Thanksgiving Canvas and Banner

Hello, it's Brooke here! Before Thanksgiving has come and gone, I wanted to share 2 little Thanksgiving projects with you: one I made last year, and one I finished TODAY. :) If you're feeling crafty, I bet you could whip up these projects just in time for your Thanksgiving celebrations.

Thanksgiving Canvas
I love making things in photoshop using digital scrapbooking supplies, then combining them with other mediums, such as canvas and ribbon. I created this in photoshop using a scripture that I love from the Book of Mormon (Alma 34:38)---Live in thanksgiving daily. I finished up this project this morning.

I LOVE that and really need to apply it in my life on a daily basis! So I needed to make a cute reminder. :) I printed it at Costco on luster paper. Meanwhile, I had a canvas just sitting around, so I painted it dark brown, and once I picked up my photo I used Mod Podge to stick it on the canvas. I also added a polka dot ribbon and Mod Podged that baby right on too. Mod Podging is a verb, people. :) I love that stuff. I added a layer of Mod Podge on top of everything, and instead of doing a carefully thin perfect layer, I did it messy and cross-hatched, so I could get more of a textured look. Last of all, I added a small velvety flower to finish it off. I love how it looks hanging on my wall!!! It makes me happy and it was super easy. This is something that I can keep up all year long to remind me how blessed we are and to give thanks every single day.

Thankful Banner

I made this project last year for the Oct. 2008 issue of Bella Scraps Magazine, and thought I'd share the tutorial here just for funsies. :)

Materials: printed layouts, coordinating cardstock, adhesive, hole punch, distress ink, various ribbons

Step 1: Create your letter layouts in your photo editing program. I was making the word "thankful" so I made 8 little coordinating mini layouts. I knew I wanted my mounted letters to be 6 inches x 6 inches when finished, so I created my layouts at about 5.25 inches by 5.25 inches so I could have my cardstock mat provide a nice border.

Step 2: Print layouts and cut them out. I used the luster photo paper at Costco, that's my favorite. For the cardstock mats, I used my QuicKutz Silhouette to cut out the various shapes (bracket, scallop, circle, and rounded square). It saved me tons of time but you could make any shape you wanted and cut by hand, or even use chipboard pieces as your mats. I've seen cute banners that use triangles.

Step 3: Adhere the layouts to the shaped cardstock with your favorite acid-free adhesive. You could use double-sided sticky tape, glue sticks, Mod Podge, or Zyron machine, whatever floats your boat! Then punch a hole in the top 2 corners of each layout. I made my holes about 1/2 inch in. I also inked up the edges of the cardstock with distress ink.

Step 4: Now it's time to string up the banner. I cut my ribbon to a 7 foot length (I laid out my banner and allowed enough ribbon for a few inches in between each letter and about 12 inches on each end for hanging up). Then I threaded the ribbon through all of the holes in the tops of the layouts until they were all strung together. I used about a 3/4 inch wide ribbon and it was very easy to thread through the holes. Knot the ends to secure.

Step 5: Add coordinating ribbon as accents to the banner. I wanted to keep it simple so I just added some green ties in between each letter.

Step 6: Hang up your banner and enjoy! It's a fun way to use digiscrapping in your home decor. Now that all the hard work is done, I get to hang it up every year! :) Credits: Shabby Princess "Autumn Medley" and "Harvest Spice" papers; GG Digital Designs "Fall Fun" chipboard letters
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Have a great day and have a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend.

Love, Brooke

(Feel free to visit my personal blog, Little Wonders)

{Felt Flowers}

Hi. I'm Becky, another one of the Crafty Chicks here. I have two little chickadees, a 3-year old and a 1-year-old, both girls. They keep me running, but I love it. I enjoy cooking, crafting, having fun with my family, and girl's nights out. I love creating and feel like we all need to create something every once in a while as an outlet. I just get so giddy once I create something and want to share it with all my friends. That's why Jamie and I started this blog. We wanted a place to share all the fun ideas we have with each other and all our crafty friends. We are happy to have you all stop by and hope that you enjoy our crafting.

