Underneath the Miseltoe

You remember a while back I made some super easy Christmas Ornaments?  Well I had some left over christmas picks and decided to make my own "miseltoe".  I know it looks nothing like the real thing, but I thought it would be a nice decoration to add to all my others since I dont really have anything that serves as miseltoe in the house.

Super easy, just get your picks (I used 3) tape them all together and tie a bow around it!  So fast and easy and this ones is so fun I can put it just about anywhere!  Have fun making your super easy "miseltoe" and if you have some amazing pictures of one you have made share!!

Project Houdewife Out!

Run and Frost

A little while back I decided I needed to re-vamp certain aspects of my living room, and the easiest part was the TV console.  I had pictures and a candle votive on it, but it just looked cluttered.  I went searching and found this cool idea of candles in really big hurrican vases.  I knew the table would look to empty with just the vases so I decided to make another table runner.  You remember the other post Run Away With Me and I made a runner with pointed ends, well I decided I wanted something more simple so I just did square ends this time.  I also didnt want to do tassles because that just really didnt mesh with the living room but I did find some great brown ribbon and thought it would look great as a timm for the whole runner.  Once I had that I was on the hunt for a large hurricane vase, candles and coffee beans for the filler.  BE WARNED...those hurricane vases are soooo hard to find!  I went to Pier 1 (and by the way they have the PERFECT vase, but they arent for sale, go figure), The Container Store, another Pier 1 and finally Marhsalls as a last resort.  Surprise upon surprise Marshalls was where I found the vases.  Now an important note on that is this was a Marshalls Home Goods store so they had a really great glass selections which I dont think all Marshall stores have.  I also got my candles there for a great price and was on to whole coffee bean.  Who knew coffee beans were so expensive!  I dont drink coffee so I have no concept of how much it costs but 2 small bags for $9 seems expensive for a vase filler, but maybe Im just being silly.  Once I had all my items it was assembly time!  Check out the below and leave comments if you think I could do something to spice it up even more!!  Oh and the "Dream" metal art came from Garden Ridge for $5, what a great find!

You can see the detail of the ribbon and fabric better here.

I saw somewhere that it is relitively easy to etch glass so I thought that would be a great little addition to the vases you see above.  ANOTHER BE WARNED!  Glass etching yes is easy, but if you dont SLATHER the solution onto your pattern it wont turn out at all.  I had to do one vase 3 times, and consequently have one side of the vase that is a mess up but you cant really see it because its glass etching and it doesnt show up very well.  Which is also the other be warned, you cant really see the finished product with how I have my vases filled.  Im sure if/when I add more coffee beans you will be able to see the R and J but right now it was a lot of work for not a lot of payoff.  Also we used the armour etch, the bottle says to leave on for 5 minutes but we had to leave it on for 15minutes.  Longer is sometimes better!  Below is a close up of one of the letters, it looks awesome but Im not sure it was worth it.  To get the "R" I had contact paper left over from lining the dresser drawers from my Dresser project that we used to cut the design out on.  What ended up working best was applying the contact paper to the vase first, printing the pattern from the computer, taping it to the contact paper, then we used at exacto knife to cut the design out directly on the glass.  I also think this may have helped with the etching process, but I have no way to be sure.

If you have some great living room ideas post there here so we can see your amazing creations!

Project Housewife Out!



Patterns

As promised, here are the patterns for the calendar I made.  I couldnt figure out how to make the word documents load so I did the best with what I had :)  The star and the ornament fit on one 8.5x11 piece of paper, so copy and paste and enlarge.  The tree should take up 1/2 of one side of another 8.5x11 with the tree trunk on the other side.  Also remember, that for the tree pattern you want to cut out this pattern 6 times to get the biggest tree.  For the numbers, I used the Berlin Sans FB Demi font size 200, that seemed to work the best for us, but find your favorite font to make it more personal. 

 

Below are the 25 activities that my husband and I decided on with a christmas-y twist as you can see :)

Deck the halls!
Make a house so sweet
Do you hear what I hear? New Christmas music
 Don’t be a mean one, Mr. Grinch
Let it snow with Harry Potter
Rush home with our treasure
Wrap presents ‘round the tree
Make a new Christmas Decoration
Say hello to friends you know at the neighborhood Christmas party

Comfy cozy are we at breakfast

Have a cup of cheer or hot chocolate

Bearing gifts to travelers afar…or the neighbors

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and popcorn!
Baby its cold outside, so lets go out for a treat
Here we come a caroling

Visit a Winter Wonderland
Jingle Bell Rock all night at a concert
Painted candy canes on the tree, a new one each year
Mix and mingle in to a Jingling Beat

Holiday treats for Oreo
Bring good cheer to someone
Away in a Manger…the real story

It’s a sugar date with cookies
Hang the Stockings with care
Holly Jolly Christmas!

