Jubilee of Trees

This past weekend, my family headed to St. George (utah) for the Jubilee of Trees. The Jubilee is my mother-in-law's thing. She has been involved in the Jubilee for Years. She has decorated a tree, wreath, mini tree, and she is in charge of the overall decorations of the Jubilee complete with Castles that you can walk through!

This is my mother-in-law's tree. This picture doesn't do it justice, but she has won People's Choice several years in the past.
I'm sure you've seen these fun mod podged metal stars. Who would have thought of putting them on a tree. I loved this tree!
And last, but not least.... owls. You know how much I love owls! This was a super cute tree!
I will have to make a few of these owls.... I don't know what I'll do with them, but I must make some!
Wishing you a Happy Holiday season.... it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

1 Craft, Three Ways: Wreaths

This is the perfect time of year for wreaths. Deck the halls and all that, right? I found this little grapevine turkey in my storage closet. My mom gave him to me a while back. We were never sure what to do with it. November we're doing wreaths and here's one that needs to be finished. Necessity is the mother of invention. I did have two issues. First, I kinda liked him the way he was. Second, I have a wreath hanger on my door that presented a bit of a challenge. In the end, I decided to go with simplicity and wrapped wired harvest-themed ribbon around each tail feather except the middle one. There I tied a fancy bow. I twisted the streamers from the bow and glued them on each "feather." When I put him on my door, it was hard to see his little poultry head. By Cami's suggestion, I stuffed him with tulle. It was a light tan and still hard to see the turkey's head. I guess I'll be heading back to the craft store to find a darker brown. For now, I'm kinda liking this little guy, though.


-Angie

Wreaths was a hard one for me... not that I don't love wreaths... I totally do. But I already have cute wood craft wreaths for every month and I just recently did a square wreath for my class. So, what else could I possibly do? Then I saw these wreaths in Pottery Barn. As always, I love to get my decorating inspiration from Pottery Barn magazines.

So, this is how I made them. I bought embroidery hoops. I took the outside hoop that screws apart and used that for one wreath. And I cut the inside one open and used it for the other wreath... then just taped it back together when I was done. I bought two books at a thrift store... It was kind of hard to rip up a perfectly good book, but, hey, you do what you've got to do for the sake of decorating. I got two books so that I could have two different sizes of pages. I cut slits in the top and bottom of each page and slipped it onto the embroidery hoop. When I was finished, I closed up the embroidery hoop and tied the ribbon to the hoop. I put these in my office.... I'm going for kind of a French county look in there and I thought the books were kind of officey... (my spell check doesn't think that's a word). I plan on leaving them up as an all the year decoration.
(truth be told, I like the PB ones a little better, but I think it's the red ribbon that I like. I have purple as an accent color in my office, so I may go on a hunt for some purple ribbon to brighten the look up a little. On a side note... I just found the most awesome website ever. I love wood crafts and I love wood, but I'd love to take it a little further. This woman has step by step instructions with diagrams and pictures and everything of how to build knock off furniture from stores like Pottery Barn and such. I can't wait to get started in a fun project... I've been wanting to make shelves for my boys' rooms.)

-Anisa

My wreath started out with a simple bleached willow wreath purchased at...the dollar store. Seriously! It was just under the size of a dinner plate.
I bought a bag of green feathers, sorted them by size and began inserting them, following their natural curve, in between the twigs, using hot glue to secure them.
I did the outer circle first, the inside portion. For the final covering of the wreath, I overlaid the feathers til the willow was covered, still using the hot glue to attach them.
I tied a few small bows with some pretty American Craft ribbon, also attaching them with hot glue.
Inexpensive and unique!

-C

Texturize your Fabric

In continuing with our Countdown to Crafts, I would like to talk about local Quilt Shops/Fabric Stores... not your national chains. I tend to like the fun designer stuff. For instance, this Thanksgiving Table Runner is made from the Pumpkins Gone Wild line by Moda. I can not find this fabric at any of my chain stores. I purchased this fabric last year at Pine Needles in Gardner Village. The local Quilt Stores don't have a 40% off coupon like many of the chains. However, what I have discovered is that many of them having mailing or emailing lists. Get on Those!!! That is where they will advertise their sales and often times email out coupons.


Now, let's talk about texturizing your fabric. Fabric is fun... especially all of the bright cotton prints, but they don't have a lot of texture to them. I bought this fabric to make a table runner. I didn't want to quilt it because it was going to be on my table, but I wanted to give it a little texture and make it a little more fun. So, the first thing I did was to put it together using ric rac as the trim.
Then I did a little hand stitching with embroidery floss down the pumpkins that had a stripe pattern.
On the pumpkins with dots and flowers, I sewed buttons.
Then on one of the leaves, I cut out a piece of felt to put over the leaf that was printed on the fabric and machine sewed on that. It was really fun to add texture to the fabric this way. You could do this with almost any print... what doesn't have dots, flowers or stripes?

If you would like to purchase a table runner like this, check out my etsy shop here.

-Anisa

Countdown to Crafts- Easy Throw Pillow

We have started something new and fun!!! We are doing a Countdown with Crafts to help you get ready for the Holidays. For my first project, I bring to you and fun and easy throw pillow. If you go to Joann Fabric and Craft Stores this week, they have their Soft n' Crafty pillow forms on sale for 40% off. I made this pillow by taking basic white fabric. I pinned the ribbon on to the fabric, then sewed it on.... make sure you sew down both sides of the ribbon. I used ribbon from my stash, but scrapbook ribbon is also on sale at Hobby Lobby this week. After I made this pillow, I saw this post on Ucreate from the guest blogger Polka Dot Chair for a skirt just like my pillow!!! Weird Deja Vu. Check out her tutorial, she does it a little differently.

This pillow is also for sale at my SEEDLINGS boutique this FRIDAY at my home. Check out the blog for details!!!