Pinterest Party

My cousin is having a 'Pinterest Party' - GENIUS!!!  A bunch of women getting together to craft fun stuff found on Pinterest.  I was going to make a cute magnet board with stove covers but quickly changed my mind when I saw these trays.  SO CUTE!!!  I guess it's not actually a Pinterest idea but it was Pinterest inspired! 

Just drill some holes, add some ribbon and find some cute magnets.  You can always paint them and mod-podge some paper on it too if you want. 

I think I'm going to use them to hang pictures but they would be super cute for recipes holders in the kitchen too.

Family YAHTZEE

THIS was worth the wait!!!  You’re going to LOVE these!!!

I first got this idea from The Thrifty Chick blog.  I tried and tried to find the link but the blog has since been removed as I learned the author sadly passed away.  You can see the picture of her Yahtzee set HERE.  I had them on my “TO CRAFT list” for quite awhile and when I mentioned what I wanted to do to my great friend Amy Lindstrom she got so excited and inspired me to get going.  I go through all the steps we took briefly here but she was planning on doing a tutorial sometime.  I’ll let you know when it’s up!  UPDATE...***IT'S UP HERE!!!***

These ended up being way more work than I thought.  Mostly because I made 9 sets and she made 10.  SHEESH!  They turned out WAY CUTER than I imagined though so it was worth it.  Everyone that got one LOVED them!!!  Just look how CUTE they turned out!!!

If you are only make one or two sets then I would suggest you just go to a craft store and buy 5 wooden blocks.  If you are making MANY sets then that gets expensive pretty fast.  I had a long list and so did Amy so I headed to the lumber yard and picked up some 2x2 sticks of wood.  Did you know they’re not really that size?  It’s true.  They’re really more like 1.5 x 1.5.  We measured to make sure we cut them into cubes.

The cutting…now that was an adventure!  We busted out my husband’s chop saw and safety goggles and went to work.  The only problem…well, we didn’t know EXACTLY how to use the saw.  I’d seen it used many times and it looked simple enough.  I knew how to be safe with it but just didn’t know how to turn it ON.  Problem?  A little!  ***DISCLAIMER***DO NOT USE POWER TOOLS if you do not know what you are doing!!!  As I was looking all over to figure out where to turn it on I was showing Amy where you hold to bring the blade down and suddenly it turned ON!  Scared the CRAP out of me!!!  Amy snapped a picture of that exact moment as she jumped but I don’t have the picture.  I’m sure it’s lovely though!

Now that I knew how to turn on the saw I knew how to use it.  We CAREFULLY chopped enough to make 19 sets of these Yahtzee sets.  Well...almost carefully.  Don't try and cut the last couple on the stick.  They may fly across the garage.  Just sayin'.

Once they were chopped then it was time to sand them.  OH MY!!!  Sanding almost 100 blocks is EXHAUSTING.  Luckily we had a circular sander.  We still had to split it over a couple days.  Boy were we happy when we made it to the bottom of that pile.

Then came the painting, sanding, staining, paper cutting, corner rounding, modge podging, photo collecting, photo editing, photo formatting, photo printing, photo cutting, more corner rounding, and more modge podging.

Can I just say that I would DIE without Publisher.  I use it for EVERYTHING!!!  It is the most used program on my computer BY FAR!  That's what I used to make all the pictures 1x1 to fit on the sides of the dice and add the numbers.  I all six pictures onto a 4x6 page and sent them off to the photo printer.  5 copies of that picture and I had all I needed.

I didn’t stop there.  I found a bunch of Christmas tins at the thrift store and spray painted them and then modge podged paper and photos on the front.  Some of them also got “JUNIOR”games complete with a scoring board modge podged on the inside of the lid.  To keep score I made little magnets.  I used buttons and modge podged a hole punch circle on the top of it and then glued a magnet on the back.  A magnet that small?  I used the roll of magnet that you can cut to your own size.  It worked great on the tins.    Each set had to have 5 sets of 5 different colors.

The bottom of the tins got one of my family pictures that said “We LOVE you!”  It was an easy way to add my ‘signature’ to the gift.