I hope you have as much fun making yours as I did mine!

Project Housewife Out!

Advent Calendars Abound

Yesterday was a day of learning for me.  I learned that I buy WAY to much fabric for projects.  I learned why people sew felt rather than iron it.  And I learned that Twilight is the perfect movie to cut mass amounts of fabric too (you really dont have to pay attention to it).  So let me start at the beginning and show you the inspiration for this craft project.  I saw this on pinterest and loved it, but when I saw how much work/sewing was involved I knew immediately I was going to have to modify this a bit.
http://shannonmakesstuff.blogspot.com/2009/11/felt-advent-calendar.html .  Here is a picture of here end project.

Pretty right!  So I had the basic concept, now to get the supplies.  I knew right away that I was never going to sew all those ornaments and all that so I bought some very thin hem tape (which I late realized I could just use hot glue, talk about a ah-ha moment).  I also bought 1 yard of dark green felt, 1 1/2 yards dark red felt and 25 felt squares.  Did you guys know about felt squares?!  They are in the kids craft sections and are typically 4 for $1...money saving tip right there because I was going to get 1/2 yard of each color I wanted and that was going to be way more expensive.  I also bought a dowl rod to make the project sturdy and I had ribbon at home so I didnt need to get any of that. 

Now that I had my supplies I was ready to get started.  I got the patterns for the tree and ornaments from the about blog post, which I have saved in a better format for you, but arent on this computer so I will load those up later today.  Here is kind of what they look like though to give you an example.

 I decided to start cutting the ornaments since this was probably going take the longest time (I forgot I had to cut the numbers).

Those are all the colors I have for the ornaments, minus the brown that is for the trunk of the tree.  There are 3 glitter felt pages in there too because I love glitter and it helped break up the plain red/green/white ornaments.  Honestly it only took me an hour of slow cutting to get them all done, and I was cutting one by one because honestly I dont trust my multi-page cutting skills but for those of you more talented you can totally cut faster than 1 hour.  This is also when I realized I had bought WAY too much felt.  Each square will cut 4 ornaments easily with a little extra.  Since I only needed 25 ornaments I only actually used 7 felt squares for the ornaments.  I needed 1 additional square for the trunk and will need 1 more for the star but thats only 9 squares out of the 25 I bought, so FYI, you dont need nearly as much as I originally thought.

You can kind of see the glitter ones better here, there is a white glitter one but those never really came across in the pictures.  You can also see the trunk cut-out here as well.  Now that the ornaments were cut, I was ready to cut the tree.

This is my tree and backing felt.  This is also where I realized where the iron and felt dont really mix.  Just so you all know, felt smells really bad when you iron it and the hem tape takes longer to adhere to the felt.  You have to be really patient and also make sure you dont have any hem tape showing (sometimes I dont make it perfect and have some sticking out which will melt off) because with felt it doesnt melt off so be careful there.  You could use hot glue rather than hem tape, I didnt because I didnt think about it, and it also doesnt seem as strong.  Sewing is also an option but I dont own a sewing machine so that was totally out.  Anyway, moving on to cutting the tree.  I had a pattern that I dplicated 4 times, but really I should have done 5 it would have been better, but I made it work anyway.

This is what the tree looked like after I had used the hem tape to secure it to the backing (I cut the hem tape to fit each vertical part of the tree as well as the base and the triangle of the top, for the base I just cut 4 strips to fit the box and ironed it all down).  The hard part of cutting this tree was I wanted to make sure it was fat enough so I didnt use the middle fold to cut (which as we know makes cutting things easier) so I did each side individually.  I realized now that if i had the extra pattern (making the total points 6) and I make it so the bottom of the tree was further out than the top of the tree I could have folded the fabric in 1/2 and cut that way, but we live and learn so you know to do that when you make your creation.  On the excess fabric from the tree...I bought 1 yard because I wanted to make sure I had enough but remember that the felt is folded so if you are confident in your cutting abilities you could get away with 1/2 yard and use the fold tecnique to use less fabric and save money, and the same goes for the backing.  I bought 1 1/2yards but only used the front part so if you get 3/4 of a yard you will have plenty once you open the fold.  I did end up cutting off about 1/2inch from one side to make sure the dowl rod had room to stick out, and I left 2 inches at the top to make the fold for the dowl rod to fit it as shown below.  You can kind of see the fold and that is where you slip in the dowl rod to hang your beautiful calendar.

