Happy Mother's Day!

My darling family helped me to have such a fun Mother's Day. They all made me beautiful cards with such heartfelt messages inside, and that's all I really ever want. I did also get a beautiful hanging flower basket, which I loved.

     Cute Hannah has fallen in love with the idea of Shabby Chic. I have never been great at it, and it's never really been in my style of decor, but hey, I am always willing to learn! She made me this card from various cut-out pics from magazines and I think it is so clever and sassy...totally Hannah!

We had my mom over for dinner and Neal made a fabulous lime tilapia (Paula Dean recipe, very wonderful). Han wanted to try to do the table Shabby so I was game on and decided on the black and creme theme. She helped re-paint a flower arrangement I bought at my pal George's yard sale by painting the pot antique black. Very crafty little chick, that Hannah!

 Yesterday, I re-purposed a D.I. kitchen chair for Lucy's senior pics that I will post this week, and it is very Shabby and vintage-y looking, and it was my first attempt at it. I tea-dyed a white skirt and then tore it up and used it on the chair. Han and I also used it to decorate the chairs.

     I had some dollar store roses and I spray painted them creme colored and spritzed them with black to make them look weathered. I put them in a dollar store vase with tulle and a little ribbon, and it became a nice addition to the table. I used the faux

mercury glass candle holders, and the cute cards the girls made for the rest of the table.

    And here is a cute pic of the my 3 favorite girls! They make my life so wonderful, and I am so grateful for them.

      And I can't end Mother's Day without saying thank you to my own dear mother! She is a young 80 year old who is so fun to be around. Everyone loves her. This is a picture of my sister and my mother and I at Lucy's birthday dinner yesterday. Happy Mother's Day everyone!

Happy May Day! Oatmeal Box re-do

When I grew up, May 1st was a big holiday. It's May Day! The holiday symbolizing that the terrible winter is finally over (wish!) and Spring is here.  We would spend hours making baskets out of paper and filling them up with flowers and treats, then putting them on a friends porch and ringing the doorbell and running. I'm sad to say there are only a few of us die-hards left on May Day who like to give friends goodies or flowers.

 I found this adorable vintage card and it reminded me of what Emma, Lucy and Hannah looked like when they were little. I would love to get those little Scandinavians to dance around a May pole now!
My cute friend Michelle always celebrates May Day and she is a fabulous chef, especially with the baked goods. She brought us a plate of goodies yesterday, so I decided to make her a cute and easy May Day box for cookies, flowers, or whatever.

      Oddly, I save oatmeal boxes, very shocking, I know. I think they are fabulously easy to re-do and I love making oatmeal cookies so I usually go through them pretty fast. This little project was so easy that I want to keep making them to put gifts in, etc, since it didn't take long at all.

I measured it about 4 inches from the bottom, then cut it all the way around. Then I got a variety of scrap book papers and just cut them a bit bigger, and glued them down. I traced the lid a bit bigger also, so I could fold the edges under. Next I hot glued it down and cut the edges in intervals so I could fold it down and glue it under.

Then I put some tissue and cookies in it (wouldn't it have been miraculous if they were homemade? No such luck here, I owe it all to Paradise Bakery!)

Then I tied some ribbon around it and put a yellow tulip on top with a card and took it to my cute friends Michelle and Vanessa!
Happy May Day everyone, and lets keep hoping for Spring!

Happy Easter!

This one is short and sweet because it is well past bedtime. The table setting is all done and we are ready for Easter! Just have to make the food and put it on there...that's actually the hardest part for me! Hope you all have a beautiful Easter!
(And p.s. The white plates are from the dollar store, and the blue plates are from the discount bin at Zurchers. Gotta love the sweet deals!)

Easter Decorating Ideas #3

Here we go on day 3 with a few more fun things to show. Do you remember in grade school learning how to make crepe paper flowers? (Crest Hill grads, remember our art teacher, Mr. Grimes? Flashback!) Anyway, that was one of my favorite things to make and I love the new update of the big paper flowers. I found this either on Martha Stewart, or a link to another blog on her site. Either way, it is way easy and has spectacular results. Plus it is fast!

