Growing Up Gardner: crafts

Showing posts with label crafts. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Honeymoon Bridal Shower - Vintage Travel Theme

One of my dearest friends is getting married in June and I had the honor of throwing her a Honeymoon Shower in my backyard. First things first, the invitation "boarding passes" went out, setting the mood for the party. The invitations instructed guests to "Claim Megan's Baggage" for her honeymoon in St. Lucia and gave a list of gift ideas along with Megan's sizes.

My vision for the party was soft colors and lace with travel and vintage touches. I searched through several thrift stores for old books and luggage.

For the flower vases I used salsa and pasta sauce jars that I accumulated over a couple of months. The tea lights were placed in baby food jars and tied with twine.

Megan requested that we didn't play any traditional bridal shower games so I came up with a couple of other things for guests to do at the party, including "Help Megan Pack For The Honeymoon" and a stack of cards for guests to write Megan a note to read on the flight to St. Lucia. She is a very nervous flyer and was excited to have something to look forward to on the plane.

The meal plan was for heavy appetizers. I decorated the table with vintage books and luggage (from Michael's) and used doilies to create the "Come Fly With Me" banner.

Drink stations are always one of my favorite parts of planning events. I purchased this little bathroom toiletry cart, which resembles an airplane beverage cart, from Target on clearance for $14.00. I set up the Mimosa jar on top of an amazing vintage World Atlas that I found at a thrift store and then added the mini bottles of wine and bottles of water.

The dessert table came together with just 4 glass containers holding cheesecake, cookies, brownies and chocolate-covered strawberries with a simple yard of lace fabric for the backdrop.

I wanted to give Megan a special place to open her gifts. The gazebo in the yard was perfect! Mason jars filled with baby's breath and a chandelier framed the space. I fell in love with the "And They Lived Happily Ever After" pillow purchased at Marshall's.

The guests brought home mason jars with a mini bottle of lotion and trail mix.

Another fun party that was a joy to put together! If you have any questions, just let me know either in the comments or email me at growingupgardner@yahoo.com.

-Amanda

Saturday, March 24, 2012

DIY Egg Garland

Yesterday I shared our Easter decorations and today I'm going to show you how Noelle and I made this simple egg garland for the fireplace mantel. Dyeing eggs is an Easter tradition of ours. In the past, we've always boiled the eggs and kept them for a week or so, but this year I created a way to keep them for much longer and display them prominently.

First thing to do is blow the egg out of the shell. I gathered the supplies:

Eggs

Sewing Needle

Infant Nose Aspirator

Bowl

I carefully poked a hole at each end of the egg with the sewing needle - shown here (with my assistant Noelle as the videographer):

You'll need to make the hole a little bigger if you are going to use the eggs for a garland. If you just want hollow eggs for decorations, keep the holes small.

Then I used the aspirator to blow the egg out of the shell by sealing the hole on one side of the egg with the tip of the aspirator and squeezing the air into the egg (don't suck the egg into the aspirator). It usually takes about four squeezes to get the egg completely out of the shell.

Rinse the eggs and allow them to dry. Then the fun begins!

Dye, paint, cover with glitter, etc. Noelle decided to dye the eggs. It used to be hard letting go of projects and giving her the chance to be creative - you may recall the paint-your-own Piggy Bank ~~disaster~~. Now it's not only easy to allow her to create on her own, I prefer it. Her personal touch makes things so much more special than if I did it. Sure, the eggs would have probably been evenly coated, but hers are perfectly imperfect.

When the eggs are dry, string one egg through the ribbon.

Trick: Keep stuffing the egg with ribbon until you can see it through the other end and fish it out with the needle.

Once the egg is through and in your desired spot, tie a knot on one end and secure the egg in place by dabbing hot glue on the knot and pressing the egg against it.

Continue one egg at a time until you reach your desired length.

Tie securely or you'll end up walking on egg shells...

-Amanda

Friday, March 23, 2012

Spring has Sprung at the Gardner House

"Is the Spring coming?" he said. "What's it like?"

"It is the sun shining on the rain and the rain falling on the sunshine."

--The Secret Garden

Fresh spring blossoms are in full bloom which means Easter is just around the corner. At first it seemed too early to dye eggs and decorate with pastels and tulips, but as it turns out, the ceramic birds are perched on the fireplace mantel just in time. Easter is less than three weeks away.

Noelle and I dyed eggs this week and used them to create this garland for the mantel. A garland is a fun way to display those precious eggs decorated by your little one!

Blown-out Egg Garland Tutorial

I found this banner at Target on clearance for less than a dollar. It was originally a birthday-themed banner, but I cut out the cupcake pennants and hot glued the pieces together - keeping only the pink and white pennants - then painted on the blue letters.

We celebrate the life, death, burial and most importantly the resurrection of Christ during Easter. Just as with Santa for Christmas, during Easter we include but don't emphasize the Easter bunny, egg hunts and Easter baskets. We are dutiful in communicating the true importance of the holiday but we aren't concerned that the message is being lost because we strive to include Christ in their lives each and every day. Noelle, at age 3, knows from Bible stories and conversations that Jesus died on the cross to save us from our sins and that he rose from the dead just as he said he would.

