I love going to my friend Michelle’s house. We have a once a month lunch date where we get together and make something that we have found on Pinterest. We don’t use instructions, we just kind of look at the picture and just go with it.
Not everything on Pinterest has instructions you know 
When we first saw this cute little craft on Pinterest, it started out as a Valentine pot. We brainstormed and thought that we can make these for any occasion. They look beautiful and really make a room come alive.
While we were making these, we were just looking through all her little buttons and doo dads and came across this gorgeous little bird.
He just says Spring to me. He is SO cute! I also added a gorgeous big button to the top of my word pot.
My other two favorite parts of this word pot are the words — Faith and Grace.
Those two words remind me everyday to trust in God, even when I make horrible mistakes and think He won’t love me anymore. He has grace for me even when I make big booboos
My daughter created one too and it turned out beautiful!
Here is how you can make your own Spring Word Pot. It is really easy and lots of fun!
Spring Word Pot
Supplies Needed:
- Pot
- Paint
- Decorations and doo dads
- dowel rod
- Jewelry wire in a color that you like
- Scrapbook paper
- Styrofoam Ball
- cotton for filling pot
- Moss
- glue stick
- ribbon
Directions
- Take your colored paint and paint your pot inside and out. Let it dry.
- Fit your styrofoam ball into the bottom of the pot. Make sure that it is stuck in their firmly.
- Paint your dowel rod the color that you want. You will want to cut it down to fit the size of your pot. We used 1 long dowel rod and cut it into 4 pieces.
- Once your pot is dry, wrap it with a ribbon. You can add a bow if you want (we did ours separate from the ribbon and glued it on in place).
- Take the dowel rod and place it in the pot, being sure to stick it down in the styrofoam.
- Decorate the pot with stickers, trinkets, or whatever you would like.
- Fill the pot with the cotton first, and then place the moss all around the top of the cotton, or you can do it like my daughter did and leave the moss off — totally up to you!
- Now you can use your decorative scrapbook scissors and cut your papers to the desired length. Mine started out long, but then I trimmed them down to fit the pot. As you are making it, you will begin to see it take shape as you are doing it. Just decrease the sizes as you go up. I made mine wide — folded it over and then cut it so that when you are looking from both sides, you will see the design and not white on one side and designed on the other.
- Take your wire and begin to criss cross it from the front and back to hold your paper pieces in place. Make sure you make it long enough to go over each piece you use.
- Finish your pot off by adding words, embellishment’s, and a topper — like a heart or something.
What have you been crafting lately?
Back in 2010, I had a “learn how to crochet” party with some pretty cool teenagers. In fact, they brought over all their yarn and taught my daughter and me how to do a simple crochet stitch. It wasn’t long after that party that I wanted to learn harder stitches, or something other than the normal single stitch. I started browsing you tube and found an awesome woman called The Knit Witch who teaches you stitches like the double and triple crochet, and then even slows it down so you can see exactly how to do it.
It’s because of her videos that I was able to teach myself other stitches. Now, I love making baby blankets for people. In fact, to date, I have made about 10 different baby blankets for friends and family members. They are easy to make, so here are my instructions on how to crochet a baby blanket.
MEASUREMENT
Approx 35 ins [89 cm] square.
MATERIALS
Bernat® Baby Blanket (100 g/ 3.5 oz; 78 m/ 86 yds)
in your favorite color
Size N Hook
INSTRUCTIONS
Instructions:
Chain 68 (or enough for 36 inches)
1st row: (RS). 1 sc in 1st ch from hook. *Ch 1. Skip next ch. 1 sc in next ch. Repeat from * to end of chain. Turn
2nd row: Ch 1. 1 sc in first sc. *1 sc in next Ch-1 space. Ch 1. Repeat from * to last ch-1 sp and sc. 1 sc in next ch-1 sp. 1 sc in last sc. Turn
3rd row: Ch 1. 1 sc in first sc. *Ch1. 1 sc in next ch-1 sp. Repeat from * to last 2 sc. Ch1. Skip next sc. 1 sc in last sc. Turn.
Repeat Row 2 and Row 3 until project measures 36 inches. Fasten off and Bury ends.
This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Duck Brand® for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine. Duck® the Halls this Holiday Season.