Now that you have your hem for the dowl rod, the tree hemmed to the backing and the trunk hemmed to the backing you are ready to place the ornaments.  This would also be a good time to cut the numbers.  My husband offered his help with this and I was so happy, I SUCK at cutting intricate things (yes I consider numbers intricate) so it took him about an hour to cut all those numbers and he did double up on cutting numbers at the same time.  The hardest part for him I think was getting all the holes out of the numbers (like the middle of the eight) that took some patience.  Once you have all your ornaments in place, add the numbers and you can get a glimpse of what your finished project will look like.

You can also see the star is here, I have that template in my sheets also which will come later.  Once I got all this in place I realized how much hem tape I was going to have to use and got very discourage...and thats when the lightning bolt came...HOT GLUE!!!!  I started by gluing each number to each ornament (so that when I glued the ornament the numbers wouldnt fall off silly people!) then glued the star to the top of the tree.  Another thank you goes out to my husband for reminding me that I shoudlnt glue the whole ornament down because then I would have no pocket for my amazing advent surprise.  Ok so get to gluing the ornaments, I flipped them over and started gluing the bottom half at the edges only, so an outline of glue around the bottom 1/2 of the ornament.  This whole process only took about 30minutes, gotta love hot glue.  Now that everything was attached to the tree and my pockets primmed and ready I could get to the almost final touch, the ribbon to hang the calendar from.  I didnt have enough room to tie a knot and I was afraid the knot would come undone so I hot glued the ribbon to the dowl rod on each side so it cant come off.  And viola!  A almost completed advent calendar!

I say almost because the most important part of this project is still under constructions.  I decided a while back (mainly becasue I found it on pinterest) that rather than doing candy or just numbers to put experiences in each date.  So for example on one day we will drink hot chocolate and watch harry potter, another day we will make a gingerbread house.  That is what the pockets are for, to put the experience cards in.  Right now all that is left of those cards is to print them off with a cool border and out them in the calendar.  Tomorrow I will post those, Im so excited to share them with you, and hopefully you can add some to your family traditions! 

Here is a recap of what you need for the advent calendar:

3/4yard backing felt
1 yard felt for tree (1/2 yard if you are a good cutter)
7 felt squares in the colors of your choice
1 brown felt square (for the trunk)
1 yellow felt square (for the angel)
1 dowl rod (width of your choice)
1 spool ribbon
1/4 yard black felt
hot glue gun/hem tape/sewing machich (pick your posion)
fabric scissors
patterns
tape (I used this to hold the pattern to the fabric while I cut so I wouldnt make a mistake)

Total time, 3 hours if you are a slow cutter, 1.5-2 if you are fast.  Good luck and if you have an awesome advent calendar please share, I would love to see what you came up with!

Project Housewife Out!
 

Foodie Friday

Since I love titles that have the same first letter of each word I have decided that every Friday is now deemed as FOOD FRIDAY! 

I love food, I love to eat, but I dont always love to cook.  I am always on the search for recipes that are quick, easy, and not too many ingredients.  Which brings me to the Friday recipe.  I have made this now so many times I cant even remember.  Anytime I go to a party they always request this by name so that has to mean its good right!  Its called Cheesy Spinach and Artichoke Dip and I found it in a magazine and this was actually an ad for Kraft so I took a leap of faith that it would be good. 

• 1 can (14oz) artichoke hearts, drained and finely chopped
• 1 pkg (10oz) frozen chopped spinach, thawed and drained
• 3/4cup grated parmesean cheese
• 3/4cup light mayonaise (I used miracle whip and helmann's and to me the helmanns tasted better but people like either variation)
• 1/2 reduced fat shredded mozzarella cheese
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder (I use more like 1 tablespoon but I love garlic so find what works best for you)

1. Heat the oven to 350F.
2. Mix all ingredients in a 9-inch quiche dish or pie plate
3. Bake 20 minutes or until heated through.
4. Serve with crackers or cut up vegetables. (I like to serve this with tollhouse flatbread crispis crackers that are either sea salt and vinegar or italian blend they are perfect)

There you have it, a delicious appetizer in 30 minutes or less with 4 steps and less than 10 ingredients!  Have fun serving this at your next gathering, and let me know how it turns out for you and if you did anything fancy or fun to spice this recipe up!

