Easter Weekend

We had a really fun weekend full of busy schedules.

Friday was opening night for the Blaze game. Luckily, Tyson's dad is still co-owner so we have great seats at every game. It was a really disappointing loss Friday night, but nonetheless, the games are always so much fun.

I even get to watch one of my best friends perform this season as a Blaze Dancer! 

Alexia

Be sure to check out their schedule and go to some games this season for some good family fun!

// E a s t e r  S u n d a y //
I'm not one to post religious posts, but on beautiful days like this Easter Sunday, I am reminded and brought closer to my Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ.

The true meaning of this holiday can sometimes be forgotten during the chaos of planning family dinners, Easter bunnies, Easter egg hunts, etc. But I am so thankful that it will always fall on Sunday where I can attend my church meetings and be enveloped by the messages and reminders of what this day is really all about.

I'm so thankful for the church that I belong to. To know that Jesus was risen and made it possible for everyone to be with him again. He opened the gates of Heaven and we will all be welcome with open arms one day. His resurrection has guaranteed that life does not end at death...

President Ezra Taft Benson:
As one of His latter-day witnesses, I testify that He lives today. He is a resurrected Being. He is our Savior, our Lord, the very Son of God. I testify that He will come again as our glorified, resurrected Lord. That day is not far distant. To all who accept Him as Savior and Lord, His literal resurrection means that life does not end at death, for He promised: “Because I live, ye shall live also.” (John 14:19.)

After a wonderful church service, we had family dinner at my mom's. A perfect meal, an overly long wiffle ball game, and some good laughs made for a perfect Easter Sunday.

My darling niece 

Love my little Addisyn

Happy Easter everyone!

Wedding Banners

It's that time of the year.... WEDDING SEASON! 

Tyson's younger sister is getting married in May and asked me to make a wedding banner for their main table as well as a mini-banner for the card box.

Of course I said yes! 

Anytime I can get my hands on some crafting, I'm game! 

Her colors are a beautiful vintage palette of mint, blush and cream.

I sat with her and drew up a draft of what she wanted the banners to look like and I gave her a shopping list based off of the drawing.
     *It's always easiest for me to draw out my banners and crafts so I know exactly what materials to buy and how much I'll need.

Wedding Banner How To: 

Unfortunately, I haven't purchased any additional cartridges or software for my Cricut yet, so I only have what came with the machine. The flag shapes I needed weren't on my Cricut so I cut them all out by hand.

**I started with the banner flags.
     I cut out all 11 I needed with a ruler, pencil & a paper trimmer.
     The banner was to hang on an 8 foot long table. So, I accounted for the drooping look as well as ribbon on the sides and in-between each flag to know how wide each flag should be.

looks crooked but I promise, they were perfect :)

**I then cut out lace for the next layer.
     The lace was a bit tough to work with just because its so soft and flimsy.
     I laid it out on my cutting mat, cut strips as wide as the first paper layer, and about an inch longer than the paper as well.
     Once the rectangles were cut, I proceeded to cut the lace into 11 more flag shapes.

**For the third and fifth layers, I was actually able to use my Cricut!
     I do wish the Cricut cut into thicker paper though; it ends up cutting a basic line and I had to use scissors to cut them all the way out.

**The fourth layer was added to help break up the flat plain look of the banner.
     I didn't want to over complicate the lace as it's difficult to cut into shapes, so I just cut out oval shapes wide enough to be seen under layer 5.

**Then came the letters.
     This is the part of banner making that makes me eager to hurry and invest in some Cricut letter cartridges.
     I end up drawing and cutting each letter out by hand. Definitely a time investment.
     If it was for my own banner I wouldn't have been so worried and 100% precise about everything, but since it was for a wedding, I knew it had to look perfect.

**Once the layers were cut out and glued in place, I cut strips of mint ribbon and glued them in between each flag. (I cut strips to save on ribbon)
     Ending with about a foot or two of ribbon on the ends for the bride to work with when hanging.

This banner took me a while to complete. Not only were there a lot of flags involved, but I wanted it to be perfect for my sister-in-law's wedding where hundreds of people will see it.

Wedding Cards Mini-Banner
Her mini-banner for Cards was much easier. I was able to complete the banner in under 30 minutes.
This little banner will be draped across an open vintage suitcase for guests to leave their cards in.

** I first cut the burlap into 5 triangle flags
     glued on her lace ribbon
     then drew and cut out the little letters

**Because the burlap flags were so small, I was worried about the fraying that comes with using burlap.
     I didn't want to spend a lot of time sewing and gluing, so I used clear nail polish around each edge. It dried really quickly and worked perfectly!

I love making banners. They're one of my favorite crafts. If I ever have time some day, maybe I'll make them for money!

My next project for the wedding.... adding sleeve lining and a dress extender 

to make my Bridesmaid dress 

MARRIED-MORMON MODEST :)

Feel free to email me about any questions you have on the materials needed or the banner itself!   

St. Pattie's & Easter decor

St. Patrick's Day isn't really anything huge we celebrate around our house, but the Valentine's decorations had to come down so obviously something had to replace it :).

I bought what I didn't have at Hobby Lobby. I purchased them around Valentine's Day so everything was pretty cheap.

PS: Get the Hobby Lobby app 

and get 40% off 

an item every time you go in! 

Not to mention other great deals they always have

Here is my decor for St. Patrick's Day; nothing huge but still fun and glittery to feel festive for a short time.

You'll start to notice that I reuse my jars and bottles a lot - I love changing out the decor used in them without having to buy new canisters every time.

