subway art

I have to say in general I'm not a huge fan of Subway art. But on occasion I think it fits well with some themes and holidays. I've been brainstorming ideas for my one day mantle/ledge that I want to decorate for holidays. I've been working on of course Valentines. I've decided to do a "Love Letters" theme and have a few ideas in mind. One of them is a framed Subway art using salutations in love letters, this is what I came up with.

or

I plan on using black, cream, and red as my color palette. Hopefully I'll be able to pull it off before Valentines Day but with the move I'm not holding my breath. Good news is I can work on it for next year and get great deals on Valentine sales.

Thank you cards

My last crafty act before the move. I made some thank you cards for my wonderful friends and neighbors who watched my kids while I was on my cruise.








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Peppermint Perfection

Last week we had our annual girls night cocoa party. This year's theme was Peppermint Perfection, and was it ever. The best part about these parties is that I get to do them with the two most amazing girls I know. We had so much fun prepping and getting things together and it was all worth the hard work to see the end result.

The invitation we made to look like a peppermint with a peppermint treat inside.

This is the table scape

We had some really yummy food this year. White chocolate covered pretzels with red and white nonpareils, chips and homemade salsa, cheese ball and crackers, sugar cookies, dipped Milano's, and of course all the toppings for our hot cocoa.

I used a lot of my decorations off my tree at home for this party, it was fun to put them to another use.

For our favors this year, though you can't see exactly what they are, we did milk and white chocolate on a stick that you could stir into hot milk for a yummy treat.

I has so much fun designing the invites and tags for the party. Thanks again Dacia and Lynne for being my partners in crime. Love ya!

*all pictures taken by Dacia (she did a great job) Lynne took some too but I'm waiting to see those so they may be added later.

Tissue trees

I FINALLY finished these trees. My good friend Dacia shared a link on the how to to make them and after seeing her finished trees I really wanted to give them a try. Do not attempt these if you are not fully commited. They take a lot of time to do, BUT they are SO worth it. 

So there you have my one holiday craft, pretty cute if I do say so myself.

Crate & Barrel

Half Baked is doing a great giveaway for a $100 gift certificate to Crate & Barrel and I'm hopin' they pick me. Sadly I have to say I would use this for myself and not to get gifts for others. But on the plus side the things I get will be used to throw parties for others : )

Holiday Planner

Do most of you know what a "list" fanatic I am? Well it's true. I MUST have a list, seriously, or I'll always forget something. I love to see it on paper what it is I need or need to do. So when I saw this next project from the girls at Eighteen25 I was in LOVE!

What could be more perfect than all your holiday planning in one spot. They have a place for everything in this baby, calendar, menu, cards, lists(my favorite), and to do. I added a party tab for the cocoa party we throw each year, perfect.

They featured their planner over on Under the Sycamore and it came with step by step instructions as well as a free download with all the pieces you need. I altered mine a bit to coordinate with my paper I was using but definitely took the inspiration from them and it only cost me $1.24 for the composition notebook,everything else I had in my stash~love it!.

Some of the things I changed: Mine says "holiday" instead of "Christmas" because I couldn't get Christmast to fit on my bracket using those letter stickers.

I did my own coupon label because I wanted it to match my paper but they have the entire set for you to dowload and use if you'd like~fabulous!

I added a few ribbon paperclip for those invites you may want to hold on to or any other random thing that you think you need.

In Love !

They also tell you where to go to print off a weekly calendar for the "calendar" section of the planner, so great.

I think they turned out super cute and I can't wait to make more! Thanks again to the girls at Eighteen25 for yet another amazing idea.

Halloween project #4 ~ Halloween Candelabra

When I saw this next project featured on one of my favorite blogs I knew I had to do it, and soon. But as I started hunting the thrift stores where I live I realized it wasn't going to be as easy as I'd hoped. This project came from Sawdust and Paperscraps which I found at Ucreate.
She used old lamp bases, a chandelier, some PVC pipe, and beads to create this amazing candelabra.

So this one is hers

and this one is mine

Pretty cool huh? You'd never guess the chandelier was a brass color and the lamp base was an odd red, amazing what a little spray paint can do. I didn't want a floor one, just one to put on my table. Thankfully I have an amazing friend who was also on board to do this project and she was out hunting one day and found everything we needed to do them. She is doing a floor one and I can't wait to see how hers turns out. She even did most of the work for me by gutting the lamp and attaching the two things together. All I had to do was spray paint it and hang the beads. (note: spray painting beads is not an easy task) I love it and now just need to find some candles to go in it.


Well I did better than just find some candles, I made them. Yep out of cardstock, hot glue and spray paint. The original instructions were to use a TP tube and I tried that but they were too skinny. So my friend did hers out of cardstock and they turned out great. So that's what I did. All ya do is drip some hot glue down the sides and then spray paint them white. I added some plastic grocery bags to the middles to hold up my battery tea light. Perfect! We also got this idea from Sawdust and Paperscraps.



Wouldn't this look great on the dinner table for a party? ! I can't wait to use it! So thank you to Sawdust and Paperscraps for sharing an amazing project and to my great friend for her generosity and hard work. Oh and you can see her finished project here.

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