I am a crafter by heart. Well, not really — but I am learning (in fact, I just spent an hour tie dying shirts for our dance team.) My best friend and I get together and craft all the time. The next time we get together, I think I might just grab a couple of rolls of the new holiday Duck® Brand designs that are available and Duck® the Halls. Have you seen them?
I think that the snowman one is my absolute favorite. My plan for using these decorative tapes is to dress up my holiday gift goody bags that I give out every year. Instead of just boring brown, red, or green, I am going to line them on the sides with this beautiful tape and let that be the festive decoration for my goody bags.
Other things you might use this for is:
- spiraling on columns outside for decorations
- using as gift wrap
- Creating a cardboard photobook with a holiday spine
- wrapping a notebook to create a holiday notebook
Duck® brand has been delighting consumers with DIY products for over 20 years and continue to innovate and offer solutions for America’s households.
Be sure and check out the Duck® Brand Facebook page and like them so that you can keep up with when they run contests or give out coupons for products. They are always looking to expand the design capabilites and run cool contests with wonderful prizes.
Which holiday design is your favorite? What would you create with it?
Kayla saw a great idea when we were at Hobby Lobby with our friend Michele the last time we went shopping. You basically take pictures of letters and then put them together online using a photo editing program. How to create letter art is a simple project that can be done at home with a very small budget.
She and I went walking one day in the park and she found all kinds of letters and textures to create three words for me — love, joy, and peace.
These three words will be hung in my home during the holidays this year.
I’m going to change the color of them to black and white so that it is all uniform and then get some really cool frames to glitter up and hang around the home.
Creating them is very simple. Here are the steps we took.
- Take up close photos of letters: First figure out what letters you need for your word and then look for really unique lettering to create your letter art. Once you do, snap away and make sure to take several angles.
- Create a collage of the letters: To create your word, you need a photo editing software. Kayla just uses PicMonkey.com for hers. It’s free and super easy to use.
- Save them to your computer and then order prints: Once you have your design the way you want it, save your creations and then upload them to a photo printing site and then hang in your home.
I love how creative she can be. She just always has had an artistic gift and I do believe she has found her passion in life.
Last week when Kayla and I took the day off to hang out with each other and have some special mother daughter time, we decided to paint our pumpkin. While painting it, we decided to do something that I had recently seen on Pinterest — how to create a DIY splatter pumpkin with crayons.
Creating the pumpkin was really easy. The hardest thing was gluing the crayons to the top. We had a great time putting this together and it looks very festive on my front porch.
How to Create a DIY Splatter Pumpkin
- Get a pumpkin:You can use any size pumpkin you want. We had a fairly large one already so that is what we used.
- Paint Your Pumpkin: We used white spray paint to paint our pumpkin. It was fast drying, so it was ready in about 30 minutes.
- Pick out your crayon colors: Pick crayons out that you want to use and remove the wrapper from the crayon.
- Glue the crayons to the top of the pumpkin: This is an important step. We used hot glue to glue our crayons down. Just make sure that you break your crayons so that the glue reaches all over the crayon.
- Melt your crayons: Take a hair dryer and place it on high and begin to melt the crayons. It takes less than a minute to start melting. Be sure to have plenty of newspaper or coverage around as the crayons melt and splatter. Also –When it starts to melt, the part of the crayon that is not glued will fall off. Kayla just picked hers back up and stuck it up top and melted it down the front and made it drip really neat like.
- Place on your front porch for all to enjoy! Once you are done, sit them out front for everyone to enjoy!
Do you have a cool project that you have finished for the fall? I would love to hear about them!
Kayla is my creative child. She is always crafting something, building something, drawing something–straight from her mind! Pure genius I tell ya!
Anyway, she is obsessed in love with Super Heroes. One of her favorites is Batman. She loves the movies and would watch them all day long if I let her!
So when Halloween rolled around this year, she got it in her mind that she was going to dress Tucker (my chihuahua) up as Batman. We did not have any outfits laying around the house that fit that description, so she started brainstorming his costume.
~She created his mask.
~She drew his cape and cut it out.
~She dyed his cape using food coloring.
Yes! You read that right! Food coloring can be used to dye fabric. As you can see in his Halloween costume that his cape is yellow.
