Flower Plant Wedding Present

My sister-in-law is getting married soon and I wanted to make her something for her shower. I had this old clay pot that wasn't doing anything and I thought it would be cute to use. I also wanted to use some mod podge and the rest of my river stones from my Bathroom Makeover project. Here's what I came up with :)

Materials:
~ Clay pot
~ Fake flowers
~ Newspaper
~ Styrofoam
~ Craft Paper
~ Mod Podge

I bought some cute light-blue argyle craft paper at Hob Lob for only 35 cents. I wrote "Love Blossoms Eternally" and mod podged it onto the front of the pot. I think it's way cute but I hope it's not too cheesy!
Next step was to stick the flowers in the pot. I started out stuffing newspaper inside the pot because I didn't have very many rocks but the flowers didn't stick in very well when I did this. So I went to Hobby Lobby (for the second time today! Seriously I think I'm getting an addiction!) and bought a little round styrofoam to put inside. I still did keep some of the newspaper stacked inside so the styrofoam was close enough to the top. I realized that even after I put in the river stones you could still see the newspaper, so I cut out a circular piece of white paper, painted it brown, and set it inside on top of the styrofoam. I cut up the flower stems using wire cutters and stuck them in the styrofoam! Voila!

Here's me stuffing newspaper inside the pot. I folded it up and placed it on the bottom of the pot. (Apparently this is also an advertisement for Charmin :) haha)


Here's my circular piece of paper that helped cover all that newspaper and styrofoam.



Here's the end product :)

Total Cost:
~ Clay pot: $0.00
~ Fake flowers: $4.00
~ Newspaper: $0.00
~ Styrofoam: $1.89
~ Craft Paper: $0.35
~ Mod Podge: $0.00

Flower Plant Wedding Present: Total Cost ~ $6.24

Bathroom Makeover

When I was at my friend's house the other day I saw her bathroom and it was so cute! I decided I wanted to redo mine and fix it up. Money is of course a restriction but I had a few tricks up my sleeve :)

Materials:
fake grass
old plastic container
ribbon
bamboo place-mats
chopsticks
bamboo blinds
soap dispenser
river stones
Chinese fan
Chinese hair comb

I still had tons of grass from the vases (click here to see that project), a plastic container, some ribbon and some Chinese decorations. I bought some bamboo blinds at a garage sale with my sister this past summer. I had no idea what I was going to do with them but they were only $1 :) So I bought them! I also had a bamboo place-mat set with some chopsticks. I wrapped an old brown ribbon around my plastic container and stuck it in place with some hot glue.
I wanted to stick the fake grass inside the plastic but the grass was very heavy and the plastic wasn't very sturdy. I tried stuffing the plastic with bags, paper, etc, but nothing was strong enough to keep the grass up. So I caved in and went and bought something. I went to Hobby Lobby (I wish they had some sort of frequent-shopper card! I would totally qualify!!) and bought some river stones for $1.38 (half off!). I put those inside the plastic and LOVED how they looked! And they were strong enough to hold up the grass...perfect! I folded the place-mat and set it on top of the toilet. I then placed some chopsticks and the grass on top. It was coming together so wonderfully! I had a Chinese fan and hair comb from my friend who went to China a few years ago. I added those in as well! I took the strings off the bamboo blinds and hung them up on the wall next to the toilet. I used some of the extra bamboo from the blinds and wrapped it around my soap dispenser! It was a very nice touch if I may say so myself :)

I had to cut the blinds because they were SO long!

I had to re-tie the ends of the blinds so the separate pieces wouldn't fall out.

What do you think?!

Total Cost:
Fake grass: $0.00 (leftover from my Vases project)
Old plastic container: $0.00
Ribbon: $0.00
Bamboo place-mats: $0.00 (part of a set I had lying around)
Chopsticks: $0.00 (came with the place-mats)
Fan: $0.00
Hair comb: $0.00
Bamboo blinds: $1.00
Soap dispenser: $0.00
River stones: $1.38

Bathroom Makeover: Total Cost ~ $2.38

Comments

I just realized that I've had my comments on "moderation" and didn't realize it! So thanks to all those who have commented. Sorry to those of you who have made comments that I should have responded to and haven't! I'm so excited that there are so many comments! Thank you :) (And keep them coming :) haha) Thanks!!! Really, I was so excited that people had actually looked at my blog and commented it! I'm glad that I'm not just posting to myself!

