Merry & Bright Candy Christmas: Inspired by Sweats & Treats

The inspiration for this tree came from sweats and treats. I was looking for something  Merry and Bright while non-traditional at the time.Well little did I know that this theme and the colors would soon be the new Christmas Colors. Hehe!!
Although my tree isn't as pretty as it once was, I'm finally beginning to get my Christmas tree back to the way I had originally intended it to look 6 years ago. During our move, I'm assuming my other half decided he was tired of moving boxes and decided he would leave all my beautiful ornaments (mostly from Pier-one-imports) behind. Needless to say, I wasn't very happy, but it doesn't pay to stress over it.
However, the colors are still the same!!

I absolutely love the traditional red and green Christmas decor' (it has evolved significantly), but I started making and purchasing ornaments in the same colors as soon as I realized they were left behind. With that being said, I decided to stick with these colors!! The only thing I'm missing now is a white tree, which truly helps make these colors POP!! ... and of course I could always use more bulbs. Can never have enough bulbs/ ornaments!!! Hope you like!!

A MERRY & BRIGHT CANDY CHRISTMAS:  SWEATS AND TREATS INSPIRED

A gift of Thanks!

A little gift I make to show my appreciation for a couple I know. I frosted a Mason Jar with the couple's (last name) initial and added their first name initials using card stock.

Halloween Inspiration!

From a little Halloween Inspiration!!!!!!!!

I do believe I have already posted this, but with Halloween around the corner, I figured I would do a re-post. This allowance jar was created from left over scraps from my many projects. I told an edge scissors to the scraps before mod-podging them on in order to add something extra. I also took buttons in the same colors of the scraps that I used and mod-podged those on to cover up any imperfections.

This is the container created from inspiration received from a project did for my son's class last Halloween. I can't find the container at this moment, but I can give a little description. Using Halloween paper, I made a cone (inspired for the candy corn paper cones) to put treats in. On the orange cones, I put various size googly eyes on them. The kids at school absolutely adored them.  So being one of the colors in my son's room is orange, I painted one of his boxes orange and placed the left over googly eyes on the box!! He absolutely loved this!!! He still tries to jump around and do thinks to get the eyes to move!!!

Halloween Inspiration

 

 

Halloween Bow

It's that time of the year again... HALLOWEEN!! I believe it's because of the colors associated with Halloween that I absolutely love creating items for this holiday!!  

 

 

 

 
  Here are the black, white, and orange bows I made for customers. I am currently working on many more, but I will have to update the post once they're completed.

 

More than likely I'll be doing many more Halloween projects and will be sure to post them!!

Pin The Bow On Barbie

{{The pictures came out horrible because I was in such a
rush and wasn't thinking about a blog post at that moment.
 Please forgive all my photo imperfections. It seems as
 though my photography skills have digressed since I've
started Blogging!!}} 

My three year old niece's birthday party was rescheduled for this past Saturday due to the Hurricane and of course her mother went into labor a couple days before. She wasn't able to get out of the hospital for the party, so I ended up having to host the party for her (and decorate; of course). Being she choose Barbie as her party theme and we hadn't had a chance to get party games, I decided to make a "pin the bow on Barbie".
I had only a few hours until the party, so I gathered up some girly card stock packs from my paper supplies and got to work.

Using a pencil I sketched Barbie's Silhouette on loose leaf paper to use as my stencil. Then I used my razor knife to cut it out on black card stock and glued my silhouette on to a poster board.
Once Barbie's silhouette was glued down, I sketched a plain bow from a sheet of card stock (plain pink bow)  and glued it in Barbie's hair to use as a target so that the kids would know where the bows should be placed.
While letting the poster board dry, I started sketching and cutting out my paper bows that the kids would be using as the game pieces from different color card stock that matched the theme of her party.
I finished putting my game piece bows together and while waiting for those to dry, I placed pre-cut letters around the silhouette to say "Happy Birthday" and punched out butterflies with the scraps left over from my bows.
Once the letters were dry, I traced around them with a black permanent marker without taking my time, which left them a little sloppy, but she loved it anyhow!!





In the picture to the left, I was testing out the bows to be sure I made them big enough.

The bows truly make it!!




The picture below has some of the bows I made. Thought I took more pictures than this, but guess I didn't. I was kind of in a rush.

 

Trial-Run Frosted Vase {Etched Appeal}

Since I wasn't able to get much done for the blog last week due to the hurricane, here is an item I had created last school year as a teachers appreciation gift.
Well this was actually created for the practice/trial run. It was created before I got into blogging and creative websites for ideas of how to do things, so I had to actually do the trial and error myself.
With that being said, this vase has many imperfections, but I didn't want to throw away a perfectly good vase so I kept it for myself.
I try to avoid over-filling the vase with stems that way the imperfections wont be as noticeable and most people don't notice unless they are examining it closely.

 

 The photo above gives you a better idea of how these vases look when in use as well as a different designs that you may want to create. It also illustrates the imperfections more intensely than in person being I edited the photo somewhat. 

 You can see the actual vases created for my son's teachers with a simple tutorial on a previous post, Frosted Vase Etched appeal and also my Mini Frosted Vases by clicking the titles in blue.

 

Hurricane Season

Wow, so its been a crazy week here. Our home was part of hurricane Isaac's path, but thankfully we didn't sustain serious damage. Being our power was just restored last night (thank goodness), I haven't been able to do to much for the blog. However, I do have a couple of pictures and videos for those of you who are interested.  I was able to video during the calmer parts of the hurricane being it was only a category 1.
The videos and pictures were taken from my phone, so please excuse the poor quality.

This is my neighbors house across the street. If you look closely you can see the wind whipping the rain back & fourth across the roof tops. It was much more intense watching it in person though.

 

This is my son's swing set and part of the back yard during the storm. We had tied the swing set down, but the wind was still able to pick it up and flip it.

During the eye of the storm we picked up two containers full of worms. Won't have to worry about fishing bait for a while!!

More photos of the back yard and some of the neighborhood...

 The winds were only 80 mph, which is why we didn't sustain much damage just mostly flooding. Also, our home was in the direct path. The homes East of the storm are those that tend to sustain the most damage from hurricane winds. For those of you who are familiar with hurricane Katrina, it was the Mississippi residents who suffered mostly because of the winds rather than Louisiana. Mississippi did sustain high flooding as well being they had to deal with both rising water from the gulf and rain which made it all more intense.  All and all Louisiana and Mississippi underwent some serious damages from Katrina. Thankfully this Hurricane (Isaac) wasn't nearly as severe as Katrina in 2005; however, those residents about 30 miles south of our community did suffer much more serious damages from Isaac.                                                 



 

 

 

There is a small ditch here that's usually about two feet wide under normal condistions, but as you can see here, this isn't normal conditions. The water submerges half of my neighbors' yards.  The photo below illistrates a better idea of that.

 





 For more footage of Hurricane Isaac, please click the link below.

 http://hiphopwired.com/2012/08/31/hurricane-isaac-causes-destruction-in-gulf-coast-downgraded-to-tropical-depression-photos/

 http://www.livescience.com/22841-inside-hurricane-isaac-s-eye-an-eerie-calm-video.html