As a mother of girls, I am constantly doing hair. I love finding cute, new, different things to put in their hair that makes them stand out. Enter the felt flower. I was getting tired of the same old flowers, and I love bows, but how many of those can ya have? My search ended when I saw my friend Kristin's little girl with a cute felt peony. I was in love. I went online and found the Vermillion Rules site. Such a fun site with a few different links to all sorts of felt flowers. I went to Yoonie at home and loved the peony so much that I am up half the night dreaming of all the fun felt colored flowers I can make. I am not stopping with my girl's hair accessories. I want some for me. They will jazz up a cute scarf. Make a hat look adorable. And who says we grown women can't wear them in our hair?


{My Silly Goose modeling her new flower}

You can make them up super fast. I made this one before church today cause my baby girl needed a cute flower to match her new dress. I cut out the pattern, ran a few stitches through it, added the button, and stitched it to this headband. (You can get these stretchy headbands in packages of different colors from Target or WalMart in the hair area. They are so nice and you can toss them in the wash to shrink them back up if they get stretched out.)I think it took almost 30 minutes from start to finish. Such a fun easy project! Enjoy!

KID INCENTIVES :)

Hey this is Kirsten and I thought I would introduce myself since you probably don't know who is contributing to this blog, but I am one of the crafters on this site and there are about 6-8 of us that contribute to this blog....we all LOVE LOVE LOVE to make fun new things and started this to share some of our ideas with each other and with you. Most of us are from Utah, Brooke is MY cousin, Jamie, is one of my old neighbors and dear friends, both AMAZINGLY AWESOME crafters. Coming up here soon, we will have more information about each of us....as for me, I have 4 kids-3 boys and a girl ages...BOY-5, BOY-4, BOY 3 1/2, GIRL 1 so I don't have a whole lot of time to make things, although I usually find time because it's a complete outlet for me. I am 29 and I am a professional photographer and have been for 9 years now, you can't tell by some of the pics I post but use your imagination :). I love to digiscrap and am addicted to Photoshop a little more than I like to admit. Two of my favorite crafters are Jamie and Brooke, they are unreal as you have seen here. We frequently SHRIEK when we are together because we get really excited about making things...a little too excited sometimes :) Don't let this picture fool you because I really am a total NERD, and GOOFBALL....so beware. Thanks for checking out our blog, we love all of our readers, ENJOY!! You can check out my personal blog at lifeatthewrighthouse.blogspot.com

MOTHER'S RETREAT
I went to a mother's retreat last weekend that was a lot of fun. Twice a year they have this retreat at their cabin and focus on a different parenting/mothering topic each time. This time they brought in a professor from BYUI to present on the book, How To Raise Emotionally Intelligent Children, it was really great. I learned a lot of little things that will make our house run more smoothly. One of the most helpful things for me was learning (through a quiz) how I help my kids deal with (or not deal with) emotion....anger sadness...and then learned how to help kids "process" their emotions, a pure golden nugget that has really really helped the peace and patience in our home in the last week. I am reading the book right now, and it's very very helpful, and has shifted my paradigm a lot already.
I was lucky enough to present a section on Incentives/Goal setting for kids/Proactive Parenting Ideas...these are some of the ideas that I presented (don't I sound official :)...

