The $3 Valentine Wreath

Well, hubby was off work on Monday due to the holiday, and I was not going to let the opportunity pass for me to have some alone time, so I hopped in the truck and hit up three Goodwill Stores in my search for hidden treasures (pyrex). I didn't find anything, however, the last Goodwill was right next door to a Dollar Tree. And the rest becomes this super easy tutorial.

First, you need to pick up a willow wreath from the "floral" section of the Dollar Tree. (I was surprised at the variety of sizes available!) And I picked up two bags of 300 ct rose petals from the valentine section. You will also need your glue gun and plenty of glue sticks.

Find a comfortable spot to lay it all out. I dumped both colors out so I could just be random when selecting.

I took each petal and put one finger in the middle and gathered the sides around that finger...

then slipped the finger out and glued right there in the middle.

And just started placing them close together into the willow wreath. (and totally find something for your children to do while you are doing this...mine were coloring)

I attached a ribbon onto the back of the wreath and have it hanging on my front door!

DIY Roller Stamper

I want to start by saying I saw this ingenious pin on pinterest that lead me to DIY stampers which in turn gave me this idea. :)

Firstly, you need some toilet paper rolls, a large stamp pad, and foam stickers of your choice.

We'll go jungle themed

Just stick them on creating a picture horizontally...then roll in your big ol' stamp pad being sure all stickers are well coated, then roll away on paper. I am going to go create a bunch of these with my not so tots this afternoon!

EDIT TO ADD:

After playing with this craft WITH tots...we decided it was way more fun to place the rolls on a paint roller and roll the heck out of the paper on their IKEA easels! That's how we "roll" 

Did you miss me?

Well, for most of 2011 I had no internet connection...then, for the last part...well, I had slipper orders coming out of my ears! :)

Now I get to be a mommy. And a blogger...a little bit. Here are some of the crafts we've been doing around here:

Around Thanksgiving, we went on a little leaf treasure hunt...I cut out a construction paper body and the kids did the rest...they're turkeys!

Thanks to a Martha Stewart craft idea, I bought some jewelry wire, and cut a good length of it, bent the end, and the kids LOVED threading them with buttons! I didn't embellish any more than this, but a little bow would be cute too.

We went on a pine cone hunt a few days before Christmas and found a few pretty ones that we made even prettier with some glue and glitter. I used the jewelry wire again and just wrapped the heck out of the center of the cone to attach it. Then formed a loop and hung them on the tree.

Hubby and I (okay mostly I) did some holiday baking to help bring on the happy merry jingle bell feelings!

I got my secret santa gift from my treasury team mate. She made me some bookmarks with my new shop name banner. :)

And, I am wearing one of my first knit hats I made! I am hoping to have a nice supply of them in my shop when it opens up! Yippeee. 

Thanks for peeking over here at the toddlerwhisperer!

Christmas Craftiness

I seriously feel like I've been thrown into the deep end and am treading water through these last few weeks.  I barely have a moment here or there to get my head out of my crochet craziness to pop in here and say hello.

I am thankful that I've decided to close the shop for a little while on December 11. I've got my little man's birthday coming up, then Christmas and the New Year festivities. My husband would love to stretch his legs out on the couch instead of avoid all the crazy skeins of yarn and measuring tapes and slippers taking up one half of it!

Besides my crafting, I have been trying to take the time to be a momma and do fun stuff with the kidlets!  We've got our tree up.

And we've decorated trees with foam stickers from Michael's. (kept the tots occupied for at least an hour)

We've even done some Christmas cookies. (I haven't done my homemade recipe yet, these were a mix)

And Daddy even brought home a TJ's Gingerbread house last night to make with the babes.

So that's what we've been up to over here. Can't wait until I have some more time to share more with you. What are you up to these days?

Pom Pom Maker

Have you seen my new pom pom slippers?? Aren't they adorable? I am busily working on a whole bunch more of them for the shop. They're just fun, you know??  Got me thinking that maybe, just maybe, pom poms would be a heck of a lot of fun to use as an embellishment for gifts, on sweaters, on head bands or barrettes...then I thought of you all...How fun it would be if I could show you how I make my crazy pom poms so you could too. So, a twofer today. A tutorial on how to build a pom pom maker and a tutorial on how to make the pom poms. lol enjoy!