It started out as a white piece of fabric. Kayla added some water to a cup and added a few drops of food coloring and then placed the piece of fabric in the cup. In just seconds, it was dyed that beautiful yellow color.
He makes and adorable Bat Dog. . . don’t ya think?
Check out what Kayla and I worked on last week:
Kayla has been wanting to get a dog bed for the dogs for over a year now. Everytime I look at one of those things I cringe at the prices!
$25.00
$29.99
$32.99
$49.99
Those prices are outrageous! So she and I put our heads together and found a way to make this huge dog bed without it costing us one cent! We used what we already had on hand. It just took a little imagination on our part.
We decided to use this old blanket that had been laying around. No one was using it and it was just the right length to make a bed when folded over. We cut it down to the right size, took another old pillow that we had and used the stuffing from it to create this one of a kind dog bed!
Looks like someone else likes the doggy bed too!
Maybe Petco has coupons!
Reposted from April 2008
This past Friday, I finally learned what I can do with an old pair of jeans. Instead of throwing them out, I can sew them and make a beautiful blue jean purse, which is what my daughter and I did at our homeschool group meeting.
Hopefully this picture will not be to unusually large. I am having MAJOR difficulty in getting my pics to post for some reason.
Anyway, here is a wonderful website that has the instructions on how to make these really cute purses! Hope you all enjoy!
Jennifer
http://familyfun.go.com/video/how-to/feature/blue-jean-bag-video/blue-jean-bag-video.html
I have been on a hat kick lately. It started out making one for Kayla. You know her colors of choice–lime green and blue.
After finishing her hat, I decided to start on another one. This one I am giving to my mother in law to go along with her other Christmas gift I am making her (don’t worry–she doesn’t have Internet).
I also just finished a camo colored one for the guys but I don’t have a picture of it up yet.
I have decided to make these and sell them. They are only $5 each (shipping included). You get to choose the yarn color. You can have it solid or two toned. I can also add a flower or a heart to the side or nothing at all. If you would like to order one, just email me at sandjsikora@gmail.com and let me know. These would make wonderful Christmas gifts. I can make then in any size from newborn to adults.
Now I’m off to crochet some more! What have you been doing lately?
This post is linked to Toot Your Horn Tuesday, Take A Look Tuesday, Nifty Thrifty Tuesdays, Twice Owned Tuesday, Craft Catwalk, Handmade Tuesdays, Lucky Linky Tuesday, Three or More Tuesday, 2nd Time Around Tuesday
This year, I am making many gifts to give. I have found that I love to craft–and one of those passions is crocheting!
This is my latest crochet project. I made Kayla a lime green, teal blue, and black blanket that goes the whole length and width of her bed. She loves it!
Now to finish that quilt for my mother in law for Christmas and I will be just about done!
This past Friday, I finally learned what I can do with an old pair of jeans. Instead of throwing them out, I can sew them and make a beautiful blue jean purse, which is what my daughter and I did at our homeschool group meeting. Find the details below on how to make a blue jean purse
Hopefully this picture will not be to unusually large. I am having MAJOR difficulty in getting my pics to post for some reason.
Anyway, here is a wonderful website that has the instructions on how to make these really cute purses! Hope you all enjoy!
http://familyfun.go.com/video/how-to/feature/blue-jean-bag-video/blue-jean-bag-video.html
Hi! I am Jen--a wife to the most amazing man ever and a homeschool mom to one teenager. I just graduated my oldest.
I have been blogging since 2007. I love to watch movies, spend time in the kitchen, crochet, dance, drink coffee, and lay on the beach. Between recipes, reviews, and hilarious life story moments you'll find many helpful posts on this blog. Welcome, pull up a chair and stay for a while!
@jennifer_sikora I'm excited to spend it with the people I love:) see you tonight - BabyBoozle13
@darleneschacht I love those photos that you make Darlene! - jennifer_sikora- @karen_ehman @candacecbure Can't wait to see it. I would love to be at that Facebook party! Thanks for the invite - jennifer_sikora
- @BabyBoozle13 Can't wait to see you graduate tonight. I have truly enjoyed the last 2 years watching you grow into a Godly woman Love ya! - jennifer_sikora
- @Aar_Bear21 That movie is stupid funny. I love it! One of my faves. - jennifer_sikora
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