I made score sheets for each game with their family pics and names on them.  It was fun to come up with the names for each game.  My mom has a wall of family pictures with a sign that says “Leaving a Legacy” so the set I made for my parents was named “Lega-zee”.  I got fun old pictures and then so more current ones.  It turned out so cute!  Have fun creating the names.

Depending on the size of the tin I had to reformat the scoresheet to fit.  Here’s the one I made with my cute family.  Of course ours is the one game that never got a box.  I was DONE!!!  Funny enough it ended up in a tin that says ZOO.  Funny...or fitting?

I told you they were CUTE!!!  Lots of work for 9 sets but TOTALLY worth it!  I made one later with my sister and it wasn't bad at all.  These were LOVED by everyone that got them and totally cheap! 

These are perfect presents for any occasion… birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, happy day presents!  Who wouldn’t love one of these?  Completely unique and personal.

Easy and Cheap Photo Holder

My daughter wanted to make something for her two good friends for Christmas...and they ended up being more of a Happy Day present because we didn't quite have them done for Christmas.  They turned out pretty cute.  The best part is that they cost less than $1.  Of course it would be more expensive if you don't have craft supplies already but once you buy them they would last a long time.  I only had to pay for the pictures.  I got the wood from a friend that is a contractor.  I just asked him to bring me some scraps.  We used some paper I already had and ribbons from my stash.  The wire was also some I had left from other craft projects.  A little paint and mod podge and you have a CUTE and personal photo holder.  I also made some like this before Christmas for Christmas card holders.  You can personalize them with words, stickers, wood cut-outs.  Whatever you want.

You just need to drill small holes at the top of the 2x4 and twist a wire around the end of some needle-nose pliers.  You don't even have to glue the wire in the holes so it can be taken apart and stored easier.

This is a PERFECT project to do with kids because you really can't mess it up.

Make your own Valentines

Okay, I can't stand it.  I must post something.  Since I don't have pictures of all my Christmas gift projects anymore (but hope to have them back soon) I figured I would make a post of some fun Valentine ideas. Yes, I know it's still weeks away but I LOVE VALENTINE'S DAY!!!  I don't expect lots of money to be spent for Valentine's Day and I hate the people make WAY too big a deal of it.  You should show people you love them all year and not just on one day.  I love Valentine's day for the fun things you can create and the reminder it is to me of how lucky I am to have so many people to love.  I'm all about doing something homemade instead of the generic store-bought cards.  I just love finding a fun idea to create!  I'm already thinking of a fun project for my daughter to take to school.

I figured I would share the fun Valentine's we made last year.  We made little purses for my daughter's class using THIS template.  We cut them out of a cute paper, attached a ribbon for the handle and then folded a little bag of sweetheart candy inside and closed it with a foam sticker.  She LOVED them!

My son was not about to give away purses but he was okay with handing out mice to his friends.  It did take some convincing to have him use pink paper though.  The would be cute any color I would guess.  They are just made out of  different sizes of hearts, a little pipe cleaner and a googly eye.  I didn't use cardstalk but will if I ever make these again.  Construction paper was WAY too flimsy!

I got some cookie flowers from a friend a few years ago and had to make some of my own.  SO EASY and SO CUTE!  All you  need is a few kabob sticks, any cookies you can stick them through and some gummy candies.  You could really use your imagination on these and make a really cute cookie bouquet.  This was a last minute one I made to go to a friend's house a couple years ago.

Sugar cookies are ALWAYS a must.  I made one for my husband our first Valentine's Day and it's become a tradition.  My kids even look forward to their own cookie.  You can't go wrong with heart shaped pancakes and chokecherry syrup.  And...there are times of COMPLETE shock when my husband comes home with flowers.

I'm excited that we'll be with my family for Valentine's Day this year. I'm excited to help my daughter get her Valentine's ready for her class to leave with her teacher because she'll miss the class party...she's NOT happy with me!

Chocolate dipped cookie and cake suckers are on my list of fun Valentine treats.  YAY!!!