Christmas Break FUN!

Since my girls are in public school I am always SUPER happy when school is out and we get time to be together at home. With Christmas break coming up I knew that I wanted to spend the time with them just having as much fun as possible. So I started a list of things we could do and set aside a little of my paycheck so we would have the funds to do it. 

The true blessing came when through a series of events they BOTH ended up with NO IPODS for the entire Christmas break ... I can't tell you how wonderful it was that they were not staring at those screens all the time! 

The other thing that I was pretty intentional about this Christmas was that they didn't get ANYthing for Christmas that had anything to do with technology ... no video games, no ipods, no phones, no computers, no tablets, nothing! They basically got clothes and creative/crafty items. Now we certainly did a lot of movie watching, most evenings snuggling up together for hours to watch movies ... and they also do sometimes play on the computer {their latest thing is Pinterest} ... but otherwise our break was such a nice, relaxing time of playing and being creative. 

Here are a few things we did:
They have always been wonderful artists thanks to my Father in law who gave them art lessons ... they received some new paints and brushes for Christmas so one day we stopped at Micheal's to get some new canvases and they spent most of that day painting.

One of the days we were blessed to celebrate Christmas with my Mom, her fiance {just engaged on Christmas Day!!}, and my brother Matt and his family ... the girls had fun playing with their cousins and we opened gifts and had lunch together and just enjoyed visiting and catching up. 

{Mom and Wayne}

{Stacy and Matt} 

Jilly also got a MARKER Maker for Christmas, something she had on her list and she was so excited, making markers several different times throughout the break. A couple of the other creative things they got were those LOOM band bracelet things - which they both spent HOURS working on. And Jilly also got a notebook thing where there are stencils and you create outfits and fashion ideas {hard to explain but it's cute}

 One day we needed to make some exchanges so we headed out of the house for a few hours, my hubby was sick that day and although it sounds mean we all wanted to avoid getting his sickness, so off we went. We went to a few stores, stocked up on some crafts at Micheal's, had lunch at Panera and stopped in to drool at Pier One - Haley commented that when she grows up she wants to furnish her whole house from Pier One - sure Haley, don't we all?! 

We also went out to lunch, then bowling with some good friends -- lots of fun with this group!! 

And another day we went Roller Skating with these lovely friends. 

We also went Ice Skating twice, once with family on Christmas Eve and once with friends - those pics will be in a separate post. 

And since the girls had some gift cards we did a little shopping ... after walking around Target for about an hour not knowing how she should spend hers, Jilly finally decided on a scooter! I was so happy she chose it because it was one item I had thought about getting her for Christmas, but just never did. With the cold, nasty weather lately she has been using it to scooter around inside the house for now. =) 

I am so thankful for this Christmas break ... we really had a great time together!! I was sad to see them go when it was time to go back to school. 

Craft / Vendor Fair

A little over a week ago I got to participate in a great craft / vendor fair for a great cause. The event was to support Autism Speaks and it was a really great time.

I had a whole table FULL of all my crafty things that I make and I spent several weeks preparing for the event. I dabble in a bunch of different crafts and am always trying to think of new things to create. All of these things will soon be listed on my Etsy shop, but I need a few days to catch up on life first. =)

So here are some pictures from the event ... My table display:

I buy old quilting hoops and make them pretty with all sorts of designs. These are meant to be wall hangings and can be used in any room. I have some in my living room, my master bedroom and my daughter's rooms. These are just a few of the ones I made:

These are a bunch of the Fabric flower pins. These are made from t-shirt material and are nice and soft and fluffy. I currently have about 20-25 different colors!

I also sew these fabric covers for journaling books. I use a standard composition book and sew a pretty cover to go over it. The cover has a pocket for a pen or pencil, and ribbon ties to keep it closed. They can also be used over and over again because when your notebook is full you just slip the notebook out and put a new one in.

 These are a slightly different style of fabric flower pin. They have both a bar pin AND a hair clip on the back so you get to choose how you want to use it. They are mostly made from cotton fabric and all have some sort of button or 'bling' in the center.

Then we have the hair clip minis ... same thing as the t-shirt flowers only slightly smaller and they have a hair clip on the back. I also stamped some fun gift tags so people could buy them to use for gift giving.

A fun little reminder to shoppers:

I tried something new with making these cute little girly totes. They are big enough to hold a chapter book and probably a pair of sunglasses or a snack. They come with a fabric flower pin and it can be removed from the bag if you'd rather wear it somewhere else.

