Crafty Mama

I found another unpublished post!  Seriously?  When did I have enough time to actually sit down and type about craft projects???  I am soo looking forward to having time to blog again soon.

I enjoy myself a good craft project now and then.  I'm not necessarily the most patient person when it comes to DIY, though.   An hour on Pinterest can give me some Martha Stewart bravado, though, like no body's business.   I have been known to make a whirlwind trip to Lowes and Hobby Lobby only to come home and after an 45 minutes, drop a glue gun and a swear word or two and throw in the towel.

For instance, I tried to re-screen our screens a month or two ago.  Yeah.  That didn't work out.

Fortunately, a few things I've tried this Spring have worked out and I feel a little proud of them:

First, Casey's second grade class had a Famous American wax museum in which each kid had to pick a famous American and research about that person's life.  Then on the day of the 'wax museum' they had to dress up like their person and give a speech they wrote to an audience of classmates and their family members.  Casey chose Betsy Ross.  (Of course she did.  She couldn't possibly just pick Mia Hamm and wear last year's soccer uniform...)  I figured I could wing most of the outfit but the skirt needed to be a long one.  I had some blue fabric from the toga part Tom and I went to in February (see! I totally told Tom the toga party would be worth it!)  and stitched it to a child's crinoline that was supposed to go under a dress-up Cinderella dress we had here.  I used the crinoline as a form, then just stitched it close and hemmed it.  The ancient (think from the 70's or 80's) sewing machine I have no longer works so I did this all by hand.  The front hem was 3" longer than the back, but I don't think Betsy Ross, Abe Lincoln, Sacajawea, Michael Jordan or anyone else cared :)

 

 

 

A while back I was on Pinterest idea shopping for something with curb appeal for the front porch this for this spring/summer.  Because I was (again) convinced I could whip up something, you know, Pinterest worthy.  And because chevron pattern is on everything this year, I was doubly-convinced it would be easy to do myself.  On a planter.  That is a cylinder.  Right?  Wrong.  But I did it anyhow and, although despite spending a ton of time trying to figure out how to get the pattern and angles even around the planter, I think they turned out kind of cute.  This was a total wing-it job and, thankfully, my anal husband hasn't inspected them close enough to comment on the lack of symmetry.  If he has noticed, he's just smart enough to keep it to himself. 

A $3 vine wreath, some ribbon and fake flowers were easy enough for what I wanted to make for the front door.  A wooden letter and a $2 chevron stencil were all I needed to help coordinate the front door to the porch planters. 

The finished result is a fresh look for the porch this year. 

Each year for the girls' pre-school and kindergarten teachers I try to give a homemade gift along with a gift card as an end-of-the-year thank you.  Even though they have classes that last under 3 hours, I feel like there is far too much nose wiping, tear dabbing and painted fingers to scrub to not acknowledge the effort and patience it takes to teach such young children every day.  A trip to Michael's produced some unfinished wooden picture frames and some cute buttons that were going to work just fine for this year.  I painted them white with paint I had here then had Emily write hers name as well as her teachers' name on the frames.  I traced her work with a sharpie and hot glue gunned the buttons.  Each teacher had asked me for a picture of Emily and they each had damp eyes when they saw them :)