, Plaid Folk Art - Metallic Pure Gold
PAPER:  Doodlebug Design Inc.: Sugar Coated Cardstock - Leapfrog

'Tis The Season

For gift giving and decorating and all that fun stuff.

This post is going to be everywhere as I'm just making a single post for all the Christmas fun we made this year....Are you ready for the ride?

To start we'll begin with a couple decorations I made for the season. (Not that we really needed anything else - but it was my birthday and I spent my money on it. I was happy.)

Here are my Christmas people:


Now the sales girl made a comment about the soldier and said not many people buy the soldier. I didn't say anything to her because it was BLACK FRIDAY and the place was PACKED, but I will share my reason with you.

Years ago, when I was a little girl, I remember my Dad making this soldier out of flower pots. It was awesome and I was in love with these cute little soldiers. Plus seeing my Dad doing something so creative was interesting. So I've had a place in my heart for soldiers for years!

The elf was just cute and Santa well - it's SANTA!

And not that it means anything, I just thought it was cute so I also bought this:


Next comes the neighbor gift.

I'm usually the girl who has tons of cool ideas for gifts to give the neighbors BUT Christmas comes and goes WAY TOO FAST and before I know it the neighbors are forgotten. This year I was going to be better and I made my mind up to do so.

So shortly after my birthday I made Eric take me to The Wood Connection. I knew exactly what I wanted to do and darn it all I was going to make neighbor gifts this year!

This is what I made:



I do like some better than others, but I won't say which way is which.

And guess what? I realized I forgot 4 of our bestest friends in the neighborhood. Who does that? Me! So, it was back to The Wood Connection so I could finish up with these:


Not sure I'm as crazy about the color combo of these ones, but at least one of the families really liked the coloring and it went GREAT in their living room.

Because I didn't keep busy enough with little individual letters, I gave myself more work to do.

Both my Daddy and my Father in Law are BYU Cougar fans and when I saw these letters at The Wood Connection I knew I had found THE PERFECT Christmas gift for my Dad's. These are their 'Y's':


I laughed because both men asked what the twine was for. Men just don't get the whole 'making things a little more cutesy' aspect. I just didn't feel it was complete until the twine was put on.

For my uncle I did a subway art thing. He's had a difficult life, so I wanted to put words that would uplift him and memories that made him happy on it. I think it made a real impression with him:


My older brother recently moved to France to teach. He wasn't able to come home for Christmas and my mom wanted to do something for him, but didn't know what. I had the BRILLIANT (LOL) idea to have each family member say a sweet something or other on video and I would compile it and email it to him. This is that video, but you have to promise not to watch anything but me at 5:46 and the little kids starting at 9:05.



(I should've told my little brother - who took over videotaping for my snippet - to zoom out...You're getting a lot of chest coming at you from me...Uh, yeah. Sorry about that)

For my mother in law I got inventive. Sort of.

I saw this picture where the person was in black and white and there was bookprint lettering in the background. I LOVED the look and wanted to do a similar thing. Well, I don't really have any old books to scan in and so then I thought of using music. It worked out well.

Then I had to figure out how to get the image just right. Well I never got it in black and white EXACTLY, but I did figure something out and I loved it. So I kept with it.

I apologize for not really having any sort of tutorial in place for this, but if I get a request for a tutorial I will gladly do one....

Here's the completed picture:


Anyway, so I had planned to print these off and stick them in a frame, but when I was at The Wood Connection I saw a different way of displaying them that I liked A LOT better so I went with it.

This was a SIMPLE project. I painted the back and sides of the wood block, with very little paint on the front (the picture will cover the majority of it):


Then I mod podged the pictures to it. I painted the little bauble thing to put in the top, tied a ribbon around it and it was complete:


Such a fun, easy, but wonderful gift.

Now this gift was the same as the one for my mil, but it was made for my brother in law's on again, off again girlfriend. They were 'off' when we last heard, but last year was the same story and she showed up on Christmas and we had nothing for her.

This year I wanted to be prepared. So, I made her a quick little scrapbook page thing to put on the block. It was cute enough.


Sadly, she didn't show up this year and they may be done for good, but either way I can still keep this in my home as this girl was such a pivotal person in our lives.

Chore 'Chart'

We were in desperate need of a chore list in this household. I kept putting it off because I never took the time to sit down and think about what chores I could handle the kids doing. Well, I finally figured it out and came up with my own idea, but incorporating this as well. I also used magnets to keep the boxes on so that they can be taken down and put back away as needed.

Here's our new family chore list:

SUPPLY LIST:

BOARD - Found at Robert's Crafts
PAINT - Folk Art Enamels: Fresh Foliage
Folk Art - Wicker White
VINYL - Provo Craft: Raven
FONTS - Hunkspunk
LD Coffee House
Miserably Lose
PAPER MACHE BOXES - Darice
CRAFT STICKS - I wanna say Darice, but I could be wrong. They were found at Robert's Crafts. PATTERNED PAPERS - Various from my 'stash'
MOD PODGE - Plaid
MAGNETS - Unsure