Twine vases...

I made these twine-wrapped vases over a year ago and still love them. The problem is...I just can't seem to find a good home for them in our new home. In our first house they had a happy little home on top of the bookshelf by the front door. Their contents changed, but they were always there:

First, they had plain sticks from our yard. Then, I gave the sticks a quick coat of silvery spraypaint to give them some winter-ish shimmer. Then, the sticks were replaced by some cheery, Spring-y flowers.

I actually think that the only time they moved from their spot by the door was when I filled them with clippings from our bushes to be used in the decor for the couples' shower we hosted last Spring. But in our new house, there is no bookcase by the door for them to live on. [In my dream world, I'm going to find an awesome - yet very inexpensive - console table to refinish for our new entryway, but that might be a while.]

Currently, the vases are on the built-in shelves in our sitting room. The problem is the shelves are too low to really put anything in the vases. Kind of awkward. I also tried them on a side table in the living room, but they looked too bare there. Also, kind of awkward. I'm thinking that next I am going to move them upstairs to the guest bedroom - oddly, they would probably go on the same bookcase they were on in our first house. I have some fun DIY ideas for that room that hopefully I'll be tackling in the next few months - and the twine vases will fit in perfectly. :)

White, gray and blue table setting...

As I showed you, our rec room upstairs is currently in a state of disaster. It looks like a hurricane blew through it and now the flooding from the storm is reaching neighboring areas. Which in this case means that the boxes, tubs, pictures and baseball paraphernalia are temporarily taking over other rooms too...the guest bedroom, office, stairs and garage. Awesome.

But there is one area of our home that I can always count on to be clean, orderly and pretty – our table. And as much as I always love a pretty table setting, I love it even more when other areas are temporarily in need of disaster recovery. :)

So, let’s take a look at our current table setting…

This table setting was done using entirely things I already owned…or was recently gifted. :) [The blue placemats were a Christmas gift from my in-laws - thanks again!] The rest of the items are frequent players in my table settings, such the candle holders used in our Christmas table, and the trifle dish* used here.

This time I changed up the trifle dish filler [from my go-to cork collection] and used clear glass marbles. I love the way they shimmer a little in the light and almost look like water or ice. I also like that once again there are items from our wedding used in the table setting – including the trifle dish, the glass marbles and candles. Even the candle holders were a wedding gift. Looking at the pretty table, especially with the wedding memories, makes me smile every time…even if other parts of the house are chaotic.

*I think it’s funny that the trifle dish has never been used for a trifle. Actually, the only times it has ever even been used for food were to hold candy at our wedding and fruit kabobs at a couples’ shower. But this berry trifle recipe looks really good, so I may have to try it out soon. :)

Home goals | Progress update...

It’s hard to believe we are already [more than] a month into 2011. And perhaps even harder to believe, we have already made progress towards our 2011 home goals. Yay!

So, I thought I would give a little progress update:

Laundry – I am doing surprisingly well at keeping my closet picked up all the time. It is amazing how if you just hang things back up one at a time, it is a lot quicker than trying to deal with a giant pile of who knows what. :) I also have a new routine for “laundry Sundays” that is working out very well*. I do laundry throughout the day on Sunday while we hang out, do stuff around the house, work, whatever. And then I fold it all Sunday evening while I watch Desperate Housewives and Brothers & Sisters. I have even managed to plan ahead to still do laundry once a week if I won’t be home on Laundry Sunday. So far, so good.

Kitchen – I can’t take much any credit for this one, but Mr. W is doing awesome at keeping our kitchen looking great all the time. I can’t even explain how lucky, spoiled, blessed, and thankful I am for all he does. He does 99% of the grocery shopping, cooking, and kitchen-cleaning. Seriously, he is amazing.

Rec Room – We are well underway making some major progress up there. We are currently in the state where it looks like we have made no progress, or even negative progress…

But so far we have:

• Purchased and assembled the futon
• Finally assembled our boxing stand
• Started going through the bazillion boxes and tubs of baseball stuff
• Moved the TV and TV stand upstairs from the family room
• Started to mount the TV on the wall [in doing this, Mr. W is definitely getting to use some cool tools, which was another one of our home goals]
• Started a pile of Goodwill donations
• Started to determine where things will be hung, including this future gallery wall of pictures…

On our to-do list before Sunday:

• Finish mounting the TV
• Actually hang things on the wall [also gets double-points on our home goals – put more stuff on the walls and work on rec room]
• Secure the bookcase to the wall and start accessorizing it
• Move the bazillion boxes and tubs out of the way to make the room presentable until we have time to finish it

Hosting more people – On Sunday, we are having a small SuperBowl party at our house. So I need to stop writing this post and get to work - nothing like a deadline to get you motivated. :)

*I did have one slight laundry mishap during the month…Mr. W was sorting through [what I thought was] a big pile of shirts to help me with the laundry. Being the sweet wife that I am, I told him not to worry about it and I would separate out the dress shirts that needed dry cleaning. He happily agreed and just asked me to make sure to pull out the Nautica’s. I finished the sorting without finding the so-called Nautica shirts he was talking about…umm, because he was talking about the three pairs of dry-clean only Nautica pants that I washed. Woops. But with my mad ironing skills [or something like that], I was able to make them look normal again [I think].

