Everything's Coming Up Crawfish: Adventures In Wreath Making

Today I am sharing a deco-mesh wreath I made for my sister.  I love to drive by homes and see the beautiful door wreaths, but for me personally it’s not my cup of tea.  Why would someone who has a knack for crafts not have a wreath for every occasion you ask? STORAGE!  Not that I don’t have plenty of storage, but the thought of climbing the attic stairs every 6 weeks to celebrate the next holiday that has been immortalized in wreath form just sounds exhausting. Don’t get me wrong I have some Easter, Fall and definitely Christmas boxes, but I almost never take them all out and display the many wonders tucked away up there.

So why am I going on about this, well I wanted to try my hand at a deco-mesh wreath and the opportunity presented itself in the form of a crawfish boil.  My beautiful sister celebrated a monumental birthday with a crawfish boil and I knew the time had come to give this craft a try. 

I went in search of inspiration and crafts supplies and came up with a ton of options.  I went from store to store searching out the combination of items I was sure she would like being careful not to go overboard with my theme, and being mindful of the budget.  A $15 bag of faux lemons would have done the trick, but I searched for the three lemons I found at the Dollar Tree. That's my little helper hand checking out mommy's supplies.

I began by watching tutorials on YouTube and was confident I had a good idea of what it was I needed to do.  I added pipe cleaners to my wreath form and began to load the wreath like the videos showed.  

The inner ring went well but I discovered that the outer rings needed extra pipe cleaners to achieve the same fullness I achieved on the inner ring. No biggie I gave myself a do-over and got the look I was hoping for.

Then came the bow and finally the stuff. I found a checked wired burlap ribbon and I like the drape of the extra mesh at the end so I left it hanging.  Then I cut an extra length to match the drape and wired it on so they matched. 

I found a fabulous item in the floral section of Hobby Lobby that looked like chicken wire, but was made of floral wire.  I wasn’t quite sure how I was going to use it, but I knew I had to have it.  I ended up cutting pieces and fashioning miniature crawfish traps. 

And that cute bottle of Tony Chachere's came from my kitchen. It was the right size so I was happy to recycle it into a craft project. 

I placed the other items around the wreath to determine the spacing and when I was satisfied with the spacing I gave them all a healthy glob of hot glue and made it permanent. 

Her party was in March and to date the crawfish have proven too heavy for the hot glue, they will have to be wired in place but the rest is holding up nicely on her front door.

This one was such a big hit I was asked to make others.  So while my door is still pretty plain, others in my family have beautiful wreaths.  I will show you the Spring wreath my mother requested soon.

What Has Eight Legs & Holds Art?

Why an octopus of course! I know I haven’t shown y’all this pirate bedroom I’m always going on about, but the fact of the matter is I'm not quite finished with it.  Any normal person would be done by now, but the truth is I keep thinking of other things that would go well in there and I want to wait until it's all done.  It is so close to being finished.   
I got to thinking that my nephew needed a place to hang his art work and there are so many wonderful ideas out there, however I came up with this idea out of my own crafty little brain.  Mostly because I needed an excuse to play with my new overhead projector that I purchased off of craigslist, also because I wanted something to take up plenty of space on those red walls.

I began by finding a silhouette of an octopus on line and tracing is onto a transparency. 

I turned a half sheet of bead board paneling to the wrong side and traced the silhouette using my handy dandy overhead projector.  

Next I drilled several holes at different places on the board to accommodate the sharp angles. A skill saw can't make those sharp turns and drilling the pilot holes at the onset kept me from stopping during the cutting.

I cut out the octopus with a skill saw and sanded the edges with a detail sander. 

I painted the octopus with a blue sample I picked up at the Lowes’s that I watered down to achieve a more transparent wash than a solid paint job.  I dry brushed over the blue paint with a bit of off white. 

Lastly I used small screws to attach silver bulldog clips.  I had to use a split washer to keep the screws from coming out the back, plus it keeps the clips from spinning. 

I had to search the store room for the smallest screwdriver I could find, so it would fit through the clip itself.  Luckily I had one on hand.  I secured one clip for each of the legs and I was done. 