I bought the tissue at the dollar store and put about 5 layers of it down.  Fold it like an accordian, then attach some wire through the middle. Make sure it's not too tight. Snip the ends into a point, then open it up and very carefully, fan them all out and it looks gorgeous! I made the really large ones and some smaller ones also.  

The chandelier (or cheap IKEA light) in the kitchen was sort of boring so I wanted to make it really festive. I draped this string of eggs that I got at Michaels onto it, then put some tulle around it. By the way, they sell rolls of tulle at the dollar store. Whoda thunk?

Then I hung the various sizes of paper flower balls onto it and it ended up looking very fun indeed.

   Next, I covered these plastic eggs in tulle (tulle is evidently the theme of my Easter this year!) and put them in a vase on top of a candlestick. I put a little nest of sticks and pink tulle around it and used it as a table centerpiece.

And lastly, I found a few black candle-sticks at the dollar store and sprayed them white and put some dollar candles on them. I have a feeling I will want them black again one day, and as we all know, you can never spray paint too much!

     See you tomorrow when I throw it all together and make a tablescape!

Easter Decorating Idea #2

     Since I have had from Tues. of this week off work, I have been able to actually get more projects done and have been having a blast! Over the last few days I have been to my usual hot spots (Dollar Tree, Savers, Michaels) to get some pretty cool (and cheap) stuff. Today I'm just going to spotlight a few things that will eventually go on the tablescape, but that can really be used anywhere.

    First, I decided that my color scheme would be all white for a base color. I think because I saw it on someones blog and loved it. I also saw it on a Martha Stewart link and I always love me some Martha! Plus, I had a ton of white spray paint just sitting around begging to be used. The colors I chose were pink, turquoise blue and green. Here is  some of the basic junk I bought at D.I. and Savers before, and then after I attacked it with a can of paint.

Some of the stuff was off-white, so I re-painted it also to get the same matching white. I'm pretty sure you aren't supposed to eat off a spray painted plate, so after I attached a painted candlestick to it, I just put a doily on top. Thanks to Jori at her cool blog, Hello Cupcake! She gave me the idea to use the candlesticks from the dollar store to use for a cake plate. Love!! And the good news is: I didn't pay over $1.99 for anything that I painted and used. Sweeeet!

     Here is the cute little cake plate all finished with the candlestick painted and glued to the bottom of the plate. Oh, and I did not make these adorable brownie bites (Target did!) but I'm guessing they would be pretty easy. 

Next is the gauzy, ethereal looking egg holder. It was originally a black candle holder with glass votives in it. I got these beautiful ceramic eggs on sale at Michaels for $1.00 and put white tulle under it to keep the eggs in. It makes them look all floaty and heavenly.

 I may give these ornaments away to the family coming to Easter dinner. It's a fun way to display them. So up next...while I was at Savers I saw the TALLEST vase I've ever seen for $1.99 and grabbed it because it was so cool, and already white. I put some on-sale hydrangeas in it and yow! Fell in love.

It's fun to display candy in a super easy to make candy holder using the same idea as the cake plate. I just sprayed a bowl and candlestick and glued it together. And for the plastic egg display - I love milk glass, but it's sooo expensive. How about $1.00 for this little plastic job? Once I sprayed it from it's ugly off-white color, it looked just like a milk glass vase.

I have no idea what the original purpose of this next doodad was, but I think it was an old, really tacky looking napkin holder. I really love how it ended up once I put the cute checkered napkins in it.

And last, what do you do with all of your leftover tulle and flowers? Just tie it around the chairs! I have a bunch more to get ready for tomorrow's posting, so check back and see what's happening, and I will see you then!

