Crafts & Cupcakes

I hope you follow along with our Crafts & Cupcakes parties we are having!  Nothing beats a craft date with friends!  This week it happened to be my mom and kids!  We had a tie dye party!  It was so much fun!

We kind of had an impromptu craft day so I rummaged through my pantry to see if I could whip up some cupcakes.  Instead of traditional cupcakes I decided to do brownie cupcakes!  In half of them I did peanut butter and the other half just plain!

Grab your favorite brownie mix & mix together as directed on the box!

To make PB Brownie Cupcakes I just added a scoop of  brownie mix, a tablespoon of PB, and then covered the PB with a half a scoop of brownie batter on top to cover it up!

For the plain ones I just did 2 scoops of brownie batter.

I did line the pan with cupcake wrappers which I knew might be risky.  But it actually wasn't TOO bad (it did stick a little) however if I made them again I would skip the liner.  I would just spray the pan & pour everything in just like above.

You could also stick them in a liner once they have cooled to make them cute.

Delicious!

 

Tie-Dye Fun!

While I was out of town my mom picked up this fun little tie-dye kit!

It came with everything we needed to dye some shirts!  Even my 3 year old had a fun time with it!  It was fairly mess free!  Just add water to the dye bottles, dampen or pre-wash your shirts (don't dry), pick your design and tie up with rubber bands and dye away!  We did wear gloves to protect our hands and cover some areas with plastic trash bags.

Gabe did the traditional spiral twist....

Lily wanted to keep hers flat and "paint" on it so I let her!  {I did add a trash bag under hers}

My Mom brought a dark colored shirt and used the darker colors on it and bleach!  

Gabe also did a blue shirt 

 and Lily a pink shirt!

 My Moms looks kind of camo...it might just be a shirt to wear at home.  :-)

I also did the spiral twist!

We wrapped them with plastic wrap and let them sit for about 10 hours before washing them in hot water & drying them.  If I do them again then I would let them sit over night before washing.  But my kids REALLY wanted to wears their shirts the next day so I washed them!  The colors did fade some.

Gabe's Shirts

Lily's Shirts

My Shirt!

Hope you follow along with all of our crafts & cupcakes!

Crafts & Cupcakes

This week I had a sweet friend come over for a much needed craft day!  I posted about summer wreaths and my front door was in need of some love!  So check out just what we were up to!

I figured since we were making fun summer wreaths why not make some yummy LEMON CUPCAKES & lemon water!

I totally cheated & made quick cupcakes with my kiddos that morning!  I used a lemon cake mix & a vanilla icing & garnished the tops with a cute little lemon wedge!

Summer Wreath

I picked up one of these fabulous frames at Hobby Lobby for half off!

Gathered all my SUPPLIES:

Spray Primer

Spray Paint

Wide Ribbon

Needle

Thread

Scissors

Yard Stick

Buttons

Paper

Letters 

(die cut or stickers)

String

Cardboard

(kept some from the frame)

Hot Glue Gun

We took our frames outside to prime & paint!

 I did light yellow and

 Lindsay did robin egg blue!

While we were layering paint we worked on our flowers for the front!

You need to measure out 1 yard of ribbon, mark a half inch in from the end and then one inch after that.

 Then simply weave back & forth starting from the front pattern side.  Once you get to the end just pull the knotted end where you started from out a little & tie both ends together and trim the extra thread.  

 You get a fabulous little rosette that we hot glued a button to in the middle.  I followed this tutorial.

You can leave it plan or add the little pennant banner that we freehanded-cut out triangles from decorative paper, and place your letters on top.  I just hot glued it to some twine.  Wrapped it around the back and glued the twine to the back of the frame.

These little flowers also make fantastic hair clips as well!

Can't wait for another Crafts & Cupcakes kind of day!

Upcycled Ribbon Trees

Okay so my trees might not be perfect but I think they are equally adorable as all the rest floating around in bloggy land!  My favorite part is that I ditched the styrofoam, the paper mache cone and decided to do a little upcycling!  The best part is it was free!  Styrofoam is expensive!  I'm glad I kept those glass starbucks bottles!

I ruffled some ribbon on my sewing machine and just wrapped & hot glued it around the bottle.

I took a candle cup and flipped it upside down and glued it to the top of the bottle and painted the very top white.

 Once I finished wrapping, I hot glued a small finial cap (also painted white) to the top of the candle cup.

What do ya think??  Thumbs up or down??  

I'm kind of thinking of fabric....ruffled...and a soda bottle for something a little bigger....hmmm

Help Me

So, I am in need of some serious designing help!  When we bought our house we fell in LOVE with our sunroom...a.k.a the other living room, the playroom, the back room, the workout room, the studio, and now the craft room.  It has been all these things & it is the room whose purpose continues to change on a seemingly regular basis.

The dilemma: Can you guess what it is??  If you guessed: THE WINDOWS!!! You are CORRECT!  

We have 9 of them...yes NINE!  PLUS a sliding glass door that goes out to our patio.  

