Top O' The Morning

Good Morning (again)!

This morning, I worked on a wreath for St. Patrick's Day. I love how it turned out, but I'm kind of sad I can't hang it outside to show off. It's too cute to keep hidden! Maybe I'll hang it outside on the 17th, if it's not too wet out.

St. Patrick's Day Wreath for $3.75

You'll Need:
8 sheets of felt- I used 2 sheets each of white, lime green, kelly green, and forest green. $2 @ 4/$1 not on sale
Green Marabou trim- Clearance at 75% off- $.75
Foam Wreath Form- Dollar Tree- $1
Ball Point Pins- On hand (I've heard that the flat end pins hurt your thumb after a while of pushing them in!)

1. Find something circular to use, and draw as many circles as you can on your sheets of felt. I used a smaller than average size spool of ribbon, and was able to get 12 circles. Anything larger will likely yield less. Smaller, and I could have easily gotten 16, but I don't know how smaller circles would have looked. Cut the circles out.
2. Fold a circle in half. Fold that half into thirds. Pinch it together, and use a pin through the bottom to attach it to the wreath. You could also use hot glue and a pen or pencil to glue the circles straight to the wreath if you are so inclined, but I imagine it would take more work.
3. Fill out the wreath. I added a line around the edge to hide the green florist foam I used for the wreath. If you use a wreath form that's rounded, and not flat like mine, you could wrap the form in ribbon first, and you wouldn't have to add extra circles.
4. Once that was done, and all my circles were gone, I dug out a spool of marabou "ribbon" trim I got on clearance after Christmas for 75% off. I ran it around the edge of the the wreath twice, pinning the rope to the form. I repeated this on the inside. The fur doesn't show up real great from the front, but it completely covered the edges of foam that were visible. 

I was going to add a bow, but I didn't have anything on hand that really matched, and was wide enough ribbon to show up good. I like how it looks without a bow, though. I had also picked up little plastic green "coins" at Big Lots to use, but decided not to.

This style of wreath has been all over the blog world over the past month, so it's hardly original. In fact, Heidi at Craft Monkey did one very similar to mine back before Valentine's Day, instead of doing a red, white, and pink one.

 

  

  

 

This post is linked up at the link parties listed here.

LOVE is in the Air

Yesterday, we took the Christmas items down, and as we sorted things out, I got a few ideas. It seems stores are marketing towards more and more holidays, with more and more decorations available all year round. And pricey! I just can't stand the thought of spending $10 on a decoration that might hang in my house for 2-3 weeks out of the year. I can't do it, so I don't.

Instead, I scan clearance sales, yard sales, and thrift stores, and I come up with a lot of things on my own as well. Yesterday, I posted about my new heart shaped wreath, which I made from 2 Dollar store candy canes I got on clearance for $.50 each.

After that, we were taking down the white tree, and deciding it's fate. The cats kept climbing it this year, and it's such a lightweight tree, that it did not handle the abuse well. Most of the lower branches are bent to a point where trying to bend them back would likely snap them off.

I decided to just pitch it, but at the last minute, saved the top section to reuse next year as a mini tree (which brings my tree count to 1 full size, and 3 mini's). While we were putting it away, I joked about how it would make a cute Valentine's Day tree. And, it did- but more on that later.

I wound up making another wreath yesterday, this time just a circular one from one of those wooden wreath forms at Dollar Tree. Of course, I was so excited to get started, that I failed to take pictures.

 
What I used:

1 "grapevine" (except, not actual grapevine) wreath from Dollar Tree
1 long strand of really old, overly used red garland from the Christmas Crap pile
1 foam "LOVE" shape, bought on clearance for $.10 at CVS a few weeks ago
1 section of hot pink tulle that I've had for years

Cash wise, this puppy set me back $1.10. I won't factor in the cost of garland headed for the dumpster, or an itty bitty section of tulle from a large roll I found at a thrift store 4 or 5 years ago.

I wrapped the wreath with my old red garland (seriously, it was so old, some spots were devoid of tinsel). I came up just a bit short, so in the area where I was planning to attach the LOVE foam, I spread it out thin.

I then hot glued the LOVE foam piece on it, and attached the pink tulle to the top, tied part if it in a bow, and used the streamers to tie it to the curtain rod.

Originally, my Ribbon & Tulle wreath was in that place, but it was much larger, and the tulle really fascinated my cats. 3 separate times over the course of 2 days, I came out to find it no longer hanging, with 1 or 2 cats tearing at it. Thankfully, it survived just fine, and I moved it back to it's place in the front door window.

So far this year, I've done up a nice little batch of Valentine's Day crafts:

Ribbon & Tulle Wreath
LOVE Banner
Candy Basket
Heart Placemats
Candy Cane Wreath
Garland Wreath

I'm just feeling so stinking crafty and sweet about Valentine's Day this year! Check back later this week for more projects I've worked on.

This post is linked up at the link parties listed here. 

Check back on Tuesday to link up with Talented Tuesdays at My Frugal Family!

Valentine's Day Placemats

This is a project I did when I was still spending most of the day laid up in bed. After Christmas, when Dollar Tree marked their Christmas items down to $.25, I picked up 4 bright red placemats. I picked up 4 because I was on a budget, and wanted to spend in even dollar amounts. I did not, in all my infinite wisdom, pick up on the subtle fact that we have 5 people in the family.

Because I was laid up at the time, I did not get back to DT for almost 2 weeks, and when I went, they still had Christmas stuff out, but were out of the red placemats. I did pick up 5 of the same placemat in white, though, for Easter.

Anyway, because I was in bed, there are no tutorial pictures, but it's easy enough.

 

 

You'll Need:

Felt
Scissors
Thread
Buttons, pom poms, or other embellishments
Placemats
Needle

1. Cut out shapes from the felt. Because I was doing Valentine's Day, I went with hearts. For Easter, I think I'll do eggs. 
2. Stitch a button to the center of the heart, if you are doing what I did. Otherwise, embellish the felt shape as you like.
3. Hand stitch the shape to the placemats. I did a primitive looking stitch, but you can do any type of stitch you want, obviously. You could also do this with a machine, if you are so inclined, but it was a fast job even by hand. 

Ta da! 3 easy steps, and you're done! I would estimate start to finish, it took me about 15 minutes per placemat, once I figured out what I wanted to do with them.

Total cost would depend on your On-Hand items. I had everything on hand once I decided to make these. I didn't have anyhting in mind for the placemats specifically when I picked them up, though. Breaking down the costs (cause, let's face it, you buy the supplies at some point, whether they are on hand or not), though, I spent $1 on 4 placemats. Thread- $1.99 for 1 roll, but I used very little. Buttons were bought in a big container for $4.99, probably close to 500 of them. So, a penny per button- $.04 for the buttons.

I had thought about adding some ribbon trim hand sewn on in loops and ruffles in the corners where the hearts were, but opted not to. Being 4 of them, I put the hearts in a different corner for each one. I did 2 pink and 2 white hearts, and used red thread on them.

 

Now, for something kind of funny... I have a red velvet (ish) stocking hanging above my desk. It's been there since probably late October, early November. I tend to forget it's there. Today, I did some much needed tidying around the desk, and saw a few picks I bought after Christmas at 90% off- all of them are in pinks, lavendars, and reds for Valentine's Day. Well, haven't come up with a use yet, so I decided to put the stocking to work as storage. I think it turned out cute:

 

 

Have a FANTASTIC weekend, everyone!! 

This post is linked up at the link parties listed here. 

Check back on Tuesday to link up with Talented Tuesdays at My Frugal Family!