Handmade

I think for the most part I am an introvert. I love to be alone, comfortable spending a weekend alone, and am overwhelmed by large groups of people. 

Sometimes I find it odd that I like to throw parties so much....I think I love the planning, prep, menu planning, decorating, and hosting part of it.

The other day my mom told me that she was throwing a wedding shower and I immediately perked up and asked her if I could make anything for it.

We ended up making the invites.

I found out the two main wedding colors and then went shopping!

Handmade invites are so simple, fast to put together, and extra special in my opinion.

I used my cricut for part of the invites.

I found plain envelopes at JoAnn that were a little larger than 5x7 so that I could make my invites 5x7 and not have any fit issues.

The wedding colors are grey, blush, and a raspberry color.

I found a pack of paper at Michael's that I instantly loved. It was full of those colors but also had some oranges, pinks, and cremes.

Since I had so much of the patterned paper I decided to line my envelopes for the first time. 

Super easy....will do it on everything from now on!

Basically you deconstruct an extra envelope to create a template.

All of the invites have a flower detailed blush background paper that is thick.

Then comes the grey and white polka dot border.

Each invite has a different band on top of the grey paper and envelope liner.

I printed the wording on a textured cardstock.

While working on this project I was wishing that my job was so choose fonts....I can't get enough.

I mean....someone has to do that. Maybe I could moonlight as a nail polish namer as well. 

Once I printed the wording onto the paper I put it in my cricut and it did the detailed cut outs on the edges.

The top white paper is attached with thick foam stickers so that it is raised up a little for some extra dimension.

I stamped the back of each of them with a "crafted by" stamp. 

I am in the market for a stamp that has my name and blog....still haven't found the perfect one.

It was a fun day project to put together, I had my helpful mom with me and it was fast and easy!

Family!

Oh geez. A month has gone by already and nothing on the blog.

A couple weekends ago we celebrated my sister in law's engagement to a great friend.

I knew I wanted to bring them a gift to celebrate the happy occasion but what is one to bring to an engagement party when they aren't registered yet and there isn't a theme?

Themes are life savers in my opinion.

Our engagement party was at Christmas time and everyone brought us an ornament, it is so fun unpacking those special ornaments each year...

Luckily, an idea popped into my head!

I had seen in an old craft book a baby frame that had been appliqued with flowers around a picture so I went with that idea.

I found this adorable robot fabric that stuck out to me because the groom's name is Robert and my husband always calls him Robo, and it went with it!

I knew I had to find elephant fabric for my sister in law because she loves them!

I got baby pictures from the two moms and printed them in black and white so they would look more uniform.

To add more detail to the fabric I embroidered the images on the fabrics.

French knots on the robots circles and running stitches around the other shapes and designs.

I put red polka dot ribbon around the picture to finish it off!

One of the wedding colors is similar to this ribbon so I picked it out, plus the bride loves blue so I thought it was a safe choice.

I embroidered the little black feet, eyes, ears, blue bird, grass, and flower.

These were a bit time consuming to make but so much fun. 

I loved putting time into a gift for two people that mean a lot to me and will be in my life forever.

These would look adorable in a nursery one day! Not the beginning goal but kind of turned out to be cute in a kids room!

Gifts of love!

Still catching up on Valentine's Day.....

I think one of the reasons I enjoy teaching elementary school is that we (teachers and students) get really excited about every holiday!

This year my sweet friend Kristen made me a homemade edible arrangement.

Isn't it amazing??

My husband has been on tour this month and was gone for Valentine's Day. She brought me this gift and it made my day! It's a good thing I took a picture right away because it didn't stay untouched for long! She even made the marshmallows from scratch!

This next gift was such a fun surprise! I had physical therapy on V-Day and on my way home my mom had told me to check every room in my house for a gift. I had a little hunch where to look and I was so pleasantly surprised!! 

My mom made me a quilted fabric cover for my ironing board.

The fabrics are adorable. This cute little gift might even make me iron more!

The set of fabrics are all about sewing and there are little birds.

The other gift I got to give this year was to some teachers at work.

I tend to give food gifts but this year I realized that we had so many treats at school that I wanted to stay away from sugar!

