Talented Tuesday

Before getting too far ahead of myself, I would like to formally invite all of you to Birthday Week. Next week, I turn 32. In honor of that, the most dreaded of days, I have been in talks with 7 fellow bloggers who are each donating a prize.

For 7 days- Saturday the 24th through Friday the 30th, I will have a sponsored post each day about a different blog, each with a prize donated from that blog. Each contest is open to anyone who wants to enter, and believe me- there are some really cool prizes, from Jewelry, to Handbags, to Baby items.

I can't wait to show off these talented women! So, mark your calendars to come back to the blog starting Saturday, or follow the blog so you can see the daily updates!

Now, some features from last week's Talented Tuesday posts!

 

House of Hepworths took a plain Dawn Dishsoap bottle, and gave it a painted makeover. It turned out great, don't you think? 

At Second Street hosted this totally adorable Minnie Mouse birthday party. Seriously, it's just adorable!

A Vision to Remember makes these fantastic rag quilt car seat blankets. Whoever first came up with this idea is a genius, but here? She takes it to a really cute place with her rag work.

Makin' It Domestic turned a vinyl tablecloth into a useful diaper changing pad- which folds up to hold a diaper and slim pack of baby wipes. It's a great gift for any parent-to-be, or new parent!

Sawdust and Paperscraps took two empty walls, and made a fantastic framed photo collage wall. She used paint to make the frames match one another, and it makes a great statement on the walls, I think.

Sassy Style linked up this Framed Monogram, which she lined with a super cute green houndstooth fabric. Maybe I'm just partial to the H, but I love this!

With all the cool items that get linked up to the party each week, it's hard to pick just a few favorites, because I am always in awe of the creativity that flows in the blog world. Seriously- you guys rock! 

If I didn't feature your project, it isn't because I didn't like it- it's because I run out of room each week! ;)

Next week's Talented Tuesday Post is already being hosted, but if you are interested in sponsoring for a future Talented Tuesday post, please contact me!

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The Rules

1) Post a blog about something you've made- a refurnish, recipes, a craft project, a sewing project, room decoration, anything you've done!

2) Add a link to your blog post- not to the blog itself, but to the individual posts! You can post more than one project, just add more links! The links should look something like:

http://theherberfamily.blogspot.com/2010/01/love-banner.html

and NOT like this:

http://theherberfamily.blogspot.com/

3) Add the code below to your blog, so that others can post their projects here as well! The list will accept new links through Thursday, so if you make something new, come back and post it!

Don't forget to look at the links on the list, and let people know where you found their post at!

This Link Party will remain open and accepting links through Thursday evening!!

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<a border="0" href="http://theherberfamily.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"><img src="http://i695.photobucket.com/albums/vv318/princessspanky/tt1.png" /></a>

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Cheap Craft Supplies

Today, Nick and I took a drive into Lansing to do some craft supply shopping. You gotta love a man who is willing to shop for craft supplies with you, while holding the bags, and paying. Ahh.. true love!

My main goal was to just get to Hobby Lobby. We also stopped into the Dollar Tree next to it, and the Big Lots across the street, both of which yielded some supplies for very little cash. I love frugal crafts!

At Hobby Lobby, my main goal was finding some sort of wooden doo dad (technical term) to put in the middle of a picture I'm working on, similar to the monogrammed "H" picture I worked on earlier this week. It's smaller, and I wanted something different in the middle, but lacked anything on hand.

I was hoping for a Fleur De Lis, but alas, did not find any. Instead, I found a little wooden medallion thing that is similar in shape to a Fleur, but isn't. I also wanted to look over the scrapbook paper.

 

 

My niece, Alex, is turning 3 in April, and my sister loved the monogrammed "H" picture, and requested one for Alex in bright colors. Since I don't scrapbook, I only get paper when I have an idea of what I want to make, and because it's been mostly Christmas and house items, I had nothing in bright colors.

I found 2 pretty bright colored flower paper, then I saw some nice antiqued looking paper with old letters on it. I picked up 2 of those to use on the wooden cigar box I found at Goodwill yesterday. I can't wait to work on it!

I picked up a 2 pack of wooden letter "A"s, a wooden cross, and an oval medallion to put the cross on. I also picked up a Distress Ink pad, since so many people use them. I found, though, that while it's supposed to be easier to use, it really is just a regular ink pad, simply raised up. I thought it would have some sort of pattern on it for distressing. Anyway, it was 40% off, so not a horrible buy. Oh, and ribbon! I found some cute, bright colored striped grosgrain, which I'll use to make a banner for my niece's birthday- 50% off!

 

 Next, we stopped at Dollar Tree, where I just wanted to look around a bit. I did find some things, though. I picked up a 10-pack of flower shaped wooden shapes, a 7-section shadow box, 2 "pictures" (which will be sanded down, mod podged with paper, and made into 1 "A" sign), plus 2 letter "H" wooden shapes, marked down to $.50 each. I forgot to get the shadow box in the photo.

What I'll do is layer the smaller picture ontop of the larger one for the "A" sign. The big one already has some pretty light aqua sheer ribbon to hang it from, too!

