Guest Posting at Infarrantly Creative!

So you know that big project we've been working on lately?

Well click on over to Infarrantly Creative and check out our latest tutorial project

that Beckie was so nice to let us guest post about!

Come see how we took these.....and turned them into these.......Recognize them yet?

Go check out Infarrantly Creative and then let us know what you think!

We've been so excited to share them with you all!

A huge thanks to Beckie for letting us visit!!!

Pink Pearled Lovebird Heart

I've always loved the idea of lovebirds and I'm not sure why.

Yes, I'm a hopeless romantic....

We have an abundance of cooing doves here

and I have to admit I love hearing them throughout the day

chatting away.
With our third heart Candace and I wanted something different but still romantic

and the doves seemed to be calling out to us.....:)

 (insert cheese here...oh yea it already is here.)

Well really, my little girl had something to say about what color we chose

and it's no surprise....she's all about pink!

We painted this heart a nice brown burnt umber

which has a "stain" appearance when you water it down a bit.

(can you tell which pictures my crappy camera took and which one Candace's did?)

Paired with some pretty pink paper, little doves, some cute cherry blossom buds and pearl corsage pins

all that was missing were the love words. 

Sometimes it can be really hard to find the perfect paper when you have an idea stuck in your head.

We knew we wanted something light and vellum was the perfect fit.

We googled "famous love sayings" and up popped all sorts of fun quotes.

We combined them all on a word document, picked a light shade of tan and printed them off.

After trimming them into a smaller version of the heart we

glued them on with a glue stick along the edges.

Next we plucked the little blossoms off the branches and skewered

them with the corsage pins.

These blossoms were plastic and the pins held them perfectly in place.

It was so easy my daughter had a blast putting them together!

We just trimmed off the excess pin with some pliers and hot glued them in place,

out lining the edges of the vellum word heart.

We glued on the little love birds which got a quick highlight of that

Gorgeous German Glass Glitter from Meyer Imports,

glued on a bow to hang it from and there ya go!

We've been pretty busy this week working on our latest "knock off" project

and we're really excited to do the big reveal!

Now if we can just get spray paint to cooperate with this cold weather!

Stay tuned......

Rolled Felt Rose Scalloped Heart

Here's Scalloped Heart #2!

Now we couldn't find any tiny rosebuds in town to mimic the original heart

we fell in love with, so we decided to use rolled felt to make tiny little rose buds.

 We love using felt because it's very forgiving to work with and inexpensive too!

Look how the rolled felt roses accentuate

the scalloped edges so beautifully.....holy smokes I sound like my Mother!
But that's a good thing! (Love you Mom!)

We made the felt roses by first cutting a 1 inch by 3 inch strip. 

Fold the strip in half lengthwise, gluing one of the edges...this will help the edge roll smoother. 

Roll, starting with the unglued edge and secure with a dab of glue at the end to hold it all together.

We used Beacon 3 in 1 Adhesive, quick set glue. 

It is great stuff and will save you from getting many glue gun burns.

We did use the glue gun to adhere the roses to the wood. 

High temperature works best gluing felt to painted wood.

Make sure to hide your seams by gluing them to the inside!

Start at the top and outline your heart with the roses.

  You can squeeze the inner roses in better when you have an outline.

If any of your roses look uneven, you can trim the tops up with a pair of scissors. 

And there ya have it, another fun twist with a fun scalloped heart!

Hope you all are having a great weekend! 

Hearts Adore

 

I have been eyeing a scalloped wooden heart Nicole has had hanging on her fridge for about twelve years...seriously has it been twelve years already?
It was one of the first crafts she made when she was newly married.
It was one of the first projects that inspired us to investigate saws,
since it's so hard to find great wood shapes to craft with.

I finally got her to cut a few out for us to decorate.
 Nicole's original heart was scalloped like this one,
but in the center there were several dried rose buds.
Very simple and beautiful. 

When we had the blank scalloped heart in our hands,
our minds started whirling with all the ways to decorate it.
So we've made up 3 different hearts to show the possibilities!
 
Today we have our first heart and we used fake silk hydrangea blossoms,

 pearl beads, and that yummy Meyer Imports glitter.

This particular glitter is the 80 grit pink and it is luscious, like working with little crusted diamonds. 
It also happens to be our mom's favorite color of pink. 
When we pulled it out of the package, we both said, "That's Mom's color!" 
Our mom is a rose pink fan!

We are getting some really good use out of that Opera music book!

  We Mod Podged sheet music on the unfinished heart, after first painting it cream. 

Nicole Mod Podge's paper quite a bit and the easiest way is to first trace and then cut.

  There are less edges to sand if you do this.

We plucked apart the blossoms and hot glued them on the heart.

The hydrangea bunch had little buds that we dipped in glue and then glittered. 

We also wiped a little glue  randomly on the blossoms and shook glitter over it. 

We glued the pearl beads on last. 

I love the mix of the pearls and glitter! 

We have been so impressed with this glitter, it definitely adds a WOW factor to any project!

To finish it off, we added an "Adore" banner.  This was really simple to make. 

 Print your words, cut it into a strip, fold the edges, and clip the ends for a finished look.   

The great thing about this heart is that it's pretty enough to be up all year!

Stay tuned this week for our reveal of the other two hearts! :)

If any of you want an unfinished scalloped heart to decorate as you please, you can order them here.

