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Sunday, December 26, 2010

Football Table for Hubby

This year for Christmas I thought it would be cute to make a Virginia Tech football table for my husband and son. In my mind they would play with those paper footballs (you know the ones from elementary school!) and have little competitions. So I found this perfect folding table in Wal-Mart.
Started by painting the "grass" around the field.

Next I painted the inner field part maroon. This was fairly easy using painters tape to set up the lines. Sorry I forgot to take a picture of the part with the tape attached.


The lines were next. I measured 1.5 inches for each 10 yards. I used a white paint pen (found it in Michael's by accident while looking for some other "stuff") that made adding the lines easy. Unfortunately I made a couple mistakes and had to go over the lines again with maroon paint then the white a second time. The orange goal areas were the last painting part. Again I used the painters tape to set off the parts I wanted to paint then spray painted the areas. I like the way the orange and maroon paints looked IRL. Kinda shiny, but you can't tell in these pictures.

Then I used stamps to add the line numbers. The VT in the middle is a stickers I swiped from my husband's office. Don't think he even noticed! And, it fits perfectly here.
Some final embellishments were added just for fun and TAAAA DAAAA......
The final project!! He was pretty surprised when he saw it finally done! I forgot to make some paper footballs to go along with it, but that is OK because he used it to have breakfast on it Christmas morning! GO HOKIES!!
Happy New Year to everyone!
Thanks for looking.
Cathy

Monday, December 20, 2010

Teacher Christmas Gifts

This year I saw an awesome idea for candy cane candle sticks. Thanks to The Mother Huddle I found my gifts for this year! I loved it and thought my kids' teachers would also love them! So darn easy to make too! Used my hot glue gun and some ribbon to make it look cute. The candles were 10 inches tall.

Made a couple with red candles, and a couple with white candles. Each teacher received 2 candles. They were a big hit with everyone, including the ladies in the office! They really admired them when I walked in the school.



This was the whole batch. I found it was pretty difficult to make the candles stand evenly. Some of the candy canes aren't exactly the same length! As you can see from the picture a couple were uneven! OOPS! But that is how you know they are homemade with LOVE of course! No one complained. Each one took 10 canes.

I even tried to make a candy cane holder with a 3 inch pillar candle. This was pretty cute! So, of course I had to keep it for myself!! Very cute and easy to make. This one took 30 candles, love it!
My second batch of homemade gifts included hot chocolate stirrers. My daughter and I dipped marshmallows in melted white chocolate and sprinkled with crushed candy canes (I had enough of them left over!).

Finally, we dipped Christmas tree shaped pretzels in melted white chocolate and also sprinkled them with crushed candy canes. YUMMY!

This basket held the sweet treats.
Very cute!
Happy Holidays and a very happy healthy New Year!
Cathy

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Dollar Tree Stocking Reusable Shopping Bag

On one of my latest trips to the Dollar Tree, I found this awesome oversized stocking. Loved it immediately, and knew exactly what I was going to create with it! This was the original size, forgot to measure it before starting the project but this shows that it is longer than the "average" stocking.
I wanted to create a reusable shopping bag with this! At first I wasn't positive HOW it was going to be done, but I knew there was a WAY of doing it!

I found this FREE shopping bag in my car and knew it would be perfect for my stocking project.

As you can see it fit perfectly in the stocking. It made the bag stronger and I wouldn't have to create a way to add handles.

Next I just folded over the top to see how much it needed to be shortened before stuffing in the bag. At this point I haven't used a sewing machine (of course I don't own one yet - asked Santa for one though. Keeping my fingers crossed!) just a hot glue gun. So after folding over the top and making the bag a little shorter I hot glued the top part over (The remote control is there to give a little perspective on the size, guess it doesn't really need to be there!).

Folding top back up.

This is a close up of the folded over top. You can't even see where the hot glue went! Love it!!
The project is getting there......

Finally I added the red shopping bag and hot glued that in place. At this point I wanted to make sure nothing fell between the stocking and shopping bag so I did hand stitch the top of the bag. Just as extra insurance.




And, TA DAAAAA here is the final project. I LOVE it! The red handles look like the are a part of the stocking, can't even tell there is another bag inside.
My daughter is displaying it for me! I've used it many times already and have received tons of comments on it. I'm just sad that I can only use it for the rest of the month!


I wanted to add
MOM to the top of the bag, just like a real stocking. My husband says to add something like I'm GREEN and Jolly! Funny!
Thanks for looking!
Happy Holidays,
Cathy

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Can you guess what this is made from???

Come on give it a guess....

I would have never guessed - not even if I had 10 guesses!! Looks pretty easy to make! Leave a comment with your guess for this super creative ornament!


Check it out HERE for more info! Thanks Steph for sharing this interesting craft!

Thanks for looking.

Have a great day.

Cathy

Friday, December 3, 2010

Quote for the Day

No matter how old a mother is, she watches her middle-aged children for signs of improvement.

~~ Florida Scott-Maxwell

Thursday, December 2, 2010

Holiday Video - Christmas Can-Can

This is a very funny video for the holiday season!
ENJOY!!

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

An Angel Gets Her Wings

A dear friend, Xenia, of mine lost her struggle with lung cancer. Her daughter is one of my son's best friends. She is also in my daughter's gymnastics class. It was heart breaking since she hadn't reached her 40th birthday. My heart aches for this family.
For her daughter I created this night light so that her mother is always with her. I cried when I gave her this tiny gift that I hoped would make all her pain go away. Her dad says that she loves to have all the lights out at night so she can see her mother before she falls asleep. Such a beautiful thought. I know this angel has received her wings already. She was an angel here on earth who always had a smile on her face no matter what she was going through. Xenia gave me hope even when everything looked so bleak.
She is missed so much by everyone, especially her 8 year old daughter.
God Bless Xenia.