Christmas in July -A Dollar Store Wreath Project

I will start by saying this is frugal, but time consuming!  It is a great project to do while burning through some movies from Redbox or watching a marathon of your favorite show, but the results are stunning for minimal cost!

If you have not seen this tip from Pinterest.  It is a great cost saver for making wreaths!  I used a pipe foam insulator like these from Home Depot.  

As you can see we are now working on one for my daughters room.  That's the beauty of the foam packs there are six of them, so plan for lots of new wreaths!  Think back to school, fall, Halloween , a welcome gift for a teacher...there's so many cool things coming up!

Just wrap it in a circle and secure with duct tape!  Then I cut a plastic table cloth from the dollar tree into 12-14 inch strips.  It took 1 1/2 tablecloths to make the white wreath above.  

Take one of the strips and lay it under the foam as pictured above.  As you can see, cuts do not have to be perfect!

Then pull the loose ends through the top!  Tug tight!

Then slide it aside and keep going!  

This is a nice full one, but that's about half a tablecloth of each color for less than a quarter of the wreath.  But back to the Christmas wreath, you can see how I left it loose so I could lay it flat around the outside of the form.  Then I took some cool, glittery, blue snowflakes and some silver poinsettias (removed from the stem) and glued them right onto the tied part of the wreath.  Put a hanger on the back and you are all set!  After a few months in the wind and snow I had only lost one flake so I will glue it back on to be ready for next year!  

One of the things I love about this wreath is I can use it all winter long since it is not Christmas specific.  

Merry Christmas ( in July)

A Wee Bit of Irish Fun!!!

I was playing around again on Tagxedo and was absolutely amazed that I could type St. Patrick's Day into the search and it pulled in all kinds of words that pertained and I was able to make these printable creations to share with you!

I started with...

Then went to Picasa , added some text and features to create this one...

Then a few more changes and put the polaroid frame and created this one!!

Looking for more St Patricks Day Ideas and Printables, be sure to check out these Pinterest Boards!

Cool Printables

St Patricks Day

While you are there, make sure you follow Me!!!

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Cheap Valentine's Gift for Loved Ones

When I was at Michael’s, I found these cute heart frames for $1.  I love inexpensive projects like these, because I can let the kids go to town and do it all by themselves and if it doesn’t turn out, I am not out a fortune. 

So I let 4 year old Lil Princess loose with a Sample size Glidden Paint, with the brush in the lid (for more about this check out her painting here. 

When that was dry I took the Cricut and cut out the letters for Be My Valentine.  After I had adhered them to the board, I gave it a shot of Red Glitter paint and it was all done. 

Now to make it a gift, I photographed Lil Princess holding the heart from this project .  We are still trying to get the size right and whether I want it in Sepia, Black and White or Color, but, I threw this one in to show you! 

Hope you like it, Lil Princess is a regular assembly line, she has painted two already so we could get them ready to mail back to the east coast.  I had to physically force her to stop, so we can do the next two this weekend.  I think she loves to paint.  After she had finished these two, was when she tried to paint the hearts for the wall art and those broke her of her desire to paint anymore today…LOL!  Almost ready to see it all together???  Make sure you come back this weekend!!

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Thrift Shop Upcycled Valentine's Day Vase

I went looking for Valentine's Day inspiration in our local Savers. I like to find other peoples cast offs and create something beautiful and uniquely my own. Since I have been playing with my new friend Cricut, we worked together on this cute vase.

I started by washing this clear glass vase. Cut out the letters l-o-v-e and then, yup you guessed it, gave them a shot of my other favorite, red glitter spray! I placed the letters an little catywhompus (sp? Or even a real word?), because that is how I was feeling! Still a little plain so I cut some hearts out of the pink glitter tape left over from my poster board. Simple 15 minutes =beautiful valentines decoration.

Once again, this will be part of my Valentine's Decorating Reveal this Weekend!  So come on back! 1.

Upcycled Toilet Paper Art and My First Pinterest Failure

I have been having a lot of fun with my Cricut this weekend and I have been wanting to try making the toilet paper art so....

I had this piece of vinyl decorated that I used for another project still to come and some canvases.  So what the heck, here we go...

I started by making these hearts out of cut toilet paper rolls. 

I cut the roll into 5 separate circles.

Invert the point at one end and secure with a dot of hot glue.

