Winter Snowman

First of all, a huge THANK YOU to Kari over at Ucreate for featuring me on her awesome blog and helping my blog get off to a great start!

I have to admit, I am feeling a little bit nervous now! Hopefully I can keep the cute crafts coming! It will be a great opportunity to stretch my creativity!

My family moved from Utah to the St. Louis area about 4 years ago. One of the biggest changes for us was the weather. It was quite a change coming from a place with lots of snow to a place where it snows so infrequently that school is cancelled for any amount of snow. I missed the snow more that I thought I would! But last night, we got an inch or two of white stuff!

So since my kids were able to do this today...

I am going to post some winter things I've made.

I made these by simply cutting a 2x4 into random sized blocks and painting them various shades of blue. Then I cut some white vinyl with my Silhouette digital cutter. I LOVE that thing! I use it for practically everything I make. It is awesome. But if you don't have a digital cutter and wanted to make these you can just hand cut letters from white card stock and Mod Podge it on. Then I just embellished it with cute snowman stickers and I have a cute reminder that there is snow somewhere!

I actually saw this snowman at a friends house and had to copy it. I take pictures all the time at friends houses or stores when I see something I love. My cell phone is full of pictures of projects I want to make! So since I can't build a real snowman, I'll make this one instead! For this little guy I took a 2x2 and cut it into a three blocks (1.5", 2.5" and 3.5"). I painted them white, sanded the edges and antiqued it a bit with some walnut stain. Then I added buttons, used pastels for his cheeks, a Sharpie for the eyes, and cut a nose from some card stock. I thought he needed something more so I raided my kids "warm fuzzy" jar and used pompoms and some jewelry wire for his earmuffs. Cute little snowman!

So enjoy the snow! Whether it is real or not!

Valentine Topiary

I don't have very many Valentine decorations, so I decided to remedy that this year. I saw a cute Valentine topiary at Target yesterday, but didn't want to spent 20 bucks on it, so I decided to make my own. I totally LOVE how it turned out. It may just be my favorite project I've ever made! I got most of my supplies at the dollar store and a few at Hobby Lobby. Here is what you need if you decide it's so cute that you need to make one too! Just because you can!

A four inch Styrofoam ball-I got mine at Hobby Lobby for 2 bucks.

A bucket or container for the base-I got mine at Hobby Lobby too.

Styrofoam for the bottom of the bucket-Dollar Store

Floral Moss-Dollar Store

Heart Picks-Dollar Store, I needed about 2 1/2 packages for mine.

Ribbon-I just had some in my stash, but the Dollar Store I was at had a bunch of cute Valentine ribbon.

Adhesive-I used E6000

Here are some my my supplies. Since I am new to the blog thing taking pictures as I go, my project was already mostly done by the time I decided to take a picture!

But first you need to carefully pull the hearts off the wooden picks. There will be a hole in each heart, but they will be hidden, so don't worry about that!

At this point I realized I hadn't gotten anything for the "trunk" of the topiary, but rather than going to the store again, I just gathered up 6-7 of the wooden sticks that I had just pulled the hearts off of, bunched them together and stuck them into the ball. It worked great!

Then just start randomly gluing the hearts onto your ball, leaving spaces between each one.

After that you fill in the cracks with the floral moss. I didn't even glue this stuff on, I just stuffed it into the cracks and it stayed just fine and I didn't have to mess with more glue! This part was a little messy though!

Then put Styrofoam into the bottom of your bucket, stick your topiary in and cover it with more moss.

For the finishing touch, tie a ribbon around the sticks and there you have it! A super cute Valentine topiary for under 10 bucks!

I linked this craft to The Idea Room

and...

It was also featured on:

I also linked this post to Show and Tell @ Blue Cricket Design.

Because I can blog too!

So, at the encouragement of my husband, I have decided to start my own little craft blog. I am not planning or expecting it to turn into anything big, but I think it will be fun to show some of the cute things that I make. Well, I think they are cute! You can decide what you think! So, for the same reason that I craft (because I can!) is basically the same reason that I am starting this blog. Because I can! I hope you enjoy it!