Fabric Strip Balls

 

I needed a touch of spring for our dining room table.  I bought these foam balls which are about 4" in diameter.

I have bins and bins of fabric.  I always over-buy!  Any way, I went through some of my favorites: 

And narrowed it down to the finalists:

I tore my fabric into strips about 1.5" wide.  This is really easy to do.  Just make a little snip with your scissors and then tear it the rest of the way across your fabric.
 

I overlapped the strips by a little bit.  They crossed at each polar end forming an X.

I continued wrapping the fabric around the ball until it was completely covered.  I hot glued the strip on the bottom each time I wrapped it around.  I also glued any gaping areas when I was all done.

 

I love how they turned out!

Valentine Decorations

I wanted to decorate my house for Valentine's Day, but not with the usual pink and red.  I saw this from www.childreninspiredesign.com and absolutely LOVED it!  The colors were perfect!

So I decided to make one of my own (this is above my fireplace):



I painted a canvas white.  Then I went through my piles of scrapbook paper to find the colors I wanted to use.  They all had a pattern except for the blue, so I wrote a bunch of random things on it in cursive.  Then I cut out the letters.  The yellow was pretty light so I took an ink pad to the edges to give it some contrast to the white background.  Then I mod-podged the letters onto the canvas.  Once it was dry I glazed the entire thing with the same stuff I glaze my furniture with.  You can read about that here.

I used the same turquoise for a candle and stuck it in white sand:

Remember my fabric scrap wreaths from Christmas?  Well, I didn't want to take them down so I hung little plaster hearts in the center:

 

My hutch:

And this paper wreath is simply hearts cut out of scrap book paper and sewn with a sewing machine!  I didn't know you could do that!!!

 Oh, and my hubby topped it all off with a dozen roses (awwww)!

Royal Icing made EASY!

I really don't like frosting things.  Mostly because I really really don't like the frosting bags.  The frosting always comes out the back end (and yah, I twist it and tuck it), and it's no fun to clean.  

During Christmas time I experimented with royal icing for the first time...and it really frustrated the heck outta me!  I love the look of royal icing, but hated doing it!

So when it came time to decorate sugar cookies for Valentine's Day I decided to try something else instead of a frosting bag...

I used a ketchup bottle instead!  An 8-pack was only $0.97 from Walmart!  I made the royal icing just thick enough to come out nicely (but not spread out) for the border of the cookie.  Then I watered down the royal icing and filled the ketchup bottle up again and filled in my outline area.  It was so easy and so much faster than using a frosting bag, and way easier to clean! 

 Go ahead and say it...I'm a freakin' genious :)

TAPATIO and a SHOT GUN?

Manly, huh?

Well, it's not the tapatio and fire arm that makes this guy manly...

(SEXY)

...it would be the FIVE KIDS that he adores!!!

Fatherhood just looks good on this guy :)

Happy Birthday Hubby!

Roses are red, Violet is TWO!

Our baby is TWO!  

We love our sweet Violet.  

She is so full of spunk...

and drama!  

She totally cracks us up!!!

We truly love our baby girl!!!

Wish us luck as we embark on the TERRIFIC TWOs!

photo shoot with a TWO year old

OK, really?  Can anything be cuter???

She's even cute when she's pouting...

I just love that sweet face!

So Little Snow

I was surprised Sam was even able to build a snowman with such little snow.  Seriously, where did he get the snow?  I guess when there's a will, there's a way!