I felt rushed to get my Easter decorations up since Easter is coming earlier this year! (I always thought it was supposed to be the first Sunday in April.... which would be April 7th not March 31st)

Anywho... I seriously bought the items I didn't have already, from the Dollar Store! I'm learning to stop by the dollar store first before stepping into an actual craft store - we find some really good things in there!

Tyson loves Cadbury Eggs and I love Robin Eggs, so we compromised and just poured both into our candy jar :)

My company, CHG Healthcare, is a wonderful place to work for in so many ways! They even had an Easter Egg Hunt for the company yesterday!

They hid eggs all over the building and the biggest prize was PTO! Who doesn't want paid time off for free! Unfortunately, I couldn't find the PTO eggs but was fortunate enough to find some eggs filled with a gift card prize! I randomly selected a $25 Target card - love the constant opportunities for extra prizes at work!

After church tomorrow, we'll be having Easter dinner at my mom's! Nothing like a Sunday holiday church service and a good meal :)

Mine and Tyson's birthdays are this weekend! Look for fun pictures!!

Feel free to email me about any questions you have about my Easter decor and crafts!

Valentine's crafts & decor

Some people hate Valentine's Day and feel its just a made-up holiday for the Hallmark and candy companies. This could be true, but... I still love having a whole day dedicated to celebrating love.

Just like every other day, only more festive :)

I leave for work earlier than Tyson so I was able to leave a heart attack trail to his gifts for him to wake up to.

favorite candy, inside joke monkey, love journal, homemade card, "Love About You" book

I LOVE the deck of cards book I created for Tyson this year. I got a similar idea of off Pinterest but just wanted 14 cards, not 50 like I had seen.

I found this website where you can create personalized gifts. 

The site was so easy to maneuver around. I was also worried about shipping time since it was coming from a faraway land ;). But, I actually received it in under 2 weeks and they were so perfect!

Not to mention, I got the deck of cards for under $13! 

Great price for a customized gift. 

I traced glitter and patterned paper to the size of the cards.
I used words from magazines for the front cover

I cut out pictures from the spare cards to use on the insides of the  covers

I customized each card to have a Valentine theme, a picture of us on the back, as well poems I wrote on each card for 14 things I love about Tyson. 

After punching two holes on the side of each card, I put two small binder rings though and voila! 

I also handmade a card for Tyson. I just had to buy the tan and red paper so it was much cheaper than a pre-written Hallmark card :)

love the glitter arrow

I created a banner to hang across our TV set, strung heart garland down the mirror, and decorated the front table as always :)

Banner: 
Burlap
Paper
Hot Glue gun/sticks

The easiest way to cut straight on burlap is to pull a strand out all the way, leaving an empty straight line.

  Here is a tutorial I found to be really helpful. 

I folded over the top of the flags over yarn and hot glued it down
I have a Cricut so I was able to cut out about 40 hearts in under 10 minutes.
    *What would I do without my Cricut!!
I wish I wouldn't have hot glued the hearts down, just so I could use it for other holidays. But nonetheless, I love it.

Feel free to email me with any questions on the Valentine crafts & decor! 

Thanksgiving & Christmas Decor

I've never really been much of a holiday decorator, or a home decorator either; thankfully I've had my mom's amazing eye and help to make a cozy home (apartment) to live in.

I started getting into the holiday decorating with Halloween; posted about here and here. Although we don't have a lot of people over everyday, I still love making our apartment festive for the holidays; it's something fun to come home to.

Thanksgiving is sadly one of those holidays that seems to come and go without much notice nowadays. That poor holiday gets stuck in between the month long festivities of Halloween followed by everyone ready for Christmas the day the spooky decor gets taken down.

I'd be lying if I said I go all out for Thanksgiving, but I did manage to reuse some Halloween decor and made a very little, festive, area on our front table.

Yes, I'm aware my Christmas decor can be seen in the background lol. I was all ready to set up for Christmas thinking I had no Thanksgiving decor to work with. But, I used some pumpkins and leaves from Halloween and an owl from my Christmas decorations.

Good enough :)

******
The Christmas decorations were much more fun to play with.

We bought three strands of lighted garland from Tai Pan; two garland for the front door and one for the TV set.

   PS: during the holidays, 

sign up for 

Tai Pan's email offers 

to receive great discounts on decorations!

It took us an entire night, holes in walls, a few curse words, and a trip to Home Depot to figure out how to hang garland around the door frame. I finally googled 'How To' and found the easiest way for indoor garland hanging.

You'll need:
Eye Lags
Zip Ties

We screwed in two eye lags on each of the three sides of the door.
We then, starting from the top, zip tied the garland to the eye hook.

We did cheat a bit and had some old curtain hooks we screwed in above the door to help support the weight of the garland - recommended if the garland will be up all month.

For the garland around the top of the TV set, I found it hard to keep it from slipping off of the edges, so I looped some yarn around sections of the garland and taped them down on top of the set so they weren't visible from the ground.

Decor Items:
Black lanterns: Hobby Lobby
          I love that they can be used year round
Red Wire Ribbon: Tai Pain
Balls, Jars, Nest, Owl: Tai Pan
Ornaments: Costco
Skinny stockings: Tai Pan


We weren't able to have our big Christmas tree up this year because our new couch takes up the entire space of our living room lol - can't wait to have a bigger place soon!

So, we bought a 3 foot tree from Tai Pan, put it on an ottoman and covered it with a tree skirt. The soft glowing lights are always my favorite thing to come home to after work.

Feel free to email me with any questions on my Halloween, Thanksgiving, & Christmas holiday decor!