I had these white and gray tags in my craft room and the washi tape. I had picked up the flower embellishments at Michael's a couple weeks ago and thought they all went well together.

I stamped the first letter of the name and just wrote out the rest with a pen.

I was trying to come up with something witty and clever for the gift tags and this was the best I could do "You hold a special place in my heart."

 These bookmarks were fairly simple and quick to make. Of course I waited till the night before to put them together so it seemed a bit time consuming in the moment.

I made a simple pattern and cut out the two layers of fabric and a layer of thick felt for the middle so it would be stiff.

I cut out the gray felt hearts and hand stitched them on with pink embroidery thread.

Added the strips of ribbon at the top and sewed all the way around.

I wanted them to be pink but not all V-Day fabrics.

I found both fabrics at JoAnn.

Since my husband was out of town I figured that we would celebrate when he got back home....he was sweet and thought ahead and had this gift waiting for me at home!

He got me an amazing training watch for my half marathon.

Too bad my knee is injured and I haven't been able to use it yet!

I can't wait to run outside again and use it.

It is just so cute with the pink on it.

So for now I will continue with physical therapy and ice my knee.

I am going a litte stir crazy with not being able to be as active. I have found a little too much comfort in food lately.

Monday starts over with no white flour and sugar....wish me luck.

New Love Mantle!

This past week at school was packed full of sweet treats, parties, and fun!

My kids decorated their boxes as usual.

The craft the moms had them do was adorable. They made a love message in a bottle. They wrote a message on scrapbook paper and rolled it up inside the glass bottle. They could add in heart confetti and then they wrote on the outside.

Fruit kabobs! 

I loved the girls monogrammed valentine shirts.

Cute bird fabric!

Most of my decorations stayed the same this year BUT I was so excited to change up my mantle!

Kept my LOVE frames in the entry way with the pink runner.

Little love birds on the table.

Felt hand stitched hearts in a frame.

This might be one of my new favorite things in my kitchen. 

The "Happy Everything!" plate

It is huge and so cheerful.

It came with a birthday hat attachment. For Christmas my brother got me this envelope and the Easter Bunny....

They attach with velcro and you can switch them out for all kinds of occasions.

You can find this online or at Swoozie's.

Valentine's Day has obviously passed but my beautiful flowers from my sweet husband are still hanging out in the kitchen.

You can't go wrong with pink monogrammed towels! 

 This year I put my little love owls in the cut out in the living room.

Sugarboo painting above.

Pink pillows!

 Hand stitched note "p.s. ....i love you"

Here is the updated mantle. 

The felt and button banner stayed the same but almost everything else is new.

I knew I wanted something pink and tall in the pitcher but am not a fan of fake flowers at all.

I found these metal art flowers at Hobby Lobby and found the filler there as well.

The pink mercury glass was used for my SIL's baby shower and fit in perfectly!

 I knew I needed some kind of filler to have in random places on the mantle to fill up empty spaces. I made some stuffed hearts for another gift and ended up making a lot more to throw on the mantle.

Found this cute little pillow at Target this year and finished filling the bowl up with the fabric hearts.

 The X and O are my favorite part of the new mantle!

I bought the cardboard letters from JoAnn.

I used spray adhesive to attach the fabric to the front and sides of the letters. I went back and hot glued all the edges down.

When I saw this bird fabric at JoAnn I bought a yard and knew I had to use it for something!

I love that it has pink and hearts in it but doesn't scream Valentine and isn't cheesy.

I went with this other fabric for the X because I wanted the mantle colors to be pink and turquoise with a little bit of red.

Still loving my fabric owl that I ordered from Etsy years ago....

Picked this felt heart wreath up at Target this year.

I added the trim to all of the edges of the letters.

Loved this pom pom piping.

The little metal bird is just leaning up against the X.

I wanted the X to be on a different level than the O so I bought a white cake stand from Target and can now use it all year round!

I didn't spend much on this mantle and love how it turned out.

Too bad it is time to pack it all up.

I still have a couple more Valentine's Day highlights to show but will get to those another day!

Can't wait to post the gifts I was given this year.