Crouching Momma, Hidden Candy

I'm convinced that Halloween is not really for the kids, but for us adults. I mean, lets face it parents - when your kids ask if they can have some of their Halloween candy you're like, "not right now...tomorrow" and then they go do their thing and you're in the corner chomping down on 23 mini twix. Crouching Momma, hidden candy.

There's no shame in it. Candy is bad for kids and wonderful for us adults with clogged arteries and couch potato syndrome. I love candy.

Lodge Wreath...and an update

I finally posted the update to the winter wreath below...which actually became the "baby shower wreath" and that's why there was a delay in posting it. If you didn't get a chance to see the post - here is the finished product:

My newest wreath project, the Lodge Wreath, is not quite done yet...but I wanted to go ahead and show y'all because...well...I want to. It is the same technique as the previous wreath except I used wired ribbon. 

I need to add more ribbon around in some areas and then I just might stick a big fat H on there somewhere...or maybe a deer. We shall see. If you have been looking at those extra pricey wreaths you may even have your own idea...like adding a full body deer going directly across the wreath. ;)

Happy Holidays everyone...it's my favorite time of the year. (I've already got my mantel finished and one of my trees up...my friend sent me this: 

....yikes.)

Pillow Box Christmas Advent

The Silhouette Blog gives you weekly challenges, and I find them really fun and exciting to see what I - and others - can come up with. Using the pillow box shape from the silhouette online store I created this wonderful little masterpiece. This is the only one I have done so far.

On the tag that you pull out you can write quotes on it, Bible verses, put candy inside, or put little trinkets in to pull out. You can also use ribbon in place of the twine so that it just sticks straight up from the box. Now all you need to do is create days 1-24 and something to tack your boxes on! Good luck! 

Twine Tree

I love Christmas. I love it so much that I want to enjoy it more than just from the day after Thanksgiving to the day after New Year's. So, needless to say...I have already started decorating. I found these cute little trees at Hobby Lobby for like $3.

The roll of twine was laying right next to them and was calling my name - so I got it!

I took spray adhesive and sprayed as I went, if you spray too much too soon then it gets gummy. Then I just started wrapping directly from the roll. That's my little lovey doing a project - it's a paper tree that I will post later. 

 

You can see that once I got to the top I just started back down the tree uniformly. I did this because not only does it look neat, but you can spray the twine underneath the bottom of the tree to hide it. Another variation would be to add bells or any other little decorations to your tree. You would probably want to go with smaller bells, but this is what I had so I used it to show you. However, I like the look of the twine so I just went with the plain version. The ribbon that you see to the side is for another project with the larger tree. 

Modge Podge a Pumpkin

Thanks to one of our readers who sent me this pumpkin! It is too stinking cute. This whole project was done by modge podging (that's a word, right?) fabric onto the pumpkin and then wrapping the stem with burlap to create a bow. Excellent job, Shelly! Thanks for sharing!

Do you have a pumpkin you would like to share? You can comment on the bottom of the picture and share your e-mail address and I will contact you - or shoot me an email! 

Houser Home

I don't know about you, but laundry and dishes pile up at our house quickly. We have the 2 girls 100 percent of the time and share 50/50 time with the 3 boys, so our home pretty much stays a disaster area. With that being said,  I've been thinking about how I can provide a responsibility/chore list that is also a cute display - I think I have found it.

You can use chalkboard paint on anything you would like to get this look. I didn't use it here, but this is chalkboard so it makes it super easy to change who does what on a weekly basis, then I just added it to a cookbook holder that I had. I put the picture above that just says "Houser Home" so that you can see how it would look if you just wanted blank space to put whatever you want for the day or week (quotes, dinner, etc.) As always, I used my silhouette cameo to cut out the shapes and letters. 

Winter Wreath

We have all seen the burlap wreaths that look like this:

Today, my Mom and I have been working on a different spin to the beautiful burlap. Who doesn't like everything winter - especially when it co-exists with burlap? Unfortunately, we ran out of burlap tonight - but I'm going to go ahead and show the tutorial for it and I will post the picture of the finished wreath tomorrow. 

First, don't try to do this with regular cut burlap...we tried and as you can see it began to fray - so we went another direction. 

Cut your strips of burlap into about 2 inch wide strips at 9.5 inches in length. 

As pictured above...further up...like a few pictures. You take the burlap and pull it through and tie into a knot. You do this on each level of the wreath ring. 

We got this far by using 2 rolls of the burlap ribbon from Hobby Lobby. It's a little pricey for this burlap with the white lace - $13.99 a roll. To finish it off it will take 1 more roll. This obviously is super easy and didn't take long at all. Especially when you have someone cutting the burlap ribbon for you. I will post the result tomorrow! 

UPDATE: Here is the finished project. It actually became the "Baby Shower Wreath"...slight change in plans.