Industrial Bar Cart I Valentine's Day

I'm popping in today to quickly share our bar cart all decked out for Valentine's Day! After seeing cute little carts all over the web I was eager to get one. After looking at prices, that enthusiasm quickly became disappointment. Some carts can be down right pricey! As you can see that didn't stop this lover of DIY! After some searches I came across this DIY version using a cart intended for the garage and tools. It came from Harbor Freight and started out red! I gave it several coats of spray paint and we added a wood base to cover the nuts and bolts. I just love how industrial it turned out!  

I love decorating it for birthdays and different holidays. I think it adds an element of fun, excitement and makes any occasion seem even more special! Let's back up to last night though. I was kicking myself when I realized I didn't decorate the cart. After about 20 minutes in my craft room I came up with these quick and easy banners, grabbed some paper flowers that were on my craft desk and added the goodies I had already made for my family to the cart. My husband had picked up the cookies on his way home from work. Who doesn't love heart shaped cookies loaded with red sprinkles?

Making a day even more special doesn't have to be time consuming or even expensive. These few little touches were all our cart needed and you should have seen the smile and excitement on our kids faces when they saw it this morning. Well worth the 20 minutes and hey, I got to craft a little before bed!

One last look at our sweet industrial bar cart before I go! Happy Valentine's Day! Now go eat some chocolate! Oh, and I apologize for the blurry photos. On top of taking them on my somewhat old phone, I was had a baby on my hip as well! That's life!

Hello Love I A Valentine's Card

Every year I love making Valentine's cards for my kids and husband. I always look forward to Stampin' Up!'s latest Valentine's themed designer series paper. They truly have the best. When I pick out new stamp sets and dies I like to make sure I can see myself using them well past the intended occasion. With that said, I usually don't buy season specific stamps such as Valentine's or Halloween. Christmas is my exception although I try to stretch my creativity and reuse past stamps to come up with something fresh and new without buying something new. When I first saw this set I thought it was just so cute and so me! I didn't purchase it right away but it didn't take me long to realized how much I loved it and all of the different occasion that I can use it for. I love how so many of the stamps can be used on the envelope, too, for nearly any occasion.

 

This card as well as the other 8 that I made all use little bits of this and that, scraps of paper and odds and ends embellishments. What they all have in common is that I started off with a whisper white card base and used scraps from the Sending Love Designer Series Paper Stack and Pool Party card stock as an accent color. 

Similar Top, Nail Polish, Card Supplies

I finished off the inside of the card with this cute "kiss" stamp. I just love how adorable it is!

I have one more project that I'm working on and really hope to have time to get it up on the blog before the 14th. Fingers crossed. I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

Valentine's Treat Bag

One of my favorite things to make are little treat bags and boxes. Who doesn't love pretty gift wrap? Our kids get so excited when I surprise them with something like this and I find it so relaxing to sit down for a bit and create something so special. All of the products used are from Stampin' Up!. 

After assembling the baggies, I die cut and stamped a bunch of little embellishments to decorate the front of the bags. As I was putting the first one together I didn't really know where I was going with this so just kept rearranging until I liked it...then made 8 more!

I made this little drawing to help you make your own bags, if you'd like!

1. Cut two pieces of paper to make a 6x6 inch square. 

2. Score one side (on each sheet of paper) at 1-1/2".

3. Score two opposite sides at 3/4" and then 1-1/2". The 3/4" score line helps the bag fold in on the sides.

4. Cut little slits up to the bottom 1-1/2" score line.

5. Fold the two little "tabs" you cut at the bottom of your paper in and glue to the bottom of your paper (the part labeled 1-1/2" on my drawing). Once you do that you will see it already start to form a half of a bag. Glue the other piece of paper to this "half a bag" to form the complete bag!

This is a little hard to explain considering it is so easy to make. I think once you start folding your paper and watching it transform into a bag it will become more clear if it wasn't already. 

I finished off my bags by punching a hole in the top and tying a bow with ribbon....after filling it with candy, of course!

Valentine's Day is just 9 days away and I have a few more projects and cards left to share. Until then have a wonderful week!

A Simple Valentine's Sideboard

Hello! It's been so long since I blogged and I'm so excited to be back doing this post. After Christmas decorations come down things always seem very bare. In in some ways that is nice. We are back to ordinary times after all. In our house we love celebrating Valentine's day with a few simple decorations to remind us of the coming day as well as a special dinner on Valentine's Day. We aren't really "gift givers" although I do try to make the day special for our kids. One year it was happy meals and new pj's. Another year a pretty decorated table and yummy pizza take-out. I think for us it's more about being together making the day special as a family.  