The first seven, I painted pink and then shot with the red glitter paint.

Then I thought to myself, this is a pain hand painting these and I remembered this tip that I had read on Pinterest

I intentionally did not give photo credit for this image because I did not want to discount the credability of the original author, I am just sharing my experience with the advice

The pin says to mix 2 parts of paint to 1 part water in the spray bottle and you have instant spray paint!

I did, I mixed and shook

and oh boy!  I was ready to spray, no more paint brush!

I ended up with a splattered mess, now it may have been the bottle that I bought or operator error, but I had a great big mess.  So, I broke out my paint brush and painted 7 in purple and 7 red.

Then it was time to get the board together...

This is a 16x20 canvas

I sprayed it with the red glitter paint to break up the white a little.

Put the vinyl heart in the middle and spread the other hearts around.

Once I was happy with the way it looked, I hot glued them down and attached the vinyl.

One more quick dusting of the red glitter paint.  Then I stepped back and looked.

It seemed rather plain to me.

I had these foam hearts from the Target Dollar Spot

(are you beginning to think that I spend alot of time in that section of Target...you are right)

I filled in the holes with these hearts and I love the way it looks.  I have a huge opening between my kitchen and living room that I am going to hang this in...I will preview how it looks hanging after I post the other crafts.  I will show my decorated pass through by Friday with all my Valentines decorations!! 

Tooth fairy please come see me...

I hate to be a cry baby, but, I am in pain....

Thursday night, I noticed a small chip in one of my molars.  Went to work Friday, it was just a small chip... Well Friday night, a huge chunk of the tooth broke off.  Fast forward about 5 hours and I wake up choking on pieces of that tooth...OH MY it hurts, why don't dentists work on weekends!!!

BUT the good news is that making me feel like dookie is probably the only thing that keeps me home.  And when I am home, not feeling well, I CRAFT!!! 

So Valentine's has been calling to me.  I had picked up a few little craft starters here and there.  I got a new Cricut Mini for Christmas that has been sitting in my craft room feeling neglected and unloved.  We finally got acquainted and boy, have I had fun!

So today, I am going to share the first project to come out of the craft room this weekend.  I have started so many, I may forego the regular posts this week to get them all out in time for V-Day.

Foam Heart Valentine Wreath

So, I started with this plain foam heart wreath that I bought for $1 at Target in the Dollar Spot

I cut these cute hearts out with the Cricut, I only have the George and Basic Shapes Cartridge that came with it, so I am limited in fonts and shapes.  I wanted to add some dimension to the flat wreath, so I put a crease in the middle of each heart.  I added a bead of hot glue down the back and attached one to each of the hearts in the wreath.

I, then, added a little red glitter spray paint to give it a little oomph!

 



Back to the Cricut to give this little $1 wreath a little more love...

I took some red vinyl and white cardstock...Cut out a 3inch heart out of each, a 2.5 in heart out of the white cardstock and then the I Love You out of red vinyl at 1.5 inches.  I attched the 3 in vinyl heart to the 3 in white cardstock heart.  Then glued the 2.5 inch white heart on top.  Applied the I Love You vinyl and gave it a little glitter love also.




Can you tell I am trying to follow Michaels' advice







Ready for the Finale?!?  

I finished it off by attaching a paperclip to the back of both the heart and wreath.  Took some pink crochet string and hung the heart so it could swing free...Why 2 paperclips, I love paperclips for hanging light stuff, they give you a hook at the top and in this case it gives me a loop at the bottom to hang this string from.

Come back tomorrow to see what else I got into today...or better yet, Follow me and we'll have lots of fun together!

FrugallyCraftyFridays- Upcycled Valentine's Gift Containers

I have been holding on to some empty frosting containers for awhile, thinking that I am sure they will come up with something cute to use them for.  Looking at their red tops today, I had my Aw Huh! moment!!!!!

Start with a clean, washed, dried and label removed frosting container. 

I have not figured out Piknik yet, but I do know how to use Pinterest!

Searching through my Valentine's Board, I found some great printables...

Like this one

From My Computer Is My Canvas

and



From Janna Wilson

I stretched the first image on my scanner to fit around the container, then cut and glued it.

Add the label to the top!

Then what to put inside, Kisses with these cute labels from

Meck Mom

Just cut out the printables and glue them to the bottom of the kisses. 

There you go, instant, simply, frugal gift!!