Gifts | stationary sets

This is the last installment of the wrap-up of my homemade Christmas gifts. Well, not quite. There are two homemade gifts that I have yet to gift...so I can't post about them yet.

Anyways, this was one of my favorite gifts I made this year, because not only do I really like how it turned out, but also since it was perfect for the recipient. My sister loves sending hand-written cards [and I love receiving them], so I made her eight different styles of cards. I am always impressed by how often my sister takes the time to write and send cards. She sends cards for all holidays, including Christmas, birthdays, Halloween, Valentine's Day, etc. [And the cards are always on time, which is extra impressive to me, since I can never seem to send cards on time.] She is also great about sending thank you cards, cards with pictures of my cutie nephew, cards to just say hi, and anything else you can imagine.

When I was cleaning out my old room at my parents' house a few months ago [fun, fun], I found a entire stack of cards, notes and letters my sister sent me while I was in college. When I say stack, I seriously mean a stack that was at least four inches high. Isn't that so sweet? And anybody that sweet deserves some personalized cards to send. :)

The letters and designs were all made using my Cricut. The cards include her first and last initial, thank you's, and just fun designs that can be used for anything.

I punched circles from each of the papers and ran them through my sticker machine for her to use as coordinating envelope seals. I also made stickers out of more K and D cut-outs so she can further embellish the cards or envelopes. I wrapped the cards, envelopes, stickers, an address rubber stamp, and some matching pens all up in a pretty box - that way everything she needs to send a cute card is all together and ready to go. :)

[I linked up to the DIY Project Parade and Lovely Crafty Home - check them out for some DIY, crafty awesomeness.]

Gifts | bulletin and magnet board...

I made customized this bulletin / magnetic board for my precious little nephew's first Christmas. I painted the cork board on the left side with orange craft paint, so it would be a little more exciting looking and match his nursery. [I also painted the push pins, because once I start painting I just don't stop.] Also, the gift will totally grow with him, because I'm sure as his room evolves over the years, there will always be plenty of Longhorn's orange around. :)

The cute little wooden jungle animals were originally from his baby shower - I just glued some magnets on the back. The animals make me smile every time I see them, not only because they are so cute, but also from the memory of when we bought them. At one point while my sister was pregnant, I was shopping with my parents at Jo-Ann's and we must have been hilarious to listen to - literally, every aisle we walked into, at least one of us found something the baby would have to have. Everything from fabric, to stickers, to books, to stuffed animals, to little wood animals - we wanted to get him everything. We were probably the most excited, proudest family to ever shop the aisles of Jo-Ann's. :)

And in true, proudest-aunt-ever fashion, here is the adorable little guy with his first snowman...

Gifts | fun frosted flower-holders for family...

Are you impressed by my awesome alliteration in the post title? No? Sorry, I just get super excited when I get to use my frosted glass spraypaint. :)

I made these vases [three of the bazillion vases from our wedding] for my sister using simple techniques with my favorite frosted glass spraypaint. Seriously, it is so fun. And there are so many ways you can use it to personalize things around your home or as gifts. I also used it to make these Longhorns glasses.

But back to the vases [aka fun frosted flower-holders]. Here's the lowdown on each of them...

Left: Wrap painters tape [masking tape works too] around the vase in straight lines. Or you could do diagonal lines for more of a candy cane effect. Give the vase a few light coats of frosted glass spraypaint and then remove the tape carefully.

Center: Do not spray with any spraypaint. Clearly. :)

Right: Put circle-shaped stickers on the vase in your desired design. Give the vase a few light coats of frosted glass spraypaint and then remove the stickers carefully. For these vases, I used silly "You're #1" stickers from the dollar store and they worked perfectly. I have also tried nice scrapbooking stickers that I got on sale and they did not work at all. They were much too high of quality and stuck too well. This is definitely a time when cheaper, less sticky, stickers are better. :)

Gifts | paw necklace...

So, have you ever seen anything cuter than this picture?

It's Mr. W's little sister and their family dog, Goldie. Incredibly sweet, huh? His sister is a huge animal lover and especially loves Goldie, who just joined their family last summer. For Christmas, I made her this little paw necklace using a chain from Michaels and a cute black paw charm from Hobby Lobby. I like how it is very simple but totally fits her personality. :)

Gifts | desk calendar...