More of the notebooks:

Lots more quilt hoops!

And the whole table again!

It was a fun event and I was glad to be a part of it. I met some great ladies that were vendors at other tables and was happy to see a few of my friends come out and check out my table. I'm so very thankful to have the creative bug and really enjoy making new things. =)

The Dreaded Over-the-fridge cabinet

I saw this idea on a blog recently, I WISH I could remember where it was cause I'd love to show you the photo that inspired me, but anyway, here is the before of my cabinet over the fridge. You know the one ... it's so high and unreachable that it's virtually a waste. I know that whatever I put in it cannot and will not be reached on a regular basis. Because of the height of our fridge I actually have to get on a chair in order to reach anything in this cabinet ... so anyway, here's what I did ...

Removed the doors, put up pretty contact paper, and filled it up with pretty things!

Isn't it SO much better?! I'm still playing around with the placement of everything but for now I like it as it is...

My only gripe ... well, OK two gripes - first, that center post that just feels in the way. But I don't want to take it out in case we ever decide we want the doors back on. {or when we sell the house}. And second, the contact paper keeps falling down on me! Does anyone have a good trick to keep it in place?

I SOOOO want to take the doors off another cabinet now and have open shelving for my white dishes but hubby says no ... {for now at least!} =)

Painted Dresser Project

Remember this ol' beauty I posted about a couple weeks ago?

I forgot to show you the AFTER!

We are planning to mount the TV on the wall soon, but until then it's sitting on the dresser. We used to have a HUGE, MAMMOTH entertainment center and I felt like it took up the whole room and made the room look so small ... so I painted this dresser a GORGEOUS light blue color, got some pretty new hardware for it, and moved it in to it's new home!

Sorry this one is a bit blurry ... I am IN LOVE with it!

It has such beautiful details! This is a dresser I got FOR FREE from a friend who was getting rid of it. So much of our furniture is stuff that has been given to us and I just love re-purposing things!

I used a runner on the top so the paint wouldn't get scratched by the TV and DVD player. I used the drawers to hold all of our videos, DVD's, CD's, etc ...

So what do you think?!

{I wish you could see the color in real life, the color is dreamy!}

Show Us Your Life - Things you make

Today at Kelly's Korner she's asking for people to link up if they make or sell something. Well this is right up my alley! I LOVE making and creating new things, in fact just this week I've been super busy making a bunch of new products to get ready for a craft fair I'm doing in a couple weeks.

Here is a little sample of some of the products I make:

Fabric flower pins - these look beautiful pinned on a coat, shirt, scarf, purse or hat.

 I also have a couple smaller ones with hair clips on the back which look super cute pinned in a little girl's hair {or even a bigger girl like my daughter pictured here!}

Then I have these combo - hair clip / pins - these have both the hair clip and the bar pin on the back so you can choose how you want to wear it!

And finally, I have a bunch of these beautiful fabric covered notebooks. They have a ribbon to tie it closed, a pocket on the front for your pencils or pens and when you've filled your notebook you can simply slip it out and put a new one in - it will last you for years to come! This week I've been making more notebooks in some gorgeous new fabrics, so if you don't see one you like be sure to come back next week when I hope to have more posted.

Please come check out all the products at my Etsy shop - Ranunculusly Cute Creations. {And for a few more days, only till the end of April, you can save 12% by using the coupon code SPRING12 at checkout!}

Wanna do some shopping for Mother's Day? You should definitely click over to Kelly's post today to see some other amazingly creatively people!

Christmas Crafts part 3

This craft was just pure fun! I had some leftover green fleece (I don't even remember what it was from!) and so we decided to make some Christmas stockings for the girls' favorite stuffed animals. I know ... seems silly to make a stocking for a stuffed animal but the girls were thrilled and thought it was such a fun idea ... they play with the stockings and pretend to fill them with girls for their treasured friend.

Anyway, we started with the leftover fleece. I used my (childhood!) stocking to trace out a stocking pattern on the fleece, then cut the pieces out ...
The next part must be done by Mommy ... I sewed the pieces together. (You might be able to hot glue them if you don't want to sew.)
Here they are all sewn together ...
Then we added some red, glittery felt on the top ...
Then the girls added white pompoms ... and then I used some puffy paint to write out the animal names on them ...
They turned out SO cute!!! The girls love them! ( ... and I think they're animals do too!)