THE MARBLE JAR-these are two mason jars as you can see. This incentive is a family team effort. When the kids do EXTRA good things-going to EXTRA mile, I put a marble in the other jar. As a family we decided that when all the marbles are in the other jar, we get to go and ride the "BUS TRAIN". They can't ask for a marble, Dave and I just have to OBSERVE them doing something extra special. Bennett has been earning most of these marbles because he decided to go potty on his own, so each time he goes #2 he gets to put three marbles in the jar. The other boys have earned some from doing things like obeying EXTRA quickly, helping a brother or sister and being EXTRA patient, or for being extra obedient for babysitters (ok that last one was wishful thinking). I take marbles out on occasion for disobedience, but mostly just focus on the positive and on filling it up.
This is the PUFFBALL JAR. I tried this one on Porter when he was almost 3. He decorated the jar with stickers I knew he would love, and each time he went potty, he got to 1)pick a puffball out of the puffball bag, and 2)put it in the jar himself. We watched as he filled it all the way up. It helped us both be positive with each other and helped him set a goal to fill it up. I think he got a sucker when it was all filled, although picking puffballs and filling it up were the best rewards.
THIS IS OUR TREASURE BOX. It is filled with little trinkets like things from the Target dollar section-socks, stickers, or Hot Wheels cars, candy necklaces, gum, ring pops, and different things from time to time. We use the treasure box for a variety of different incentives. In the last couple months, I had the boys earning stars. I would keep track of the stars in my head, or you can keep a chart. Keeping track in my head made it more versatile. They get to pick a treasure box if they earn 10 stars. The boys earn stars for doing different things like:
-getting chores done before school (Porter only),
-obeying extra extra quickly,
-if they are having a hard time with something, I give them a star for progressing in that area. For example, Mason was having a hard time going to preschool without missing me for the first couple of weeks, so to help get over this, I would give him a star if he went with a brave attitude. He got over this quickly.
-sometimes I give stars if I am trying to go somewhere extra quickly and I need extra cooperation.
-they can never ask for a star, I just have to observe them doing these things. I keep the treasure box up high so they can't get into it and they can only look in it if they have earned a treasure box prize.
This is their favorite thing.
BINGO CARDS...this is a fun idea that Cousin Brooke found. I designed a DEC one and you can print it out and laminate it and you put some fun activities down that you want to do for the week or for the whole month, and put a sticker or check them off when you do them, and give the kiddos a treat when you get Bingo and blackout. On my December card I will put things like: visit Temple Square, take treats to a neighbor, go caroling, make sugar cookies, do a service for a brother or sister, etc etc. It's a fun way for me to get all the fun things in that we want to do for the month.
Cousin Brooke was a great Vanna White and idea adder at this point, thanks Brooke.

I hope you can use some of these ideas in your home, they really help ME be more positive with the kids, and it's fun to see them EARN things, and REACH their goals. Let me know how they work for YOU. THANKS!!!

KIRSTEN
lifeatthewrighthouse.blogspot.com

Spooky Treats

Quickly turn your candy jars into potion ingredients even Hermoine would be impressed with with awesome labels from Love Manor. They added the perfect spookiness to the treats at our Halloween party this weekend.

I glanced through the labels before heading to the candy isle so I had some idea of what I was looking for. The are a lot of possibilities. After returning with the sweets, I printed the appropriate labels and used double sided tape to attach them to the various jars I scavenged from around the house.

{Abby's Kitchen}

My little girl got this kitchen last year and I had to add some fun decor to spice it up! I was inspired by the red striped and polka-dot apron that came with the kitchen. This has been one of my all time favorite projects. I made double sided placemats-very easy!

& double sided chair cushions. Very easy to make. Just used the seat of the chair for my pattern and used batting in between the fabrics. Added some polka dot ribbon to tie on the chairs.

And my favorite, the faux window. I just bought a canvas, painted an outdoor scene, added white grograin ribbon for the window panes and then made some drapes to go on the sides.

Happy Crafting Everyone! I think my crafting will now be on hold. My little muffins are going to arrive any day now!

{Monogram Bags}

A few months ago I made these little bags for my kids. They are their quiet bags for church or any other quiet activity. They love them!! I added the letter of their first name with pellon (two sided iron on sticky fabric). I used this tutorial http://www.colorfool.net/category/tutorials/ to help with the main parts of the bag. I also added a little pocket in the front for snacks and what nots. Super easy project!

{Spooky Decor}

Love this time of year! Loved Nikkala's spooky decor! It is especially fun for my kiddos this year to decorate and enjoy all of the fun fall activities. Here are a few things we've put up this year. I was about to throw out this twiggy wreath, but decided to cut it down, add some orange berries and leaves, a bow and the sparkly word "Halloween" (that I found at Walmart for $3). I figure I could take out the word and change out the bow and keep it up through November. Easy and inexpensive.

Love my lantern hanging from my chandelier. I got this one at a local store, but I have seen them several places.

Easy centerpiece (that won't break!-i have 2 year olds)

Our Annual "Spooky Tree." I found this tree at Pottery Barn Kids a couple of years ago, but I love Kirsten's idea of making your own. I found the pumpkins, spiders, and words at Taipan and had to add a little ribbon. I LOVE ribbon! I think it needs a little something else, maybe some ghosts or skeletons. My kiddos loved helping me hang up the spooky critters.