St Patrick's Day Round Up

You know yesterday, when I said I hadn't finished (or started) a craft the night before? Well, that's kind of like the same as today. I am craft-less today. I wound up meeting Nick for lunch, then doing a bit of thrift store shopping. Then grocery shopping last night, so lots of running around.


So, here I sit without a craft again. Not a big deal, I suppose. The blog isn't just crafts. But, crafts ARE a fun part of what I do. I saw this morning, though, that Heather over at Dollar Store Crafts featured my Shamrock sign! Then I noticed a link to a blog carnival of St. Patrick's Day items, and found some adorable things!

If you find yourself being featured here, grab this special button I made just for the St. Patrick's Day items!

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So, without further ado, some fun St. Patrick's Day crafts!

Maria on Make & Takes made this cute little pot of gold! She used gold foil wrapped eggs, but any gold foil wrapped candy would work. I know Dollar Tree is carrying 3-packs of mini terra cotta pots right now, too!

Kelly at Make It Sparkly Mama made this cute Shamrock wall hanging using wooden hearts. Isn't it just darling?

Kimberly at Attempting Creative made cute little felt shamrock pins to give to her co-workers. They are just adorable, and easy to make!

Stephanie Lynn at Under The Table & Dreaming shows how kids can make these simple coffee filter Shamrocks. They're so cute!

Jessica at Majestic Street came up with this cute Shamrock wall hanging using 3 Heart Shaped straw wreaths from the dollar store! Isn't it cute?

Vickie at Spun Sugar Quilts posted this adorable quilted "Green Beer" table runner. Isn't it adorable? And those dolls are just the cutest!

Erin at Lucky Star Lane made this cute variation on the Book Wreath, using shades of green for St. Patrick's Day. This is cute, and could easily be changed up for other color themes, and holidays.

Serena at Naptime Crafts made this cute plate using vinyl and her Cricut. I just love that slightly un-lined up shamrock in the center!

Now, my own addition to the St. Patrick's Day Fun.

The Homemade Shamrock Shake! I love these, as does the rest of the family, but the price? Not so frugal.

So, here you have it, the top secret copy cat recipe for making your own shamrock shake.

2 Cups Vanilla Ice Cream

1/4 Cup Half & Half

1 Cup Milk

1/4 Teaspoon Mint Extract (Not Peppermint!)

8 drops green food coloring, if you want it green

We found the recipe was a bit liquidy, so next time, we'll probably use a touch more ice cream, and a bit less milk. Otherwise? It was perfect! This will make 2 12 ounce shakes, or 4 6 ounce shakes. 

Enjoy!!

Dollar Tree St. Patrick's Day

This past weekend, I was in Michaels when I decided I wanted to do just 1 more small St. Patrick's Day item. I'm not really into the holiday, but since I started blogging, I've seen the crafting value in every holiday. I made a lot of stuff for Valentine's Day, including 3 wreaths, and loved all of it.

I wound up deciding (as I sat pondering the items) to make a wall hanging. I am not in love with the bows on it.

What I used:

1 Dollar Tree "Canvas" (it was pre-printed)
3 Wooden Hearts from Michaels
3 Foil Cardboard Hearts- On Hand
Shamrock printed ribbon from Michaels
Paint- On Hand
Goldish wide sheer ribbon- on hand, but I got it at Dollar Tree
Matte & Golden Shimmer Mod Podge- On Hand

I love the sign itself. I hate the ribbons used. I painted the canvas brown, then used "Shamrock Green", forest green, and darker brown to streak the canvas. I loved it! Lastly, I coated the canvas in golden shimmer mod podge, to give it a bit of that pot of gold feeling.

I painted the larger wooden hearts forest green, and the cardboard side of the foil hearts Shamrock green. Word of advice- if you have it, skip the cardboard and use wooden hearts, these things curled horribly, and kept tearing when I put my fingers on them. Mucho Re-paint-o.

I mod podged the cardboard hearts to the centers of the wooden hearts with matte finished. I wasn't going to add any gold to it, but it kind of stood out against the golden shimmer background, so I wound up adding a layer of golden shimmer.

Lastly, the ribbon. Oh, the ribbon.

I noticed right off the bat that the white shamrock ribbon was too white against the rich, earthy tones I had used. I had some thing sheer tan ribbon, so I added that, made a bow, glued it on, and called it good over night.

Looking at it today, I hated it (though, to be fair, I hadn't really loved it last night). Today, I got the bright idea to distress the ribbon with brown ink. It wasn't horrible, but not great. I have a regular green ink pad, so I used that, too. Big mistake- while that pad works for distressing the edges of paper, it really soaked into the ribbon, leaving green blobs.

Being truly frugal, I was not about to give up on that bow, so I glued it on. Let it sit. Ripped it back off. Dollar Tree plasticy canvas is a lot stronger than one would think, as it's held up to having the bow ripped off it twice now.

I decided to stain the ribbon with the left over coffee from this morning. It accomplished 2 things. 1- it washed all the ink distressing from it except two random, huge green blobs. 2- it stained it. Faintly. It was far more white now than it was before staining it, since it washed the ink off.