At Big Lots, I wasn't doing much looking, but found a great deal- scrapbooking kits for $2 each! They each had 8 sheets of 12x12, and an assortment of embellishments, plus some letter shaped post-it notes. I also grabbed 4 small spools of decorative ribbon. One is lavender and says "Heaven Sent" on it, with stars. One is white and says "Father's Day" on it. One is lavender canvas ribbon, and the last is wired, sheer lavender & green gingham ribbon. The ribbon was only $.75 each for 2 yards.

 

 

 

This is 1 kit opened up- 2 chipboard alphabets, 1 accent stickers, 1 6pack of boarder art, some chipboard tags, sticky buttons, card kit, and more. LOTS of stuff for only $2!

 

This is kit 2- similar items, but some differences. Accent paper instead of boarders, different colored chipboard tags, 1 different chipboard alphabet, different buttons, and 1 of the 4-packs of paper is patterned instead of all solids.

All in all, I got 16 sheets of paper- 12 are solid colors (with some duplicates), and 4 are patterned.

Both kits came with a 20 count pack of stickers, but they are cardstock stickers. Both sets were identical, with the stickers shown above.

 

All of the paper from the packs. I love having some solids to work with, since I rarely buy solid colors.

 

Some of them upclose. 

It was nice getting out of the house, though my bottom is really sore now. It's been doing really well, but I've noticed on the days I'm active, especially if I have to stand up a lot, my tailbone gets REALLY sore. Tomorrow, we're planning to start putting the Christmas stuff away. I know, I should have already. Honestly, though, there have been times the tree was still up just before Valentine's Day.

It would have gotten taken down before now, but the weekend we planned to was just 2 days after I broke my tailbone, so alas, it did not happen.

If we can haul rear on getting it all down tomorrow, and put away, then I want to do some crafting. On my block for this week:

• "A" sign for Alex
• ALEX Banner for her birthday, similar to my LOVE banner
• Aged Cigar Box
• Finish the extra sign for me 
• Do some more organizing in my craft area

I hope I can get to all of it, but I'll be happy if I can even get 2 of the projects done. With the ALEX banner, I am planning to try and make felt flowers instead of felt hearts, but I'm SO not good at free handing flower shapes. The wooden flowers I picked up will help with that, though.

As for the shapes themselves, I plan to add at least 1 to the "A" sign I make.

I hope everyone is having a great weekend!

Oh, and on a final note... I was amazed and flattered to find out that I've been featured on 4 sites since yesterday.

• My LOVE Banner was featured on Dollar Store Crafts for Friday
• My Post It Note Holder was featured on Mad In Crafts for Friday
• My Post It Note Holder was featured on The Girl Creative for Saturday
• My "H" sign was featured on Sweet Sumo for Saturday

Much thanks to all 4 sites! Your links are available on my side bar, so I hope to be able to send some new viewers your ways!!

25 Ornaments - Day 17

I had planned to have the kids make these tonight, but Gilly is sick, and after all the fighting earlier, I just never got around to it.

I'm thinking of having the kids do them this weekend at the Christmas party. Maybe. It'd be messy, though, so maybe not. Either way, I want to tackle these before Christmas.

 Rebecca & Maggie over at Homemade Mamas showed these off this morning, and they are just ever so cute!


These yarn balls couldn't be easier! Dip yarn in glue, and wrap it around a small inflated balloon. Let it dry 24 hours, then pop the balloon. The glue will stiffen and hold the yarn in shape. You can sprinkle glitter on the wet yarn, or do layers in multiple colors!

These could be super cheap to make, even if you have to buy all the supplies, given just how little yarn it takes to make each one. These would make for excellent add-in's to give packages this year!



{photo credit Rebecca & Maggie at Homemade Mamas}

And the Winner....

...will be announced later today. Turns out, I have a horrendous head cold, and all I can think of doing right now, is crawling back into bed. Later today, when I feel more alive, I'll post the winner of the contest.

In the mean time, thank you everyone who entered, and who tweeted, or posted to facebooks, or blogs about the contest! There have been a lot of new faces here to the blog this week.

It's also been an exciting week for me, as a newbie blogger- I've been featured this week on 3 different blogs/websites for 2 of my projects! I'm so excited by that! When I look at all the gorgeous items some of these super talented people put out, I'm just amazed. I look at my crafts as easy, frugal, and quick things to make, and I'm glad others seem to like them as well!

My features this week are:

Someday Crafts- This cool blog has featured my Scarf & Hat from a Sweater tutorial.
Craft Gossip- This website, which houses just tons of ideas, has also featured my scarf & hat from a sweater tutorial!
Dollar Store Crafts- This feature is one I knew about ahead of time. I showed off my Dishtowel & Potholder Apron, and they loved it!

It also sounds like I might be featured again soon on another website, so I'm just as excited as can be! I also had my busiest blog day ever, in terms of visitors this past week. My prior high for the day was 303 visitors on November 9th. My new high is 410 on the 18th this past week! Since then, I'm averaging almost 300 a day, as well, which is just amazing to me!

Thank you so much for enjoying my blog!

This weekend will be a slow blog weekend. On top of the head cold, I promised Gillian we would go to the science museum today- it's free entrance to people with my insurance, so frugal fun! Tomorrow, we're going to clean out the living room a bit, and dig out the Christmas tree! SO excited!