See our house was built in the late 50's (I believe) and then later on they decided it was too small and added this lovely sunroom-which I have a love/hate relationship with.  I LOVE the extra space, the windows, the brightness however since we have lived in our house we have done EVERYTHING with these windows!  See for yourself!

When we first bought our house a sweet old lady lived her & bless her heart-she painted the sunroom a yellow color...yep ceiling & all.  The blinds were even a yellow color.  They obviously had to go!  So, broke as a joke when we first moved in my mom came to visit & bought me these curtains to hang for the time being.  No I didn't always twist them together...I did actually put up tiebacks, haha.

 This is what they looked like closed.  Man that is a lot of fabric!

So, we went curtain-less for a little while after we bought NEW blinds!

 I'm telling you this room has been EVERYTHING!

When it turned into "the studio" when my folks relocated to west texas from NY while looking for a place of their own...we made these valances that went the length of the window.  I used a PVC pipe rod & we put finials on the ends.  It also worked for the time being.  (yes that's my awesome dad)

Then we scored this awesome purplish, velvet, couch & knew the red curtains had to go.  I bought a bunch of sheers & I like that it is light, bright & airy but it's just so boring.  I love color, patterns, texture! 

I took all the sheers down & the windows sit bare with only blinds-that have just been washed I might add-talk about a chore!  Let me remind you I have NINE windows in this ONE room!  I need some help!  What can I do to make it feel warm, cozy & inviting but not feel like the wall has been swallowed with fabric?

What I whipped up....

I FINALLY finished this little 3-tiered display to hold all of my lovely punches that I use all the time!  Instead of them all being piled into a bucket on my work table I came across this original idea on Pintrest.

(Pinterest)

I did score some of those lovely old baking pans at an estate sale recently but could only find the bottom two.  So, I waited a few weeks, visited the antique mall and still nothing!  I got impatient and decided to do this...

I added a pail I already had and I actually LOVE it!  I can put all the small punches in it & stand them up!

Here it is all filled up!

I already had the candle sticks-the clear glass ones-I primed & painted them-used E6000 to attach them to my pans & voila!  How fun, right?  I can also take it to my shows & use it as a display piece too!  

Check It Out :-)

I stumbled across this blog one day & thought hey I could make that!  So, I know we are leaving tomorrow & I should be packing & cleaning but I would rather be sewing & crafting.  :-)  I did just that.  I follwed the instructions from, Make It and Love It to create this adorable headband.  Cute, huh?

(don't mind my treadmill behind me, lol)

They have a super easy tutorial to make them.  You should go check it out & make some up!  I just think I might have to whip a few up for the farmer's market when I get back.  :-)  Happy Sewing!

DIY Kind of Weekend

I guess you could say I have been itching for that summer change!  I have been working on little projects here & there.  The first two pictures are from a couple weeks ago...I just forgot to share them.  I re-did up above our microwave.  

 I put everything into this cabinet beside it instead of in the baskets above it.  I love it!

 Gabe & I dug up our potatoes & onions.   Gabe had so much fun seeing everything grown & how it produced actual veggies!

I totally scored this awesome white wicker chair on Friday night at our friends garage sale.

 Saturday morning I was spraying it green!  I LOVE this green color right now!

 I picked up a new cushion at Walmart!  It fits perfectly on my patio!  I got to sit out there this morning with my coffee & bible!  I could listen to the birds chirping & the wind blowing-pure bliss!

I also had this sage green color (boring!) texas star outside that I painted the same color green as the chair to use up the rest of the paint & hung it up on the other side of the patio!  I forgot to snag a picture but it looks great!

Another DIY we did this weekend was this....I started out with 2 plastic flower pots that I purchased at Walmart, 2 silver rings found in the plumbing department at Lowe's & some vinyl for lettering.  Well, needless to say after several burnt up screw tips & a trip to Lowe's we couldn't get through that tiny piece of metal...so we ended up just.....

 screwing right through the plastic pot-2 times with the screws.  We drilled right into the wall on the patio.

I cut out some vinyl letters on my cricut and now I have a nice place to catch all those little bottles of bubbles & chalk!

 How cute, right?  (Notice I put the bubbles higher....they have to ask before they get those out, haha!)

I also sewed up some pillows yesterday afternoon for our on-going bedroom makeover.  :-)  It has been a slow, long, process but it is getting there.

Friday afternoon I worked on making up a couple of these to see at out local Farmer's Market at my booth.  They are fabric grocery bag holders.  I actually have 2 of them one hanging in our laundry room & one out in the garage.  I can stuff them full of all those plastic bags you get from the store.  If you are like me you always have good intentions to bring your resuseable ones...you know the big stack of them that sit in the garage but seem to forget every single time.  :-/

 I also whipped up some of these to carry at my table as well.  Travel Kleenex Holders.  I have a bunch of fabric that has been left over from different projects so I thought I would make some of these.  How fun!  

Needless to say we had a busy DIY weekend but it was so much fun being able to create things!  We also had a visit from some special friends...pictures to come later.  :-)