Project Housewife Out!

Thankful Thursday

In honor of the week before Thanksgiving I though I would make today about being thankful.
http://www.younghouselove.com/2011/11/thanksgiving-traditions-one-old-one-new/ I saw this on one of the blogs I follow and thought it was such a cute idea.  Its too late in the month to start this, but I think it will be a nice family thing for next year.  I have experience with etching cream in the past, be warned that the bottle says 5 minutes...it really means 15 if you want that really crisp frosted look.  Also, when the bottle says a thick layer...it means a THICK layer.  I used 1/2 of a small bottle on one large letter for my candle centerpieces (more to come on that later).  That doesnt really leave you much room for error so if you have a bigger project I would get the bigger bottle.

Moving on to the thankful piece :)

This year has been a great year for the Saldana house.  We ran a full 1/2 marathon and did a relay 1/2 marathon as well.  We have been able to do all kinds of projects on the house, spend time with each other and the biggest success (in my opinion) was that we payed off Joe's car, so NO MORE CAR PAYMENTS for either of us!  I know at times we get stuck on the negative, because honestly its easy to get stuck there.  November is a month of being thanksful, but really every day we should be thankful that we are even here another day.  This mindset has been especially hard for me since there have been some not so good changes going on professionally and that makes it hard to stay thankful, but I have to remind myself that I do have a job and not everyone is as fortunate.  Some of the little things in life we take for granted, like having a/c in the summer (hello Im from Texas, I would literally die if we didnt have that) or heat in the winter.  I also have a loving husband, who supports me even though he somtimes wants to choke me for getting his help on things (all out of love lol).  We have a dog that loves to get love from us and a family that supports and loves us. 

So on this Thankful Thursday I think I want to start a new blog tradition (a since Im just starting out why not!) of putting at least one thing I am thankful for each week, and please leave a comment on what you are thankful for!  Or, if this week was a little harder and you need someone in your corner, let me know that too and I will say a prayer for you because I am a firm believer in the power of prayer.

I want to leave today with a picture of who I am most thankful for today.  So it was windy that day and my hair is going crazy, but I am thankful for my husband who puts up with all my crazy antics.  He may lose his patience with me, but not nearly as much as I lose mine.

Project Housewife Out!

Ribbon Ribbon Everywhere

Continuing with the "I made this in the past" theme.  I made this a few weeks ago because I got bit by the Christmas craft bug HARD and I needed to let my creativity flow.  I saw this in a holiday food magazine of all places.  It looked really cute and easy to make so I went for it!

What you'll need:

• foam cone (choose your size)
• at least 7 different types of ribbon (your choise of color combinations)
• straight pins (a pack of 100 should be plenty)

So these are really easy, what you need is a green foam cone, the kind you get from Hobby Lobby or Michael.  Get whatever size you want but mine was on the smaller side.  Depending on the size of your cone will depend on how much ribbon you will need, but for the 2 trees I used 1 spool of each ribbon color.  A tip on this, wired ribbon doesnt work as well, you can use it of course (especially if you find an awesome pattern) it just wont lay the same as you can kinda see here I used wire ribbon on the bottom layer.  So I have 7 layers and to be honest i eye-ball most of my measurements, but these are roughly 5 inches for each strand for each layer.  For you though, each layer you want to get progressively shorter, which I didnt do because honestly I forgot.  It will also help to have all the ribbon to be the same width, the fatter the ribbon the wider the space between loops and the easier it is to see the cone underneath, so the medium size is the best.  Stay away from the super skinny ribbon it doesnt do well at all and you have to use twice as much.  If you are dying to use it then go ahead, but dont say I didnt warn you :)

Now that you have all your supplies you are ready to start pinning.   I cut each level one at a time just to make sure everything worked out right.  So start at the bottom and work your way up.  Take the ribbon piece and fold in half, pin each corner of the ribbon into the cone and work your way around the bottom layer.  Then start on the next layer, keep going until you reach the top.  To have a more finished look I ran a ribbon around the top to hide all the pins and sealed in place with a hot glue gun.  Be careful to not burn your fingers!!  To add a little extra fancy I made a loop out of a ribbon of choice and hot glued to the top of the cone (this will also hide the remaining cone that is visable).  You can always top it with something a little more cute like a star or an angel, but we use what we have right!

I hope you dont pin the crap out of your fingers like I did mine, but I think that may be inevitable.  If you have some cool looking ribbon trees please share them here I would love to see what you created!

Project Housewife Out!