I made this calendar for Mr. W this year using a simple template I created in PowerPoint [I clearly have a strange obsession with PowerPoint and use it for everything]. I added major holidays, birthdays and anniversaries to the calendar. Since Mr. W works in public administration, each month has a picture of a city hall from a city we have visited together. I got the calendar pages printed to Office Depot, cut them to size, and then punched a hole in the tops for him to hang the calendar on the wall in his office.

Gifts | Big E...

My dad has always gone by Big E [or Dad E to my sister and I], so gifts with a big E are clearly perfect for him. When I saw a big metal E hook in the clearance aisle of Hobby Lobby, I knew I had to get it for him. The hooks come painted white and look like this...

This picture is from Rocky River Farmhouse, partially because I forgot to take a before picture of what they look like to start out. But more importantly, because the project she made with the hooks she bought is amazing. You seriously have to check it out.

My project with the hook is a little less amazing, but was still a fun, personalized gift. I just spraypainted the hook a dark silver, so it would fit in well at my dad's man shed at our family farm. :)

Gifts | tile and coaster sets...

This Christmas I made many personalized, handmade gifts for our family. The first of which were these tile sets which included a plague on a wooden stand and four coordinating coasters. They were made using the same method as this monogram tile set.

The first set was made for my mother and father-in-law. Tiles similar to this would also make a great gift for a wedding, shower, anniversary, or even Valentine's Day gift....

The next set was made for Mr. W's stepmom. I love the saying that is on them. I also like how the tiles can use any quote you want, which means they can also be good gifts for birthdays, graduations, or any other occasion. :)

I don't use anything fancy at all to make my tile designs...actually, I just used PowerPoint for each of these using a variety of different fonts and lines. 

To make the tiles, you have to flip the design over for it to transfer properly. So I "grouped" each of the text boxes and lines. Then I copied the design and did a "paste special" to paste it as a JPEG picture. Then, you can use the rotate option of flip horizontal.

DIY ornaments...

So, I realize most people have probably put away all of their Christmas decorations already and are not thinking about making any new ones at the moment...but I still wanted to share the three types of ornaments I made this season. And actually the last of the three types was made after Christmas. :)

Glittered cookie cutters: 

I have wanted to make these ever since I saw them last year at Centsational Girl and even posted about them. They were incredibly easy to make and free, since I already had the plastic cookie cutters on hand and the glitter was from my magazine tree project [seen here]. Here's how I made them:

1. Spray paint the cookie cutters the same color as the glitter. In my case this was white [actually white primer to be exact, because that's what I happened to have on hand].
2. While the paint is still wet, sprinkle glitter all over them.
3. Let the ornament dry and then tie on a ribbon. [As I side note, last year I tied sparkly silver ribbon on all of my ornaments in place of the standard ornament hooks and it was definitely time well spent. I was able to catch up on my soap opera and easily add a little extra pizazz to my Christmas tree.]

Metal stars:

Amazingly, the second set of DIY ornaments I made was even easier than the first. :) Also, I made five ornaments for $1. I found a pack of five simple metal stars at a dollar store last summer. They were originally a brassy gold, but I spray painted them a pretty silver instead. I just hung them directly on the tree. In future years, I think they would also be fun hung with ribbon from door knobs or in the center of a wreaths. I love simple, cheap, versatile things. :)

Spool Christmas trees:

I made these spool ornaments with my mom and although more time intensive than the others, they are a lot of fun to make. To make your own, you need 1/2 inch wooden craft spools [we got these at Hobby Lobby], various colors of embroidery floss, clear craft glue [not hot glue], and ribbon. Here's how:

1. Cover a wooden spool with clear glue and wrap tightly with floss. Put another dot of glue at the end. You will need to make eleven spools for each tree. We always use brown for the tree trunk, yellow for the "star", and all different colors for in between.
2. After completing the spools, glue them together in the bowling pin formation. We found it is easier to glue each line together first [i.e., three for the bottom and two for the middle]. Then glue the lines together and add the star and trunk.
3. Cut a piece of ribbon to the desired size to hang your ornament from. Loop the ribbon and make a small knot with the cut ends. Put a drop of the clear glue into the hole in the star spool. Use a toothpick the push the knot of the ribbon into the hole.[I'm not sure these directions made much sense, but they really are very easy to make. :)]

Goodwill Christmas trees...

Last year after Christmas I picked up these two glass trees at Goodwill. [If I recall correctly, they were $1 each.] They were so much fun to play with during the Christmas season...

First I left them empty for a while. Then I filled them with red and silver strands of beads from IKEA. Then I swirled the red and silver strands together. Here's the evolution: 

I also think they would be cute filled with candies like M&Ms, kisses, or peppermints. Or I could fill them with something like acorns for a more natural look. So many possibilities. This reminds me that I still need to go check if Goodwill has any good Christmas decor this year. :)