Vases

This was one of my favorites! I really like how they turned out. We have a bookshelf in the corner of our living room with nothing on top of it. Since it's in the back corner it's not a huge focal point so I haven't really worried too much about putting something on top. But I realized that it would look a lot better with something on it, and besides, I needed a new place to put a craft :) So here's what I came up with...

Materials
Vases (large, medium, small but all same shape)
Fake flowers
Fake grass
Hot glue gun

So first of all, since I got the vases at DI I put them in the dishwasher to get all the spots and stuff off them. I was surprised how clean they got! I hadn't realized how dirty they were! I bought two stems of fake flowers at Hobby Lobby and cut them up into their little branches so I had some of each stem in each vase. My favorite part was when I thought to put the grass on the outside of the vase. I had thought about buying a necklace or beads or something to put on the outside, but I LOVE the grass look! I bought a huge thing of fake grass, really I don't know what I'm going to do with all of it! I cut off 7 blades for this project and put a small dab on hot glue every so often on a blade of grass and wrapped it around the outside of the bottle. Be careful not to put too much or you'll be able to see the glue. My small and medium vase each have 2 blades of grass wrapped around them but the large one has 3. There isn't a lot in these vases but I like the openness that they have. This project did cost more than anything else I've made but for my birthday I got some craft money from my sister. Thanks so much!! I put it all towards this project and am so glad that I had some extra money! Anyway, enough of my blabbing...take a look!

Vases right after they came out of my dishwasher

Vases with the flowers inside (sorry the lighting is weird on this one)

Here's a close-up so you can see the wrapped around grass. I started with the thick end and put that at the top of the vase, then I just slowly wrapped it around and down.

Here they are on my no-longer-empty bookshelf :)
(sorry about the lamp in the corner of the pic!)

A closer-up picture of the finished product. What do you think?! Like I said, this is one of my favorites :) I L-O-V-E the grass look!

Total Cost:
vases: large ~ $3.00, medium ~ $2.00, small ~$1.00
yellow flowers: $3.00
red flowers: $2.00
grass: $3.50

Vases: Total Cost ~ $14.50

Bulletin Board

For Christmas my husband and I were on his sister's family for gifts. We are supposed to hand-make our gifts and we decided to make her and her family a bulletin board for their kitchen. I liked it so much I decided I wanted one too. So I went to DI and bought this cork board for $2.00, used some scrap fabric, ribbon and...voila!

Materials:
~ cork board
~ scrap fabric
~ hot glue gun
~ ribbon

Cut the fabric to the size you need for the board. If you don't like the edges of your board you can just place ribbon over it to cover the ugly edge (which is what I did for my sister-in-law's gift since it was just metal). If you like the edge, however, then fold down the edges of the cloth and iron them down. This will give the edges of your cloth a nice, even look instead of the raw edge you cut out. The edge of my board matched my fabric perfectly so I wanted to show it off instead of covering it with a ribbon. (I used left-over ribbon for my sister-in-law's but had to go buy some more for mine.) Tack down the cloth with some hot glue (or whatever you have). Then take ribbon and lay it across the board to create specified sections. Then make labels and place them in each section.

I ironed down the edges of the fabric to give it a nice, even look.


Doesn't the fabric match the edge perfectly!! I was so excited when I laid the fabric down and saw how well they went together!

I just wrote my labels. I did print them for my sister-in-law though.

What do you think? The four sections I have on mine are "Calendar, To-Do, Shopping, and Quote." For my sister-in-law we did six sections, "Calendar, To-Do List, Shopping List, Quote, Family Picture, and Kid's Corner (for report cards, pictures drawn by the kids, etc)."

Here's a picture of the one we gave my sister-in-law. You can't see the edges very well, but can you tell we just hot-glued the ribbon all the way around? It worked out really well.

Cost:
cork board ~ $2.00
ribbon ~ $1.00
labels ~ $0.00

Bulletin Board: Total Cost ~ $3.00

Music Submission

I have been a hobby-composer since I was in high school. By hobby-composer I mean that I really enjoy writing but don't ever plan on it bringing in money or anything. It's a nice escape for me and I've learned a lot about music as I've written. All of my songs are for the piano and most are piano-vocal gospel-oriented songs.
I wrote a song a few years ago that has come to mean a lot to me. I wrote it during a time in my life when I was making a lot of decisions and changes and growth. It's called "Be Still" and is based on a scripture that says "Be still and know that I am God" (D&C 101:16. Click here to read the whole scripture). Two Christmases ago (2008) my husband got me an hour in a recording studio for my gift! I was able to get this song recorded and so now I have it on my computer!
Anyway, I recently submitted this song into the LDS Church Music Submission Contest! I'm not expecting anything, but I'm excited that I'm actually putting it out there. I'll let you know if anything comes of this!