"He is not here, he is risen!" Luke 24:6

At the beginning of each season, I find myself thinking, this is my favorite season of them all. But it's not the changing of the weather or excitement for the next holiday that excites me, it's the opportunities and memories ahead that fill my heart with joy and anticipation.

I borrowed the green bird cage that hangs from the ceiling in Noelle's room and the garden basket that sits on the dresser in the Master bedroom for the living room sofa table. And nothing says, "SPRING!" like a little girl in a sun dress holding a yellow daisy.

I'm still looking for a suitable spring table runner. If you find a colorful-but-not-bright one, let me know.

A few of Noelle's dyed eggs sit on brown paper crinkle on the bird bath pedestal (from Michael's).

This spring I want to make the most of the outdoors before the scorching summer heat confines us to mall playgrounds. I want to enjoy early morning walks and have a picnic every afternoon. I want to watch the kids run in damp grass and play outside as the sun sets. Margaret Atwood said it best, "In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt."

-Amanda

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

from the archives: Peep Sushi and "To My Peeps" treats

Peep Sushi

An inexpensive way to put a smile on my face is easily done by handing me a pack of yellow Peeps. Last year we combined a couple of my favorite things - Peeps and Sushi to create these darling little bites of deliciousness.

Check out more pictures and simple how-to instructions HERE

To My Peeps

I used a free printable from Eighteen25 to make these little treats for my small group. To see how I put them together go HERE.

-Amanda

Monday, March 19, 2012

Our Family Code

Is what we're calling the new artwork in the dining room. Visitors look at it puzzled and eventually ask, "what's this all about?" It's our family code.

(Custom signs available on my Etsy shop Amanda G Designs)

I saw a printed design using dates on Pinterest and made a mental note to attempt it for our Master bedroom. But the dining room was in need of something fresh, so I changed my method of execution and decided on using wood boards to display our birth dates and anniversary.

At Lowe's, I purchased two 5-inch wide cedar boards and one .75x1.5x96-inch stick. Mr. G cut the boards down to five 24-inch strips and then I gave them one coat of Dark Walnut stain. After allowing the stain to dry over night, Mr. G cut the long piece into two 20-inch sticks and used them to secure the wood together.

I have a love/hate relationship with stencils. I've seen several tutorials with people expertly using them and when I have a go at the same technique, my results are usually less than perfect. So instead of chancing disaster with the stencil, I decided to trace the numbers directly onto the wood and trust my steady hand to paint the numbers.

I measured three inches from the sides and traced our anniversary (in the middle) first and used those numbers as a guide for the other four dates. None of the months have double-digits, so it worked out evenly.

We tested out a few shades of stain before deciding on the darkest one. The lighter stains blended into the wall. Dark Walnut stood out and goes nicely with the brown inside the bay window (and the other accent wall in the living room).

What a difference a day makes.

It was an easy project that makes a big statement and the total cost was only about $10.

-Amanda

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

gift package upcycling

Isn't it fun to find new uses for old items? One of the easiest things to re-use is empty containers. They are the best for packaging baked goods. Mr. G recently made our church staff Oatmeal Raisin Cookies to say thank you for all of their hard work over the year. I used Mr. G's Muscle Milk container to package the cookies.
All I had to do was clean the container, take off the original label off and make one of my own.

Look around the house for things you can use the next time you plan on baking up some goodies. I found these in my pantry. Maybe they'll have a second use one day!

Just print out a cute little label or wrap some pretty scrapbook paper around it. Viola. A perfectly upcycled gift container.

-Amanda

Friday, December 30, 2011

Camera Lens "Elmo"

Now that Noelle is a super cool three and a half year old, she only wants to take pictures when she's in the mood for it. I saw a project with a great way to get kids to look at the camera floating around on Pinterest and I knew it would be an easy craft to do in a few minutes with supplies I already had on hand - besides the scrunchie.

Supplies:
Red Scrunchie
Hot glue gun
2 Black buttons
Stiffened felt sheets - one each of orange and white
Cut out an oval from the orange felt and two circles from the white felt. First hot glue the white circles to the scrunchie, then the orange nose in the center. Next, hot glue the buttons in the center of the eyes.

-Amanda

Thursday, December 29, 2011

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Christmas Card Photo Shoot {Oh Snap Linky}

I've mentioned several times that my brother-in-law, Sean, is a talented photographer. Having a photographer in the family is a huge blessing. And he does amazing work so it's an extra bonus.

I wanted to get our Christmas cards out early to redeem myself from the Christmas card fiasco of last year. I ordered cards from Tiny Prints and they came about a week later with NO envelopes! I called their customer service and apparently this is a regular occurrence. They informed me that the envelopes would be shipped out asap. They lied. I got them two days before Christmas.

So this year I got our outfits together and we took the pictures in November. The day of the photo shoot my best friend Megan and I were driving down a back road on our way to get some lunch and I spotted this little 6-row orchard in front of someone's house. We planned on taking pictures downtown but once I saw those golden leaves, I had to take pictures there.

It was a quick 40 minute shoot and the pictures turned out wonderful.

This one is going on the mantel.