Let's Get Crafty

I wouldn't exactly consider myself a "crafter." While I do like to do some crafts and ogle well-designed rooms devoted to crafting, between you and I - I don't really know what I'm doing nor do I possess a extreme talent in any of the areas of sewing, painting, or building things. I do think I have a good eye for what looks good, and enjoy the time (what little free time of it I have!) spent creating in some way/shape/form.

So sometimes I find myself walking around Hobby Lobby for a really long time and sometimes I come up with a few fun and easy ideas. If that's your kind of crafting too....read on my friends!

 1. Pressed Leaf Art

One of the reasons we really liked the home we recently bought is because of all of its well matured trees. We have a total of 6 fully grown trees in our front yard alone with 2 of them being Honey Locust trees. Since we moved in in the fall, we got here just before the leaves began to shed and when they did, we were pretty surprised with the amount of leaves covering our entire front walkway and sidewalk. I love the long linear shape of these leaves as well as their varying colors, so I picked a handful with Grant, and took them inside and placed them inside some paper towels under the back pages of some heavy books (my impromptu way to press leaves).

While Hobby Lobby was having one of their frame sales (they do these often btw), I came across this cool frame that is kinda like a shadow box in the sense that it has 2 panes of glass (which rest in front of the burlap background, not on top). I knew this frame was going to be perfect for our leaves with it's distressed finish and rustic burlap background = nature-y theme. All I had to was apply little drops of rubber cement to the back of each leaf and slightly press to paper, then insert the paper in between the glass, attach the back of the frame, and hang!

And now we'll always have the leaves from our first season of fall in our new home preserved forever. Awwww, so sweet. p.s. pretty awesome dark wood paneling, right? Thank goodness it's just on the lower portion or I would be cabinfever crazy. We're hoping it's easy to paint white for a nice crisp white wainscoting look.

2) Large Letter Hanging

So, I'm actually not that happy with how this little craft idea of mine turned out....we've all had little failures adventures like that, right? Well, the good news is that it didn't cost me much (I think the letter is like $9.99) and the fabric was under $5 (I think I got a half a yard? I told you, half the time I really don't know what I'm doing!) and my sister gave me the batting for free.

Here's a close up of the "Y" shaped method my sister helped me to figure out which involved wrapping and stapling the batting around the letter. Once the batting was done, I repeated the same method with the fabric.

Here's the finished product. I don't think it turned out bad, just not great and not the look I wanted (in person it looks similar to one of those padded photo collage boards). Once I placed it on the wall in my daughter's room, I realized that I don't think I like the font of the letter either. Here's a link for what I was going for...which I can still easily purchase, or buy again and just paint solid like one of these....I was just was having one of those iwanttohandmakesomethingformychild moments. ;) 

Best thing about this little project? It got me to buy my very own staple gun (told you I'm a novice!) AND learn how to use it (ha ha to my sister jenna if you are reading this...she knows what a joke it was for us to both try and figure out which way the staple gun should be aimed. I'm both surprised and grateful neither one of us got hurt).

 3. St. Patty's Day Shamrock

AFTER

BEFORE

This shamrock project is something I picked up ($12.50) at the Scents n' Such (local boutique in Hyde Park). I bought it because I've always wanted to have a little something for each holiday and St. Patrick's day was the one holiday that we don't have anything for, which is sad since I really like celebrating the day and we're Irish! 

So, I bought this wooden shamrock (about 12" tall and solid wood). I was also able to buy the paint there (I picked Shamrock Green for the lighter green and Festive Green for the darker green. We already had the white paint at home). Everything is detached and it does not come with a way to hang it, or the above shown rope or ribbon (will probably also add some kind of larger bow on top) but it didn't take me all that long to paint and put together (once I was able to find the time to even start on it- which was about a week past the actual holiday...but, now it's ready to go for next year!). My sons also had fun painting the smaller shamrocks and I free-handed the saying "Happy St. Patrick's Day" on one of them. Total cost for wood cut-out, paints, paint brushes = $15.

4. Personalized Burlap Easter Bags

Found these cute little Burlap bags at Hobby Lobby for $3.99 each (more around $2 since all of their holiday stuff is always on sale). I'm big on having matching sets of things so I picked up 3 of these and personalized them with a white paint pen ($3.50). The Burlap really absorbs the paint (which is why the writing looks a bit faint even after multiple applications) but I like that natural look (click here for my inspiration) and the price of around $5 for all 3. Other plus is their smaller size = less candy for the Easter Bunny to have to leave in them. ;) 

Hope you all have a great weekend whether it's spent crafting or not!