I finally gave up. I pitched the hideous bow. It was useless. I really do like my sign without it, but since I don't have a stem for the shamrock, I felt like I should have something there.

Well, whose going to judge my 3 leaf, stemless clover? No one, it's in my house, not an art museum!

 

And while this photo was taken early on, before the ribbon debacle,  this is what it looks like again. Well, except I did skip a step. That wide sheer ribbon I had? I used it to make a hanger for it. 

See? The top part, not the ugly bow.

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

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.

Talented Tuesday

Welcome to my third week of hosting Talented Tuesday at My Frugal Family! I have to admit, I am loving all the wonderful creations I'm getting to see this way! There are so many talented people out there, and this is a great way to be able to find even more talented people.

If you ever see someone post something you like, please feel free to send them this way, because the more people, the merrier, and the more inspiration we all can bask in.

Last week, we have 120 links! It took a while, but I went through every last one, and loved them- seriously, you guys put me to shame with how fantastic your creations are!

While I loved just about every last one of them, here are a few of my favorites. If you want to see all of them, check out last week's links. ;)

Jess at Mad in Crafts made a calendar hanger from a picture frame, which is totally customizable month by month! Turn drab give away calendars into whatever you want! AND, you can reuse it year after year!

MiaMoo Designs made these cute felt Conversation Hearts- super easy, and super adorable... I could totally see a garland of these- hint hint, all you crafty ladies!

 

The Opulent Poppy took green frugality to the max by melting down candle stubs to make this great new Flower Candle!

Dwellings by DeVore took a vase and turned it into this Glass Lamp. Now, isn't that super crafty?


I am in LOVE with this Rose Petal Purse that The House of Beauty and Culture made!

 The Girl Creative turned Dollar Store "art" into these fabulous little Clip Boards.

 

Before:

After:

 The Little Green Bean decided to paint a dresser. Next thing she knew, she had completely redone her bedroom- with some paint, and some vinyl letters and numbers!

Angie at Treasures for Tots found a cute, pricey Felt Headband at Target. She decided she could do just as good- only, I think she did it a whole lot cuter!

If you were featured this week, feel free to grab the "Featured At" button below! The Talented Tuesday Button is found just above the MckLinky!

Have you been featured on my blog? Copy and past the following code to your page!

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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 each post you link to the MckLinky, so that others can post their projects here as well! The list will accept new links through Saturday, 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 MckLinky will remain open and accepting links through Wed night, so feel free to come back and add more links if you post new things!!

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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!

Valentines Day Crafts

I'll admit it freely- before this year, I never really looked at how many cool things can be done for Valentine's Day. There are just so many wicked cool crafts that look oh so sweet! On any given day, I'm finding more and more fun ideas, and more and more takes on already seen ideas.

I am in love with Valentine's Day right now!

I Am In Love...

Tonight, yet another sleepless night in the life of an insomniac, I remembered a website I had found over a year ago. I couldn't remember the name, of course, but I remember what I found there. It was a website for crafters that holds monthly challenges.

One of the monthly challenges, my favorite, was to make something totally unique out of $10 of supplies bought only at a dollar store. I was amazed at some of the really cool ideas there were, and how totally cool the items turned out.

One woman bought some fleece scarves, and some squishy teddy bears, and turned them into an awesome, fur lined, totally wearable hoodie. Another woman made a replica of Scarlett O'Hara's green & white picnic gown out of a hula hoop, foam pool noodle, garden stakes, plastic table clothes, and coffee filters.

For the really handy with a sewing machine people out there, here's an absolutely adorable, one of a kind doll. Do you know someone who collects snow globes?Here's an idea on how to make one from an Ivy Bowl, a rubber sink stopper, some glitter, and some inserts.

There were just some amazing entries into the contest, which can all be seen here. While I was locating it, I found they had done another dollar store challenge for $5 or under. Not all of the images are still there, as the post is several years old, but it does have some interesting ideas on crafts that can be made cheap using dollar store items.

Also in my search, I found a website called Dollar Store Crafts, which has some really cool ideas for inexpensive, easy to make crafts- again, featuring items found at the dollar store. Here are some of the fun ideas I noticed right away:

Starburst Mirror
A Pocket Advent Calendar- This one is SO easy, and a FUN thing to send to your college kid, or give to a friend!
$.50 Stuffed Chipmunk- As a side note, Walmart sells the Magic Gloves used for this project at 2 pairs for $1.50, so it would make 4 chipmunks for roughly $.37 each.
Mosaic Headboard
Bandanna Quilt- SO simple & easy- if you can sew a straight line, you can make this!

Both sites are simply amazing, and provide endless hours (yes hours!) of craft ideas out of every day, normal, CHEAP items!

I hope you take a while to peruse both sites, because for the crafty among us can find a lot of awesome ideas to use for making Christmas gifts this year. I plan to tackle the Bandanna Quilt soon. The things people come up with just by walking the aisles of Dollar Tree are simply
amazing. The actual websites are:

http://www.craftster.org
http://dollarstorecrafts.com