Pieces To Treasure

Monday

Home Stories A to Z: Tutorials and Tips Link Party

The Dedicated House: Make It Pretty Monday

Kathe with an E: You're Gonna Love It

Tuesday

Blueberry Craft & Hobby Time

Wednesday

Thursday

Fireflies and Jellybeans: Show Off Your Stuff Party

Delightful Order: Delightfully Inspiring Thursday Party

Friday

Saturday

Tatertots and Jello: Weekend Wrap Up Party

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

My Favorite Wall

Four years ago we moved into our current home. We have painted 7 rooms and the hallways. I've decorated and contemplated in each room. I love most of them ... with only a few exceptions, but I have to say that of all of the things we have done this is by far my most favorite wall in the house.

It started with a stock photo my sister had. I loved the layout of the pictures...the idea of the larger and smaller photos in the collage...and so I decided to use it for our hall wall with our kiddos. I didn't use the exact layout as above, and I'm much more precise...some would say anal...about my layout. Here's how mine turned out:

Each of my children have their section from oldest to youngest. Each has 2 large photos. The top one is a close up of their faces...one of my favorites from when they were little. The bottom ones are photos I took of them at an arboretum here in town. Each child has 2 medium sized photos. One is a candid photo with daddy, and the other is just another favorite of mine. Then there are 3 littler photos for each child. The middle one is another favorite candid shot, then I have 2 pictures in each group of the flowers from the day at the arboretum.

Then as an added bonus I had a vinyl verse I'd picked up at Hobby Lobby...on sale of course. It had been sitting in our bedroom to go up on our wall. I decided it would go much better here. I love the verse:

"As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord" Joshua 24:15

It is the perfect top to the perfect wall. My pieces of Treasure displayed in a wall that I treasure!!!

Thanks for stopping by,

Jennifer

Blogs I'm Linking Up With:

Sunday

Monday

Home Stories A to Z: Tutorials and Tips Link Party

The Dedicated House: Make It Pretty Monday

Kathe with an E: You're Gonna Love It

Tuesday

Blueberry Craft & Hobby Time

Wednesday

Thursday

Fireflies and Jellybeans: Show Off Your Stuff Party

Delightful Order: Delightfully Inspiring Thursday Party

Friday

Saturday

Tatertots and Jello: Weekend Wrap Up Party

Thursday, August 16, 2012

The Life of a PTSA Mom

Bear with me as I attempt to catch up for a sec...literally!!! I have the life of a PTSA (Parent, Teacher, Student Assoc. for those not in the "know") Mom. It is chocked full of activities right now. I am co-chair of the sweatshirt committee and we sell them at schedule pick up (4 days sitting in the school all day long 8-() !!!) I am also Secretary. But it's this first one that has me swamped lately. Now that the schedule pick up time is over I have to get all the information together and that takes a ton of time.

I am squeezing a craft in here and there and have posts planned for later, but for the moment...yeah, this is all you get!!!

Thanks for sticking around...till next post!

Jennifer

Sunday, July 29, 2012

Happy Birthday Sweet Pea

Last week was my daughter's 9th birthday, and being in the summer I always try to do some kind of party or get together for her to make it special. This year, being 9, we decided to do totally girly things. So I went to Pinterest and found some "Girly" ideas to put into use.

We started with making lip glosses for all the girls (see my previous post Vaseline Lip Gloss). We added a file (Dollar Tree finds) and made up goody bags for each.

Then I found a cute idea where you put candies (in this case M&Ms) in plastic wine glasses topped off with a cupcake. In the Pinterest idea they were in champagne flutes, but the cupcakes would have had to be teeny tiny to fit in the top of those cups, so we went with the wine glasses. And boy did the girls feel special with their "Adult" cups.

Then I stole this nifty idea from a friend who found these lovelies at Michael's Crafts in the gift bag section. They're small, sturdy bags with a grease proof lining...perfect for young girls while watching movies.

I then made up a fun name banner using scrapbook paper pinwheels (some call these paper medalions...either way they're cute!) Pss...I'll post a tutorial later of how I did these.

Then I added a special chalk board message and a few tissue paper pom poms, a little yellow here (plates & bowls), a little yellow there (cupcakes & a tablecloth to save my table from nail polish later) and the room was ready for the Girls!!!