Lollipop, Lollipop

I was chatting with Nicole a few weeks ago about our favorite childhood Valentine's Day memories.  My friend's mom would make these cute and delicious lollipops flavored with cinnamon.  She would tie them up with cute wrappings and ribbons to hand out to the kids. 

We have never made hard candy and thought, how hard could it be!? We purchased some high temperature molds at Candy Mold Central.  When they came in the mail, we were thrilled with how cute the molds were. We loved the selection and the low prices. 

Yesterday, the kids had no school and we thought it would be a perfect day for candy making.  Little did we know how tricky it would be.  The first thing we learned is that it helps to....follow directions! :)

I heard that you could flavor hard candy with Kool Aid, so we mixed in some straight out of the packet.  We don't know what happened with the heat, but I think we changed some kind of compound in the sugar and flavoring...ha, ha! Oh, the smells in my house...we may or may not have set off the smoke detectors after adding Jello for flavoring and it boiled over onto the stove!  By the end of the day, we threw out 3 or 4 batches of hard candy and one batch of marshmallow.  Maybe we should have invited our candy making mother along.....

We stopped counting the amounts of lollipops that were being consumed by our kids,

 while we were busy cooking.

If you follow the directions, this HARD CANDY recipe works perfectly every time. 

 The flavoring was a little weak, maybe it just needed a teaspoon more?

They still turned out pretty! That counts for something, right?

Here's a view of the hot temp molds.  We did make the mistake of buying one candy mold that wasn't high temperature resistant and sure enough, it twisted and melted.

Nicole filled the molds as fast as she could, because the candy starts to set quickly.

The kids had so much fun helping, watching, and of course, eating.

  Just be careful with the hot boiling liquid candy, it can be dangerous to work with around kids.

We learned a lot about soft crack, hard crack...and closely following a candy thermometer.

 I guess you have to make mistakes in order to learn, right? 

What about you? 

 Have you had any luck with making hard candy?  What do you flavor your candy with?

  We would LOVE to know!

Tracy's Trinkets & Treasures shared how to take pictures on white backgrounds. We tried it out with the lollipops and love the tip.  Thanks Tracy!

Glittery Goodness!

I think you all can tell that we kinda like glitter. 

We did a happy dance when we received a package of {gorgeous} glass glitter

from Meyer Imports in the mail.  Love this stuff. 

 You know how after crafting with synthetic glitter you have it in every nook and cranny of your house, all over your face...and sometimes on your husband and children? 

 Really embarrassing when you go out in public, especially for the husband. :)  

The glass glitter is different. It's heavy and pretty much stays where you are working.  This glitter is so beautiful to work with. We were especially taken with the bold and vibrant colors of the pinks and reds.

Perfect for a little Valentine crafting.

For this "be mine" craft, we used cupcake liners.  There are so many fun choices in the stores.  I fell in love with the cupcake wrapper crafting after watching Jen from Tatertots and Jello use them last year.

We found chipboard pieces, especially made for banners in all sorts of shapes at Craft Warehouse. For these, we ended up drilling a couple of holes and adding wire so we could move them where ever we please.  

The glitter gives it all a little pop and shimmer, which we love!

After arranging these for pictures, I ended up turning mine into magnets.

 A great way to decorate those magnetic boards so many of us have.

Thanks Meyer Imports for feeding our little crafting addiction!

 ( If any of you need glass glitter, be sure to check them out!)

Knock Off Decor

Have you all seen the new site

Knock Off Decor?

It was created by

Beckie at Infarrantly Creative.

We love a good knock off, and Beckie is great at rounding up some of the best around blogland. 
Go check it out when you have a chance and submit any of your catalog knock offs!

Knock Off Decor just featured the round mirrors we created, inspired by Ballard Designs. 

A Blast From Valentine's Past!

If you peek through our history, you can see that we really love crafting for Valentine's day. 

Maybe too much?

  I see it as an excuse to create with girly pinks and reds in my world of boys!

So, while we're busy trying to figure out how to make the many Valentine projects swirling around in our heads, take a look at some our favorites we created last year!

Felted Wool Heart Pillow

"Love" Sacks

Red Felt Heart

Ribbon Heart Wreath

Quilted Heart Pillows

Fancy Snowflakes

Yup, more Snowflakes!!!

But these ones are "fancy"!

Yesterday I found myself completely dragging my feet

along with my little girl to go back to school.

I have to admit that this was the first Christmas Break

since High School that I have absolutely, completely loved!

I had a few things to keep me busy but

ultimately I got to spend a ton of time with my daughter.

It.was.WONDERFUL!

It also meant I didn't really do anything crafty.

Every Monday I volunteer in my daughter's class

and I was delighted to have to fold and cut 160 snowflakes pieces

for their fun class art project!

Of course I had to make some myself!

I've seen these fancy snowflakes all over but never seen how they are made.

They are really fun and really easy!

I made my first one with just printer paper

and then moved onto sheet music!

Yes, that opera music Candace found at the thrift store has

really been put to good use!

So gather up some paper, some tape, a stapler,

some scissors and some string to hang them up with.....

Here's a closer look of how to make the cuts:

The sheet music one I did with 4 inch squares and they ended up being about 10 inches.

Here's my first one made from 8 1/2 squares of printer paper.

All finished it measures about 23 inches.

You can't tell from the pictures but I had to spray it with spray glitter....

 Can't wait for my little girl to come home so we can make a bunch more!

Happy Snowflake Making!