Love day inspiration and a lil' secret

Happy Thursday friends!

If you haven't already, I urge you to take a moment and educate yourself about new legislation regarding the internet. This video is the best I've seen explaining the details.

Make your voice be heard.

Now, onto other matters at hand.

Like "love" day.

Like, "really wish I could go on a date with my hubs and no kids" day.

Like, "haha....that's not gonna happen" day.

I digress.

Of course, Valentine's Day is a day to celebrate those you love, not that you shouldn't do this EVERYDAY, but Hallmark is counting on you to celebrate on THIS day more than others. And really, it's hard to resist pink and red lovelies strewn about your mantel and door and where ever else it is you like to strew lovelies, because....well,....it's pretty. Today I want to share some of my V-day crafts from last year as well as some of the brilliance I've seen on the internets as of late.

First up is my "made from junk I found in my house" heart wreath:

wreath tutorial HERE

Foyer decor from 2011

Links to printable vintage V-day cards, 'Love one another' printable, and subway art printables all found in THIS post.

Love canvas tutorial HERE

And now, some of my faves from the internets:

FREE printable patterns.

SO many uses...

Source: hostessblog.com via Mary Kathryn on Pinterest

Free V-day printable:

Source: proclamationpictures.blogspot.com via Mary Kathryn on Pinterest

Such a clever way to make an envelope- perhaps out of free printable paper?

Source: fortyweeksandthensome.blogspot.com via Mary Kathryn on Pinterest



You know that I love some book page crafts. This would be so easy-peezy:

Source: luxefinds.com via Mary Kathryn on Pinterest

Fabulous Valentine printable suitable for giving to your sweeties:

Source: onecharmingparty.com via Mary Kathryn on Pinterest

and an uber-simple paper chain made of hearts:
may have to string one of these up in my classroom...

Source: mangomommycrafts.blogspot.com via Mary Kathryn on Pinterest

(these and other fabulous Valentine's day crafts can be found on my

Pinterest board.)

Now, for a lil' secret...

an editor of this website contacted me yesterday.

I almost peed my pants.

Don't know details of when it will happen, but they've asked if they could share something I made.

I told them I'd have to think about it.

Just kidding.

I answered with a giddy 'yes'.

Will share more when I have the deets.

Adieu for now my friends!

a musical wreath

Hello Friends!
I hope you had a marvelous weekend!
I had a pretty productive one myself and wanted to share something I made today. Since I'm still working on a few cool projects for my classroom,

and since I was so inspired by all of the crazy, funky wreaths that were linked to Nester's "You made a wreath out of WHAT?" party,

I made a piece of musical wreath whimsy,

yes, whimsy,

of my own.

I present to you, the kazoo wreath:

I wanted something super fun to hang on the door of my music room, so I pulled out a bag of kazoos I had left from a concert several years ago.

The only thing I had to purchase was this wreath ring thingy for about 2 bucks at Michaels. I also used my trusty glue gun.

Cute little girl watching is optional but highly recommended.

I placed the kazoos on the wreath form and played around with patterns/colors until...

I came up with a pattern I liked.

Time for glue.

I placed a tiny dab on the back of each kazoo and placed them all on the wreath form ringy thing.

Once they were in place, I grabbed my super-cool ribbon storage tins and picked out some ribbon to tie onto the top.

For the center of the wreath, I wanted to add a couple of fun words that would tell those outside the room what was going on inside the room.

Enter

"A Dictionary For Boys and Girls" circa 1935

I wanted to make some small pennant banners using dictionary pages,

so I opened the book and decided whatever page I turned to would be the one I ripped out. Now, before anyone gets sore at me for ripping up an old book,

I just so happened to have turned to the 'R' section and 'ranculous' was at the top of the page.

I don't really ever use that word, nor do I even know what it means,

so I'm not feeling too bad about it, despite the fact that I love vintage books.

Also, on a side note, my son saw me rip the page out and said,

"Mom! What are you doing? You're not supposed to tear books!"

I replied, "It's ok. We don't really use this one".

His response?

"Oh. Is it a cookbook?"

moving on...

I folded the page at the top and the bottom,

like in the pic above,

and then cut triangles on the folds,

like this:

placed a dab of glue in the center,

along with some twine-

and folded the triangle over-

until I had a couple of these:

Next, I pulled out some stamps and

voila!

Not only did this come together super quick,

but my 3 kiddos became experts on the kazoo while I was gluing and stamping.

Even MM plays pretty well.

Wish I'd snapped a pic.

Ah well...

Can't wait to hang this in my classroom,

and I'm thinking this would also be super cute in a playroom.

Whatcha think?