Once we'd eaten till we were high on sugar (see cupcakes and M&Ms above for verification), it was time to get our nails prettied up!

Aren't we a funny group. It doesn't matter how young or old-ish you are...doing nails is always a fun party theme!!!

So Happy Birthday to my baby girl! I hope you had a great time Sweet Pea!!!

Love,

Mom
(Jennifer)

I'm Linking Up

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Thursday

Fireflies and Jellybeans: Show Off Your Stuff Party

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Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Something Old...

I miss crafting! I miss doing projects! Why am I missing them...because I haven't gotten to get to any projects lately!!! I have been so busy that crafts have had to go by the wayside for a little bit...but they're taunting me!!!

I have this one here every time I go into my craft closet (a.k.a. the coat closet)

This is a bunch of natural and cream colored burlap (and not pictured is about 7 yards of muslin). It wants to be a Christmas tree skirt, 5 stockings, and a lovely covering to a table lamp...not yet purchased or even found at this time.

Then when I go to my car these two pieces stare me down, begging for my attention.

This one's going to be a kitchen chalk board, magnet board, to do board...and I have all the stuff...but time is lacking!!!

And this is for Sweet Pea's room. She's 9 now and is really into doing her hair and a little makeup (when I let her). Since she shares a bathroom with Bubba and Hoss we have to figure out a way to get her OUT of the bathroom ~~before the boys clobber her~~!!!

In the mean time my poor, brand new, hardly been used blog is also suffering. It wants, no NEEDS, my attention, and my crafting!!! So what do we do?

Something OLD!!!

So let's dig out one of last year's Christmas Gift crafts I took pics of. This was one of my favorites out of the many I did. It was what I dubbed "The Crafty Christmas".

This one was for my niece...Kylie (pictured over at The Concrete Cottage, my sister's blog). Last year she spent a ton of time with my parents learning and experiencing church. She really developed a relationship with Christ (therefore using the Fruit of the Spirit as the lettering). Plus, she was an ~~almost~~ teen with a love of color, and a very large new room that needed something for the walls. So in my quest to become Pinterest's #1 fan, I discovered the drippy crayon art and thought "KYLIE!!!".

I picked several different canvases in 5 different sizes, bought 2 boxes of CHEAP 64 piece crayons, puffy paint, and a bunch of hot glue (had to restock the stores in my closet). Then I got out the glue gun, xacto knife, Mod Podge, a sponge paint brush, wax paper and a hair dryer (soon changed to a heat gun).

I had to make the letters for each canvas so I went to my Microsoft Word and picked a font that would be easy to trace with the puffy paint, chose the right size for the canvases, printed them out, taped them on cardboard and then taped the wax paper over the top so I could use the puffy paint. I traced all the words with the puffy paint then let it dry. It takes a day or two to get fully dry...so do this ahead of time. Once dry, use an xacto knife to slowly peel up each letter gently. It takes some time, but you don't want them to rip so take the time to do it right!!!

I took the 128 crayons and sorted them in color order. I took all the neutral colors out and put them to the side. Then it was time to slice off all the wrappers. I took the xacto knife and cut away...this really took quite a bit of time surprisingly. I picked which word went with which canvas and put the crayons in color order on each canvas. Oh, I forgot to mention, I cut every one of the crayons in half because I didn't need them that long, and I had a BUNCH of canvases to cover. I used the hot glue gun to glue them along the top edge of the canvas. Once that was done I used a hair dryer to melt the crayons. It didn't work so well for me. The hair dryer didn't provide quite enough heat with way too much air. So I got out my heat gun that I have for melting embossing powder. I was careful not to hold it too long on the crayons themselves so I didn't melt the hot glue...it was a learning process. Oh, and don't forget to cover your work surface well. This is a mess to do!!! Here's what they looked like when all done...before the lettering.

Then in color order I put the words (one on the little ones and two on the larger ones) onto each canvas. I used Mod Podge to stick the letters on, then covered the letters again with the Mod Podge.

It turned out to be a fairly easy craft...with a bit of a learning curve, and a lot of patience. Nothing too difficult, just a bit of time...but it turned out great!!!

Until I get back in the groove...

Jennifer

Linking up with:

Sunday

Monday

Tuesday

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Thursday

Fireflies and Jellybeans: Show Off Your Stuff Party

Delightful Order: Delightfully Inspiring Thursday Party

Friday

Saturday