For as long as I can remember I have always enjoyed home decor and decorating. Even as a kid! The contents on my dresser were always changing and I even had a corkboard that would get seasonally decorated, too. I love seeing our oldest following in my childhood foot steps. It makes me smile. 

Okay, let's get started on this side board now! First of all, we hacked this from the Ikea Kallax. I stained some pine boards and attached them to all sides with liquid nails and a few finishing nails. The legs are pipe parts from Home Depot, spray painted black to give it a nice industral/mid-century modern look that I had in mind. This side board weights a TON so it is always anchored to the wall to keep the kiddos safe. My husband hung the window...in the window above it. Because of the layout and windows in our dining room this was the best place for a sideboard and after a lot of searching I came up with this idea to hang an old flea market window in the window, without losing the view out the window. I also made the lamps out of apple juice jugs and just love how they turned out. They are currently dressed in their plaid for Christmas/Winter. I just love the red and it works for Valentine's Day, too. 

Using Stampin' Up! products along with red pom poms (found on Amazon) I put together this cute garland to hang across the window behind our sideboard. I saw the idea on Instragram from Mindy Backes @badabingpapercrafting. The stamps and dies are from the Sealed With Love Photopolymer Bundle. I've been using Stampin' Up! products for 9 years now and they just seem to get better every year! When I saw the die that cut out these tiny little envelopes I was sold on the set! 

To complete the simple decor on the sideboard I added some orchids that I picked up from Ikea. I just love orchids and think they are so beautiful and exotic looking! These cuties got repotted in some fresh orchid mix this past Saturday so hopefully much happier than what they came in!

And one last picture with the lamps on at night. This little corner makes me so happy!

I hope to be back soon with a few more ideas! Until then, have a happy week!

Christina

The Perfect Man Card

For today's card I cased it from one of my favorite Stampin' Up! Blogs. 

Justin is so talented and I'm always excited to see what he has to share each and every day! 

Go visit him from day after day of creative inspiration!

The Greeting:

I know Valentine's Day isn't on anyones radar right now.

It's not even on mine but when I was making this card this stamp was calling my name!

Lucky for me, I'm super ahead of the game by already having a Valentine's Day card ready for my husband come February 14, 2015!

GO ME!

Happy Stamping!

Valentine's Love

Remember how my last post started off saying "This post is going to be a bit random"? 

In the middle of writing that post I decided to save the other "random" for a different post and never went back and changed my first sentence. Ooops.

hehe

So today I'm just dropping in to share a couple of Valentine's goodies that I've been working on for my kids. Come take a look!

I made up these quick, easy and fun 3"x3" cards to add to a little goodie bag of some sort for my 4 oldest kiddos. (The baby just eats paper at this point so I decided there was no point in making one for her!)

I think they will love the monkey stamp and get a kick out of the bananas and "love ya bunches!" on the inside. I wrote a sweet note to each of them, signed my name and now the hubby just needs to sign his. 

After making these I got the idea to make up a TON more to have ready to randomly give out to the kids throughout the year to remind them how much we love them. 

This sweet little number is filled with red, pink and white m&m's on the inside. I hand cut hearts out of left over Christmas wrapping paper and sewed them up. Getting the candy inside was a bit tricky and a few pieces fell in my lap but not to worry, I ate them. No m&m went to waste in the making of this craft!

Don't ya just want to tear one open?

I just know the kids will love them. 

And I loved making them. 

Sewing paper is so much fun!

Have a fantastic weekend!

Oh Happy Day of Love!

Happy Valentine's Day!
If you were a Thurlow cutie, today you'd receive some special Valentine's goodies throughout the day. First, it would be this cute little butterfly with a chocolate heart:

Heart shaped pancakes for breakfast:

"A Kiss For...." Bookmark:

A special cookie in a cute cello baggie:

And to conclude the day, decorate a cupcake! YUM!
Even though I'm not crazy about this day the older I get, I still want to make it very special for our cuties! I hope they feel very loved today. I know I loved the time spent making all of the goodies for them and planning the day!

Done!

 I just finished up this fast and easy wreath idea from Amy's blog- BlissfulBlooms. It was so fast and easy and I love how it turned out. AND it only took about 30 minutes to make! Love that!