Would you hand kazoos on your wall?

Would you hand each of your kids a kazoo, set them free in your house, and then deal with the consequences?

Did you count how many times I added 'super' to an adjective in this post?

(it was a lot)

Happy Monday friends!

I'll be sharing a super-cool new arts & crafts studio with you tomorrow, so don't miss it!

I've linked this post to:

Met Monday at Between Naps on the Porch,

Craftomaniac Monday at Craftomaniac,

Get Your Craft On at Today's Creative Blog,
Tutorials & Tips Tuesday at Home Stories A 2 Z,

Tutorial Tuesday at Hope Studios,

Create and Share at The Trendy Treehouse,

Lil' Luna link party,

Anything Goes at Type A Decorating,

Show and Tell at Blue Cricket Design,

Whatever Goes Wednesday at Someday Crafts,

What I Whipped Up Wednesday at Sugar and Dots,

What I Made Wednesday at Sweet Peas and Bumblebees,

Sizzle into Summer at DIY By Design,
Frugalicious Friday at Finding Fabulous,
Friday Flair at Whipperberry,
Do Something Crafty at The Crafty Nest,

heart wreath from junk I found at home

When I heard about Nester's

"You made a wreath out of WHAT?!"

party, I had to join in.

Some of you may remember my crazy newspaper, electrical tape, wire, & burlap wreath, but if you're new here, well,

I think it bears repeating...

so...if you've been reading this blog for any length of time, you know how much I love to make wreaths.

(see some examples HERE)

I heart pretty wreaths BIG time, so it was natural to make one just for the big V-day that's around the corner.

I wanted a heart wreath, but the only heart wreath forms I found were too small-

the hob lob had a foam wreath form that was only about 8 inches wide (I didn't want a baby wreath, I wanted a big mama wreath)

and Michael's only had a small twig heart wreath.

So-
I made the actual wreath form on my own.
Out of odds and ends I found at the house.

here's a pic of the finished product-

and here's how I made it-

In my brain, I had this grand scheme all planned for how I would make a larger, thicker heart shape than the forms I'd found in the stores.

Newsprint.

Yep.

Newsprint.

I went home after that fab trip to Michael's and found my newsprint sketchbook from an art class I took in college.

(don't worry- I didn't use any paper that I'd drawn on, but believe me- some of my work from college is, umm, special. Perhaps I'll post pics of what was in that sketchbook later on...)

I started wadding up blank pages like this-

and figured I could secure pieces together with masking tape until I had a heart shape.

Okay...masking tape,

masking tape.

Couldn't find any masking tape, BUT, I found black electrical tape. That works the same, right?

so I crumpled and taped,

crumpled and taped,

(see the heart starting to form? Fascinating, right?)

I had trouble getting the middle to stay dipped, ya know, to make the heart shape at the top.

No worries-

we had picture-hanging wire in the ole' toolbox.

Now it dippity-dips up there and stays put.

After a few more wraps of newsprint to beef it up a little, I had this-

Ready for burlap now!

I cut my burlap (from the remnant section at the hob lob, of course) into strips like this

and just started wrapping...

when I made it all the way around, I secured the end with hot glue

and ta-dah, my friends.

a heart wreath made from newsprint, electrical tape, wire, and burlap that stays together when held up like this and everything.

Now to make it pretty...

I went back to my remnant supply and pulled out some V-day appropriate colors

I was really digging the red fleece and the red/white stripes, so I got to cutting some circles. I always use one of our M coasters that were a wedding gift from my friend Kara when I make felt or fabric flowers and it works great. Of course, if you don't have M coasters, you could always use the peanut butter jar lid. They may or may not me the same size. (trust me though, they are) 

I take each circle, fold it in half, and then fold it in half again until it looks like this. Then I secured the tips to the center of a felt circle until it was covered.

With the fleece circles, I did a lil something different:

I still folded them in half twice, but cut a heart shape in the top like this, so that when opened, it looked like this:

(oooooooooo, aaaahhhhhhhhh)

hot glue the tips of those babies onto another felt circle, and you get this:

B-E-A-utiful, aint it?

next I snagged some red berry twigs from a vase I had sitting on my desk and stuck them into the burlap. No glueing. Just jammed them down in there.

attached some pink tulle and my flowers, and that was all she wrote folks.

Done.

And thar she blows, just a hanging on our Narnia door.

(that door in our foyer leads to a hallway that leads to the back of the house. We've called it the Narnia door since we moved in because, well...because it's cool, ya know?)

So...any one out there make any crafts using slightly unconventional methods with stuff you found lying around?

I'd love to hear about it.

Seriously- it would make me feel less crazy.