Major cuteness I think and I can’t wait to show you guys how it looks on the wall. 

Come back for the last pirate room project and the big reveal.  I promise it is almost finished, and if I’m lying y’all can make me walk the plank. 

UPDATE: Here is the finished product up in the finished room, what fun this was. 

Shop Till I Drop

Oh my goodness, I can’t believe it is March already.  Where did the time go?  I have been crazy busy at work with a project that had a March 1^st deadline, which has passed.  Yay! So I thought I might share a few things I have been up to.  Of course I have been cooking but I think I will save all that for later. 

I have been on a little bargain shopping spree and came across some great deals.  Some to stay here in the house and others...well sadly, I can’t keep them all. 

First up is this Coco Mat Hanging Basket that is going to go be funky and fresh in my oh-so-cool niece’s room.

We scored her a lovely day bed on Craigslist and she put her new bed into her room and covered it with twinkle lights.  She needed some light over a corner makeup table and we drew our inspiration from some lights we have seen on Pinterest.

The next is this fabulous coastal theme lamp that is going to go in my parent’s place on the coast.  They have what used to be described as a fishing camp on Gran Isle, but now can only be described as a vacation getaway.  

I saw this and had to have it.  Can I just say I am glad to be living in a time when I can snap a picture on my phone and immediately get a yea or nay from family members on my fabulous finds.  No real work needed on this one.  I dusted it off, put a bulb in it and was glad to see this one go to its new home.

I found a floor lamp at the local ReStore, and swooped up two for what I thought was a deal at $12.88. I’ll give you guys the particulars on those soon.   

But this week my visit to the ReStore turned up a herd of lamps corralled in a single area and ready for the taking.  Well I called up the family and bought three more, only this time for the bargain sale price of $5.88 each.

This is by far my favorite and I can’t wait to see how it turns out.  I went to a resale shop near my office just to peek at what they had and bought this beautiful antique wrought iron bed frame.

It was tucked away against a wall in this small store just waiting to be discovered.   The bed has tapered pin side rails so there is no hardware required to put it together.  I couldn't resist putting it together the second I got it home. Pictured here in my car port.

A little bit of TLC and I think this full sized bed will go perfectly in a guest room, or I imagine it in a little girl's room covered in pink bedding.

So there you have it my shopping sprees as of late.  You’ll have to come back and see how each of these turns out.  Thank goodness spring is fast approaching because I have plenty of projects to keep me outdoors working.  Thanks for stopping by and come back soon.

Special Early Christmas Gift

I’m pretty sure that I have mentioned that I love to open Christmas presents at Thanksgiving, or any present really.  I can’t stand the anticipation and the waiting.  Imagine my surprise when my dad handed me a Christmas present this past weekend to open. 

I do crazy amounts of cooking and baking and my recipes are usually laying on the counter vulnerable to all the ingredients as they are poured, mixed and flung all over the counter space.  I mentioned to my mom that I needed a cookbook stand like the one in her kitchen, and dad went to work making me this beautiful cookbook stand. 

He used two beautiful pieces of cypress from his shop, and I just love the look and the history.  

My dad wanted me to have my present early so that I would have it to use while cooking and baking for Christmas day.  

So thank you daddy for the Christmas gift, it is just perfect and it now has a permanent place on the counter.  This is one gift that will get plenty of use.

Stamp To It

This is going to be a quick post, because there are so many good things I could say about these stamps that I could ramble on and on.  But there are some wonderful and creative sites I want to share with you, and I think the versatility will begin to speak for itself.  Today I want to talk for a moment about my PSA Essentials stamps. 

I first came across these a couple of years ago on another blog.  I had considered purchasing a return address embosser, but this stamp looked as though it gave me many more options.  I checked out the Expressionery website and considered it for a couple weeks more.  Then much to my surprise and excitement they were 60% off.  I had to pull the trigger on this one. 

My first stamp was a monogramed return address stamp.  Then I got to thinking I needed some accessory packs to use my return address for different occasions by changing out the center. 