Easter Table Idea #1

Easter is almost here! It is one of my favorite holidays. I love dying eggs, decorating, having family over for Easter dinner, and especially the symbolism of the holiday. For me, finding new ways to decorate the Easter dinner table is one of the funnest things leading up to Easter. Looking around online and on other blogs gives me so many ideas, I get a little overwhelmed. But I thought it would be fun to post 5 days of easy, cheap decorating ideas for the table, then on day 6 show all of the ideas put together as a tablescape on the Easter dinner table.

    Today is the first project, which cost a total of $2.50. I bought a branch of silk flowers on sale for $2.00 and cut the flowers off (the branch looked fake and plastic, so it had to go!) So I used some branches that were in the yard from a major snowstorm busting them off and hot glued the flowers to the branches, which looks a lot more realistic. Though the trees outside are flowering, they just won't last inside in a vase, even in water. So this is a good compromise.

I bought the vase at Savers for 50 cents and already had the spraypaint. But first I sprayed the vase blue in spots I wanted dotted. After it dried, I put round stickers on the spots and spraypainted the whole vase white. I took off the stickers and there they were...cute blue polka dots!

Once the blossoming branches went in the vase, I actually felt a little Spring happiness for the first time this season. This little quickie craft makes a great piece for the dinner table or a coffee table. See you tomorrow!

Spring Sweater Update

While Lucy and I were out prom dress shopping, I saw this awesome sweater in the window of a store. I stalked it for a few days, wondering how I could inconspicuously take a pic of it without the people in the store thinking I was a true stalker. I did get this pic, terrible as it is.

It does show vaguely how cool it was. I love the idea of taking a long, outdated winter sweater and making it into a long Spring vest!
    I remembered that deep in the dark recesses of Emma's closet was a sweater similar to this one that I could cut the sleeves off of and make it work, as she hadn't found it, nor worn it for years.

So, Em found it and gave it to me, (not knowing what I had in mind for it.) As I began to hack off the sleeves, Emma walked in, and in true Emma fashion said, "So, I see you are taking my favorite sweater and trashing it!" Umm...yes? Maybe "trashing" is the new "updating". Oh, how I love that girl.

This had to be the easiest project ever. All I did was cut off the sleeves and put some fabric fray stuff on it (of course I would never hem the sleeves...too much work! )So then I just added a length of ribbon and weaved it into the center of the sweater, and it was almost done.

At the last minute I took a piece of the sleeve and folded it into a rose and sewed it to the front, which I think upped the cute factor quite a bit.

Off to search for a model. (I never have to search far in this house of girls.) As usual, I talked Lucy into it.
I think it looks perfect as a Spring sweater, and she pulled it off great with jeans and a t-shirt.

She did pull a quick 
spider-monkey move and shimmy up onto the pillar for a really cool pose that I had to post also. Ah, to be young and agile.

Here's a little Happy Spring endnote. I took this pic before our last big snowstorm last week and had to post it with a favorite poem of mine by Robert Herrick.



Fair Daffodils, we weep to see
You haste away so soon;
As yet the early-rising sun
Has not attain'd his noon.
Stay, stay,
Until the hasting day
Has run
But to the even-song;
And, having pray'd together, we
Will go with you along.
--Robert Herrick

These poor mini daffodils were struggling through the snow to peek up. (A favorite side note story: My friend Keith Homer, gardener extraordinaire, occasionally does "guerilla gardening" at random houses. One year he planted these without me knowing and the next Spring, up they popped!) They are so beautiful and a perfect symbol of Spring and Easter.

And finally, since we are bogged down with rain and snow and sleet right now, I decided to cozy up in my house and finish up a project that had been taking way too long to finish. A soft, white baby blessing blanket. It's made from Red Heart yarn and is some sort of furry micro fiber that feels like a baby lamb (or any fuzzy, cute creature.) I wove a piece of blue ribbon into the edge and gave it to a cute couple that had a baby boy that Emma works with. So, that's one major project down and on to Easter!