Re-covered pillow

My husband and I bought our sofa and loveseat on ksl classifieds for $50 total! They're quite comfortable and you can't even tell they're ugly with the couch covers we bought. (FYI--couch covers are expensive! We paid more for them than for the couches! Luckily we still had gift cards at BB&B so we didn't have to spend any of our money. Beware of this in the future to anyone thinking about couch covers!) They did come with pillows, but these were ugly too. I wasn't going to have pillows but I decided that I really like the added look that pillows can give to a couch--especially the way cool pillows I saw on Make it and Love it! (Click HERE to check out her pillows!) Tonight I used my new sewing machine for my first project! (Hallelujah! I didn't even have to unpick once! I honestly think that's the first time for me). Here is my first pillow. There will be more to follow.

Materials:
~old pillows that need re-covering
~scrap fabric

I kind-of followed this tutorial but I did change it a little bit. First, take off the existing cover on your pillow and measure it. Add about 1/2 inch on all sides for a seam allowance. Cut out two pieces this same size and pin them right sides together. Sew around the edge leaving about 5 inches to stuff in the pillow. Turn it right-side-out, stuff the pillow in and hand-stitch the remaining 5 inches of the pillow case. (The main fabric I wanted to use is quite sheer so I made two pillow cases--just a white pillow case first and then the gold one to go on top.)

Old, ugly pillows.


Sorry this is blurry but this is my white pillowcase that I made first to go under the sheer gold one.


My Bernette hard at work! :)
Can you tell that I'm WAY excited to have this?!


My beautiful new pillow that matches my couch and adds a spice of home to my living room!

Cost:
~ old pillows - $0.00
~ scrap fabric - $0.00

Re-covered Pillows: Total Cost ~ $0.00!

Homemade Bagels

So this isn't the cutest project but it was sure yummy! These were really easy and fun to make and lasted for about 30 minutes. They really taste like bagels too. (Oh, by the way, in the ingredient's list it calls for 2 eggs but it never even mentions eggs in the directions. Does anybody know anything about that?) I got this recipe from my mother-in-law! Try them out!

Homemade Bagels
3 C. flour
4 T. sugar
3/4 C. warm water
1 tsp. salt
1 T. yeast
3 T. cooking oil
4 Quarts boiling water

Mix flour, salt, and 2 T. sugar in bowl. Dissolve yeast in 1/4 C. warm water and add to the flour mixture. Add the oil to the remaining water and stir into the flour mixture. Feel free to add cinnamon-sugar, raisins, or anything else to change the variety of bagel. Knead for 5 minutes. Place dough into greased bowl, cover and let rise until doubled. Punch the dough down and roll out to about 3/4 inches thick. Cut out 12 circles and then cut out the middle so you have created a bagel shape. (The original directions tell you to roll them out a little differently but that led to really small bagels. I like a smaller circle in the middle--more surface area to spread cream cheese!) Add the remaining 2 T. sugar to the boiling water. Drop the bagels into the water one at a time, cooing 2 or 3 at once. Simmer the bagels for 1 minute from the time they rise to teh surface of the water. Then lift them out of the water with a fork an dplace them on a towel, pat dry and place on a lightly greased cookie sheet. Let them cool for about 5 minutes. Bake at 350 degrees for 25-35 minutes or until the crust is golden brown.

Like I said, I like smaller circles and the way I rolled these out led to big circles in the middle. But they were still yummy! Give them a try :) (Oh, and by the way--these are free!)

Materials:
Ingredients ~ $0.00

Homemade Bagels: Total Cost ~ $0.00!!

Happy Birthday to me!

I recently had a birthday and got an amazing gift! My in-laws and my husband went in together and got me a sewing machine! :) I am SO excited! To go along with the sewing machine, my parents bought me a sewing basket with thread, needles, pin cushion, etc. and money for sewing lessons! I really am not very good so sewing lessons will be very much appreciated :) I'm going to wait until the summer so my schedule is a little more open. Anyway, I'm STOKED! Wanna see it?! She's beautiful! Thank you so much everyone!

I can't wait to get really good with this and make beautiful crafts for my home! THANK-YOU!