 

 

Next I wanted to use the stamp for gift tags and other things.  I got tired of disassembling my address stamp and at the next 60% off sale I ordered the stamp kit only.  

 

And of course the one you saw featured here was the last one, my kitchen stamp. 

 

I purchased a couple as teacher’s gifts, for my son’s kindergarten teachers. I had one that had Ms. Smith’s Class around the Edge and had her monogram in the center; I also purchased the teacher's accessory pack to go with it.  For her assistant I purchased the monogram gift set. 

I gave one of these to my sister as a birthday present.  Remember how I said I can’t stand to wait to open presents, well that goes for giving them as well.  I wanted to give it to her the day it came in, but she made me wait until her actual birthday.  I mean what’s a couple of weeks anyway, but she insisted so I had to wait. 

I subscribe to the Expressionery website, so I get the email alerts for sales and special offers. I use these quite often for return addresses and gift labels but I have to realize that the possibilities are endless.  I find that most newlyweds these days own a house and it makes a nice wedding or housewarming gift. 

There are a number of websites where I have gotten so many fun and fresh ideas.  Have a look and see if your mind doesn’t envision all kinds of crafty uses for these stamps.

PSA Stamp Camp

Mrs. Mommy Product Blog

Expressionery Blog

 

Let’s Play Guess The Sheet Size

Don’t you just hate it when you have to unfold sheets in the linen closet to guess the size? Well you may not have given it much thought, but it is one of those things that drives me a little bit nuts. 

Not to mention when you are grabbing one from the bottom and the neatly folded stack falls to the floor.  Argh!  Years ago I used a laundry pen to write a T, Q, or K in the corners of the sheets.  I found I still had to unfold the sheets because the letter was rarely ever visible after I folded them.  Next I placed the folded set inside one of the pillow cases to keep a matched set together, but again this wasn’t ideal because even though I tucked in the edges the pillow case was too large to keep them neatly stacked.  My next method included me whipping out some elastic from the sewing kit and tying pieces around the folded set with a big chunky knot on top.  This worked for the last several months, but this doesn’t solve the problem of identifying the size without opening them up.  

Lying in bed one night, moments before drifting off to sleep it hit me…I need to sew tags!  I of course proclaimed this out loud and startled my husband moments before he drifted off to dream land.  He groggily replied, “that’s nice dear,” and kept is date with the sandman. 

This is what my crafting mind came up with to solve the folding, stacking and identifying conundrum. I used a couple different fabrics, ¾” braided elastic, and some Sharpie Stained fabric markers.  In truth I was inspired by these Stained by Sharpie fabric markers that I purchased off the clearance rack at Office Depot.  I sometimes wander their aisles on my lunch break as a form of meditation during my workday.  You’d be surprised how rows and rows of paper products calm the nerves.

 

I began by scribbling the words using different colors and style until I found a few I didn’t mind.  I then cut the fabric into 4” square around each word.

 

 

I used the iron to press a narrow hem on each side of the tag.  The iron works better than pins when you are sewing a hem this narrow. 

 

 

I then folded the fabric right sides together and hemmed along the long edge.

 

 

 

I used a large safety pin to turn the tag inside out.  I put the pin through one end and pass the pin back through the center until it is right side out.  I discovered this trick when making scrunchies in the 90’s (don’t judge me; we all had them it’s nothing to be ashamed of).

 

 

Next I used the same pin to fish through the elastic, which I then overlapped and sewed closed. UPDATE: For the elastic I used 24" for kings, 20" for queens, and 18" for twin sized sheets.

 

 

I finished by slipping the tag over where I connected the two ends and stitched both sides of the tag.  This holds it in place and give it a more finished look.

 

 

I made several more using the same technique and proceeded to give my new invention a try.  They worked beautifully to keep the sheets sets together and make them easily identifiable.

 

The possibilities are endless here, you can be as fashionable as you’d like. 

 

I think they would be lovely if you have access to a machine with and embroidery feature. I hear those machines cost plenty of money and take up tons of space.  For now I am pleased to have solved another organization dilemma in my home.  Thank you for stopping by and be sure to come back to see what I’ve got going next.