 All you need to do is take a paper plate and cut out the center so you are left with a wreath-looking paper plate form... Wrap it in some red yarn and then finish it off with some felt flower or whatever embellishment you choose. Amy did doily rosettes that look so pretty. I had felt on hand so that is what I used. Last, I used some scrap lace to hang it from.

Now our little red wall hanging hutch is all ready for Valentine's Day. I think this project could easily be adapted for any season of the year using different colors of yarn and coordinating embellishments.

FAST. EASY. CUTE. DONE!

Have a great week!

Christina

Valentine's Decor- Kiddie-Style

We've been busy here during the past couple of day doing some fun Valentine's Day home decor. Yesterday my 3 oldest cuties made these cute tea light holders out of random jars from the recycle bin, lots of glue and tissue paper. 

 

We lined them down the center of our dinner table for a pretty little center piece. It makes me very happy seeing them everyday!

IN LOVE!

 

 One of today's projects were these hand-sewn felt hearts. This they had some trouble with- I guess they are a bit too young but they still had a blast trying. They did eventually finish but had some trouble. This idea also came from Amy over at BlissfulBlooms. 

 

I love seeing all of the hard work they put into them. Their random stitches are so sweet looking.

We will cherish these forever!

And since Wednesday's are our day off from school, we managed to fit in a second project! For this project I sewed some 4" X 5" burlap flags during naptime and when they woke up, they stamped red and pink hearts on the flags using a potato stamp.

I must say I am completely impressed with how well these turned out. They did an awesome job! Short of making sure the potato was "inked" up well with paint and helped them put enough pressure down onto the burlap, they did this on their own. After the felt heart project in the morning, I didn't expect this to go so well. I figured at least a few of the hearts would be halfway off the fag, upside down- but nope, these look pretty perfect to me!

I decided to hang these on our wedding pictures. I thought the hearts were very fitting for such a loving day and marriage that we have and also love the idea behind the fact that our beautiful children, who are a product of our loving marriage stamped these with their own little hands. I might just leave it up year around!

 

 Have you ever made potato stamps? This was our first time, too. It was so easy to do and such a neat idea. I pressed a heart shaped cookie cutter down into the potato and then using a paring knife I cut around the potato until the knife hit the cookie cutter. Pull the cookie cutter out of the potato, slice it flat across the top and you are left with a heart! This idea came from Homemade Serenity. We just stamped it on burlap instead of paper.

Have a quiet evening, friends!

Christina

Stampin Up! Regional Swap 2012

Let the count down begin- in 4 days I'll be at the Stampin Up! 2012 Regional in San Antonio, Texas as a guest and I am sooooo excited! I've never been to any major Stampin Up! event before but from what I have heard, read and seen in pictures, it should be an awesome experience!

One of the many exciting things that happens at these events are swaps- sign me up! I created a darling card with an adorable little girl on it, lots of layers of paper, a couple off punches and some dsp ruffled using my sewing machine. (that part was a cinch, no worries!)

Supplies used to make this card (all Stampin Up! products):

*Crumb Cake card stock- cut at 5-1/2" X 8-1/2" for the base of the card (fold in half to create a 4-1/4" X 5-1/2" card)
*Early Espresso card stock- cut at 2-3/4" X 3"
*Pink Pirouette card stock- cut at 2-1/4" X 2-1/2"
*Whisper White card stock- torn with tearing edge to approx. 2" X 2-1/4" (stamp the image of the cute girl first and then use the tearing edge to tear around her)
*Whisper White card stock punched with the Decorative Label Punch and stamped with the "happy valentine's day" stamp from Teeny Tiny Wishes in Real Red Classic ink and popped up with dimensionals
*Cute little girl stamp is from the stamp set called "Greeting Card Kids" and stamped in black StazOn ink
*Little girl is colored with markers in Pretty in pink for her bows on her dress, hair and socks, Pink Pirouette for her dress, So Saffron for her hair, Real Red for the heart she is holding and her skin tone is Blush Blossom
*2 hearts punched with Small Heart Punch in Real Red and Pink Pirouette card stock
*Ruffled "First Edition" dsp paper sewn with a sewing machine threaded with dark brown thread

Ruffling the paper was pretty easy. I cut a strip of the First Edition DSP at about 3/4" wide by 12" long and very quickly pushed it through the sewing machine. If you push it through faster than the machine is going, it will ruffle up and over-lap on itself- a fun technique that I've used before, just never on DSP! I LOVE how it turned out.

 

So there you go- all of the details on how to make this sweet little card! I hope everyone I love will love it this Valentine's Day as much as I do!

Happy Stampin'

Christina